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Few proverbs "come home" to us like those which affect the daily government of our household. They make their appeal to the human heart, to universal experience.

I. THE PARENTAL INSTINCT.

1. This is, to let the child have his way; to give him the gratification be desires, to find a present pleasure in his momentary happiness.

2. This is, to spare him suffering. No parent can hear his child cry without suffering himself (herself). Our instinct is to save our children from every trouble, small and great, from which we can exempt them. And it "goes against the grain" to inflict punishment, to cause pain, to deprive of some known enjoyment. But we dare not be blind to -

II. THE LESSON OF EXPERIENCE. Universal experience proves that to act on mere parental instruct is nothing less than selfish cruelty. It is to act as if we positively hated our children. For it is the one sure way to spoil them for life, to ruin their character. The undisciplined child becomes the wayward boy, the dissipated young man, the wreck of manhood. He becomes self-centred, incapable of controlling his spirit, exacting in all his relations, disregardful of all law and of all claims. It is to withhold the one condition under which alone we can expect any one to attain to an admirable and honourable manhood. It is to deny to our own children the most essential element of education. Experience proves that he who spares the rod acts as if he positively hated his son.

III. THE PRACTICE OF WISDOM. This is the well-moderated correction of love. This correction should be:

1. Carefully proportioned to the offence; the lighter ones, such as carelessness or inaptitude, being followed by the lighter rebuke, and the graver ones, such as falsehood or cruelty, being visited with severer measures.

2. Administered, not in the heat of temper, but in the calmness of conviction, and with the manifest sorrow of true affection.

3. As free as possible from physical violence. The "rod" need not be made of wood or iron. A look of reproach (Luke 22:61), a just rebuke or remonstrance, a wisely chosen exclusion from some appreciated privilege, may do much more good than any blows upon the body.

4. Strictly just, with a leaning to charitable construction. For one unjust infliction will do more harm than many just ones will do good.

5. Occasional and of brief duration. Nothing defeats its own purpose more certainly than perpetual fault- finding, or constantly repeated punishment, or penalty that is unrighteously severe. It behoves us always to remember that as our heavenly Father does not "deal with us after our sins" with rigorous penalties, and is not "strict to mark iniquity" with unfailing chastisement, so it becomes us, as parents, in the treatment of our children, to let pity and charity have a very large, modifying influence on our correction. He that loveth chastens "betimes;" he is not always chastening. He takes care to let his children know and feel that beneath and above and throughout his fatherly righteousness is his parental love. - C.

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KJV: He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.

WEB: One who spares the rod hates his son, but one who loves him is careful to discipline him.