My brethren, we who are parents should learn to look upon our children as a precious loan from the Lord. They are God's treasures, His jewels, and He lends them to us for a little while. Now, to-day, I have to speak to you about schools, and the duty of supporting a _Christian_, as opposed to a mere _secular_ education. But, first, I want to speak about another kind of education, the teaching of home. I would speak most earnestly to you mothers, because as you are the earliest, so are you the most powerful teachers of your children. It is a tremendous responsibility which God has laid upon you. He has lent you a precious jewel, an immortal soul, which will be saved or lost mainly through your influence. Well says a writer of the day, "Sometimes mothers think it hard to be shut up at home with the care of little children. But she who takes care of little children takes care of great eternities. She who takes care of a little child, takes care of an empire that knows no bounds and no dimensions. The parent who stays at home and takes care of children is doing a work boundless as God's heart." O mothers! never grow weary in well-doing, never think the children a trouble and a weariness, but a precious loan which God will ask one day to have restored. May none of you ever have to say-- "I wonder so that mothers ever fret At little children clinging to their gown, Or that the foot-prints, when the days are wet, Are ever black enough to make them frown. If I could find a little muddy boot, Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber floor; If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot, And hear it patter in my house once more; If I could mend a broken cart to-day, To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky, There is no woman in God's world could say She was more blissfully content than I. But ah! the dainty pillow next my own Is never rumpled by a shining head; My singing birdling from its nest is flown; The little boy I used to kiss is dead."