Farewell, my dear young friend. May your mother's God be

yours!

Believe me, with sincere affection, yours,

F. L. S.

For the Mother's Magazine.

ON PROVOKING OUR CHILDREN TO WRATH.

BY REV. RALPH EMERSON.

The brightest gem now left in our fallen nature, is that instinctive affection which leads the fond mother to prize the life, the health, the fame, the welfare of her darling child, even more dearly than her own. This ruby is tarnished, indeed; and the actings of its magic power are also sadly misguided in the best of us. But, instead of destroying, or checking, or even blaming this noble relic of paradise, christianity bids us increase its power and elevate its aim. Its salient might needs but the guiding reinnot the curb. Though stronger than death, though so intense that no waters can quench nor floods drown it, the Bible utters no rebuke; while, on the other hand, the parent "without natural affection," is pronounced "worse than an infidel."

It is therefore a vain conceit, into which some have fallen, that natural affection in parents is to be checked and restrained, because it has so frequently been misguided, and even connected with selfishness and idolatry towards our children. We are not to love them the less, but God the more-and the universe the more-and all with a purified affection. Without it, the brother would more often betray the brother to death, and the father the son, and children would rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death, and a man's foes would be they of his

own household. The French revolution just began to show what the world would soon become by stifling natural affection through a fantastic regard to universal philanthropy. Men became worse than the tigers of the desert.

But, while the Bible put no check on this part of our inbred nature, it gives us many a caution, and many a precept for its right direction. To some of these we shall have occasion hereafter to advert.

And here it may be to my purpose further to remark, that after all the excellent productions which our age has afforded on the moral training of children, the Holy Bible remains the one grand directory on this most important branch of education. Indeed I may say, without the fear of contradiction by those best acquainted with this branch of our literature, that one of its best results is the more complete establishment of the supremacy of the Bible as the book of all books on moral education. It contains not only the fundamental principles, but also much more of the details and modes of application than men have been wont to imagine. Nor is this strange; for, while the Bible does not profess to teach natural science, it is given for the very purpose of teaching moral science, and teaching it for all lands, all ages, all conditions of men; and coming from Him who knew what was in man, and what is needful to be in him, it can never be either superseded or corrected by man's increasing wisdom.

The subject to which I would now more particularly invite the attention of christian mothers, is the scripture doctrine in regard to provoking their children to anger.

That the Bible forbids parents thus to provoke their children, will be sufficiently apparent from two passages which Paul has left us. In Eph. 6: 4, he says, "Provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;" and in Col. 3: 21, "Provoke not your children to wrath, lest they be discouraged." And neither here nor any where else in the Bible do we find any exception to this prohibition. In no case, whatever be the circumstances, is a parent warranted in departing from this injunction.

It is somewhat remarkable that the apostle repeats precisely

the same language in both these passages. Surely he must have been deeply sensible of the evil of this fault in parents, and also of their liability to commit it. Alas, that excellent and all-pervading trait of natural affection, which, in its pristine strength and purity, might have kept every fond parent from such a sin, the eye of Paul beheld as a beautiful but mutilated ruin-its comely proportions marred, its fragments scattered! And if we would profit by the aid of this wise master-builder, in its reconstruction, we must, with him, first survey the ruins, and then the means for repairing them.

In our present number, we can consider only the first branch of our subject, the evils which result from provoking our children to wrath.

1. They are thus induced to commit a great sin against God. This I place foremost, as being the greatest of all considerations. As benevolence is the essence of all moral goodness, so anger is at least one of the worst forms of sin. To be filled with wrath at any being, is sinful. But for a child to be angry at the mother that bore him, is second in atrocity only to his anger against the God that made him. It is also to be considered that he thus breaks directly one of the most solemn commands of the decalogue. He that said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, said also, Honor thy father and thy mother. O, where is the mother that has ever thought of what she was doing when provoking her own child to anger against her! For her to induce him to lie, to steal, to swear profanely-she would be horror-struck at the thought. Why, then, has she done this thing? How can she have done it? It can only be because she thought not of what she was doing. She thought, if she thought at all, only of the fault he would commit against herself, and as of one which she could pardon at her pleasure. Nor did she consider the account herself, as well as her child, must render to God. For herself,

she can, she must, she will

repent; but for her poor child, no tears of hers can wash away the guilt!

