I suppose that most professing Christians are acquainted with Proverbs 22:6. The sound of it is probably familiar to your ears, like an old tune. It is likely you have heard it, read it, talked of it, or quoted it many a time. Is it not so? But after all, how little is the substance of this text regarded! The doctrine it contains appears scarcely known; the duty it puts before us seems fearfully seldom prac­ticed. Reader, do I not speak the truth?

It cannot be said that the subject is a new one. The world is old, and we have the experience of nearly six thousand years to help us. We live in days when there is a mighty zeal for education in every quarter. We hear of new schools rising on all sides. We are told of new systems and new books for the young of every sort and description. Still, for all this, the vast majority of children are manifestly not trained in the way they should go; for when they grow up, they do not walk with God.

How shall we account for this state of things? The plain truth is the Lord’s commandment in our text is not regarded. Therefore, the Lord’s promise in our text is not fulfilled.

Reader, these things may well give rise to great searching of heart. Suffer then a word of exhortation from a minister about the right training of children. Believe me, the subject is one that should come home to every conscience and make every­one ask himself the question, “Am I doing what I can in this matter?”

It is a subject that concerns almost all. There is hardly a household that it does not touch. Parents, nurses, teachers, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters — all have an interest in it. Few can be found, I think, who might not influence some parent in the management of his family or affect the training of some child by suggestion or advice. All of us, I suspect, can do something here, either directly or indirectly; and I wish to stir up all to bear this in remembrance...

First, then, if you would train your children rightly, train them in the way they should go, and not in the way that they would⤒🔗

Remember children are born with a decided bias towards evil. Therefore, if you let them choose for themselves, they are certain to choose wrong.

The mother cannot tell what her tender infant may grow up to be — tall or short, weak or strong, wise or foolish. He may be any of these things or not; it is all uncertain. But one thing the mother can say with certainty: he will have a corrupt and sinful heart. It is natural to us to do wrong. “Foolishness,” says Solomon, “is bound in the heart of a child” (Prov. 22:15). “A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Prov. 29:15). Our hearts are like the earth on which we tread: let it alone, and it is sure to bear weeds.

If, then, you would deal wisely with your child, you must not leave him to the guidance of his own will. Think for him, judge for him, act for him, just as you would for one who is weak and blind. But for pity’s sake, give him not up to his own wayward tastes and inclinations. It must not be his likings and wishes that are consulted. He knows not yet what is good for his mind and soul any more than what is good for his body. You do not let him decide what he will eat, what he will drink, and how he will be clothed. Be consistent and deal with his mind in like manner. Train him in the way that is scriptural and right and not in the way that he fancies.

If you cannot make up your mind to this first principle of Christian training, it is useless for you to read any further. Self-will is almost the first thing that appears in a child’s mind. It must be your first step to resist it.

Train up your child with all tenderness, affection, and patience←⤒🔗

I do not mean that you are to spoil him, but I do mean that you should let him see that you love him. Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys — these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily. These are the clues you must follow if you would find the way to his heart...

Now children’s minds are cast in much the same mold as our own. Sternness and severity of manner chill them and throw them back. It shuts up their hearts, and you will weary yourself to find the door. But let them only see that you have an affectionate feeling towards them — that you really desire to make them happy and do them good — that if you punish them, it is intended for their profit, and that you would give your heart’s blood to nourish their souls. Let them see this, I say, and they will soon be all your own. But they must be wooed with kindness if their attention is ever to be won ... Love is one grand secret of successful training. Anger and harshness may frighten, but they will not persuade the child that you are right. If he sees you often losing your temper, you will soon cease to have his respect. A father who speaks to his son as Saul did to Jonathan (1 Sam. 20:30) need not expect to retain his influence over that son’s mind.

Try hard to retain your child’s affections. It is a danger­ous thing to make your children afraid of you. Anything is almost better than reserve and constraint between your child and yourself, and this will come in with fear. Fear puts an end to openness of manner. Fear leads to concealment; fear sows the seed of much hypocrisy and leads to many a lie. There is a mine of truth in the apostle’s words to the Colos­sians: “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:21). Let not the advice it contains be overlooked.

Train with this thought continually before your eyes: that the soul of your child is the first thing to be considered←⤒🔗

Precious, no doubt, are these little ones in your eyes; but if you love them, think often of their souls. No interest should weigh with you so much as their eternal interests. No part of them should be so dear to you as that part that will never die. The world with all its glory shall pass away; the hills shall melt; the heavens shall be wrapped together as a scroll; the sun shall cease to shine. But the spirit that dwells in those little creatures, whom you love so well, shall outlive them all, and whether in happiness or misery, humanly speaking, will depend on you.

This is the thought that should be uppermost on your mind in all you do for your children. In every step you take about them, in every plan and scheme and arrangement that concerns them, do not leave out that mighty question, “How will this affect their souls?”

Soul love is the soul of all love. To pet, pamper, and indulge your child, as if this world was all he had to look to and this life the only season for happiness — to do this is not true love, but cruelty. It is treating him like some beast of the earth that has but one world to look to and nothing after death. It is hiding from him that grand truth that he ought to be made to learn from his very infancy — that the chief end of his life is the salvation of his soul.

A true Christian must be no slave to trends if he would train his child for heaven. He must not be content to do things merely because they are the custom of the world; to teach them and instruct them in certain ways, merely because it is usual; to allow them to read books of a questionable sort, merely because everybody else reads them; to let them form habits of a doubtful tendency, merely because they are the habits of the day. He must train with an eye to his children’s souls. He must not be ashamed to hear his training called singular and strange. What if it is? Time is short; the fashion of this world passes away. He that has trained his children for heaven rather than for earth — for God, rather than for man — is the parent that will be called wise at last.

