If a gardener, for example, were to pour sand from his watering-pot upon his flowers, in time of drought, instead of water, he might make something like a plausible defense of his action, in reply to a remonstrance, thus: "_I_ have no power to make the flowers grow and bloom.
The secret processes on which the successful result depends are altogether beyond my reach, and in the hands of God, and he can just as easily bless one kind of instrumentality as another.

I am bound to do something, it is true, for I must not be idle and inert; but God, if he chooses to do so, can easily bring out the flowers into beauty and bloom, however imperfect and ill-adapted the instrumentalities I use may be.

He can as easily make use, for this purpose, of sand as of water." Now, although there may be a certain plausibility in this reasoning, such conduct would appear to every one perfectly absurd; and yet many parents seem to act on a similar principle.

A mother who is from time to time, during the week, fretful and impatient, evincing no sincere and hearty consideration for the feelings, still less for the substantial welfare and happiness, of those dependent upon her; who shows her insubmission to the will of God, by complaints and repinings at any thing untoward that befalls her; and who evinces a selfish love for her own gratification--her dresses, her personal pleasures, and her fashionable standing; and then, as a means of securing the salvation of her children, is very strict, when Sunday comes, in enforcing upon them the study of their Sunday lessons, or in requiring them to read good books, or in repressing on that day any undue exuberance of their spirits--relying upon the blessing of God upon her endeavors--will be very apt to find, in the end, that she has been watering her delicate flowers with sand.
The means which we use to awaken or impart the feelings of sorrow for sin, submission to God, and cordial good-will to man, in which all true piety consists, must be means that are _appropriate in themselves_ to the accomplishment of the end intended.

The appliance must be water, and not sand--or rather water _or_ sand, with judgment, discrimination, and tact; for the gardener often finds that a judicious mixture of sand with the clayey and clammy soil about the roots of his plants is just what is required.