MRS. SIGOURNEY'S LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 From the Daily Courant, Hartford, Conn. 
 " Mrs. Sigourney has published a new work, under the title of 
 ' Letters to Mothers.' The sentiments and principles inculcated 
 in these letters, like everything from the pen of this amiable, in- 
 telligent, and excellent woman, are practical, useful, and imbued 
 with the spirit of pure morality and elevated piety. Mrs. Sig- 
 ourney's standard is found in the Bible. All her didactic works 
 have an immediate reference to the religion of the Bible ; and 
 none of her writings disclose a sentiment or a doctrine that is 
 not founded upon the immoveable basis of genuine Christianity. 
 We have no doubt that this will prove to be one of the most pop- 
 ular of her works." 
 
 From the Connecticut Observer, Hartford. 
 " ' Letters to Mothers,' by Mrs. Sigourney, is, if we mistake 
 not, destined to be one of the most useful, as it is one of the best 
 written and most interesting productions of the accomplished au- 
 thor. It is a gift to mothers, which they cannot fail to appreciate, 
 and for which they will not be slow to be grateful. While its 
 subjects are treated in a manner intelligible to readers of every 
 class, the polished style, the classical allusions, and the rich senti- 
 ments will win its way to families of the highest intelligence and 
 refinement ; and in many such circles will diffuse a deep feeling 
 of responsibility, and a strong regard to moral cultivation." 
 
 From the New- York American. 
 
 " The last two productions of Mrs. Sigourney's pen have prob- 
 ably been the most useful productions of the day, and will retain 
 their rank among the chosen volumes of every domestic library, 
 perpetuating the virtue which cherishes them. The great charm 
 of these writings is, that while others are striving to fill the head 
 with new ideas, by familiar treatises on subjects in themselves 
 abstruse, these attempt, with success, the culture of the heart. 
 We cannot too earnestly recommend to mothers eagerly to avail 
 themselves of the privilege of reading and enjoying these letters."
 
 2 SIGOURNEY'S LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 From the Churchman, New- York. 
 
 " Several books on education have lately issued from the press, 
 none of which will be read by mothers with as much pleasure as 
 this volume of Letters, peculiarly addressed to them. The author 
 writes as one who loves her subject, and appreciates its impor- 
 tance ; and she has enlivened her work with such a variety of 
 illustration as could flow only from a well-stored and accom- 
 plished mind. There are few, we believe, of that class of readers 
 for whom the work is especially designed, that may not receive 
 from it valuable hints, be impressed by it with a higher sense of 
 their responsibilities, and animated, at the same time, in the dis- 
 charge of them." 
 
 From the New- Yorker. 
 
 " The ' Letters to Mothers,' just published, we must regard as 
 one of the noblest, if not the most aspiring effort, of Mrs. Sig- 
 ourney's gifted mind. Its lessons seem to come directly from the 
 heart, and no mother can peruse them without being deeply af- 
 fected, as well as edified. They overflow with genuine poetry 
 and Christian love. Not alone by mothers, they may be read by 
 children also, with great interest and profit ; and every pure mind 
 will delight in their fair pages of blended anecdote and precept. 
 Need we urge that this work should be everywhere diffused and 
 studied 1" 
 
 From the Boston Weekly Magazine. 
 
 " Mrs. Sigourney's ' Letters to Mothers' present, in a most at- 
 tractive form, the privileges and enjoyments, the duties, cares, and 
 consolations of maternal life. This excellent book cannot be read 
 without profit by any one who is in any way concerned in the 
 management of children. A vein of deep, strong feeling runs 
 through the work, giving it an interest which it could not other- 
 wise possess. The affectionate mother, the humble Christian, the 
 lofty aspirations of a spirit accustomed to look beyond the present 
 scene, are everywhere observable, while a rich and even poetic 
 flow of diction gives vigour and zest to the style."
 
 SIGOURNEY'S LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 From the United States Gazette, Philadelphia. 
 " It is delightful, among the numerous volumes which the press 
 is daily and almost hourly pouring forth, to meet occasionally with 
 works emanating from the holy principle of rendering the human 
 family wiser and better, works which cannot be read by young or 
 old without profit. Of this class, we have gone through, with 
 singular pleasure, the book whose title is prefixed to this article. 
 It contains as great a mass of excellence, with as little alloy, as 
 probably any book extant, and is from the pen of the amiable Mrs. 
 Sigourney, whose talents have been for years devoted to the best 
 of all purposes, the promotion of human virtue, and its concomi- 
 tant, human happpiness. No woman, married or single, ought to 
 be without a copy of this work, the rules of which would be an 
 admirable guide in all the various situations in which her sex are 
 placed." 
 
 From the Boston Recorder. 
 
 " Are there mothers among us who have not possessed them- 
 selves of this precious manual, and who still desire to be enlight- 
 ened and guided in the discharge of their momentous duties'? 
 Let them take it ; study it ; pray over it ; and store away its vast 
 fund of invaluable maxims and hints in some department of the 
 mind, whence they may be readily drawn forth for daily use. 
 The writings of Mrs. Sigourney are of a class that needs no rec- 
 ommendation other than they carry along with them wherever 
 they go. The gentle and elevated piety, that breathes from every 
 page ; the matured thought, that enriches every paragraph ; the 
 simplicity and beauty, that marks every sentence, give them a sort 
 of fascination, which defies criticism, and allures the reader, irre- 
 sistibly, from step to step, till at length he finds himself, too soon, 
 at the point where his instructor bids him farewell. Let every 
 father supply the mother of his children with this volume, and 
 master its contents himself, that he may be prepared to discuss its 
 main topics familiarly and thoroughly with the companion of his 
 life, for their mutual benefit in the business common to them both, 
 of educating their offspring for usefulness and heaven." 

