often fails most deplorably. The wisest man may have a most foolish
son; the godliest home may send forth a reprobate; the child of many
prayers may live a life of shame. When a young man goes wrong, it is
often both unjust and cruel to lay it on the home training, and to say
that there has been neglect or want of discipline, or want of right
example there. It is adding another burden to hearts already weighted
with intolerable grief.

For the most part, children will follow their parents in what is good,
and those nursed in prayer will grow up praying men. But there are
hideous exceptions, and sometimes the most Christlike people have this
cross to bear; and it is the most heart-crushing of all to see children
turning aside from all that they have held dear, and by the whole
course of their lives mocking the religious ideals and hopes which were
cherished for them. God save all you fathers and mothers from this
calamity, and God save all our young people from crushing tender hopes
in this cruel way.

Manasseh's life was spent in undoing what his father had done. It
seemed to be his great ambition to overturn and destroy the sacred
edifice which his father's hands, with untiring prayer and devotion,
had raised. Hezekiah had taught his people to trust in God, and in
reliance on His help to sustain a noble independence separate from
heathen alliances. Manasseh hastened to join hands with Babylon, and
make his nation the vassal of a great heathen empire. Hezekiah had
swept the land clean of idols. Manasseh filled every grove and
hillside with these vain images again. Hezekiah had restored the
Temple worship and the Mosaic ritual, and the moral law, and laboured
to establish a reign of sobriety, purity, justice, and order. Manasseh
outraged all the moralities, and delighted in introducing everywhere