The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1902-12-05


missionary. "Oh, very, very small
'But how smallY why" answered
the young Indian maiden, 'the love OF
God for us women is as small-it is as
small as the love my father felt for me
on the day that 1 was born" May
God never allow you, o father anc
mother, to instill such distorted
idea of parental affection into any
child's mind and heart on account OF
favoritism for some of your children
at the expense of the others. May GOO
inspire every one Of you to teach your
boys and girls that each one of them
has a full measure of your love! May
God inspire all parents to treat al
their children alike, with the exception
that they should be little gentler ana
more thoughtful of the child who is
sick, or is crippled like Mephibosheth
who was lame in both his feet!
Trusting to Servants.
Allowing the servant girl to take the
place of maternal and paternal com
partnership can truly be classed among
parental sins. | would not for an i'll
slant either say or write one Woru
which would wound the feelings OF
thousands and tens of thousands OF
young women who have consecrated
their lives to the noble calling of nurse
girls work. Some of the mightlest
men of the ages have testified that
they would never have been what they
were but for the self sacrificing love OF
their nurses, who not only rocked them
to sleep when they were tired, but also
started their little feet in the paths of
rectitude and piety. The Earl of
Shaftesbury declared that the greatest
inspiration for true religious life was
instilled into him by the faithfulness
of his Christian nurse. The mighty
potentate, the late Alexander Ill, the
ear of all the Russias, honored the
faithfulness and the devoted love of
his nurse. Surrounded by the grand
dukes of Russia for three long miles
he followed afoOt after the hearse
which carried the mortal remains OF
that dear friend through a binding
snowstorm out to the Royal mauso-
leum of st. Petersburg. And as the
dying French soldier, writing under
the surgeons knife, cried out, Doctor,
cut a little deeper, and you will see
pictured upon my heart the face of the
mighty emperor" so, many of us, II
we cut down into the hearts of the
faithful servants who have watched
over us in our childhood, could there
find our own faces, because the hearts
of these faithful servitors beat with
love for us.
But though many of our household
servants may be to us and to our chill
dren as the Earl of Shaftesburys
Christian nurse was to him, yet no true
father or mother can afford to delegate
the physical, moral and religious train
ing of their children to servants, no
matter how faithful and true those
servants may be. No woman can take
the place of a true mother by the side
of the crib. No man can do for the
boys what consecrated father is able
to do when he is faithful to the trust
which God has given to him.
Oh, man, studying the debit and
credit sides of your ledgers, countin"
up your hundreds of thousands of dol
lars and carefully watching the MAJ
fold details of a vast mercantile ente".
prise, which taxes your physical and
mental energies to the utmost you
may think you have no time to ey-
anime into the details of how your
thirteen-year-old son spends his weekly
allowance. But you ought to take thFt
time. On account of that parental neg
lect you may live to regret the day
that you were born and also the day
that your son was born. Oh, womal
you may think this is the age for til
emancipation of your sisters. In pride
you may listen to weekday lectures on
woman's rights and Shakespeare and
sculpture and art. You may consider
it a great social opportunity to be able
to join a card party one afternoon and
go to a tea the next afternoon and be
the equal and the associate of the So
cial queens of our most prominent
cities. But no social nor worldly hon
or ought to be great enough or impor-
tant enough to entice you away from
your nursery, so that you must dele
gate the care of your children to a
hired servant. Parental neglect is not
in Gods sight a simple misdemeanor,
it is a sin-a burning sin-which ma
not only destroy the spiritual life of
the child, but impair also the eternal
happiness of the father and mother.
1t is a sharp two edged sword which,
with one stroke down and another
stroke up, can destroy not only the
rose, but the bush which gave it birth.
Lack of Discipline.
Lack of nursery discipline can some
times be classed among parental sins
9r, rather, mistakes. We would not
lie to call the actions of a too in
dulgent parent by such harsh word
as sin. Yet Solomon, who wrote the
words of my text, gave the parental
mistakes of overindulgence even
harder definition than that of sin. He
said, "He that spareth his rod hateth
his son, but he that loveth him, chas-
teneth him betimes" In other words,
we have a right to make by this
quotation the simple deduction that If
a father will not make a child learn
to obey him, then he is very apt to let
a child learn to despise him.
l used to be very harsh in my con-
demnation of parents who were over
indulgent and would not compel obedi-
ence upon the part of their children.
But the older grew the more lenient
l became in my criticism of this evil.
have found out that the invariable
reason why most parents are over
lenient with their children is because
thnHr h. na q p Illilt. ralnt In, l.lnich thaN