 
 4 SIGOURNEY'S LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 From the Christian Witness, Boston. 
 
 " The mothers of our country our country itself will be more 
 indebted to Mrs. Sigourney for the truths which she has taught, 
 for the interest which she will have awakened, in one of the most 
 momentous of our concerns, than even for the rich beauties in 
 which she has dressed, and by which she has enlivened her subject. 
 If the book were in the hands of every American mother, and if 
 its truths were carefully studied, cordially embraced, and faithfully 
 practised, it would do more, the divinely instituted means of grace 
 alone excepted, more, perhaps, than any one book, in elevating, 
 improving, and blessing the whole population of our country. 
 What other class of beings in the land, taken as a class, are of 
 such unspeakable importance as that addressed by Mrs. Sigour- 
 ney 1 What class wield so deep, so permanent, so universal an 
 influence as they 1 And if, as a body, they were to embrace 
 right views of their station, their responsibilities, and their influ- 
 ence, and faithfully to act in carrying those views into practice, 
 what other class could do such widespread, such everlasting good, 
 to the interests and to the institutions of the American people 1 
 Let the mothers of the land combine to do their duty to the bod- 
 ies and souls of their immortal offspring, and they would be an 
 unorganized association indeed, but, still, a more powerful associ- 
 ation for good than any other in existence without a divine con- 
 stitution. In truth, it would be a divinely constituted society, 
 carrying in its very being the seal of a charter from God. 
 
 " We should like to enter into a more particular analysis of 
 these ' Letters to Mothers.' But perhaps what we have said 
 may be as effectual as such an analysis would be, in calling atten- 
 tion to its contents. We would commend the whole to faithful 
 study. It abounds in distinct subjects of thought, many of which 
 are as important to the father as to the mother, and all of which 
 lead into the very depths, the secret places, the hidden springs of 
 human interests and of human happiness." 
 
 RECENTLY PUBLISHED, 
 
 LETTERS TO YOUNG LADIES. BY MRS. SIGOURNEY. 
 Seventh Edition.
 
 LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 MOTHERS. 
 
 MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY. 
 
 t \ 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, CLIFF STREET. 
 
 1839.
 
 
 ..Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, by 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.] 

 
 3 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE. . . . 7 
 
 LETTER I. 
 PRIVILEGES OF THE MOTHER. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN UPON PARENTS. . 18 
 
 LETTER III. 
 INFANCY. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 FIRST LESSONS. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 MATERNAL LOVE 45 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 HABIT. . . .54 
 
 631091
 
 LETTER VII. 
 HEALTH 68 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 ECONOMY. . . 84 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 EARLY CULTURE. . 93 
 
 LETTER X. 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. . .105 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 IDIOM OF CHARACTER ..... ,Jfc. *. . . 121 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 SCHOOLS. . 139 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. . .151 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 DUTY TO THE COMMUNITY. . .170 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 READING AND THINKING. . . .181 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 EXAMPLE. . . 190
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 OPINION OF WEALTH. . 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 HOSPITALITY 222 
 
 LETTER XIX 
 RESPECT TO AGE 231 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 HAPPINESS 239 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 ADVERSITY. . .252 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 LOSS OF CHILDREN. . 261 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 SICKNESS AND DECLINE. , .274 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 DEATH.

 
 I 
 
 , 
 PREFACE, 
 
 ADDRESSED TO MOTHERS. 
 
 You are sitting with your child in your arms. So 
 am I. And I have never been as happy before. Have 
 you ? How this new affection seems to spread a soft, 
 fresh green over the soul. Does not the whole heart 
 blossom thick with plants of hope, sparkling with 
 perpetual dew-drops? What a loss, had we passed 
 through the world without tasting this purest, most 
 exquisite fount of love. 
 
 Now, how shall we bring up this babe, which Heaven 
 hath lent us? Great need have we to repeat the 
 question of the father of Samson, to the angel who 
 announced his birth, " how shall we order the child ?" 
 Surely, we shall unite with fervour in his supplication 
 to the Father of Angels, " teach us what we shall do 
 unto the child ?" 
 
 Are you a novice? I am one also. Let us learn 
 together. The culture of young minds, in their more 
 advanced stages, has indeed been entrusted to me, 
 and I have loved the office. But never before have 
 I been so blest, as to nurture the infant, when as a
 
 germ quickened by Spring, it opens the folding-doors 
 of its little heart, and puts forth the thought, the pre- 
 ference, the affection, like filmy radicles, or timid ten- 
 drils, seeking where to twine. 
 
 Ah ! how much have we to learn, that we may 
 bring this beautiful and mysterious creature to the 
 light of knowledge, the perfect bliss of immortality ! 
 Hath any being on earth a charge more fearfully 
 important than that of the Mother 1 God help us to 
 be faithful, in proportion to the immensity of our 
 trust. 
 
 The soul, the soul of the babe, whose life is nou- 
 rished by our own ! Every trace that we grave upon 
 it, will stand forth at the judgment, when the " books 
 are opened." Every waste-place, which we leave 
 through neglect, will frown upon us, as an abyss, 
 when the mountains fall, and the skies shrivel like 
 a scroll. Wherever we go, let us wear as a signet- 
 ring, "the child! the child!" Amid all the musick 
 of life, let this ever be the key-tone, "the soul of 
 our child." 
 
 L. H. S.
 
 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 PRIVILEGES OF THE MOTHER. 
 
 MY FRIEND, if hi becoming a mother, you have 
 reached the climax of your happiness, you have also 
 taken a higher place in the scale of being. A most 
 important part is allotted you, in the economy of the 
 great human family. Look at the gradations of your 
 way onward ; your doll, your playmates, your les- 
 sons ; perhaps to decorate a beautiful person ; to 
 study the art of pleasing ; to exult in your own at- 
 tractions ; to feed on adulation ; to wear the garland 
 of love; and then to introduce into existence a being 
 never to die ; and to feel your highest, holiest ener- 
 gies enlisted to lit it for this world and the next. 
 , No longer will you now live for self; no longer 
 j be noteless and unrecorded, passing away without 
 1 name or memorial among the people. It can no 
 more be reproachfully said of you, that "you lend 
 all your graces to the grave, and keep no copy."
 
