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The seeds of misery and madness have been sowed in the nights of in

fancy :

Therefore be careful that ghastly fears be not the night companions of thy

child.

Lo, thou art a land-mark on a hill; thy little ones copy thee in all things.
Let, then, thy religion be perfect: so shalt thou be honoured in thy house.
Be instructed in all wisdom, and communicate that thou knowest,
Otherwise thy learning is hidden, and thus thou seemest unwise.
A sluggard hath no respect; an epicure commandeth not reverence;
Meanness is always despicable, and folly provoketh contempt.

Those parents are best honoured whose characters best deserve it ;
Show me a shild undutiful, I shall know where to look for a foolish father.
Never hath a father done his duty, and lived to be despised of his son.
But how can that son reverence an example he dare not follow ?
Should he imitate thee in thine evil? his scorn is thy rebuke.
Nay, but bring him up aright, in obedience to God and to thee;
Begin betimes, lest thou fail of his fear; and with judgment, that thou
lose not his love:

Herein use good discretion, and govern not all alike,

Yet, perhaps, the fault will be in thee, if kindness prove not all-sufficient . By kindness, the wolf and the zebra become docile as the spaniel and the

horse:

The kite feedeth with the starling, under the law of kindness:

That law shall tame the fiercest, bring down the battlements of pride,
Cherish the weak, control the strong, and win the fearful spirit.

Be obeyed when thou commandest; but command not often:

Let thy carriage be the gentleness of love, not the stern front of tyranny.
Make not one child a warning to another; but chide the offender apart :
For self-conceit and wounded pride rankle like poisons in the soul.
A mild rebuke in the season of calmness, is better than a rod in the heat
of passion,

Nevertheless spare not, if thy word hath passed for punishment;

Let not thy child see thee humbled, nor learn to think thee false;

Suffer none to reprove thee before him, and reprove not thine own pur

poses by change;

Yet speedily turn thou again, and reward him where thou canst,

For kind encouragement in good cutteth at the roots of evil.

Drive not a timid infant from his home, in the early spring-time of his life, Commit not that treasure to an hireling, nor wrench the young heart's

fibres :

In his helplessness leave him not alone, a stranger among strange children,
Where affection longeth for thy love, counting the dreary hours;
Where religion is made a terror, and innocence weepeth unheard;
Where oppression grindeth without remedy, and cruelty delighteth in
smiting.

Wherefore comply with an evil fashion? Is it not to spare thee trouble? į Can he gather no knowledge at thy mouth? Wilt thou yield thine honour to another?

What can he gain in learning, to equal what he loseth in innocence?
Alas! for the price above gold, by which such learning cometh!
For emulative pride and envy are the specious idols of the diligent,
Oaths and foul-mouthed sin burn in the language of the idle:
Bolder in that mimic world of boys stareth brazen-fronted vice,

Than thereafter in the haunts of men, where society doth shame her into

corners.

My soul, look well around thee, ere thou give thy timid infant unto sorrows.
There be many that say, We were happiest in days long past,
When our deepest care was an ill-conned book,

And when we sported in that merry sunshine of our life,

Sadness a stranger to the heart, and cheerfulness its gay inhabitant.
True, ye are now less pure, and therefore are more wretched:
But have ye quite forgotten how sorely ye travailed at your tasks,
How childish griefs and disappointments bowed down the childish mind?
How sorrow sat upon your pillow, and terror hath waked thee up betimes,
Dreading the strict hand of justice, that will not wait for a reason,
Or the whims of petty tyrants, children like yourselves,

Or the pestilent extract of evil poured into the ear of innocence ?
Behold the coral island, fresh from the floor of the Atlantic,

It is dinted by every ripple, and a soft wave can smooth its surface;
But soon its substance hardeneth in the winds and tropic sun,
And weakly the foaming billows break against its adamantine wall;
Even thus, though sin and care dash upon the firmness of manhood,
The timid child is wasted most by his petty troubles;

And seldom, when life is mature, and the strength proportioned to the

burden,

Will the feeling mind, that can remember, acknowledge to deeper anguish,

Than when, as a stranger and a little one, the heart first ached with

anxiety,

And the sprouting buds of sensibility were bruised by the harshness of a

school.

My soul, look well around thee, ere thou give thine infant unto sorrows.
Yet there be boisterous tempers, stout nerves, and stubborn hearts,
And there is a riper season, when the mind is well disciplined in good,
And a time, when youth may be bettered by the wholesome occasions of
knowledge,

Which rarely will it meet with so well as among the congregation of his fellows.

Only for infancy, fond mother, rend not those first affections;

Only for the sensitive and timorous, consign not thy darling unto misery.

