“I don’t quite understand you papa,” she said.  “I only know that I can’t bear to have people try to rule me who have no right.”

“Sometimes you are not willing to be ruled even by your father; yet I hardly suppose you would say he has no right?”

“Oh, no, papa; I know better than that,” she said, blushing and hanging her head; “I know you have the best right in the world.”

“Yet sometimes you disobey me; at others obey in an angry, unwilling way that shows you would rebel if you dared.

“And pride is at the bottom of it all.  You think so highly of yourself and your own wisdom that you cannot bear to be controlled or treated as one not capable of guiding herself.

“But the Bible tells us that God hates pride.  ’Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.’

“‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.’

“‘Proud and haughty scorner is his name who dealeth in proud wrath.’

“Ah, my dear daughter, I am sorely troubled when I reflect how often you deal in that.  My great desire for you is that you may learn to rule your own spirit; that you may become meek and lowly in heart, patient and gentle like the Lord Jesus, ’who when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.’  Do you never feel any desire to be like Him?”

“Yes, papa, sometimes; and I determine that I will; but the first thing I know I’m in a passion again; and I get so discouraged that I think I’ll not try any more to be good; for I just can’t.”

“It is Satan who puts that thought in your heart,” the captain said, giving her a look of grave concern; “he knows that if he can persuade you to cease to fight against the evil that is in your nature he is sure to get possession of you at last.

“He is a most malignant spirit, and his delight is in destroying souls.  The Bible bids us, ’Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.’

“We are all sinners by nature, and Satan, and many lesser evil spirits under him, are constantly seeking our destruction; therefore we have a warfare to wage if we would attain eternal life, and no one who refuses or neglects to fight this good fight of faith will ever reach heaven; nor will any one who attempts it without asking help from on high.

“So if you give up trying to be good you and I will have a sad time; because it will be my duty to compel you to try.  The Bible tells me, ’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.’

“I must if possible deliver you from going to that awful place, and also from the dreadful calamities indulgence of a furious temper sometimes brings even in this life; even a woman has been known to commit murder while under the influence of unbridled rage; and I have known of one who lamed her own child for life in a fit of passion.