uncertainty as to the time when his death is to come is not more favorable
to the awakening of these feelings, than the state of alarm and distress
which would be excited by the thought that it was near.

_The Reasonableness of Gentle Measures in Religious Training_.

The mother may sometimes derive from certain religious considerations the
idea that she is bound to look upon the moral delinquencies and dangers
which she observes in her children, under an aspect more stern and severe
than seems to be here recommended. But a little reflection must convince
us that the way to true repentance of, and turning from sin, is not
necessarily through the suffering of terror and distress. The Gospel is not
an instrumentality for producing terror and distress, even as means to an
end. It is an instrumentality for saving us from these ills; and the Divine
Spirit, in the hidden and mysterious influence which it exercises in
forming, or transforming, the human soul into the image of God, must be as
ready, it would seem, to sanction and bless efforts made by a mother to
allure her child away from its sins by loving and gentle invitations and
encouragements, as any attempts to drive her from them by the agency of
terror or pain. It would seem that no one who remembers the way in which
Jesus Christ dealt with the children that were brought to him could
possibly have any doubt of this.




CHAPTER XXIV.


CONCLUSION.