It requires careful study and discrimination, doubtless, yet it is a point of vital importance. Great danger arises from children being left too much to themselves. In an important sense the parents stand in the relation of God to the child. They will then be prepared to guard him from too strong temptations, and also to strengthen his virtuous principles, by suffering him to be tempted as much as he is able to bear. Fire is only added to the child's angry temper, and if, through fear of punishment, it appears to yield, yet it does not, and the heart is left fermenting with smothered passion.
Love alone can win the heart to a cheerful obedience.
If the parent give way to impatience, even in the heart, he cannot conceal it, for even an infant is a skilful interpreter of the language of the soul, in the expression of the face. Another danger proceeds from the indiscretions of injudicious, yet perhaps well-meaning inmates of our families. Such an individual, for instance, through fear that a child has told an untruth, may take the surest method of causing him to do it. If a person wished to lead a child into the commission of a crime, he could resort to few more efficacious means than to exhibit suspicion of him. In similar ways, children are often led into other sins, by those too who love them, and who perhaps have never dreamed of injuring them.