“Be obeyed when thou commandest, but command not often; Spare not, if thy word hath passed for punishment; Let not thy child see thee humbled, nor learn to think thee false.”

Always examine the offense before you punish.  See whether it is of ignorance or not,—­whether of the head or the heart,—­whether intentional or accidental.  Examine his motives in committing the offense.  If you find he merits correction, before you inflict it, lay before him the nature and enormity of the offense, wherein he disobeyed, the guilt of that disobedience, its consequences, and your duty to correct him for it.

Never correct in a state of anger.  Some correct only when they are in a violent passion.  This is ruling from passion, not from principle.  It is like administering medicine scalding hot, which rather burns than cures.  Be judicious and kind in all your discipline; otherwise you may engender in your child the very propensities and improprieties of action you desire to eradicate.  A mild rebuke in the season of calmness, is better than a rod in the heat of passion.  Let your children know and see that all your discipline is for their own good,—­to arrest them from danger and ruin, and to train them up in the way God would have them go.  Let your words and deeds show this in the form of parental kindness and sympathy and solicitude.  This will do more than the angry look, the stormy threat, and the cruel lash.

  “By kindness the wolf and the zebra become docile as the spaniel and the
    horse;
  The kite feedeth with the starling under the law of kindness;
  That law shall tame the fiercest, bring down the battlements of pride,
  Cherish the weak, control the strong, and win the fearful spirit. 
  Let thy carriage be the gentleness of love, not the stern front of
    tyranny.”

CHAPTER XX.

HOME-EXAMPLE.

                  “Example strikes
  All human hearts!  A bad example more;
  More still a father’s!”

Example has much to do with the interests of home.  It plays an important part in the formation of character; and its influence is felt more than that of precept.  Our object in this chapter is to show the bearing of example upon the well-being of the Christian home.  Example may be good or bad.  Its power arises out of the home-confidence and authority.  Children possess an imitative disposition.  They look up to their parents as the pattern or model of their character, and conclude what they do is right and worthy of their imitation.  Hence the parental example may lead the child to happiness or to ruin.

  “Lo! thou art a landmark on a hill; thy little ones copy thee in all
    things. 
  Show me a child undutiful, I shall know where to look for a foolish
    father;
  But how can that son reverence an example he dare not follow? 
  Should he imitate thee in thine evil? his scorn is thy rebuke.”