PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY.

EDITORIAL.

HISTORY informs us of a law in Iceland to this effect: "Whenever a minor commits a crime, the parents are immediately arrested, and unless they can prove, to the satisfaction of the magistrate, that they have afforded to the child all needed opportunities of instruction, the penalty of the crime is visited on them, and the child is placed under instruction."

When reading this enactment, a train of most interesting and solemn reflections was suggested, on the responsibility, most fearful responsibility, of every parent, not only of every mother, but of every father and mother. When a child is born to them, a creature is committed to their care for education. No other persons but the parents are supposed to have the interest in the child which is possessed by them. Others may have a general concern for the welfare of the young immortal, but the particular interest in such welfare, reason, revelation and civil enactment, ordinarily confine to the bosoms of the parents. Such particular interest the entire condition of the child requires; for, at first, there is complete helplessness, and as soon as the intellectual and moral powers are developed, even faintly, there are waywardness and ignorance. Means for the correction of these uniform tendencies of human nature are to be applied as soon as witnessed, and they are to be continued until their beneficial effects appear, in the removal of inclinations to do wrong, and in the storing of the mind with useful knowledge. To apply these remedial means, the particular absorbing interest in the object which demands them must be in existence, which interest is in the parents, if in any individuals. If there be not this particular interest, all means required by the best good of the child will be neglected, and the consequence may be, and usually is, the young immortal will grow up in ignorance, and with vicious inclinations unsubdued, to corrupt and destroy in all parts of society where life may be passed. Because such is the effect of neglect on the part of parents to educate their children, the enactment, with which we commenced this article, doubtless had its origin, and is both wise and just. As a general thing, children pursue the course for which parental care trains them. This is supposed to be the fact by Scripture; for this

utters, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." If parents are faithful, the career of their children will, most ordinarily, be that of usefulness, success and honor. Every department of society will be blessed by them. But if children be neglected by their parents, and are not trained in the right manner, all circles in which they move in life will be cursed by them, and to counteract their corrupting influence the strong bars of the prison, or the more dreadful use of the gallows, will have to be interposed.

In this manner ought parents to contemplate their position, as having in their hands the materials out of which society is to be formed, and as being responsible for the manner in which they prepare these materials. They are to feel that nothing but the employment of appropriate means will fashion their children to be useful in their day and generation, will make them adorn and bless every sphere in which they may be called to move. Likewise, they are to be ever impressed with the truth that, if they neglect to use the means for restraining the evil inclinations of their children, and for moulding them into virtuous and useful members of society, the probability is, they will grow up only to be pests in the earth; and for the parents will be the reflection that they were made such by their own parental delinquency.

If the parental relation be uniformly contemplated, by those who sustain it, in the manner in which it is here set forth, words are not sufficient to describe its awful responsibility. Nor can the years which measure off the duration of the present world depict the effects of unfaithfulness in the discharge of parental duties, or exhibit the blessed consequences of the conscientious and unremitting discharge of such duties. Eternity only can present the consequences of the parental relation; can show what resulted from parental fidelity, and what followed parental neglect.

It is a solemn, momentous relation, then, which every parent sustains. From it is going out an influence for the moulding of members of earthly society, and likewise of that which is eternal. If the responsibility of the relation be in any manner realized, and there be prayerful and diligent efforts to fulfil the high duties of parents, an influence for good goeth out upon the children, of parental love, to make them all an anxious parent could wish or expect. If there be no realizing sense of the responsibility of this relation by the father or mother, and every effort for the good of the child be suppressed, an influence for evil goeth out upon the children, to make them what affection in its feeblest power would shudder in beholding.

"Sweet Warbler of Heaven."

WRITTEN FOR THE YOUNG LADY'S FRIEND BY H. W. DAY.

The following lines were written one beautiful summer afternoon while the bird therein celebrated was singing most deliciously under the window.