They would accomplish the end enjoined by the precepts of Solomon, namely, the complete subjection of their children to their authority, by improved methods not known in his day, or, at least, not so fully developed that they could then be relied upon.

They who imagine that parents are bound to use the rod as the instrumentality, because the Scriptures speak of the rod as the means of establishing parental authority best known in those days, instead of employing the more effective methods which the progress of improvement has developed and made available at the present day, ought, in order to be consistent, to insist on the retention of the harp in religious worship, because David enjoins it upon believers to "praise the Lord with harp:" to "sing unto him with psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings." The truth is, that what we are to look at in such injunctions is the end that is to be attained, which is, in this last case, the impressive and reverential exaltation of Almighty God in our minds by the acts of public worship; and if, with the improvements in musical instruments which have been made in modern times, we can do this more satisfactorily by employing in the place of a psaltery or a harp of ten strings an organ of ten or a hundred stops, we are bound to make the substitution.

In a word, we must look at the end and not at the means, remembering that in questions of Scripture interpretation the "letter killeth, the spirit maketh alive." _Protracted Contests with Obstinacy_.
It seems to me, though I am aware that many excellent persons think differently, that it is never wise for the parent to allow himself to be drawn into a contest with a child in attempting to compel him to do something that from ill-temper or obstinacy he refuses to do.

If the attempt is successful, and the child yields under a moderate severity of coercion, it is all very well.

But there is something mysterious and unaccountable in the strength of the obstinacy sometimes manifested in such cases, and the degree of endurance which it will often inspire, even in children of the most tender age.