A man looketh on his little one, as a being of better hope;
In himself ambition is dead, but it hath a resurrection in his son;
That vein is yet untried,—and who can tell if it be not golden?
While his, well-nigh worked out, never yielded aught but lead:
And thus is he hurt more sorely, if his wishes are defeated there;
He has staked his all upon a throw, and lo! the dice have foiled him.
All ways, and at all times, men follow on in flocks,

And the rife epidemic of the day shall tincture the stream of education;
Fashion is a foolish watcher posted at the tree of knowledge,

Who plucketh its unripe fruit to pelt away the birds:

But for its golden apples,—they dry upon the boughs,

And few have the courage or the wisdom to eat in spite of fashion:

One while, the fever is to learn, what none will be wiser for knowing, Exploded errors in extinct tongues, and occasions for their use are small; And the bright morning of life, for years of misspent time,

Wasted in following sounds, hath tracked up little sense,

Till at noon a man is thrown upon the world, with a mind expert in trifles,
Having yet every thing to learn, that can make him good or useful:
The curious spirit of youth is crammed with unwholesome garbage,
While starving for the mother's milk the breasts of nature yield;
And high-coloured fables of depravity lure with their classic varnish,
While truth is holding out in vain her mirror much despised.

Of olden time, the fashion was for arms, to make an accomplished slayer, And set gregarious man a-tilting with his fellows,

Thereafter, occult sciences, and mystic arts, and symbols,
How to exorcise a wizard, and how to lay a ghost;

Anon, all for gallantry and presence, the minuet, the palfrey, and the foil, And the grand aim of education was to produce a coxcomb;

Soon came scholastical dispute with hydra-headed argument,

And the true philosophy of mind confounded in a labyrinth of words:

Then, the Pantheon, and its orgies, initiating docile childhood,

While diligent youth strove hard to render his all unto Cæsar;

And now is seen the passion for utility, when all things are accounted by

their price,

And the wisdom of the wise is busied in hatching golden eggs.

Perchance, not many moons to come, and all will again be for abstrusity,
Unravelling the figured veil that hideth Egypt's gods;

Or in those strange Avatars seeking benignant Vishnu,
Kali and Kamala the fair, and much-invoked Ganesa. (27)

The mines of knowledge are oft laid bare through the forked hazel wand of chance,

And in a mountain of quartz we find a grain of gold.

Of a truth it were well to know all things, and to learn them all at once,
And what, though mortal insufficiency attain to small knowledge of any?
Man loveth exclusions, delighting in the sterile trodden path,

While the broad green meadow is jewelled with wild flowers:
And whether, is it better with the many to follow a beaten track,
Or by eccentric wanderings to cull unheeded sweets?

When his reason yieldeth fruit, make thy child thy friend;

For a filial friend is a double gain, a diamond set in gold.

As an infant, thy mandate was enough, but now let him see thy reasons; Confide in him, but with discretion; and bend a willing ear to his questions. More to thee than to all beside, let him owe good counsel and good

guidance:

Let him feel his pursuits have an interest, more to thee than to all beside. Watch his native capacities; nourish that which suiteth him the readiest; And cultivate early those good inclinations wherein thou fearest he is most

lacking:

Is he phlegmatic and desponding? let small successes comfort his hope; Is he obstinate and sanguine? let petty crosses accustom him to life. Showeth he a sordid spirit? be quick, and teach him generosity;

Inclineth he to liberal excess? prove to him how hard it is to earn. Gather to thy hearth such friends as are worthy of honour and attention, For the company a man chooseth is a visible index of his heart:

But let not the pastor whom thou hearest be too much a familiar in thy house,

For thy children may see his infirmities, and learn to cavil at his teaching.
It is well to take hold on occasions, and render indirect instruction;
It is better to teach upon a system, and reap the wisdom of books:
The history of nations yieldeth grand outlines: of persons, minute details:
Poetry is polish to the mind, and high abstractions cleanse it.

Consider the station of thy son, and breed him to his fortune with judg

ment:

The rich may profit in much which would bring small advantage to the

poor.

But with all thy care for thy son, with all thy strivings for his welfare, Expect disappointment, and look for pain: for he is of an evil stock, and will grieve thee.

OF TOLERANCE.

A WISE man in a crowded street winneth his way with gentleness,
Nor rudely pusheth aside the stranger that standeth in his path;

He knoweth that blind hurry will but hinder, stirring up contention against him,

Yet holdeth he steadily right on, with his face to the scope of his pursuit:
Even so, in the congress of opinions, the bustling highway of intelligence,
Each man should ask of his neighbour, and yield to him again concession.
Terms ill defined, and forms misunderstood, and customs, where their
reasons are unknown,

Have stirred up many zealous souls to fight against imaginary giants:
But wisdom will hear the matter out, and often, by keenness of perception,
Will find in strange disguise the precious truth he seeketh:

So he leaveth unto prejudice or taste the garb and the manner of her

presence,

Content to see so nigh the mistress of his love.

There is no similitude in nature that owneth not also to a difference,

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