My father was one who seldom forbade us doing a thing, yet if we took a "youthful" notion to dance or play cards, or even play checkers, he had a way of never refusing or antagonizing; instead he would come home from town with games which he considered more proper and would enter into them with us in such a spirit that we would forget we had wanted something else. He did not empty our lives by forbidding us to go here or there, but on the other hand he filled them so full of going with us to places that he preferred for us, that we forgot we had wanted to go elsewhere.
Idle hands, or heads or hearts are Satan's best workshops. The youth of our children will soon pass, the long, blessed evenings when we may have them with us will soon have fled never to return. Can we not study more and more to fill their lives so full of good interests that there will be little or no room for bad influences?