They, therefore, are liable to use it with far less effect than if they were receiving in it, and by it, God's own transaction with them and the little child.
_Mr.M._ In thinking of Pagan and Mohammedan nations, lately, at the Concert of Prayer for Foreign Missions, I was struck with this thought, how error has been transmitted from father to child, and what an awful power for evil lies in transmitted family influence, when it is corrupted.

This led me to think whether God did not have this in mind when, in establishing his church in Abraham, he connected children with parents in his covenant, and gave a sign and seal to be affixed to their children as a constant admonition to parental faithfulness.

All his former dealings with the world seem to have failed, because of its great wickedness,--fire, plagues, good examples, great riches, and power conferred upon the good; and then he added, as a special means, the family constitution, and by it he secured a seed to serve him to an extent sufficient to keep the world from extinction, and to be the repository and source of divine knowledge.

I began to think that, if we would keep religion from dying out, we must fall in with God's great plan; for Satan makes use of it, and holds generation after generation in bondage by means of the family constitution.

So I set myself at work to find out ways by which we might promote family religion; and I could find no better plan than the old one, of promoting scriptural and spiritual views of the dedication of children.