In no case be easy and lenient to that which is _sin_,--not merely childish sport or thoughtlessness. Root up the smallest germ from which mean, low, or wicked habits will spring, with a kind but uncompromising firmness. You cannot guard your charge too closely here; but be most scrupulously careful that you are not overhasty in judging of the character of their faults, but have rightfully distinguished between deliberate, intentional wrong-doing and childish folly. Let your children feel that for the first you accept no excuse; for the latter you are lenient, full of loving-kindness and tender mercy. For disobedience that springs from stubbornness and a willful determination to do that which is forbidden at all hazards, be not cruel and harsh, but firm, and so severe that the child will have no doubt of your resolution to destroy the evil by meeting each act with quick retribution. Yet when compelled to punish, be so careful of your own heart that your erring one cannot but see that you are severe from no one emotion of anger, or because you are made uncomfortable, but because God has committed them to your care, and will demand a strict account of your stewardship. Be sure, in your dealings with your children, that they have no difficulty in seeing that you recognize a wide difference between overt sins and wrong done through childish thoughtlessness and ignorance; and while you gently point out the inconvenience and mischief apparent in consequence of their careless acts, seek to make it plain to them that you restrain because you do not like them to seek their sports and amusements selfishly, and at the expense of others’ comfort. Before you decide that any act of your children is really sinful and deserving punishment, examine and hear all that can be said in excuse or palliation. Then as to the mode of punishment, when it really becomes necessary, we think the parents’ judgment ought to be the surest guide, as they should better understand the characters they have to deal with. Some children, when they find that punishment is sure to follow wrong-doing, submit easily; others are resolute or defiant, and these traits should decide the nature of such infliction as the parent finds unavoidable. There are times with certain children when we think a sound whipping the most curative process; while to others it would be so humiliating as to irreparably injure the child’s character; but a whipping is not needed once, where some young, inexperienced, but conscientious parents employ it twenty times. Where it must be resorted to, let it be sufficiently severe to make a repetition a thing to be dreaded; but, if brutal, it is simply barbarity, not justice.