Conducting their children to the bottomless pit!

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(J.A. James, "The Duties of Parents" 1828)

On parents it depends in a great measure, what their children are to be . . .
  happy--or miserable in themselves,
  a comfort--or a curse to their relationships,
  an ornament--or a deformity to society,
  a seraph--or a fiend in eternity!

It is indeed a fearsome thing to be a parent, and is enough to awaken the anxious, trembling inquiry in every parent's heart: "Lord, who is sufficient for these things?"

A graceless parent is a most dreadful character! Oh! to see the father and mother of an expanding family, with a crowd of young immortals growing up around them--and teaching worldliness to their offspring, and leading them to perdition by the power of their own example!

A sheep leading her lambs into a den of hungry tigers, would be a shocking sight! But to see parents conducting their children to the bottomless pit--is most horrible!!
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