More Gleanings from Bunyan's Characters by A. Whyte - Discipline

In talking of Obstinate and his parents 'Spare-the-Rod' and 'Spoil-the-Child', in 'Bunyan's Characters, Alexander Whyte gives the following on discipline;

"There are other ways of teaching an obstinate child than the way that Gideon took with the men of Succoth when he taught them with the thorns of the wilderness and with the briars thereof. George Offor, John Bunyan's somewhat quaint editor, gives the readers of his edition this personal testimony:--
'After bringing up avery large family, who are a blessing to their parents, I have yet tolearn what part of the human body was created to be beaten.'

At the sametime the rod must mean something in the word of God; it certainly means something in God's hand when His obstinate children are under it, and it ought to mean something in a godly parent's hand also.
Little Obstinate's two parents were far from ungodly people, though they lived in such a city; but they were daily destroying their only son by letting him always have his own way, and by never saying no to his greed, and his lies, and his anger, and his noisy and disorderly ways. Eli in the Old Testament was not a bad man, but he destroyed both the ark of the Lord and himself and his sons also, because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.

God's children are never so soft, and sweet, and good, and happy as just after He restrains them, and has again laid the rod of correction upon them.
They then kiss both the rod and Him who appointed it.
And earthly fathers learn their craft from God.
The meekness, the sweetness, the docility, and the love of a chastised child has gone to all our hearts in a way we can never forget. There is something sometimes almost past description or belief in the way a chastised child clings to and kisses the hand that chastised it."