 10 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 * 
 
 " My cousin Mary of Scotland hath a fair son born 
 unto her, and I am but a dead tree," said Queen 
 Elizabeth, while the scowl of discontent darkened 
 her brow. In bequeathing your own likeness to the 
 world, you will naturally be anxious to array it in 
 that beauty of virtue, which fades not at the touch of 
 time. What a scope for your exertions, to render 
 your representative, an honour to its parentage, and 
 a blessing to its country. 
 
 You have gained an increase of power. The in- 
 fluence which is most truly valuable, is that of mind 
 over mind. How entire and perfect is this dominion, 
 over the unformed character of your infant. Write 
 what you will, upon that printless tablet, with your 
 wand of love. Hitherto, your influence over your 
 dearest friend, your most submissive servant, has 
 known bounds and obstructions. Now, you have 
 over a new-born immortal, almost that degree of 
 power which the mind exercises over the body, and 
 which Aristotle compares to the " sway of a prince 
 over a bond-man." The period of this influence 
 must indeed pass away; but while it lasts, make 
 good use of it. 
 
 Wise men have said, and the world begins to be- 
 lieve, that it is the province of woman to teach. You 
 then, as a mother, are advanced to the head of that 
 profession. I congratulate you. You hold that 
 license which authorizes you to teach always. You 
 have attained that degree in the College of Instruc-
 
 PRIVILEGES OF THE MOTHER. 11 
 
 tion, by which your pupils are continually in your 
 presence, receiving lessons whether you intend it or 
 not, and if the voice of precept be silent, fashioning 
 themselves on the model of your example. You can- 
 not escape their imitation. You cannot prevent them 
 from carrying into another generation, the stamp of 
 those habits which they inherit from you. If you 
 are thoughtless, or supine, an unborn race will be 
 summoned as witnesses of your neglect. 
 
 " Meantime, the mighty debt runs on, 
 
 The dread account proceeds, 
 
 And your not-doing is set down 
 
 Among your darkest deeds." 
 
 In ancient times, the theory that the mother was 
 designated by nature as an instructor, was sometimes 
 admitted and illustrated. The philosopher Aristip- 
 pus was the pupil of maternal precepts. Revered 
 for his wisdom, he delighted in the appellation of 
 Metrodidactos, the " taught of his mother." 
 
 " We are indebted," says duintilian, for the elo- 
 quence of the Gracchi, to their mother Cornelia," 
 who, though qualified to give publick lectures in 
 philosophy at Rome, did not forget to be the faithful 
 teacher in private, of those, whom she so justly styled 
 "her jewels." St. Jerome also bears similar testi- 
 mony. " The eloquence of the Gracchi derived its 
 perfection from the mother's elegance and purity of 
 language." 

 
 12 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Should heathen mothers be permitted to be more 
 faithful in their duties, than those who are under 
 bonds to the life-giving Gospel? "A good mother," 
 says the eloquent L'Aime Martin, " will seize upon 
 her child's heart, as her special field of activity. To 
 be capable of this, is the great end of female educa- 
 tion. I have shewn that no universal agent of civil- 
 ization exists, but through mothers. Nature has 
 placed in their hands, our infancy and youth. I 
 have been among the first to declare the necessity 
 of making them, by improved education, capable of 
 fulfilling their natural mission. The love of God 
 and man, is the basis of this system. In proportion 
 as it prevails, national enmities will disappear, preju- 
 dices become extinguished, civilization spread itself 
 far and wide, one great people cover the earth, and 
 the reign of God be established. This is to be has- 
 tened, by the watchful care of mothers over their 
 offspring, from the cradle upwards." 
 
 What an appeal to mothers ! What an acknow- 
 ledgement of the dignity of their office ! The aid 
 of the "weaker vessel," is now invoked by legislators 
 and sages. It has been discovered that there are 
 signs of disease in the body politick, which can .be 
 best allayed, by the subordination taught in families, 
 and through her agency to whom is committed the 
 "moulding of the whole mass of mind in its first 
 formation." 
 
 Woman is surely more deeply indebted to the
 
 PRIVILEGES OP THE MOTHER. 13 
 
 government that protects her, than man, who bears 
 within his own person the elements of self-defence. 
 But how shall her gratitude be best made an opera- 
 tive principle ? Secluded as she wisely is, from any 
 share in the administration of government, how shall 
 her patriotism find legitimate exercise ? The admix- 
 ture of the female mind in the ferment of political 
 ambition, would be neither safe, if it were permitted, 
 nor to be desired, if it were safe. Nations who have 
 encouraged it, have usually found their cabinet- 
 councils perplexed by intrigue, or turbulent with 
 contention. History has recorded instances, where 
 the gentler sex have usurped the sceptre of the mo- 
 narch, or invaded the province of the warrior. But 
 we regard them either with amazement, as a planet 
 rushing from its orbit, or with pity, as the lost Pleiad, 
 forsaking its happy and brilliant sisterhood. 
 
 Still, patriotism is a virtue in our sex, and there 
 is an office where it may be' called into action, a pri- 
 vilege which the proudest peer might envy. It de- 
 pends not on rank or wealth, the canvassings of par- 
 ty, or the fluctuations of the will of the people. Its 
 throne is the heart, its revenue in Eternity. This 
 office is that nfjmptp.rn n.1 jpnr.her. It is hers by here- 
 ditary right. Let her make it an inalienable posses- 
 sion. Nature invested her with it, when giving her 
 the key of the infant soul, she bade her enter it 
 through the affections. Her right to its first love, 
 her intuitive discernment of its desires and impulses, 
 2
 
 
 14 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 her tact in detecting the minutest shades of tempera- 
 ment, her skill in forming the heart to her purpose, 
 are proofs both of her prerogative, and of the Divine 
 Source, whence it emanates. 
 
