We teach truth, not creed prejudices; we train our children to have and always maintain a strong prejudice for religious truth, and that kind of prejudice is the rock-bed of all that is good and holy and worth living for.  We teach dogma.  We do not believe in religion without dogma, any more than religion without truth.  “That kind of religion has not been invented, but it will come in when we have good men without convictions, parties without principles and geometry without theories.”

If there is anything un-American in all this, it is because the term is misunderstood and misapplied.  We are sorry if others find us at odds on religious grounds.  The fact of our existence will always be a reminder of our differences with them in the past.  But we are not willing to cease to exist on that account.

CHAPTER LXVI.  CORRECTION.

Among the many things that are good for children and that parents are in duty bound to supply is—­the rod!  This may sound old-fashioned, and it unfortunately is; there is a new school of home discipline in vogue nowadays.

Slippers have outgrown their usefulness as implements of persuasion, being now employed exclusively as foot-gear.  The lissom birch thrives ungarnered in the thicket, where grace and gentleness supply the whilom vigor of its sway.  The unyielding barrel-stave, that formerly occupied a place of honor and convenience in the household, is now relegated, a harmless thing, to a forgotten corner of the cellar, and no longer points a moral but adorns a wood-pile.  Disciplinary applications of the old type have fallen into innocuous desuetude; the penny now tempts, the sugar candy soothes and sugar-coated promises entice when the rod should quell and blister.  Meanwhile the refractory urchin, with no fear to stimulate his sluggish conscience, chuckles, rejoices and is glad, and bethinks himself of some uninvented methods of devilment.

Yes, it is old-fashioned in these days to smite with the rattan as did the mighty of yore.  The custom certainly lived a long time.  The author of the Proverbs spoke of the practise to the parents of his generation, and there is no mistaking the meaning of his words.  He spoke with authority, too; if we mistake not, it was the Holy Ghost that inspired his utterances.  Here are a few of his old-fashioned sayings:  “Spare the rod and spoil the child; he who loves his child spares not the rod; correction gives judgment to the child who ordinarily is incapable of reflection; if the child be not chastised, it will bring down shame and disgrace upon the head of its parent.”  It is our opinion that authority of this sort should redeem the defect of antiquity under which the teaching itself labors.  There are some things “ever ancient, ever new;” this is one of them.