It is a crime to inflict corporal punishment upon a child at any age. Might is never right, and as the stronger, parents should always have compassion for the weaker. But there is one feature of corporal punishment which makes it particularly dangerous to apply it to the youth: namely, that it wakens the passional nature which is already perhaps beyond the control of a growing boy.

If we whip a dog, we shall soon break its spirit and transform it into a cringing cur,[pg 198]and it is deplorable that some parents seem to regard it as their mission in life to break the spirit of their children with the rule of the rod. If there is one universal lack among the human race which is more apparent than any other, it is lack of will, and as parents we may remedy the evil in a large measure by guiding the wills of our children along such lines as dictated by our own more mature reason, so that we help them to grow a backbone instead of a wishbone with which unfortunately most of us are afflicted. Therefore, never whip a child; when punishment is necessary, correct by withholding favors or withdrawing privileges.

At the twenty-first year the birth of the mind transforms the youth into a man or a woman fully equipped to commence his own life in the school of experience.

Thus we have followed the human spirit around a life cycle from death to birth and maturity, we have seen how immutable law governs his every step and how he is ever encompassed by the loving care of the Great and Glorious Beings who are the ministers of God. The method of his future development will be explained in a later work which will deal with “The Christian Mystic Initiation.”