ce,
except in the fact that the father has forbidden it, and with no
temptation of a higher indulgence as a reward for abstaining. If, in
such a case, the child abstains, he performs a true act of obedience. He
really subjects his will to the will of his father.

This kind of implicit obedience is greatly needed. It is to be secured
just as our heavenly Father secures obedience to some of his laws. If a
child thrusts his finger into the candle, he violates a law, and he
instantly suffers for it. We are surrounded by many such laws, without
the observance of which we could not live a day. To teach us obedience
to these laws, the penalty of transgression is immediate and sharp.
There are other laws of our physical well-being, the penalties of which
are remote, and in regard to those we have room for the exercise and
cultivation of our reasoning powers. Now in childhood, there are many
things which a child should be taught to forbear doing as promptly as he
forbears to thrust his hand into the fire. Yet for these things there is
no natural penalty. Here the command of the parent should be interposed,
and transgression should be promptly followed by penalty. The authority
of the parent and the penalties by which he sustains it, guide the child
during those years when reason and the power of self-denial are weak.
But to make this discipline easy and effective, there should be no
hesitation or uncertainty about the exercise of it. Parents often have
to strain their authority, and use very largely their right of
punishment, because they are so unequal and irregular in their methods
of government. A child soon ceases to thrust his finger into the fire.
Fire is not a thing which burns one day, and may be safely tampered with
the next. So, if disobedience, invariably and promptly, without passion
or caprice, and with the uniformity of a law of nature, brings such a
penalty as to make the disobedience painful, there will be little
transgression and little need of punishment. A child does not fret
because he cannot play with fire. He will not fret because he cannot
transgress a father's direct command, if he once knows that such
commands _must_ be obeyed.

XXI.

RAREY AS AN EDUCATOR.

Parents, teachers, and all who are charged with the duty of training the
young, may learn important lessons from the example of the late Mr.
Rarey. The principles on which the horse is rendered obedient and docile
do not differ essentiall