The Portland daily press., 1893-08-08

an, speaking, but it is only laughter at
| the moment Of sacrifice. Would God
there were only one Jephthah's daughter.
OBEDIENCE TO BE TAUGHT.
Again. there are many parents who
are sacrificing their children with wrong
| systems Of discipline-too great rigor or
too great leniency. There are children
in families who rule the household. Thew
come to the authority. The high chair
in which the infant sits is the throne,
and the rattle is the scepter, and the
other children make up the parliament
where father and mother nave no vote!
Such children come up to be miscreants.
There is no chance in this world for a
child that has never learned to mind.
Such people become the botheration Of
the church of God and the pest of the
world. Children that do not learn to
obey human authority are unwilling to
learn to obey divine authority. Children
will not respect parents whose authority
they do NOT respect. Who are these
young mon that swagger through the
| street, with their thumbs in their vest,
talking about their father as s.the old
man." s'the governor" ssthe SQUIRE"
"the old chap" or their mother as 'sthe
old woman They are those who in
youth, In childhood, never learned to re-
spect authority. Eli, having heard that
| his sons had died in their wickedness,
fell over backward and broke his neck
and died. Well he might. What is life
to father whose sons are debauchedf
The dust Of the valley is pleasant to his
| taste, and the driving rains that drip
through the roof of the sepulcher are
sweeter than the wines of Helbon.
There must be harmony between the
fathers government and the mothers
government. The father will be tempt
ed to too great rigor. The mother will be
tempted to too great leniency. Her ten
derness will overcome her. Her voice is
| a little softer; her hand seems better fit
to pull out thorn and soothe pang.
Children wanting any thing from the
mother cry for it. They hope to dissolve
| her will with tears. But the mother
must not interfere, must not coax off,
must not beg for the child when the
hour comes for the assertion Of parental
supremacy and the subjugation of a
| child's temper. There comes in the his
| tory Of every child an hour when it is
tested whether the parents shall rule or
the child shall rule. That is the crucial
hour. If the child triumphs in that hour,
| then he will some day make you crouch!
| 1t is horrible scene. / have witnessed
tia mother come to old age, shivering
with terror in the presence of son who
cursed her gray hairs and Knocked her
wrinkled face and begrudged her the
crust she munched with her toothless
gums!
How sharper than serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
CONTROL YOUR TEMPER.
But, on the other hand, too great rig
or must be avoided. It is a sad thing
when domestic government becomes cold
military despotism. Trappers on the
prairie fight fire with fire, but you can
not successfully fight your child's bad
temper with your own bad temper. We
must not be too minute in our inspec-
ton. We cannot expect our children to
be perfect. We must not see every
thing. Since we have two or three faults
of our own, we ought not to be too
rough when we discover that our chill
dren have as many. If tradition be
true, when we were children we were
not all little Samuels, and our parents
were not fearful lest they could not raise
us because Of our premature goodness.
You cannot scold or pound your chill
dren into nobility of character. The
bloom Of child's heart can never be
seen under cold drizzle. Above all,
avoid fretting and scolding in the house
hold Better than 10 years of fretting
at your children is one good, round, old
fashioned application of the slipperl
That minister Of the gospel Of whom we
read in the newspapers that he whipped
his child to death because he would not
say his prayers will never come to can
onization. The arithmetics cannot cal
cu1ate how many thousands of children
have been ruined forever either through
too great rigor or too great leniency.
The heavens and the earth are filed
with the groan of the sacrificed. In this
important matter seek divine direction,
o father, o mother. Some one asked
the mother Of Lord Chief Justice Mans
field if she was not proud to have three
such eminent sons and all of them so
good. "No," she said, ''it is nothing to be
proud of, but something for which to be
very grateful"
Again, there are many who are sacri-
fcing their children to spirit Of world
illness. Some one asked a mother whose
children had turned out very well what
was the secret by which she prepared
them for usefulness and for the Chris
tan life, and she said: "This was the
secret. When in the morning washed
my children, prayed that they might
be washed in the fountain Of Saviours
mercy. When put on their garments,
prayed that they might be arrayed in
the robe of a Saviour's. righteousness.
When gave them food, prayed that
they might be fed with mama from
heaven. When started them on the
u 4