"Finally, teach love to others. Press it above all on children, if you have any. Remind them constantly that kindness, good nature, and good disposition are among the first evidences which Christ requires in children. If they cannot know much, or explain doctrines, they can understand love. A child's religion is worth very little if it only consists in repeating texts and hymns. Useful as they are, they are often learned without thought, remembered without feeling, said over without consideration of their meaning, and forgotten when childhood is gone. By all means let children be taught texts and hymns; but let not such teaching be made everything in their religion. Teach them to keep their tempers, to be kind to one another, to be unselfish, good-natured, obliging, patient, gentle, forgiving. Tell them never to forget to their dying day, if they live as long as Methuselah, that without love the Holy Spirit says, "we are nothing." Tell them "over all virtues to put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
J.C. Ryle
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