The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: 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.
 Agnes Grey |