Isa. xxxii. 9–13.

Motherless children are often uncared for. No one ‘naturally cares for their state.’ No child with a mother ought to be so. But too often mothers are careless about—

I. Their minds.

No schooling—no teaching—no training—no Sunday School. Cares not whether in time, or too late—regular or truant, &c., &c.

II. Their respectability, and associates.

Will take in bad lodgers, hire bad characters to help at the wash-tub because they can be had cheaper than the respectable, forgetting that ‘a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.’ Prov. xxii. 1. Eccles. vii. 1.

What guilty carelessness!

III. Their happiness.

What misery here awaits a neglected child!

What woe hereafter!

IV. Their souls.

To a parent guilty of this carelessness, it is said, ‘His blood will I require at thine hand.’ Ezek. iii. 18, 19; xxxiii. 6.

Have you ever lost a child, for whose soul you never cared? Pray Ps. li. 14.

This arises from want of real religion.

You do not know the immense value of a soul.

Would you be thus careless of an earthly treasure? Would you not watch it—lock it up—guard it with a jealous eye? Your child’s soul a treasure passing all price. Yet you allow Satan to steal it—bad companions to corrupt it—ruin it yourself by neglect. A thing neglected is ruined.

Keep in view the judgment day.

Will your child then say, ‘No man cared for my soul’—‘even my mother cared not that I perished!’