Some mothers believe that they are exhibiting the proper "maternal feelings" in keeping their children at home when they should send them forth into the world, where alone they can be taught the virtue of self-dependence. A time will come when the active young man who is checked by foolish fondness will exclaim with bitterness-- "Prison'd and kept, and coax'd and whistled to-- Since the good mother holds me still a child, Good mother is bad mother unto me! A worse were better!" Far more truly loving is the mother who sends her son into the battle of life preferring anything for him rather than a soft, indolent, useless existence. Such a mother is like those Spartan mothers who used to say to their sons as they handed to them their shields, "With it or upon it, my son!" Better death than dishonour was also the feeling of the mother of the successful missionary William Knibb. Her parting words to him were "William, William! mind, William, I had rather hear that you had perished at sea, than that you had dishonoured the Society you go to serve." Never promise a child and then fail to perform, whether you promise him a bun or a beating, for if once you lose your child's confidence you will find it all but impossible to regain it. Happy is the mother who can say, "I never told my child a lie, nor ever deceived him, even for what seemed his good." Robert Hall once reproved a young mother because, in putting a little baby to bed, she put on her own nightcap, and lay down by it till it went to sleep. "Madam," said the eloquent preacher, "you are acting a lie, and teaching the child to lie." It was in vain that the mother pleaded that the child would not go to sleep. "That," said Hall, "is nonsense. Properly brought up it must sleep. Make it know what you want; obedience is necessary on its part, but not a lie on yours." CHAPTER XIX. "NURSING FATHERS." "And kings shall be thy nursing fathers."--_Isaiah_ xlix. 23. It is an old saying, "Praise the child and you make love to the mother;" and it is a thing that no husband ought to overlook, for if the wife wish her child to be admired by others, what must be the ardour of her wishes with regard to _his_ admiration! Cobbett tells us that there was a drunken man in his regiment, who used to say that his wife would forgive him for spending all the pay, and the washing money into the bargain, "if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was pretty." Though this was a profligate he had philosophy in him; and certain it is that there is nothing worthy of the name of conjugal happiness unless the husband clearly evince that he is fond of his children.