30 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



appealed to when the design is to oppress or to corrupt 

 her: the Church defended her against the violence of 

 the powerful in days of yore, as it novf defends her 

 against the barbarity of sophists. It covers her with 

 the shield of its wrath, which the prophets so well speak 

 of* as '-tlic fury of the dove" and "the wrath of the 

 Lamb," and stretching over her its unarmed, but ter- 

 rible hand, it tells the monarch, quailing before it in 

 his pride and lust, 



"This woman is GocVs charge ; forbear thy haucl.''" 



[2. The Education of CMId re n.— F aihcv Ilyacinllio alluded to his 

 argument of last year's lecture, showing how education, being 

 the complement or rather the chief clement of parental autliorit}^ 

 the care of it belongs, of natural right, to the parents. The 

 State, doubtless, has the right to keep watch over instruction, 

 and to hinder anything from entering into it detrimental to pub- 

 lic morality and peace ; but it may not impose on families a sys- 

 tem of education, nor enforce the employment of such and such 

 a school or teacher.] 



The child belongs to its parents. I know the preju- 

 dices of my contemporaries; but I afhrm none the less, 

 in some measure, a right of property of man in man ; 

 and there can be no example of this sort of right more 

 legitimate and noble than that of the right of the father 

 to the child. Doubtless the person of every human be- 

 ing is essentially free and sovereign ; it belongs to itself, 

 under the "eminent domaiiv' of God. But it is not so 

 with its nature. Saving and excepting tlie rights of 

 the person, we may say — we 'inust say — that the nature 

 of the son belongs to the fallier. It is llesh of his flesh 

 and bone of his bone. The breath which inspires it is 

 breathed from his nostrils. The vital heat which ani- 



♦ Je»'omiah, xxv. ?^ (Viil;,'aie, " a fcicle ircc columb.z:") Iloveialion, vi. IC. 



