Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER TIL THE SCHOOL AND THE HOME. The sweetest word in our language is " home." The begii.- nings of human life for time and eternity occur at home. The most effective school is home. It is in point of time before all other schools ; in point of power above all others. It exists and exerts its influence by the side of all others, and when the elements of true home-life are found within all others, the real power of every school will be greatly enhanced. The Sunday school is an institution which has to do with adults, but primarily with children. Now, it is impossible to consider an institution which is designed to reach, to affect the intellect, the character, the conduct, and the eternal destiny of childhood, without considering, at the same time, its relations to that earliest, holiest, mightiest of all institutions—home. For five or ten years before the teacher, the superintendent, or the class begins to affect the mind of the child, he is under powerful influence for good or for evil in his own home. The four years of a college course are scarcely more effective in the life of a man than the four years in the nursery, during which he begins to live,—and all this before the Sunday school reaches him. Father and mother have the firm confidence of tLe child, and his fervent, unsuspecting, unhindered love. They have for the child unfailing love, and over him an unchallenged authority. Then who can measure the unconscious influence of the home, its opportunities to illustrate everything it teaches, and to reiterate this teaching day after day, year after year ? The illustrative value of the home deserves greater attention. It provides object-lessons of the most effective character, given under the most favourable conditions. Action, day after day, puts a real m...