"Then why have you disobeyed me?"

The boy's eyes fell again, and he remained silent.

"I'll break you of this if I break your heart!" said Mr. Howland
severely, and, as he spoke, he almost lifted the child from the
floor with his strong arm as he led him from the room. A groan
issued from the mother's heart and she covered her face and wept.

By the time Mr. Howland reached the chamber above, to which he
repaired with Andrew, the excitement of his anger had subsided; but
not his stern purpose in regard to his child, who had again
disobeyed him. The absolute necessity of obedience in children he
recognized in all its length and breadth. He saw no hope for them in
the future unless obedience were constrained at every cost. Happy
both for them and himself would it have been if he had been wiser in
his modes of securing obedience, and more cautious about exacting
from his children things almost impossible for them to perform.
Without a law there is no sin. Careful, then, should every parent be
how he enacts a law, the very existence of which insures its
violation.

Mr. Howland had sought, by various modes of punishment, other than
chastisement, to enforce obedience in this particular case. Now he
was resolved to try the severer remedy. Andrew had expected nothing
farther than to be shut up, alone, in the room, and to go, perhaps,
supperless to bed, and he was nerved to bear this without a murmur.
But when the rod became suddenly visible, and was lifted above him
in the air, his little heart was filled with terror.