Page:Maria, or, The wanderer reclaim'd.pdf/4

Rh ſome medium between the implacability of unforgiveneſs, and the too eaſy lenity, which invites to offend. Surely there are wiſe parents who can diſcern the happy mean betwixt the ſevere rule, which terrifies; and the weak indulgence, which produces contempt. Unhappily for me, my dear father was a ſtranger to this medium. He had very high notions of the parental authority, and was continually extolling to the ſkies thoſe underſtanding ſtates, as he called them, which gave into the hands of the parent unlimited power over the child, even the power of life and death. He had not the leaſt idea of governing by love: he thought fear the beſt ſecurity of duty, and would conſtantly complain that the notorious diſobedience of children, and their ſaucy pertneſs (as he ſtiled it, though others would have named it only a becoming familiarity) aroſe from a relaxation of the parental authority; and if parents were ſo mad, (he would continue) as to give the reins out of their own into the hands of their children, they muſt not be ſurprized, if their children drove themſelves into ruin, and their parents into the deepeſt gulph of ſorrow.

Conſtantly accuſtomed to theſe leſſons, never allowed to enter into his preſence but with the moſt reverential courtesy never permitted to ſpeak to him, but with the ſolemn appellation of, Sir; very rarely