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FAMILY GOVERNMENT. |
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cies, but they cannot afford to be subject to the disturbing influence of partiality.
I close this article by the following just observations on the duties of parents, by Mr. Abbott.
"In looking into human life, and seeing how entirely dependent for character and happiness the child is upon the parent, we cannot but consider it one of the greatest of the innumerable mysteries of divine providence, that one human being should be placed so completely in the hands of another. The wonder is increased by thinking how much skill, how much knowledge, how much firmness, what decision at one time, and what delicacy of moral touch, if I may so express it, at another, are necessary, in order to succeed in training up the infant mind as it ought to be trained. It would sometimes almost seem that God has given to parents a work to do, of such intrinsic difficulties, as very far exceed the capacities and the powers of those whom he was commissioned to execute it. There seems, at first view, to be a want of correspondence between what, in a wisely balanced plan, we might suppose ought to be nicely adapted to each other,—the moral capabilities of the parent and the moral necessities of the child. We say at first view, for on more mature reflection we discover simple principles |
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