ant. Worlds of love are every day destroyed by indifference and
repulse. If the same pains were taken to invigorate and perpetuate
the domestic affections as to secure the good-will of other persons
whom we admire or depend on, it could scarcely fail to give a
wonderful enrichment to the satisfactions of home.

This truth is especially applicable to the relation of parents and
children in our day. The old extreme of a severe exercise of parental
authority has passed away, and a new extreme of filial
insubordination and insolent self-assertion has taken its place. It
is altogether too frequent a thing now to see lads and lasses taking
their parents to task as inferiors, and demanding every service from
them. The thought of his child should be a constant delight to a
parent. When the ill-temper and ill-behavior of a child cause every
association with him in the heart of the parent to be disturbing and
painful, how can the result be otherwise than alienating and
depressing? Let there be two children in a family, one of whom is
invariably obedient, gentle, attentive, ingenuous; the other,
irritable, insubordinate, careless, secretive, and untruthful. The
former shall be idolized, while the latter is regarded with
condemnatory repugnance. The fact that a boy is your son, or that a
girl is your daughter, cannot wholly neutralize the repulsiveness of
their odious traits. When children uniformly respect and obey their
parents, and seek by every kind attention and praiseworthy effort to
please them, it is not in human nature that they should fail to be
unspeakably loved and caressed. Deferential treatment, patient
service, quick sympathy, expectant attention, an obvious desire to
please, are the most potent charms that mortals can wield. They show
that the parties are important to each other. They give life its
highest value. In their absence, all romantic color fades, and every
precious affection expires. The most effective intercourse that
vanity can establish with strangers offers nothing comparable to the
delicious quality of the experience which results when a parent and
child, of suitable character and age, are blessed with a complete
friendship. Every thought of it pours for them a sudden sunshine
through the sky, an exhilarating fragrance through the air.

Undoubtedly the affections are greatly hurt and repressed by being
regarded as obligations rather than as privileges. They must be wooed
forth by the gentlest lures.