Train your child in a knowledge of the Bible←⤒🔗

You cannot make your children love the Bible, I allow. None but the Holy Spirit can give us a heart to delight in the Word. But you can make your children acquainted with the Bible. Be sure they cannot be acquainted with that blessed book too soon or too well.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is the foundation of all clear views of religion. He that is well grounded in it will not generally be found a waverer and carried about by every wind of new doctrine. Any system of training that does not make knowledge of Scripture the first thing is unsafe and unsound.

You need to be careful on this point just now, for the devil is abroad and error abounds. Some are to be found among us who give the church the honor due to Jesus Christ. Some are to be found who make the sacraments saviors and passports to eternal life. And some are to be found in like manner who honor a catechism more than the Bible or fill the minds of their children with miserable little storybooks instead of the Scripture of truth. But if you love your children, let the simple Bible be everything in the training of their souls; and let all other books go down and take the second place.

• See that your children read the Bible reverently. Train them to look on it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, written by the Holy Spirit Himself — all true, all profitable, and able to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
• See that they read it regularly. Train them to regard it as their soul’s daily food — as a thing essential to their soul’s daily health. I know very well you cannot make this anything more than a form; but there is no telling the amount of sin that a mere form may indirectly restrain.
• See that they read it all. You need not shrink from bringing any doctrine before them. You need not fancy that the leading doctrines of Christianity are things that chil­dren cannot understand. Children understand far more of the Bible than we are apt to suppose.
• Tell them of sin: its guilt, its consequences, its power, its vileness. You will find they can comprehend something of this.
• Tell them of the Lord Jesus Christ and His work for our sal­vation: the atonement, the cross, the blood, the sacrifice, the intercession. You will discover there is something not beyond them in all this.
• Tell them of the work of the Holy Spirit in man’s heart: how He changes, renews, sanctifies, and purifies. You will soon see they can go along with you in some measure in this. In short, I suspect we have no idea how much a little child can take in of the length and breadth of the glorious gospel. They see far more of these things than we suppose.
• Fill their minds with Scripture. Let the Word dwell in them richly. Give them the Bible, the whole Bible, even while they are young.

Train them to a habit of prayer←⤒🔗

Prayer is the very life-breath of true religion. It is one of the first evidences that a man is born again. “Behold,” said the Lord of Saul in the day He sent Ananias to him; “Behold, he prayeth” (Acts 9:11). He had begun to pray, and that was proof enough.

• Prayer was the distinguishing mark of the Lord’s people in the day that there began to be a separation between them and the world. “Then began men to call upon the name of the LORD” (Gen. 4:26).
• Prayer is the peculiarity of all real Christians now. They pray — for they tell God their wants, their feelings, their desires, their fears, and mean what they say. The nominal Christian may repeat prayers and good prayers, too, but he goes no further.
• Prayer is the turning point in a man’s soul. Our ministry is unprofitable, and our labor is vain until you are brought to your knees. Until then, we have no hope about you.
• Prayer is one great secret of spiritual prosperity. When there is much private communion with God, your soul will grow like the grass after rain. When there is little, all will be at a standstill; you will barely keep your soul alive. Show me a growing Christian, a going forward Christian, a strong Christian, a flourishing Christian, and sure am I, he is one that speaks often with his Lord. He asks much and he has much. He tells Jesus everything, and so he always knows how to act.
• Prayer is the mightiest engine God has placed in our hands. It is the best weapon to use in every difficulty and the surest remedy in every trouble. It is the key that unlocks the treasury of promises and the hand that draws forth grace and help in time of need. It is the silver trumpet God commands us to sound in all our necessity, and it is the cry He has promised always to attend to, even as a loving mother to the voice of her child.
• Prayer is the simplest means that man can use in coming to God. It is within reach of all — the sick, the aged, the infirm, the paralytic, the blind, the poor, the unlearned — all can pray. It avails you nothing to plead your lack of memory, lack of learning, lack of books, and lack of scholarship in this matter. So long as you have a tongue to tell your soul’s state, you may and ought to pray. Those words, “Ye have not, because ye ask not” (James 4:2), will be a fearful condem­nation to many in the Day of Judgment.
• Parents, if you love your children, do all that lies in your power to train them up to a habit of prayer. Show them how to begin. Tell them what to say. Encourage them to persevere. Remind them if they become careless and slack about it. Let it not be your fault, at any rate, if they never call on the name of the Lord.
  This, remember, is the first step in religion which a child is able to take. Long before he can read, you can teach him to kneel by his mother’s side and repeat the simple words of prayer and praise that she puts in his mouth. And as the first steps in any undertak­ing are always the most important, so is the manner in which your children’s prayers are prayed — a point that deserves your closest attention. Few seem to know how much depends on this. You must beware lest they get into a way of saying them in a hasty, careless, and irreverent manner. You must beware...of trusting too much to your children doing it when left to themselves. I cannot praise that mother who never looks after this most important part of her child’s daily life herself. Surely, if there be any habit which your own hand and eye should help in forming, it is the habit of prayer. Believe me; if you never hear your children pray yourself, you are much to blame.
• Prayer is of all habits the one that we recollect the longest. Many an older man could tell you how his mother used to make him pray in the days of his childhood. Other things have passed away from his mind perhaps. The church where he was taken to worship, the minister whom he heard preach, the companions who used to play with him — all these, it may be, have passed from his memory and left no mark behind. But you will often find it is far different with his first prayers. He will often be able to tell you where he knelt, what he was taught to say, and even how his mother looked all the while. It will come up as fresh before his mind’s eye as if it was but yesterday.

Reader, if you love your children, I charge you, do not let the seedtime of a prayerful habit pass away unimproved. If you train your children to anything, train them at least to a habit of prayer.