ou are about to whip a child five years of
age. What is the child to do? Suppose a man, as much larger than you
are larger than a child five years old, should come at you with
liberty-pole in hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "Who broke the
plate?" There is not a solitary one of you who wouldn't swear you
never saw it, or that it was cracked when you found it. Why not be
honest with these children? Just imagine a man who deals in stocks
putting false rumors afloat!

Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for evading the
truth, when he makes half of his own living that way! Think of a
minister punishing his child for not telling all he thinks! Just think
of it! When your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it
feel your heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you
really and truly and sincerely love it. Yet some Christians, good
Christians, when a child commits a fault, drive it from the door, and
say, "Never do you darken this house again." Think of that! And then
these same people will get down on their knees and ask God to take care
of the child they have driven from home. I will never ask God to take
care of my children unless I am doing my level best in that same
direction. But I will tell you what I say to my children: "Go where
you will; commit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation
you may; you can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my
arms, my heart to you; as long as I live you shall have no more sincere
friend."

Do you know, I have seen some people who acted as though they thought
when the Savior said, "Suffer little children to come unto me, for such
is the Kingdom of Heaven," that he had a rawhide under his mantle and
made that remark to get the children within striking distance. I don't
believe in the government of the lash. If any one of you ever expect
to whip your children again after you hear me, I want you to have a
photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face
red with vulgar anger; and then the face of the little child, with eyes
swimming in tears, and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece
of water struck by a sudden, cold wind. Have the picture taken. If
that little child should die, I cannot find a sweeter way to spend an
autumn afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are
clad in bright colors, and little scarlet runners are coming, like
poems of regret, from the s