accustomed to stand face to face with the eternities, will see in her
child a soul. If the circumstances of her life leave her leisure and
adequate repose, that soul will be to her a solemn trust, a sacred
charge, for which she will give her own soul's life in pledge. But, dear
me! how many such women do you suppose there are in your village? Heaven
forbid that I should even appear to be depreciating woman! Do I not know
too well their strength, and their virtue which is their strength? But
stepping out of idyls and novels, and stepping into American kitchens,
is it not true that the larger part of the mothers see in their babies,
or act as if they saw, only babies? And if there are three or four or
half a dozen of them, as there generally are, so much the more do they
see babies whose bodies monopolize the mother's time to the disadvantage
of their souls. She loves them, and she works for them day and night;
but when they are ranting and ramping and quarrelling, and torturing
her over-tense nerves, she forgets the infinite, and applies herself
energetically to the finite, by sending Harry with a round scolding into
one corner and Susy into another, with no light thrown upon the point
in dispute, no principle settled as a guide in future difficulties, and
little discrimination as to the relative guilt of the offenders. But
there is no court of appeal before which Harry and Susy can lay their
case in these charming "happiest days."

Then there are parents who love their children like wild beasts. It is
a passionate, blind, instinctive, unreasoning love. They have no more
intelligent discernment, when an outside difficulty arises with respect
to their children, than a she-bear. They wax furious over the most
richly deserved punishment, if inflicted by a teacher's hand; they take
the part of their child against legal authority; but, observe, this does
not prevent them from laying their own hands heavily on their children.
The same obstinate ignorance and narrowness that are exhibited without