2. The influence on the child's temper is most baleful. Creatures of habit as we are, every excitement of anger increases our irritability. And peculiarly is this the effect in the plastic period

of childhood and youth. A few repetitions then may be productive of more permanent evil to the disposition than many at a subsequent stage in life.

But there is also another principle involved which renders the case still more baneful. Anger excited against our dearest friends must produce a much worse effect on the temper than the like anger against those with whom we have but few if any ties of affection; while it is likewise a greater sin. Stronger barriers are burst asunder; and therefore we might naturally anticipate such a result. And facts, too, so far as we can ascertain them, appear to substantiate the same conclusion. For, how seldom do we find a person of bland disposition who has grown up in daily collision with the irritating deportment of an austere or peevish parent. Such an one, if not consoled by the kind and judicious sympathy of other friends, feels that his last tie to humanity is severed. More wretched than the slave, he becomes a misanthrope, perhaps like Lord Byron, with power to love no being but his dog; or he becomes a villain, wreaking his revenge on all whom he has courage to assail; or he may become, if destitute of mental elasticity, a poor dejected thing that never dares to look a human being in the face.

If such, then, is the tendency, how great may be the blasting effect on the forming temper, produced by the ill-nature, or the indiscretion, or perhaps the false theory of a parent who may, nevertheless, be toiling day and night for the temporal benefit of that child.

3. Filial respect is thus impaired, and perhaps a settled hatred is produced towards the parent. Every instance of anger diminishes, at least for a while, our moral esteem towards its object. We eagerly spy and enhance all existing faults, and often impute such as are only imaginary. Instinctively bent on self-justification, the child utters, mentally if not audibly, more than he can at once believe of what he regards as his ill-usage. But by repetition, he comes at length to believe the whole. Of course that moral respect, that high esteem for the justice and goodness of the parent, so essential to filial regard, is gone. And when this is gone, nine-tenths of the power of parental authority is annihi

lated. The crushing power of a mighty arm may, indeed, still be dreaded but where is that spring to the alacrity of filial obedience which the child was born to feel, and which he would have felt through life, if the right course had been pursued with him? Respect and love, which are far more intimately blended than we are apt to imagine, constitute this combined spring.

But this is not all. Instead of this moral esteem, there may arise a settled hatred. Instances are not wanting of this mournful occurrence. And when this stage is reached by the vicious and vitiated child, the farther and the sooner removed from the paternal roof, the better. The oft-recurring sight of a hated parent will but make him twofold more the image of Cain.

4. It discourages every good wish and effort in the child. Says the apostle, in a passage already cited, "Provoke not your children to wrath, lest they be discouraged." Discouraged in what? First, in trying to please you; and then, in trying to do well at all. Love must be elicited, or at least met by love; else it will die. Kindness must be met by kindness and hearty approbation; else it will droop, then languish, then perish. There is vast happiness in making those happy whom we love. Such is God's nature; and such the nature of the beings he has made. Hence that glorious heaven of bliss which God has delighted to provide for his children, and where he will for ever delight in making them as happy as they can be. And hence the delight which kind parents feel in toiling through the longest life to provide for their offspring; and hence the peculiar felicity enjoyed by wise christian parents when, by God's blessing, they succeed in rendering their own dear family circle the brightest earthly image of that blissful society by which the throne of God is encircled. And hence, too, that reciprocal and choice felicity which obedient and affectionate children feel, when they find themselves successful in their attempts to please their parents and make them happy. This filial delight is the elastic spring to their best obedience. This is the true philosophy of life; the emblem, because the very temper and wisdom of heaven.

But where the parent fails in this wisdom, or is devoid of this temper, in vain will the counterpart be sought in the child. The