It will be easily perceived by the intelligent reader that there really
isn't any end to this story. The chronicler is forced to leave the
problems of the Brewster parents unsolved in many details, while the
Brewster children, in company with the present generation of young
Americans, are still growing up;--growing up, it is devoutly to be
hoped, into better men and women than their parents. Stronger
physically, more alert mentally, of clearer vision; better fitted to
carry the world's burdens and direct the world's activities. Unless the
Brewsters accomplish this much for their children they have failed in
the greatest thing given them to do; for it is not more wealth, better
houses, finer raiment that the world is crying out for, but better,
healthier and more inspired men and women. And, clearly, it rests with
the fathers and mothers as to whether their children shall reach this
higher level toward which humanity weakly struggles with tears and
groans. Is love and brotherhood to rule in a world wherein all the
finer qualities of mind and heart find room to grow and flourish? Or is
humanity to go on its old, old weary way, hating and being hated; the
strong trampling the weak under foot; the child often suffering from
ignorance and injustice--even in its own home; and growing up to carry
on the same false ideas.
There is much to be said on both sides of this question of child
government, and the writer of this little tale does not even pretend to
have said the last word. But let this much be remembered: "Spare the rod
and spoil the child," was spoken in the days when polygamy and
concubinage were the rule in the home. "Folly is bound up in the heart
of the child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him,"
was the dictum of an age whose customs would not be tolerated in these
days of higher civilisation and more illumined vision. The rack and the
thumb-screw, the gag, the branding-iron and the scourge have passed; we
shiver at the mere mention of the tortures inflicted upon human flesh in
those past ages of darkness; yet "the rod of correction" is still
tolerated--nay, even complacently advocated in our homes, though it has
been routed from our schools. Isn't it out of date? Doesn't it belong in
the museums with those ancient and rust-eaten instruments of torture?
Listen to this other saying, from a newer inspiration, a closer
fellowship with The Light of the World: "There is no fear in love; but
perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that
feareth is not made perfect in love." And this, from the fountainhead of
all wisdom: "And He took a little child and set him by his side and said
unto them, 'Whosoever shall receive this little child in my name
receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me;
_for he that is least among you all, the same is great_.'"
I submit this to you: Is it possible to conceive of Jesus Christ as
striking a little child?