Wise as was the mother, and far-seeing as was the father, they had made
the mistake common to all but the wisest parents, of putting off to a
period more or less too late the moment of beginning to teach their
children obedience. If this be not commenced at the first possible
moment, there is no better reason why it should be begun at any other,
except that it will be the harder every hour it is postponed. The
spiritual loss and injury caused to the child by their waiting till they
fancy him fit to reason with, is immense; yet there is nothing in which
parents are more stupid and cowardly, if not stiff-necked, than this. I
do not speak of those mere animal parents, whose lasting influence over
their progeny is not a thing to be greatly desired, but of those who,
having a conscience, yet avoid this part of their duty in a manner of
which a good motherly cat would be ashamed. To one who has learned of
all things to desire deliverance from himself, a nursery in which the
children are humored and scolded and punished instead of being taught
obedience, looks like a moral slaughter-house.

The dawn of reason will doubtless help to develop obedience; but
obedience is yet more necessary to the development of reason. To require
of a child only what he can understand the reason of, is simply to help
him to make himself his own God--that is a devil. That some seem so
little injured by their bad training is no argument in presence of the
many in whom one can read as in a book the consequences of their
parents' foolishness.

Cornelius was a youth of good abilities, and with a few good qualities.
Naturally kind-hearted, yet full of self and its poor importance, he had
an admiration of certain easy and showy virtues. He was himself not
incapable of an unthinking generosity; felt pity for picturesque
suffering; was tempted to kindness by the prospect of a responsive