 It seems fully conceded, that the vital interests of 
 our country may be aided by the zeal of mothers. 
 Exposed as it is, to the influx of untutored foreign- 
 ers, often unfit for its institutions, or adverse to their 
 spirit, it seems to have been made a repository for 
 the waste and refuse of other nations. To neutral- 
 ize this mass, to rule its fermentations, to prevent it 
 from becoming a lava-stream in the garden of liberty, 
 and to purify it for those channels where the life- 
 blood of the nation circulates, is a work of power 
 and peril. The force of public opinion, or the ter- 
 ror of law, must hold in check these elements of 
 danger, until Education can restore them to order 
 and beauty. Insubordination, is becoming a promi- 
 nent feature in some of our principal cities. Obe- 
 dience in families, respect to magistrates, and love 
 of country, should therefore be inculcated with in- 
 creased energy, by those who have earliest access to 
 the mind. A barrier to the torrent of corruption, 
 and a guard over the strong-holds of knowledge and 
 of virtue, may be placed by the mother, as she watch- 
 es over her cradled son. Let her come forth with 
 vigour and vigilance, at the call of her country, not 
 like Boadicea in her chariot, .but like the mother of 
 / Washington, feeling that the first lesson to every
 
 ^ 
 
 PRIVILEGES OP THE MOTHER. 15 
 
 incipient ruler should be, "how to obey." The de- 
 gree of her diligence in preparing her children to be 
 good subjects of a just government, will be the true 
 measure of her patriotism. While she labours to 
 pour- a pure and heavenly spirit into the hearts that 
 open around her, she knows not but she may be 
 appointed to rear some future statesman, for her 
 nation's helm, or priest for the temple of Jehovah. 
 i But a loftier ambition will inspire the Christian 
 mother, that of preparing "fellow-citizens for the 
 saints in glory." All other hopes should be held 
 secondary, all other distinctions counted adventitious 
 and fleeting. That she may be enabled to fulfil a 
 j mission so sacred, Heaven has given her priority and 
 '' power, and that she may learn the nature of the soul 
 j which she is ordained to modify, has permitted her 
 to be the first to look into it, as into the cup of some 
 opening flower, fresh from the Forming Hand. The 
 dignity of her office admits of no substitute. It is 
 hers to labour day and night, with patience, and in 
 joyful hope. It is hers to lead forth the affections 
 in healthful beauty, and prompt their heavenward 
 aspirings. It is hers to foster tenderness of con- 
 science, and so to regulate its balance that it swerve 
 not amid the temptations of untried life. It is hers 
 so to rivet principle, that it may retain its integrity, 
 
 (both " beneath the cloud, and under the sea." And 
 as she labours for God, so she labours for her coun- 
 try, since whatever tends to prepare for citizenship
 
 16 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 in heaven, cannot fail to make good and loyal sub- 
 jects of any just government on earth. 
 
 This, then, is the patriotism of woman, not to 
 thunder in senates, or to usurp dominion, or to seek 
 the clarion-blast of fame, but faithfully to teach by 
 precept and example, that wisdom, integrity, and 
 peace, which are the glory of a nation. Thus, in 
 the wisdom of Providence, has she been prepared by 
 the charm of life's fairest season, for the happiness 
 of love; incited to rise above the trifling amuse- 
 ments and selfish pleasures which once engrossed 
 her, that she might be elevated to the maternal dig- 
 nity ; cheered under its sleepless cares by a new 
 affection ; girded for its labours by the example of 
 past ages ; and adjured to fidelity in its most sacred 
 duties, by the voice of God. 
 
 Admitting that it is the profession of our sex to 
 teach, we perceive the mother to be first in point of 
 precedence, in degree cf power, in the faculty of 
 teaching, and in the department allotted. For in 
 point of precedence, she is next to the Creator ; in 
 power over her pupil, limitless and without com- 
 petitor ; in faculty of teaching, endowed with the 
 prerogative of a transforming love ; while the glori- 
 ous department allotted is a newly quickened soul, 
 and its immortal destiny 
 
 Let her, then, not be regardless of the high privi- 
 leges conferred upon her, or seek to stipulate for a 
 life of indolence and ease, or feebly say that her
 
 PRIVILEGES OP THE MOTHER. 17 
 
 individual exertion can be of little value. Let her 
 not omit daily to cast into the treasury of the un- 
 folding mind her "two mites." The habits which 
 she early impresses, though to her eye they seem but 
 as the filmy line of the spider, scarcely clasping the 
 spray, trembling at every breeze, may prove links of 
 tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal 
 felicity or woe. A glorious aggregate will at last 
 be formed by long perseverance in " line upon line, 
 precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little." 
 As the termites patiently carry grains of sand, till 
 their citadel astonishes the eye, as the coral insect 
 toils beneath the waters, till reef joins reef, and 
 islands spring up with golden fruitage and perennial 
 verdure, so let the mother, " sitting down or walk- 
 ing by the way," in the nursery, the parlour, even 
 from the death-bed, labour to impress on her off- 
 spring that goodness, purity, and piety, which shall 
 render them acceptable to society, to their country, 
 and to their God. 
 

 
 18 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN UPON PARENTS. 
 
 WE speak of educating our children. Do we 
 know that our children also educate us 1 
 
 " How much tenderness, how much generosity," 
 says a fine writer, " springs into the father's heart, 
 from the cradle of his child. What is there so af- 
 fecting to the noble and virtuous man, as that being 
 which perpetually needs his help, and yet cannot 
 call for it. Inarticulate sounds, or sounds which 
 he receives half formed, he bows himself down to 
 modulate, he lays them with infinite care and pa- 
 tience not only on the tender, attentive ear, but on 
 the half-open lips, on the cheeks, as if they all were 
 listeners." 
 
 And if the sterner nature of man is thus readily 
 softened, how much more must the pliancy of wo- 
 man be modified, through the melting affections of 
 the mother. 
 
