What resistance can the infant make to the insidious serpents, which thus, as it, were, steal into its cradle, and infuse their poison into its soul?
The guardians of its helplessness are heedless or unconscious of its danger, and, alas! it has not the fabled strength of the infant Hercules to crush its venomous assailants.

Surely such a view of the frequent origin of crime must awaken our commiseration for its miserable victims, and excite in us a desire to become the defenders of the unprotected.
It will, however, be said by some, "Where are the natural guardians of the child?
Where are its parents?
Are we to encourage their neglect of duty, by becoming their substitutes?
It is their business to look after their children, and not ours." Frequently have I heard such sentiments put forth, and sometimes by persons in whom I knew they were rather owing to a want of reflection than of philanthropy.

But a want of thought, or of feeling, it must certainly be; because, on no principle of reason or humanity can we make the unnatural conduct of fathers and mothers, a plea for withholding our protection and assistance from the helpless objects of their cruelty and neglect.
If we do so, we not only neglect our duty towards such children, but permit the growth and extension of the evil.

We must recollect that they will not merely play their own wicked parts during their lives, but will also become models to the next generation.
It should be remembered here, that I am treating of an evil which extends itself to all classes of society; I am appealing to the prudence of men, that they may, for their own sakes, investigate its cause; I shall hereafter appeal to them as philanthropists, and, still more urgently, as Christians, that they may examine the merits of the remedy I shall propose.
The culpability of many parents is beyond dispute.

They not only omit to set their children good examples, and give them good advice, but, on the contrary, instil into their minds the first rudiments of wickedness, and lead them into the paths of vice.