Parental Corrections.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 870, 2 November 1888, Page 4

Parental Corrections.

The man commits a crime, and so does the woman, who will send a child to bed with a wounded Bpirit, or shall allow any vindictiveness of feeling to exist in consequence of anything the child may have done. Sharp pointed memories have often driven men mad, multitudes are there who are more dead than alive, from the ailings of the mind, which is wasting itself away in vain remorseß for tho irrevocable past. The fault of most parentß is over-harsh reproofs of their children; reproofs that are hasty, unproportioned to the offence, and hence as to one’s own child, helpless and unresisting, are a cruelty as well as an injustice. Thrice happy is a parent who has no child in the grave who can be wished back, only if for a brief space, so as to afford some opportunity for repairing some unmerited unkindeess toward the dead darling. Parents have been many times urged in these pages to make persistent efforts to arrange two things in domestic intercourse, and to spare no painß and no

amount of moral courage and determination, id order that thoy should be brought about. It indy require a thousand efforts and there may be a thousand failures as discouraging as they are sad j still let the high resolve go out, ' it shall be done !’ and the pricking of many a thorn will be spared in after years and in old age. The two points to be daily aimed at are s

.First. • Let the family table be always a meeting place of pleasantness and affection and peace, and for the exhibition of tho sweeter feelings of domestic life. Second. Let every child be sent to bed with kisses of affeotion, especially those under ten years of age.

4 Oh ! how oareful should we all be that in our daily conduct toward those little beings sent us by a kind Providence, wo are not laying up for ourselves the sources of many a bitter tear I How cautious that, neither by inconsiderate nor cruel word or look, we unjustly grieve their generous fueling ! and how guardedly ought we to weigh every ao. tion against its motive, lest, in a moment of excitement, we be led to mete out to tho venial errors of the heart the punishment due only to wilful crime! 4 Alas ! perhaps few parents suspect how often the fierce rebuke, the sudden blow, is answered in their children by the tears, not of passion, not of physical or mental pain, but a loving yet grieved or outraged nature.' —Hall’s Journal of Health.