"The gentleness of our Lord in rebuking, has an effect which gentleness often has, it awakens compunctions in those to whom it is shown. A child, who by severity is set on its defence or drawn into falsehood, is often melted into full confession by being loved and trusted more than it deserves." _Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM. "Our Lord's reply is again gentle; to be hard on a fault that was confessed would have dried up that confidence which flowed so freely." _Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM. "Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites by severity." S. FRANCIS DE SALES. Example DECEMBER 16 "Children have more need of models than of critics." JOUBERT. "It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives." BURKE. "Meanwhile there is much that we can do. It need not be said that home is the most effective school of character. On the duties of home I cannot dwell now. But there is a more general influence of common tone and habits of which serious account ought to be taken. We are at all times unconsciously educating others by our own example. Our standard of duty in the discharge of business and in the use of leisure necessarily influences the desires and the actions of those who look to us for guidance. The young are quick-eyed critics, and the sight of quiet devotion to work, of pleasure sought in common things--and all truly precious things are common--will enforce surely and silently some great lessons of school. We do not, as far as I can judge, rate highly enough our responsibility for the customary practices of society. Not infrequently we neutralise our teaching through want of imagination by failing to follow out the consequences of some traditional custom. We seem to be inconsiderate when we are only ignorant." Bishop WESTCOTT. Wealth DECEMBER 17