 Our authority over our children passes away 
 with their period of tutelage. But their influence 
 over us, increases with time. The mother, asso- 
 ciating her daughters with herself, becomes gradu-
 
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN UPON PARENTS. 19 
 
 ally guided by the judgment which she had assisted 
 to form. Ho\v common is the remark, "I have 
 done this, or that, because my daughter thought it 
 best." And the acquiescence is still more common 
 than the remark. The father quotes the opinion 
 of his sons with pride, and is perhaps governed by 
 it, even when it differs from his own. This influ- 
 ence of the younger over the elder, naturally gains 
 strength, as one comes forth with new vigour and 
 energy, and the other, passing into the vale of years, 
 learns to love repose. 
 
 It is important that the power which is eventu- 
 ally to modify us, should be under the guidance of 
 correct principle. We select with care, a garment 
 which is to protect us from cold, or which is ex- 
 pected to be in use for years. We are solicitous to 
 obtain the best plan, when we erect a permanent 
 habitation. We take pains that the chronometer 
 which is to measure our hours, shall be accurate. 
 Ought we not to be still more anxious, more faith- 
 ful, more wary, in fashioning the instrument which 
 is to measure our happiness, when the snows of the 
 winter of life shall cover us? If we fail to instil 
 correct principles into those, who are in the end to 
 impress their own semblance upon us ; if through 
 their want of respectability, we are to be made less 
 respectable ; if even in their errors, .we are to par- 
 take, as well as to be wounded, how great will be 
 the loss !
 
 20 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 " How keen the pang, but keener far to feel, 
 We nurs'd the feather that impell'd the steel." 
 
 While the minds of children are in their waxen 
 state, let parents be most assiduous to impress on 
 them such a likeness, as they should be willing 
 themselves to bear. This injunction addresses it- 
 self more immediately to the mother, who has it in 
 her power to make the earliest impressions, and is 
 liable in her turn to be the most strongly im- 
 pressed. 
 
 Observe how soon, and to what a degree, this in- 
 fluence begins to operate. Her first ministration for 
 her infant is to enter, as it were, the valley of the 
 shadow of death, and win its life at the peril of her 
 own. How different must an affection thus found- 
 ed, be from all others. As if to deepen its power, a 
 season of languor ensues, when she is compara- 
 tively alone with her infant and with Him who 
 gave it, cultivating an acquaintance with a new be- 
 ing, and through a new channel, with the greatest 
 of all beings. Is she not also herself an image of 
 His goodness, while she cherishes in her bosom the 
 young life that he laid there 1 A love, whose root 
 is in death, whose fruit must be in Eternity, has 
 taken possession of her. No wonder that its effects 
 are obvious and great. 
 
 Has she been selfish? or rather, has the disposi- 
 tion to become so been nourished by the indul- 
 gence of affluence, or the adulation offered to beau-
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN UPON PARENTS. 21 
 
 ty? How soon she sacrifices her own ease and 
 convenience to that of her babe. She wakens at its 
 slightest cry, and in its sickness forgets to take sleep. 
 
 " Night after night 
 
 She keepeth vigil, and when tardy morn 
 Breaks on her watching eye-lids, and she fain 
 Would lay her down to rest, its weak complaining 
 O'ercomes her weariness." 
 
 Has she been indolent or vain? The physical 
 care of her child helps to correct these faults. She 
 patiently plies the needle, to adorn its person. She 
 is pleased to hear the praises that were once lav- 
 ished on herself, transferred to her new darling. 
 Almost could she respond to the sentiment of Os- 
 sian, " Let the name of Morni be forgotten among 
 the people, if they will only say, Behold the father 
 of Gaul." 
 
 Has she been too much devoted to fashionable 
 amusements'? She learns to prize home-felt plea- 
 sures. She prefers her nursery to the lighted sa- 
 loon, and the brilliant throng. 
 
 Has she been passionate ? She restrains herself. 
 How can she require the government of temper 
 from her child, and yet set him no example ? She 
 learns to feel with Rousseau, that " the greatest re- 
 spect is due to children." When her temper has 
 been discomposed, she dreads the gaze of that little, 
 pure, wondering eye, perhaps even more than the 
 reproof of conscience.
 
 22 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 In the artificial intercourse of society, has she 
 sometimes ceased to regard the true import of 
 words ? And does she not require truth of her 
 child? As he advances towards moral agency, is 
 she not more and more moved to exemplify that 
 strict integrity which she demands of him ? 
 
 Has she evaded the requisitions of religion? 
 And is she willing that her child should be im- 
 pious ? 
 
 Thus powerful are the influences exercised by 
 the infant upon its mother, from the moment of its 
 birth. If she yields to the transforming power, 
 daily soliciting the Spirit of God to sanctify and 
 sublimate the newly implanted affection, she may 
 trust to reap a blessed harvest. But however im- 
 perfect may be her own spiritual improvement of 
 the precious gift, she can scarcely fail to feel and 
 acknowledge, that in this new existence, she has 
 doubled her own capacities for enjoyment. No 
 matter by what suffering this joy has been ob- 
 tained. The sleepless nights, the days of seclu- 
 sion, the long heaviness that weighed down the 
 buoyant spirit, the pang that has never yet been 
 described, all are forgotten. "She remembereth 
 no more her sorrow," saith that sacred pen, which 
 knows to touch the soul's inmost recesses. Nay, 
 she would willingly have endured a thousand fold, 
 for such a payment. 
 
 She has entered the temple of a purer happiness,
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN UPON PARENTS. 23 
 
 and become the disciple of a higher school. She is 
 led to be disinterested, she is induced to resign the 
 restless search of pleasure, to feel her own insuffi- 
 ciency, to sit down under the shadow and shel- 
 ter of Almighty wisdom. Are not these blessed 
 results ? 
 
