ection of one act with another, in tracing the relation
between the conduct of mature age and the little developments of
childhood and youth. Good government respects not only the present good
of its subjects but their future. It takes in eternity as well as time.
A great many parents are totally blind to the faults of their children.
They see none when they are even gross. Everybody else can see them, and
is talking about them, and they know not that they exist. Like Eli, of
ancient days, the first that they know of the wickedness of their
children they hear it from all the people. It is a sad thing when others
have to tell us of the depravity of our children. And it is then
generally too late to correct them. The public do not know the first
aberrations of childhood and youth. They can only be learnt in the
nursery. If parents are blind to them, and they are suffered to become
habits, it is generally too late to correct them. It is in the form of
habits that neighbors become acquainted with them. Woe to that child
then, whose faults are rebuked by every one else, but not by his
parents! His faults are in every one's mouth, but not in theirs.

2. _The interference of one parent while the other is endeavoring to
enforce rightful discipline._--Nothing has a more injurious influence
upon family government than such a course. It presents the two, in whom
the children should place the most implicit confidence, at variance. As
a matter of course, the disobedient child will throw himself into the
hands of the one interfering, as a kind of shield from the rod. In such
a case it is almost utterly impossible to maintain government and
support discipline. The child justifies himself, and stoutly persists in
his rebellion while he receives countenance from one of his parents.
This, if I mistake not, is often done. Many a family has been ruined in
this way for time and eternity. Government was entirely disobeyed in the
outset. The father undertook the correction of the child, but the
mother threw her arms over him--she pleads that he is a little
child--that he knew not what correction means, as for _what_ he is
corrected--or the rod is applied too severely. The child cried most
unmercifully, when perhaps he only cried because he was rebellious and
stubborn. This repeated a few times, and the one who is determined to
maintain discipline becomes discouraged, and silently the management, or
rather the mismanagement of the family passes