Early habits (if I may so speak) are most important under God. We are made what we are by training. Our character takes the form of that mold into which our first years are cast, not forgetting, of course, what the grace of God can do for those who look to Him.
God gives our children a mind that will receive impressions like moist clay and will trust our word rather than a stranger’s. He gives us, in short, a golden opportunity of doing them good. See that the opportunity be not neglected and thrown away.
I know that you cannot convert your child. I know well that they who are born again are born, not of the will of man, but of God. But I also know that God says expressly, “Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” and He never laid a command on man which He would not give man grace to perform. The path of obedience is the way of blessing. We have only to do as the servants were commanded at the marriage feast in Cana — fill the waterpots with water, and we may safely leave it to the Lord to turn that water into wine.