 But, young mother, what do you hold in your 
 arms ? A machine of exquisite symmetry ; the blue 
 veins revealing the mysterious life-tide through 
 an almost transparent surface ; the waking thought 
 speaking through the sparkling eye, or dissolving 
 there in tears ; such a form as the art of man has 
 never equalled ; and such a union of matter with 
 mind, as his highest reason fails to comprehend. 
 You embrace a being, whose developements may 
 yet astonish you ; who may perhaps sway the des- 
 tiny of others ; whose gatherings of knowledge you 
 can neither foresee or limit ; and whose chequered 
 lot of sorrow or of joy, are known only to the Om- 
 nipotence which fashioned him. Still, if this were 
 all, the office of a mother would lose its crown- 
 ing dignity. But to be the guide of a spirit which 
 can never die, to make the first indelible impres- 
 sions on what may be a companion of seraphs," - 
 and live with an unbounded capacity for bliss or 
 woe, when these poor skies under which it was 
 born, shall have vanished like a vision, this is 
 the fearful honour which God hath entrusted to 
 the "weaker vessel," and which would make us
 
 24 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 tremble amid our happiness, if we took not refuge 
 in Him. 
 
 I have seen a young and beautiful mother, her- 
 self like a brilliant and graceful flower. Nothing 
 could divide her from her infant. It was to her 
 as a twin-soul. She had loved society, for there 
 she had been as an idol. But what was the fleeting 
 delight of adulation, to the deep love that took pos- 
 session of her whole being? She had loved her 
 father's house. There, she was ever like a song- 
 bird, the first to welcome the day, and the last to 
 bless it. Now, she wreathed the same blossoms of 
 the heart around another home, and lulled her 
 little nursling with the same inborn melodies. 
 
 It was sick. She hung over it. She watched 
 it. She comforted it. She sat whole nights with 
 it in her arms. It was to her like the beloved of 
 the King of Israel, "feeding among the lillies." 
 Under the pressure of this care, there was in her 
 eye, a deep and holy beauty, which never gleam- 
 ed there, when she was radiant in the dance, or 
 in the halls of fashion, the cynosure. She had 
 been taught to love God, and his worship, from her 
 youth up ; but when health again glowed in the 
 face of her babe, there came from her lip, such a 
 prayer of flowing praise, as it had never before 
 breathed. 
 
 And when in her beautiful infant, there were the 
 first developements of character, and of those pre-
 
 INFLUENCE OP CHILDREN UPON PARENTS. 25 
 
 ferences and aversions which leave room to doubt 
 whether they are from simplicity or perverseness, 
 and whether they should be repressed or pitied, 
 and how the harp might be so tuned as not to 
 injure its tender and intricate harmony, there burst 
 from her soul a supplication more earnest, more 
 self-abandoning, more prevailing, than she had ever 
 before poured into the ear of the majesty of heaven. 
 So the feeble hand of the babe that she nou- 
 rished, led her through more profound depths 
 of humility, to higher aspirations of faith. And I 
 felt that the affection, to whose hallowed influence 
 she had so yielded, was guiding her to a higher 
 seat among the "just made perfect."
 
 26 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 INFANCY. 
 
 INTERCOURSE with infancy is improving, as well 
 as delightful. It subdues pride, and deepens piety. 
 Obdurate natures are softened by its sweet smile, 
 and the picture of its sleeping innocence. Its en- 
 tire helplessness, its perfect trust, dissolve the soul. 
 The bold wanderer in the world's crooked ways, 
 gazes, and recalls the time when he was himself 
 unstained. Tender remembrances take him captive, 
 and ere he is aware, the tear trickles down his 
 cheeks in fond regret, perhaps in healthful penitence. 
 
 The construction of the infant's frame ; the little 
 beating heart, sending life-blood through its thou- 
 sand thread-like channels ; the lungs, fastening with 
 delight on the gift of the pure air ; the countless 
 absorbents, busied in their invisible work-shops ; the 
 net-work of nerves, minute as the filaments of 
 thought, quickening with sensation; the tender 
 brain, beginning its mysterious agency ; the silken 
 fringe of the eyes, opening wider as some brilliant 
 colour strikes the dazzled retina ; the slender fingers 
 unfolding themselves, as some new sound winds its
 
 INFANCY. 27 
 
 way through the ear's untrodden labyrinth, giving 
 its key-tone to the wondering mind; all the mystery 
 and beauty of this miniature temple, where the ethe- 
 rial spirit is a lodger, lead the observer to an Al- 
 mighty Architect, and constrain him to adore. 
 
 But especially is the care of infancy salutary to 
 the character. It inspires the gentle, pitying, and 
 hallowed affections. Mothers, the blessing of this 
 ministry is ours. Let us study night and day, the 
 science that promotes the welfare of our infant. 
 
 We cannot but be aware that our duty to it be- 
 gins before its birth. Every irritable feeling should 
 then be restrained, and the overflowing joy and 
 hope of our religion be our daily aliment. Exercise 
 among the beautiful works of nature, the infusion 
 of social feeling, and contemplation of the most 
 cheering subjects, should be cherished by her who 
 has the glorious hope of introducing into this world 
 a being never to die ; who, already a part of herself, 
 adds warmth and frequency to her prayers, and 
 whom, " having not seen, she loves." 
 
 To those, who from a depression which they ima- 
 gine they cannot controul, are inclined too much 
 to seclude themselves, we would address the elo- 
 quent words of Milton: "In vernal seasons 
 of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it 
 were both an injury, and a sullenness against na- 
 ture, not to go forth and see her riches, and par- 
 take in her rejoicing with heaven and earth."
 
 5 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 The first three months of infancy should be a 
 season of quietness. The unfolding organs require 
 the nursing of silence and of love. The delicate 
 system, like the mimosa, shrinks from every rude 
 touch. Violent motions are uncongenial to the new- 
 born. Loud, sharp sounds, and even glaring colours, 
 should be excluded from the nursery. The visual 
 and auditory nerves, those princely ambassadors to 
 the mind, are still in embryo. Inure them tenderly 
 and gradually to their respective functions. 
 
