would carefully refrain from all useless irritability and indulgence of my own ill temper: when they behaved tolerably, I would be as kind and obliging as it was in my power to be, in order to make the widest possible distinction between good and bad conduct; I would reason with them too in the simplest and most effective manner. When I reproved them, or refused to gratify their wishes, after a glaring fault, it should be more in sorrow than in anger: their little hymns and prayers I would make plain and clear to their understanding; when they said their prayers at night, and asked pardon for their offences, I would remind them of the sins of the past day, solemnly, but in perfect kindness, to avoid raising a spirit of opposition; penitential hymns should be said by the naughty, cheerful ones by the comparatively good; and every kind of instruction, I would convey to them, as much as possible, by entertaining discourse—apparently with no other object than their present amusement in view.
By these means I hoped, in time, both to benefit the children, and to gain the approbation of their parents; and, also, to convince my friends at home that I was not so wanting
