Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CONCLUSION. The foregoing simple statement of facts, to which a great deal more to the same purpose might be added, equally illustratr,-a of the efficacy of divine teaching, and the power of sovereign grace, furnishes abundant matter for various reflections, such as, First, The importance of Scriptural alliances. Every divine institution will be found to approve itself to the enlightened conscience as worthy of God, by its practical utility, and certain adaptation to answer its end; and in no case does this hold more remarkably than in that of marriage. The religious education of children is an object of such vast importance, and the difficulties attending it so numerous and so great, that the combined authority, exertion, and influ- ence of both parents, will often be found too little for the successful discharge of its duties. But if the one party be neutral, and this is the very best that can ever happen in the case of an anscriptural connexion, it is easy to see with what difficulties, discouragements, and even obstructions, the other party has to contend. And if to the due discharge of this duty it be necessary that the influence of both parents combioe, how much more indispensible is it on the part of the mother ? During the very fittest period for the communication of scriptural ideas and religious impressions to the youthful mind, the child is ever about the hand and under the eye of the mother. While in this respect, then, her opportunities are much more numerous and suitable than those of the father, instruction conveyed under all the tender endearments of maternal affection has advantages peculiar to itself. The Christian man, therefore, who, in proposing to choose a partner, does not mike religious intelligence, and fervent piety an indispensible prereq…
