Pg. 294

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 6 THE SPOILED CHILD. [294

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 3 sion: “my eyes are opened to the calamity that has befallen us. But, oh! Sir,” he added, as he grasped the Pas- tor’s hand, “how can I retrace my steps? O my God have mercy, have mercy on my poor spoiled child! God of my fathers, who didst in thy tender compassion bring me into thy fold, look in mercy on my poor son! Thou, O Lord, didst convert a Manasseh, and didst arrest a persecuting Saul in his wicked course on the way to Damascus to murder thy saints, and didst reclaim the sottish prodigal: O have mercy on my son! Let the riches of thy grace, Father in heaven, triumph one day in his return to thee and to his parents’ heart! You may well ask me, dear Pastor, why I do not correct him. Could I succeed in detaching him from his companions, then, perhaps, I might do it with some hope; but until that be done, correction may only drive him to a more desperate resistance; or, more probably, to a final abandonment of my roof; and ultimately to the commission of some fearful crime; and thence—my soul is tortured at the bare possibility of it—to a public and ignominious suffering ! But I have not yet revealed the secret cause of all this mischief. There is a demon in him, which sets at defiance Christian discipline and the rod of correction: yes, in him, young as he is—I mean THE LUST OF STRONG DRINK! This, with the influence of vicious companions, has, I am grieved to say, seared, as with a hot iron, the sensibilities of his conscience and of natural affection. O! I look back on the past, and I see my fatal errors staring me in the face!”

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 “Did you not commit a great error,” said the Pastor with tenderness, “in not sustaining the discipline under which his teacher sought judiciously and faithfully to bring the daring and turbulent spirit of this youth? This I once re- collect to have witnessed, and ventured to predict the result.”

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0  “We did, dear Pastor, we did,” was the answer, as he cast his eyes on his afflicted wife with more of sorrow than reproof, “we did: and here is an exceedingly great evil under the sun, and an error committed by almost every parent. The teacher is one of the most useful officers in the republic; one of the most necessary and influential office-bearers among us; one who walks forth over the land, bearing the future destinies of our country and the church, as