She who obtains an absolute and perfect government over a child, so that he obeys, certainly and almost mechanically produces effects which are more appreciable in their immediate action on family life; her family will be more orderly, her children in their childhood will do her more credit. But she who has consciously no power of this kind, whose children are often turbulent and unmanageable, need not despair if she feel that through affection, reason, and conscience, she still retains a strong _influence_ over them. If she cannot govern her boy, she can do even a better thing if she can inspire him with a purpose to _govern himself_; for a boy taught to govern himself is a better achievement than a boy merely governed. If a mother, therefore, is high-principled, religious, affectionate, if she never uses craft or deception, if she governs her temper and sets a good example, let her hold on in good hope, though she cannot produce the discipline of a man-of-war in her noisy little flock, or make all move as smoothly as some other women to whom God has given another and different talent; and let her not be discouraged, if she seem often to accomplish but little in that arduous work of forming human character wherein the great Creator of the world has declared Himself at times baffled. Family tolerance must take great account of the stages and periods of development and growth in children. The passage of a human being from one stage of development to another, like the sun’s passage across the equator, frequently has its storms and tempests. The change to manhood and womanhood often involves brain, nerves, body, and soul in confusion; the child sometimes seems lost to himself and his parents,--his very nature changing. In this sensitive state come restless desires, unreasonable longings, unsettled purposes; and the fatal habit of indulgence in deadly stimulants, ruining all the life, often springs from the cravings of this transition period.