 The first months of infancy are a spot of bright- 
 ness to a faithful and affectionate mother ; a dream 
 of bliss, from which she wakes to more complicated 
 duties ; a payment for past suffering, a preparation 
 for future toil. I heard a lady, who had brought 
 up a large family, say it was the " only period of 
 a mother's perfect enjoyment." At its expiration 
 comes dentition, with a host of physical ills. The 
 character begins to develope, and sometimes to take 
 that tinge which occasional pain of body or fret- 
 fulness of temper impart. The alphabet of exist- 
 ence is learned. We can perceive that its combi- 
 nations are not always in harmony. The little 
 being takes hold upon this life of trial. Soon, its 
 ignorance must be dispelled, its perceptions guided, 
 its waywardness quelled, its passions held in check, 
 by one who often feels herself too infirm for the 
 mighty task. 
 
 Yet, were I to define the climax of happiness
 
 INFANCY. 29 
 
 which a mother enjoys with her infant, I should 
 by no means limit it to the first three months. The 
 whole season while it is deriving nutriment from 
 her, is one of peculiar, inexpressible felicity. She 
 has it in her power so immediately to hush its 
 meanings, to sooth its sorrows, to alleviate its sick- 
 nesses, that she is to it as a tutelary spirit. 
 
 Dear friends, be not anxious to abridge this hal- 
 cyon period. Do not willingly deprive yourselves 
 of any portion of the highest pleasure of which 
 woman's nature is capable. Devote yourselves to 
 the work. Have nothing to do with the fashion- 
 able evening party, the crowded hall, the changes 
 of dress that put health in jeopardy. Be temper- 
 ate in all things. Receive no substance into the 
 stomach that disorders it ; no stimulant that affects 
 the head; indulge .no agitating passions. They 
 i change the aliment of your child. They introduce 
 /poison into its veins, or kindle fever in its blood. 
 Experienced medical men will assure you, that its 
 constitution through life is modified by the nursing 
 of the first year. One of the most illustrious living 
 physicians in Paris, while testing the pathology of 
 disease in the thronged wards of the hospitals in 
 that metropolis, always questions the new patient, 
 
 L "were you nursed at the breast of your mother? 
 
 ; and how long ?" 
 
 I would say to every mother, study the consti- 
 tution of your babe. If it have any morbid ten- 
 s'
 
 30 
 
 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 . 
 
 dencies, either heritable or accidental, bear steadily 
 upon them with the regimen best adapted to their 
 cure. Let it be your aim to use as little medicine 
 as possible, and not causelessly to trouble a phy- 
 sician, for those trifling ills which your own pa- 
 tience or firmness might obviate. Suffer me to 
 repeat it, guard your own health, and serenity of 
 spirit, for the child is still a part of yourself, as 
 the blossom of the plant, from whose root it gathers 
 sustenance. Breathe over it, the atmosphere of hap- 
 py and benevolent affections. Surely, you cannot 
 fail to thank your Heavenly Father for this "un- 
 speakable gift," and as you lull it to that sleep which 
 knows no dream of sorrow, lift up the prayer, " let 
 this soul, so lately divided from mine, live before 
 thee, Oh God!" 
 
 As this fragment of yourself advances toward the 
 properties of a sentient being, you will naturally 
 vary your mode of treatment. The expanding mus- 
 cles require more exercise. The perceptions shoot 
 forth, like timid tendrils under the/ vine-leaf. It 
 loves to inhale the fresh air, to be carried out be- 
 neath the shade of green trees in summer. It re- 
 gards the brilliant petals of flowers, and the per- 
 fume of the rose. It listens to the shrill note of the 
 bird, and looks with wonder upon the leaping, 
 tuneful brook. It is fitting that it should find a 
 place among the beauties and melodies of nature, 
 itself more beautiful than they. If your situation
 
 INFANCY. 31 
 
 allows you thus to give it exercise, in fine weather 
 avail yourself of the privilege. If not, furnish it 
 the best mode of recreation in the open air which 
 is in your power. But avoid all undue excitement. 
 
 )lts nerves are still as a harp imperfectly strung, and 
 liable to dissonance. 
 
 During this first sacred year, trust not your trea- 
 sure too much to the charge of hirelings. Have 
 it under your superintendence, both night and day. 
 When necessarily engaged in other employments, 
 let it hear your cheering, protecting tone. Keep 
 it ever within the sensible atmosphere of maternal 
 tenderness. Its little heart will soon reach out the 
 slender radicles of love and trust. Nourish them 
 with smiles and caresses, the " small dew upon the 
 tender grass." When it learns to distinguish you, 
 by stretching its arms for your embrace; when on 
 its little tottering feet it essays to run towards you ; 
 above all, when the first effort of its untaught 
 tongue is to form your name, mother, there is 
 neither speech nor language by which to express 
 your joy ! No, no, the poverty of words will never 
 be so unwise as to attempt it. 
 
 Do you ask, when shall we begin to teach our 
 
 children religion ? As soon as you see them. As 
 
 I soon as they are laid upon your breast. As soon 
 
 I . as you feel the pure breath issuing from that won- 
 
 / drous tissue of air-vessels which God has wreathed 
 
 around the heart.
 
 32 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 The religion of a new-born babe, is the prayer 
 of its mother. Keep this sacred flame burning for 
 it, in the shrine of the soul, until it is able to light 
 its own feeble lamp, and fill its new censer with 
 praise. 
 
 As the infant advances in strength, its religion 
 i should be love. Teach it love, by your own ac- 
 cents, your countenance, your whole deportment. 
 Labour to fashion its habits and temper- after this 
 hallowed model. Let the first lessons of earth, 
 breathe the spirit of heaven. 
 
 When the high gifts of speech and thought are 
 given it, point it to Him who caused the sun to 
 shine, and the plant to grow, and the chirping bird 
 to be joyful in its nest. Teach it that it is loved 
 of this Great Being, that it may love him in return. 
 Mingle the majesty of His goodness with the ele- 
 ments of its thought. You will be surprised to see 
 how soon the lisping lip may learn communion 
 with the Father of Mercies. 
 
 " Teach me to pray, instruct me in religion !" 
 said a young prince to his tutor. " You are not yet 
 old enough." "Ah, yes ! I have been in the bury- 
 ing ground. I have measured the graves. There 
 are some there which are shorter than I." 
 
