You see how readily this beautiful figure applies to the rearing and education of children.  “That our sons may be grown up in their youth.”  Their manhood as to faith, virtue, obedience, wisdom, intelligence and piety is largely developed while they are yet young.  How many mistakes are made by parents right here!  They say of their sons:  “Ah, they are young.  After awhile they will be through with sowing their wild oats, and then I expect better things of them.”  The better things may come, but David prayed otherwise.  He wanted the better things to grow up with their growth, and strengthen with their strength, so as to be perfect men even while yet in their youth, as lambs may be perfect in form and quality before they are fully developed into sheep.

But more.  He prays that “our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace.”  Many of us, no doubt, have seen palaces built of polished stones.  David almost breaks me down under the weight of his strong and significant figures.  He wants the sons of Judah and Jerusalem to be fruit-bearing trees with strong roots struck deep into the ground.  But the sphere in which the daughters are to move, the part they are to act, the place they are to hold in the social and religious life of the church and the world, is different from that of the sons, and so he uses a very different figure.  They are to be corner stones, polished and set into a palace.  Corner stones, from the ground to the roof, are those upon which the strength and beauty of a building greatly depend.  A defect here mars the appearance and detracts largely from the permanence and value of the structure.  David wants to see the daughters strong and solid as corner stones, in faith, virtue, wisdom and all else that helps to make a woman strong:  and at the same time polished with all the refinements of taste, modesty, beauty, gentleness, tender-heartedness and love.

Since God has specially endowed woman with large capacities for developing these powers and graces, let her look to it that they be not suffered to lie buried in a napkin, or perverted to the idolatrous worship of the goddess of fashion.  The plastic and pliable temperament of woman tends towards making her an easy prey for the tempter, when he approaches her with smiles, bearing in his hands jewels of gold, braided hair, and costly apparel.  She is lured the same by the giddy revel and the fashionable dance—­trusting, thoughtless, happy child; ready for almost any pleasure that makes the cheek to glow and the eye to sparkle with delight!

Mothers, be patient, watchful and wise in training your daughters.  Withhold from them no good thing, but teach them to shun the ways that are “the ways of hell.”  Fathers, be mild, but firm in training your sons into habits of sobriety, temperance and abstemiousness from all bad habits.  Pray with them and for them, and if possible teach them to feel that there is something better than the life and purer than the love of this world.  May God bless the young people of our land and make them the pillars of his truth, is my prayer.