unpunished to-morrow. It were nothing "new under he sun" for love's fairest promise to be unfulfilled in some mo ment of petulance, or for severity's unqualified threat to be unexecuted when love becomes ascendant. In some familics it is "darling" and "dunce," "precious" and "plagues," "beauty" and "blockhead," candy and cudgel,' in strange and ridiculous alternation. Such government must leave its impress in foul blotches and plague-spots upon the characters of the governed.

The more nearly parental government approximates to perfection, the more it will harmonize with the government of God. In other words, the best example of parental is most like the Divine Government. In the latter mercy and justice happily commingle. Justice is tempered by mercy, and mercy is regulated by justice. Both blend in sweet and harmonious exercise. And sooner will heaven and earth pass away, than Divine love be sacrificed to justice, or justice to love. Not one jot or tittle of either will fail, since both in their most delightful union are necessary to sustain the Divine authority. That must be sustained at all hazards, else the Divine Government becomes a farce, even more the subject of jest and mockery than the causeless occurrences of chance. So, in the complete government of the household, every exhibition of love or severity goes. to maintain a dignified and necessary authority. This cannot be compromised without entailing irretrievable woes upon a plastic posterity. If love, as a rosy-wreathed pillar, can sustain the delicate fabric of family government, so much the more attractive may the structure appear in its bright and tasteful garniture. But if mercy be not suffi cient to sustain a dignified authority, it were better that sharp and barbed severities, concealed by the wing of love, should come in with their needful force. That parental government which lacks authority is no government at all. And if it be not such authority as secures implicit and un

conditional submission, it is not the authority to which God adds His peculiar blessing. For that parental authority which the Scriptures recognize is absolute and unconditional. It does not admit of coaxing or frightening children into obcdience or of paying them for it. It demands it upon the high and holy principle of RIGHT. "Children obey your parents in the Lord." Why? "FOR THIS IS RIGHT!" This is - right! Just as they are required to be upright and truthful, not because it will win the respect and admiration of men, and secure the favor of God, but because it is right. Every virtue has an intrinsic merit, independent of all its antecedents and consequents, determined by the wisdom and fixed eternally by the fiat of God. The child is not to love and honor his parents simply because he is commanded to do it, or because it is beautifully consonant with his juvenile relations, but because there is an intrinsic merit in so doing, designated by the appellation, right. For this reason he must be commanded to yield cheerful obedience.

The Scriptures recognize love as the essential element of government, human and divine, while yet they admit severity to its place. They make provision for serere expedients in parental government when all others fail, in such language as the following. "He that spareth the rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." The parent who "spareth" severity to the detriment of his authority possibly inflicts as great an injury upon his son as he would by the indulgence of hatred. To resort to severity in necessary instances is more consonant with love than the exercise of leniency to the sacrifice of obedience. "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction will drive it far from him. The rod and reproof give wisdom; but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." Excessive leniency will not only ruin the child, but bring his parents to shame. The history of families reveals fearful facts to verify these words. More decisive pa

rental chastisement would have saved some mental agony behind bolts and bars. Doubtless the wise use of some more rods would have spared some hand-cuffs and gallows. "Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." This passage exhibits the connection that exists between family government and the salvation of children. By maintaining authority in the sense considered a soul may be saved from the second death. The solemn truth magnifies the importance of the subject under review. It shows that the moral and religious characters of children may depend upon their secured obedience. So that it becomes a matter of great concern whether they obey or not; as important as the salvation of their precious souls. This is not an unestablished supposition of Solomon. It is a truth verified in countless families. It is appreciated by unperverted reason. There is most hope of the most obedient children. They become the most useful citizens, and are more likely to yield obedience to God. If trained to unconditional submission in the family, it will be comparatively easy to transfer, through grace, a similar exercise of grateful homage to God. Hence, a rod even may have some connection with religion. Without it, perhaps, the parent might be wholly unable "to train up a child in the way he should go." Such expedients as the above are Solomon's "dernier resort."

There is one mode of dealing with disobedient children by pious parents, too generally neglected, but suited to spare many severe applications and hours of unmingled sorrow. It is the GOVERNMENT OF PRAYER-leading the crring child away to the closet to implore the forgiveness of God, -against whom the greatest sin is committed. We have the testimony of some of the wisest and godliest men, that this expedient has subdued the stubborn heart when all others have failed. It makes prominent in the mind the great truth

that sin against man is a still greater sin against God. It familiarizes the transgression with the truth of accountability, not only to parents, but first of all to Jehovah. It brings the rebellious spirit under the most softening and hallowed influence-tones of sincere and earnest prayer. It excludes from the parent's heart the last trace of passion, and sheds over his demeanor the appearance of undoubted sincerity. More than any other mode of correction it is calculated to make the child feel that parental counsel is administered solely for his good. It sets disobedience in its true light-a heinous sin, and its punishment a solemn transaction. If any thing can bring the disobedient to repentance a result ever to be sought-this expedient is suited to the end. And if it fail to subdue the heart, and bring the child to submission, it will still impart sincerity and solemnity to the parent's act, as he proceeds to apply "Solomon's last remedy." Though the offender continue rebellious, and give his youthful energies to vice, he will not readily forget the closet. The gracious look of his praying father or mother will live in his cycs, the solemn tones of supplication will linger on his car, and the moral impression of the scene survive in his heart, when he wanders dissolute on sea or land. If he had no associations but the stern word of command, the rod of correction, and the air of severity, to bind him to his home, he might never desire to retrace his steps. But that closet of wrestling prayer, bedewed with the tears of a devoted parent, that voice of supplication whose rising accents bespoke the strength of his heart's fond affections, and that kind benignant look which beamed upon the face of the suppliant-it all lives in the memory of the past. It haunts him in his dreams. It troubles him in his waking moments. It endears him to his home. It awakens bitter regrets. It may bring the wanderer back. Reader! if you have a son far away from your family group, a vicious stripling somewhere on the face of the carth, whose

impulsive and rebellious spirit you were wont to subdue by the voice of prayer in secreet places, you may hope-hope strongly, that the prodigal will return.

Success in the moral training of children may be hindered by some things apparently unimportant. One is parental inconsistency. It is well nigh useless for parents to forbid their children doing what they practice themselves. The manifest discrepancy between example and precept will beget hostility to parental counsel. The father who is guilty of profanity cannot, consistently, rebuke his son for the same vice. If he neglects the house of God, he cannot plausibly command his children "to go up to the house of the Lord." If he uses intoxicating drinks as a beverage, he will appear exceedingly singular in counselling them to "touch not, taste not, handle not." The mother, who is habitually scolding her children will appear very inconsistent in reproving them for practising the same toward cach other. Upon this point let a single fact speak. A little girl, less than six years of age, screamed out to a younger brother, who was playing with the mud in the gutter, "Bub, you good for nothing little scamp, you, come right into the house this minute, or I'll beat you till the skin comes off!"

"Why, Angelina, Angelina, dear, what do you mean? Where do you learn such talk?" exclaimed the mortified mother, who stood talking with a friend.

Angelina answered in the innocence of childhood. “Why, mother, you see we are playing, and he's my little boy, and I am scolding him, just as you did me this morning, that's all."

Discrepancy, also, between the counsels of parents is an inconsistency which works disastrous results. A fact will best illustrate my meaning. A pert little miss once declared to her Sabbath school teacher that she could not fulfil the Fifth commandment by obeying her parents, because one commanded her to do one thing, and the other directed her