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Our Duty to the Children: 58 total pages.

pleasant, if it is forbidden, and to yield their will to their parents and to others who are in place of parents. To do this and to do it bravely, to do it promptly and even cheer-fully, is the crown of childhood's work. For skilful hands and brain are useless and perhaps worse than useless if the will is ungoverned. If the will has learned obedience, all the discipline of thought and hand is turned to good account. We appreciate the value of the first innocence of childhood only when we know its use in after-life, and so with this lesson of obedience. If it were a mere question of the child's present hap­piness and our own, we might often not have the patience to teach his desires to obey; we might often with mistaken kindness yield. But consider the injury, the loss to the child. He fails to gain the mastery over his will, which of OBEDIENCE all forms of obedience is the most essential. By and by he will outgrow our care and he will have, of his own accord, to give obedience to the Lord's commandments. How easy this will be if he

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