the exercise of this authority, is guilty of slander. He who, from the fear of slander, shrinks from exercising it, is justly chargeable with a pusillanimity wholly unworthy of the rela tion which he sustains.

6. As the parent sustains the same relation to all his children, it is manifest that his obligations to them all are the same. Hence, he is bound to exercise his authority with entire impartiality. The want of this must always end in jealousy, envy, and malice, and cannot fail to render the domestic society a scene of perpetual bickering and contention. A striking exemplification of all this is recorded in the history of Joseph and his brethren.

If this be so, it is evident that the violation of parental obligation is more common, among even indulgent parents, than would generally be supposed.

1. Parents who render themselves slaves to fashionable society and amusement, violate this obligation. The mother who is engaged in a perpetual round of visiting and company, and who, from the pressure of engagements to which she subjects herself, has no leisure to devote to the mental and moral culture of her children, violates her most solemn duties. She has no right to squander away, in frivolous self-gratification, the time which belongs to her offspring. She will reap the fruits of her folly, when, in a few years, her children, having grown up estranged from her affection, shall thwart her wishes, disappoint her hopes, and neglect, if they do not despise, the mother who bare them.

2. The father who plunges into business so deeply that he has no leisure for domestic duties and pleasures, and whose only intercourse with his children consists in a brief and occasional word of authority, or a surly lamentation over their intolerable expensiveness, is equally to be pitied and to be blamed. What right has he to devote to other pursuits the time which God has allotted to his children? Nor is it any excuse, to say that he cannot support his family in their present style of living, without this effort. I ask, By what right can his family demand to live in a manner which requires him to neglect his most solemn and Important duties? Nor is it an excuse, to say that he

wishes to leove them a competence. Is he under obligation to leave them that competence which he desires? Is it an advantage to them to be relieved from the necessity of labor? Besides, is money the only desirable bequest which a father can leave to his children? Surely, well cultivated intellects, hearts sensible to domestic affection, the love of parents and brethren and sisters, a taste for home pleasures, habits of order, regularity and industry, a hatred of vice and of vicious men, and a lively sensibility to the excellence of virtue, are as valuable a legacy as an inheritance of property, simple property, purchased by the loss of every habit which could render that property a blessing.

3. Nor can thoughtful men be always exculpated from the charge of this violation. The duties of a parent are established by God, and God requires us not to violate them While the social worship of God is a duty, it ought not to interfere with parental duty. Parents who spend that time which belongs to their children, in offices of public social worship, have mistaken the nature of their special obligation. I do not pretend to say what time, or how nuch time, any individual shall spend in any religious service. This question does not belong to the present discussion. But I say that this time must be taken out of that which belongs to ourselves; and it might easily be abstracted from that devoted to visiting, company, or idleness; it should not be taken from that which belongs, by the ordinance of God, to our children.

It will be easily seen, that the fulfilment of these obliganons, in the manner I have suggested, would work a very perceptible change in the whole fabric of society. It would check the eager desire of accumulation, repress the ardor of ambition, and allay the feverish thirst for selfish gratification. But it would render a family, in truth, a society. It would bring back parents and children to the relations to each other which God has established. It would restore to home a meaning, and to the pleasures of home a reality, which they are in danger of losing altogether. Forsaking the shadow of happiness, we should find the substance. Instead of a continual round of physical excitation, and the

ceaseless pursuit of pleasures which, as every one confesses, and in ennui and disappointment, we should secure

"A sacred and home-felt delight,

A sober certainty of waking bliss,'

of which, previously, we could have had no conception. THE RIGHTS OF PARENTS.

The right of the parent over his child is, of course, com mensurate with his duties. If he be under obligation to educate his child in such manner as he supposes will most conduce to the child's happiness and the welfare of society, he has, from necessity, the right to control the child in every thing necessary to the fulfilment of this obligation. The only limits imposed are, that he exert this control no further than is necessary to the fulfilment of his obligation, and that he exert it with the intention for which it was conferred. While he discharges his parental duties within these limits, he is, by the law of God, exempt from interference both from the individual and from society.

Of the duration of this obligation and this right.

1. In infancy, the control of the parent over the child s absolute; that is, it is exercised without any respect whatever to the wishes of the child.

2. When the child has arrived at majority, and has assumed the responsibility of its own conduct, both the responsibility and the right of the parent cease altogether.

The time of majority is fixed in most civilized nations by statute. In Great Britain and in the United States, an individual becomes of age at his twenty-first year. The law, therefore, settles the rights and obligations of the parties, so far as civil society is concerned, but does not pretend to decide upon the moral relations of the parties.

3. As the rights and duties of the parent at one period are absolute, and at another cease altogether, it is reason. able to infer, that the control of the parent should be exercised on more and more liberal principles, that a wider and wider discretion should be allowed to the child, and that his feelings and predilections should be more and more consulted, as he grows older; sc that, when he comes to act for himself, he may have become prepared for the

responsibility which he assumes, by as extensive an experience as the nature of the case admits.

4. Hence, I think that a parent is bound to consult the wishes of his child, in proportion to his age, whenever this can be done innocently; and also, to vary his modes of enforcing authority, so as to adapt them to the motives of which the increasing intellect of the child is susceptible. While it is true that the treatment proper for a young man, would ruin a child, it is equally true that the treatment proper for a child, might very possibly ruin a young man. The right of control, however, still rests with the parent, and the duty of obedience still is imposed upon the child. The parent is merely bound to exercise it in a manner suited to the nature of the being over whom it is to be exerted.

The authority of instructors is a delegated authority, derived immediately from the parent. He, for the time being, stands to the pupil in loco parentis. Hence, the relation between him and the pupil is analogous to that between parent and child; that is, it is the relation of superiority and inferiority. The right of the instructor is to command; the obligation of the pupil is to obey. The right of the instructor is, however, to be exercised, as I before stated, when speaking of the parent, for the pupil's benefit. For the exercise of it, he is responsible to the parent, whose professional agent he is. He must use his own best skill and judgment, in governing and teaching his pupil. If he and the parent cannot agree, the connection must be dissolved. But, as he is a professional agent, he must use his own intellect and skill in the exercise of his owr profession, and, in the use of it, he is to be interfered with by no one.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

THE LAW OF CHILDREN.

I SHALL consider in this chapter the duties and the rights of children, and their duration.

THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN.

I. Obedience. By this I mean, that the relation between parent and child obliges the latter to conform to the will of the former because it is his will, aside from the consideration that what is required seems to the child best or wisest. The only limitation to this rule is the limitation of conscience. A parent has no right to require a child to do what it believes to be wrong; and a child is under no obligation, in such a case, to obey the commands of a parent. The child must obey God, and meekly suffer the consequences. It has even in this case no right to resist.

The reasons of this rule are manifest.

1. The design of the whole domestic constitution would be frustrated without it. This design, from what has been already remarked, is, to enable the child to avail itself both of the wisdom, and knowledge, and experience, of the parent; and also of that affection which prompts the parent to employ all these for the well-being of the child. But of these advantages the child can never avail himself, unless he yield obedience to the parent's authority, until he have acquired that age and experience which are necessary to enable him to direct and to govern himself.

2. That this is the duty of children is made apparent by the precepts of the Holy Scriptures:

Exodus xx, 12. "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." This, as St. Paul remarks, Eph. vi, 2. 3, is the only commandment in the decalogue, to which a special promise is annexed