28 The Children of Christians are holy. CHAP. 



privileges to be regarded 1 Our Lord has said : 

 " Their angels always behold the face of My Father 

 which is in heaven " ; * and Saint Paul says to 

 Christian parents, " Your children are holy." 5 Is it 

 possible to rest in the conclusion that every infant 

 has an inheritance in heaven, but that when it grows 

 old enough to be conscious of the difference between 

 good and evil, and, like all human beings, to fall into 

 sin, it must be treated as a child of the devil until 

 it is consciously converted 1 Is it to be given up as 

 impossible for any to walk from the cradle to the 

 grave without at some time losing their baptismal 

 purity 1 Must Christian parents teach their children, 

 not only that they have tendencies to sin, with which 

 all are born, and that they sometimes fall into actual 

 sin, from which none altogether escape ; but that it 

 is a necessity of our nature, not to be avoided even 

 by the grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, 

 that baptismal purity must be lost, and that some 

 part of every life which is prolonged beyond early 

 childhood must be passed in alienation from God 1 

 Is the returned Prodigal the type of every true 

 Christian 1 Most, perhaps, would dread to assert this 

 as a dogma ; if they did, the proper result would be 

 what I have been credibly informed that a mother 

 actually said : " My children are not converted, and 

 if I were to teach them the Lord's Prayer I must 

 teach them to say Our Father which art in hell." Few 

 would express themselves with such brutal directness ; 

 1 Matt, xviii. 10. - 1 Cor. vii. 14. 



