Now, all this was at least enhanced, as far as man can judge, by the want of a right feeling of parental responsibility. Had that feeling reigned in the father's conscience, he and his son might both have been blessed: as it was, that son was lost, while that father went in sorrow to the grave, weeping often over his own fatal error.

Nor was this a solitary case. Who cannot recall some parallel? Indulgent parents train their children amid affluence and case, and far away from the wholesome restraints of the Bible. In process of time, even the feeble barrier of natural affection is swept down, while the father and the mother, who would not realise their responsibility to God, are cited at last by sorrow to the tribunal of conscience, there to confess and deplore the results of their training. They see the house of God neglected for the Sabbath excursion, but they offer no effective opposition. Debt is contracted, and to hide their shame, they pay it.

The prodigal

plunges from sin to sin, he drags his parents from sorrow to sorrow, and death or exile to himself, with life-long grief to them, is often the wages of such iniquity.

250

REWARDS

CHAPTER VII.

THE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS OF HOME.

Laws and their Sanctions-Bribes-"Patriarchy" quoted-Rewards - Punishments-The Need of a Heavenly Guide-Principles in Punishing-ObedienceEvils requiring the Rod-Modern Infidelity on the Subject-How the Rod may be Spared-The Reins first-Examples-Rev. Thomas Scott-Others.

If a father be as a king over his Home, and if laws be passed to guide it, that legislation must be enfored by sanctions. If the enactments be violated, the violation must be punished: if they be obeyed, the obedient should feel that "in hearing the instruction of their father, and not forsaking the law of their mother,”* there is a great reward.

And in regard to rewards, it should be remarked, that the domestic constitution is often radically violated in this respect. Children are bribed or allured to do what should be done upon soul and conscience. "In how many families is the heart indulged and spoiled as a reward for a little exercise of the head, and the child allowed to be self-willed and capricious as a reward for being clever! A little bit of finery is made the adequate reward of morality, and a small intellectual feat is taught to find its goal in something extra to eat and drink. A little violet-like virtue no sooner modestly peeps above ground than it is proclaimed, bepraised, magnified, and killed, or turned, by being made ever-present to the consciousness of the child, into a poison

* Proverbs i. 8.

plant. Show-children are got up and exhibited, as if they were as insensible to flattery as prize-poultry. Emulation is provoked in a manner which calls into activity some of the worst qualities of the heart."

Now, in such a case, a trespass is committed against another radical law; the whole nature is injured in the hope of rendering it good or accomplished. But if right exertions should be encouraged—and they should—let it be. done in wisdom. Let rewards be given for goodness rather than for cleverness; for self-conquest rather than victory over others. Surely the gross rewards which only pamper juvenile sensuality, should be utterly discarded. The frivolous amusement, the stimulant to personal vanity, with all that tends to strengthen the merely animal, at the expense of the moral, in the young, should be dismissed for ever. Why should the reward not be some instructive visit to rural scenes? to some collection of natural curiosities? to something which would expand and inform the mind instead of pampering the body? something which would shew how good God is, or how dependent man, instead of inflating with pride, or fortifying in frivolity? No doubt, all this may tax a parent's ingenuity, as it will increase his trouble; but it is aversion to trouble that impedes right training in many cases; and he who would not be troubled by the waywardness of his child, must be careful to use the means to train him in what is right and true.

A wise parent, then, will take care that the rewards presented to his children shall be such as promote their moral health. Here, as everywhere, the Supreme Will must guide; and every other course will be found as futile as the attempt

* "Patriarchy," pp. 228–9.

of a savage to compel a watch to move by external force, instead of winding it up. Let rewards be given in harmony with the true laws of our moral nature, and they may prove what the breeze is to the sail, what dew is to the flowers, or rain to the fissured earth. The Divine government is here to be our model; copy it, and all will be blessed.

But, next, the subject of punishment is surrounded with dangers as great as that of rewards. To indulge the flash and outbreak of anger is easy. To punish merely because the parent's quiet or convenience is infringed, requires little skill. But to punish, as God appoints, in the spirit of blended love and firmness-to correct, but not in anger,-demands a wisdom and a tact, as well as a tenderness, which only grace can impart. Hence it happens that Homes are often the scenes either of unchecked transgression, or of violent assaults upon the young. Faults are not repressed in detail: they are allowed to accumulate till they become intolerable; and then attempts are made to check by the rod, what should have been checked by the reins. Parents must now try to bend the gnarled oak, because they have neglected the sapling; but all this is more akin to caprice and to cruelty than correction. Sin in every form must, no doubt, be confronted with the rod, if need be; but to do that in the spirit of wisdom, and of a sound mind, demands the presence and the power of a heavenly Guide.

There are some outstanding points, however, which materially help a parent in this respect. For example, it is right that negligence concerning lessons should be punished by restraints in regard to play. Encroachment on the property or the pleasure of another points to some limitation of

that of the offender. But caprice, or violence, in correcting, will go far to justify the transgressor, in his own eyes at least ; he will consider every appearance of injustice as a vindication of his own aggression. "Punishment," says the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, "must be varied according to the degree of fault. It is important that the scale by which we measure the degrees of wrong be scriptural. Sins directly against God, and moral faults, such as falsehood, passion, and taking anything that does not belong to them, call for the severest punishment, and should never be passed by without chastisement; while accidents from carelessness, though they may occasion a serious injury, should be visited with a lighter penalty, as not being intentional faults.”*

In the spirit of these suggestions, the time has surely come, when punishment, by assigning portions of Scripture, or psalms, or hymns, to be learned, should be abolished for ever. As if the antipathy of the young to the truth were not already sufficiently strong, such unwise measures infallibly strengthen it; and it were better to doom our children to climb some rugged mountain, or bear some heavy burden, when they err, than prescribe such tasks as give to the Word of God the character of a jailer, or associate it with bonds and imprisonments in the minds of the young. We may legitimately question that man's ability to train who adopts such a course.

But, to simplify this matter, some evils may be specified. which demand instant repression. On the supposition that it has been made a law in the Home, that obedience shall be instantly yielded by children, that their happiness is prominently sought, and that finesse is never employed in

*See "Domestic Portraiture," Introd., p. xiv.