Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-04-17
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put into the arms Of the idol, and no
sooner touched the arms than it dropped
into the fire. But it was the art of the
mothers to keep the children smiling
and laughing until the moment they
died. There may be fascination and
a hilarity about the styles of education
of which am speaking, but it is only
laughter at the moment of sacrifice
Would God there were only one Jeph-
thahs daughter!
Again. there are many parents who
are sacrificing their children with
wrong system of discipline great
rigor or too great leniency. There are
children in families who rule the house
hold The high chair in which the in
FAINT sits is the throne, and the rattle is
the scepter, and the other children
make up the parliament where father
and mother have no votel Such chill
dren come up to be miscreants. There
is no chance in this world for 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 hu-
man authority are unwilling to learn
not respect parents whose authority
they do not respect. Who are these
young men that swagger through the
street with their thumbs in their vest
talking about their father as "the old
man, - ''the governor, - ''the squire"
''the old chap" or their mother as ''the
old woman2' They are those who in
youth, in childhood, never learned to
respect authority. Eli, having heard
that his sons had died in their wicked
ness, fell over backward and broke his
neck and died. Well he might What
is life to father whose sons are de-
bauched? 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.
Harmony In the Home.
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
tenderness will overcome her. Her voice
is little softer; her hand seems better
fitted to pull out thorn and soothe a
pang. Children wanting anything from
the mother cry for it. They hope to
dissolve her 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
history 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. It is a horrible scene. I
have witnessed it-a mother come to old
age, shivering with terror in the pres
ence of son who cursed her gray hairs
and Knocked her wrinkled face and be-
grudged her the crust she munched
with her toothless gums
How sharper than serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
But, on the other hand, too great
rigor must be avoided. 1t 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 everything.
Since we have two or three faults of
our own, we ought not to be too rough
when we discover that our children
have as many. If tradition be true,
when we were children we were not all
little Samuels, and our parents were
,f,,1
because of cur premature goodness. You
cannot scold or pound your children in
to nobility Of character. The bloom of
a child's heart can never be seen under
a cold drizzle. Above all, avoid fretting
and scolding in the household. Better
than ten years of frettine at your chill
dren is one good, round, old fashioned
application of the slipperl That minis
ter 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 canon
ization. The arithmetics cannot calcu
late how many thousands of children
have been ruined forever either through
too great rigor or too great leniency.
The heavens and the earth are filled
with the sroan of the sacrificed. In this |
important matter, seek divine, direc-
ton, o father, O mother
Some one asked the mother of Lord |
Chief Justice Mansfield if she was not
proud to have three such eminent sons,
and all of them so good. ''No,'' she |
said sit is nothing to be proud of, but
something for which to be very CRATE
full"
Sacrifice to Wor1d1iness.
Again, there are many who are sac
rificing their children to a spirit of |
worldliness. Some one asked mother |
whose children had turned out very