this rough, dogged sense of justice; dangerous
to tamper with, even in the slightest degree.
Far wiser is it for a parent to acknowledge to
ever so young a child, " I was wrong, I made a
mistake," than to go on enforcing a false authority,
or compelling a blind obedience, driving
the child to exclaim, or inly feel, which is
worse, " You are not my ruler, but my tyrant!"

Yet many a severe parent is deeply loved.
"My father was a stern man," you sometimes
hear said, while the rare tear of self-restrained
middle age falls unchecked over the grave's side.
"He kept us in order. We were all rather
afraid of him; but he was invariably just. He
never broke his word, nor forgot his promise.
He punished us, but not in passion: he ruled
us strictly, but it was never to gratify his own
love of power. If he had thrashed us twenty
times, we should have submitted to it, because
we knew that whatever he did was done for
conscience' sake, and not out of wantonness or
anger. I may bring up my children differently
in some things—perhaps I do—but I'll never
hear a word said against him. He was a just
man—my father."

A just man, and an unselfish woman; these
are the two first qualities which constitute true
parenthood.

In this question of selfishness. Readers may
start with horror at such an impossible anomaly
as a selfish mother, a jealous exacting father;
and yet such there are. Especially after the
children are grown up, and nature, gratitude,
and the world's opinion, all agree that no
devotedness can be too perfect, no sacrifices too
great. Ay! but it is one thing what the child
ought to offer, and another what the parent
should accept. Most lovely is it to see a
daughter cheerfully resigning all the external
enjoyments of life, to devote herself to the higher
happiness of being the sole stay and cheer of
some helpless father, or solitary sickly mother;
and sweet, even amid all its daily renunciations,
is the sense of duty fulfilled and comfort
imparted. But to see a parent fretful, complaining,
exacting, grudging the child a week's
absence from home, not for love, that would teach
self-sacrifice, but from the selfish enjoyment or
ease that the accustomed companionship brings,
yielding to the natural dislike of old age for
any new association, and tacitly or openly keeping
the young people in such bondage that they
dare not ask a friend to tea, or accept an
invitation—"Papa would not like it;" "Mamma
might be annoyed"—this is a sight which
lowers all the dignity of parenthood, and
degrades filial duty into mere servitude. Yet
many such cases there are, inflicted by really
good parents, who are not aware that they are
doing any harm, and who, in their narrow
selfishness, cannot perceive that the life which is to
them merely "a quiet life," suited to their age
and infirmities, is slowly taking all the spirit
and brightness out of younger hearts, driving
the boys into dissipation and folly, and dragging
"the girls" (of thirty and upwards) down into
premature old-maidism, dull, discontented,
helpless, and forlorn. Such a life, passing gradually
on into life's melancholy decline, in a round of
uninteresting, compelled duties, is as different from
the free warm devotion of real filial love, as slow
murder is from voluntary and glad self-sacrifice.

But here a word, lest this essay, which is
especially addressed "To Parents," not being
guarded, like income-tax or census papers, from
any other unlawful eyes, should be taken as a
loophole of excuse by readers like a certain
young impertinent of my acquaintance, who,
being lectured on the text, " Children obey
your parents in the Lord," immediately pointed
out its correlative, " Fathers, provoke not your
children to anger."

When we speak of a parent being " deposed,"
we mean merely from the exercise of an authority
which has become a farce, and the exaction
of an obedience which a higher law, that of
conscience, renders impossible. But once a parent,
always a parent. It is a bond which, though
in one sense a mere accident, is, in another
sense, stronger than any tie of mere personal
election, since it came by the ordination of
Providence. It may be a great burden, even a
great misfortune, but there it is: and nothing
but death can end it. No short-comings on the
parental side can abrogate one atom of the plain,
duty of the child—submission so long as submission
is possible, reverence while one fragment
of respect remains; and, after that, endurance.
To this generation of Young England, which is
apt to think so much of itself, and so little of
its elders and superiors, we cannot too strongly
uphold the somewhat out of date doctrine,
"Honour thy father and thy mother." Ay,
though they may be very simple, common
people: infirm in intellect, uneducated,
unrefined: guilty of many short-comings of temper,
judgment, and even glaring errors—still, honour
them, and, when honour fails, bear with them.

The question then arises, what, and for how
long, a child ought to bear. And here
Christianity would reply with the doctrine of " seventy
times seven," pleading, also, that if to a brother
so much is to be forgiven, how much more so
to a parent? Ay, forgiven. But Christianity
nowhere commands that a grown-up man or
woman is to sacrifice honour, conscience, peace—
in fact, the real worth of a lifetime—to either
brethren or parents. Therefore, when things
come to this pass, that the child by "honouring"
the parent would actually dishonour God,
and defile his own soul by acting contrary to
his conscience, there, so far, the duty ends. Let
him or her assert, as an individual existence,
the right of self-preservation—let them part.
At least let the division be made firm and clear
enough to secure independence of thought and
action, so that the parent can no longer injure
or oppress the child.

For lesser trials, the amount of patience and
long-suffering shown by the child to the parent
ought to be almost unlimited. At the same
time, it is quite possible for young men or young
women quietly to assert their individuality, and
carry out, without any obnoxious rebellion, their