d with shrieking beasts and brutal
and savage people?

As a passing word regarding the child, let me say this:

Do not judge your child as an ordinary mechanical instrument, as if he
could be wound up to a certain degree and gradually, as if by clockwork,
tick away each moment of the day. The child is a combustible force, and,
although there are certain rules by which you may obtain the greatest
degree of improvement, you cannot rigidly adhere to them. There are
numberless instances when the propensity or inclination of the child may
appear to you to be aggravating and annoying; nevertheless, you must not
let _your_ irritability interfere with the development of that trait
preeminent to the child's character.

Look upon your child, encourage your boy or girl, to be a pioneer and a
soldier in the march of progress. Instruct it with the knowledge of the
miserable conditions of our past history, and bring it forcibly to
understand that efforts only are repaid, and that we must work in order
to accomplish.

Prayers are only wasted words on the desert air. The greatest mental
crime ever committed is that of teaching a child, "while still upon its
mother's knee," its duty and obedience to God. It would appear that for
the amount of suffering it must endure, and in the face of its
unconsulted coming, we should at least disregard God for his insolence,
and impress upon the child the peculiar conditions of life. We should
instruct it, that from time immemorial, Nature has been laboring through
the most awkward process of reproduction, and has finally brought the
child into existence, not to enjoy the benefits, or eat of the fruits of
the earth, but to bear a life of continual strife and suffering. Not of
God should we speak to our child, but of the importance of being
prepared to do all in its power to help others to escape the torture,
misery and hardships it must so painfully overcome. Is it any wonder
that we grow up to be serfs and slaves? Before we are able to know or
understand the very rudest fundamentals of life, our entire mental
machinery is corrupted by unshakable fears and dedicated to the vilest
and most sickening submission. Would that we were left alone, and free
to follow the thoughts of our own minds, regarding the great problems
of life. What a mighty, unhampered power we would possess to find the
proper course of action, and possibly the real solution to the mystery
of the _Tyranny of God_!

To love and