 Mother, if there is, in your church-yard, one 
 grave shorter than your child, hasten to instruct 
 him in religion.
 
 FIRST LESSONS. 33 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 FIRST LESSONS. 
 
 WATCH for the time when your little one first 
 exhibits decided preferences, and aversions. The 
 next letter in the alphabet, is obedience. It is its 
 first step towards religion. The fear of God must 
 be taught by the parent, standing for a time in 
 the place of God. 
 
 Establish your will, as the law. Do it early, 
 for docility is impaired by delay. It is the truest 
 love, to save the little stranger in this labyrinth 
 of life, all those conflicts of feeling, which must 
 continue as long as it remains doubtful who is to 
 be its guide. As the root and germ of piety, as 
 a preparation for submission to the Eternal Father, 
 as the subduing process, which is to lead it in 
 calmness through the storms and surges of time, 
 teach obedience. 
 
 It is a simple precept in philosophy, that obedi- 
 ence should be the most entire and unconditional, 
 where reason is the weakest. Its requisitions should 
 be enforced, in proportion to the want of intelli- 
 gence in the subject. The parent is emphatically
 
 34 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 a light to those who sit in darkness. The transi- 
 tion from the dreamy existence of infancy, to the 
 earliest activity of childhood, is a period when pa- 
 rental authority is eminently needful, to repress 
 evil, and to preserve happiness. But it must have 
 been established before, in order to be in readiness 
 then. Without this rudder, the little voyager is 
 liable to be thrown among the eddies of its own 
 passions, and wrecked like the bark canoe. 
 
 You will not suppose me, my dear friends, the 
 advocate of austerity. As the substitution of your 
 wisdom, in the place of the wayward impulses of 
 your child, is the truest kindness, so it is a fea- 
 ture of that kindness, to commence it when it may 
 be done with the greatest ease. Gentleness, com- 
 bined with firmness, will teach it to your infant. 
 Wait a few months, and perhaps it may not be so. 
 Obedience, to the mind in its waxen state, is like 
 the silken thread by which the plant is drawn 
 toward its prop; enforced too late, it is like the 
 lasso, with which the wild horse is enchained, 
 requiring dexterity to throw, and severity to 
 manage. 
 
 Deaf and dumb children, or those whose intel- 
 lect is weak, it is peculiarly cruel not to subju- 
 gate. With them, the will of the parent must 
 longer, and more entirely operate. As reason de- 
 velopes, and the habits become regulated, and the 
 affections take their right place, parental authority
 
 
 FIR.ST LESSONS. 35 
 
 naturally relaxes its vigilance. It loosens, and 
 falls off, like the thorny sheath of the chesnut, when 
 the kernel ripens. But the husk of the chesnut 
 is opened by the frost, and the sway of the pa- 
 rent yields to the sharper lessons of the world: 
 and of this teaching, the young probationer is not 
 always able to say that, 
 
 "When most severe and mustering all its wrath, 
 'Tis but the graver countenance of love." 
 
 With many of our most illustrious characters, 
 the obedience of earlier years was strongly en- 
 forced. We know it was so, in the case of Wash- 
 ington. Other examples might be easily adduced. 
 Those who have most wisely ruled others, have 
 usually tested, by their own experience, the nature 
 of subordination, at its proper season. Fabius 
 Maximus, whose invincible wisdom tamed the 
 fierce spirits of Rome, was so distinguished by 
 submission to his superiors, as to be derided by the 
 insubordinate, and called in his boyhood, "the 
 little sheep." 
 
 Let the next lesson to your infant pupil, be 
 kindness to all around. The rudiments are best 
 taught by the treatment of animals. If it seizes 
 a kitten by the back, or pulls its hair, show im- 
 mediately by your own example, how it may be 
 held properly, and soothed into confidence. Draw 
 back the little hand, lifted to strike the dog. Per-
 
 36 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 haps it may not understand that it thus inflicts 
 pain. But be strenuous in confirming an opposite 
 habit. Do not permit it to kill flies, or to trouble 
 harmless insects. Check the first buddings of 
 those Domitian tastes. Instruct it that the gift of 
 life, to the poor beetle, or the crawling worm, is 
 from the Great Father above, and not to be lightly 
 trodden out. A little boy, who early discovered 
 propensities to cruelty, was so thoroughly weaned 
 from them, by his mother, that when attending 
 to infantine lessons in Natural History, long before 
 he was able to read, and hearing of a bird that was 
 fond of catching flies, he lisped, with a kind of 
 horror upon his baby-face, " Oh ! kill flies ! will 
 God forgive it ?" 
 
 Another boy was observed never to deviate in 
 his kind treatment of dogs. And he remembered 
 that with a heaving breast, and suffused eye, he 
 had listened, when almost an infant, to the follow- 
 ing simple story. 
 
 " There was once a good dog. His master was 
 always kind to him. When he called him, he 
 came ; when he went from home, he followed 
 him ; when he sat by the fire, he slept at his feet. 
 But his master grew sick, and died. The dog 
 watched where they buried him. He went and 
 stretched himself out on the grave. The people 
 from the house, came to coax him home again. 
 They said, " come ! come ! poor fellow ! we will
 
 FIRST LESSONS. 37 
 
 feed you; we will be kind to you." He went 
 with them, but he would not stay. He would not 
 lay down by the fire, and sleep where he used to 
 do. For his master was not there. He took 
 only a little food, and hurried back to the grave. 
 There he watched night and day. When he 
 heard a footstep among the tombs, he started up, 
 and gazed earnestly around. But when he saw 
 it was not his dear master, he laid his head on 
 the turf again, and moaned. The storms beat on 
 him, and the cold snows, but he would not leave 
 the grave. In the dark midnight, it was sad to 
 hear his voice among the dead, calling for his 
 master. But his barking grew fainter and fainter. 
 Pitying children brought him meat and bread. 
 He was too weak to eat, and he ceased to lick 
 their hands. He grew thin, and pined away. At 
 last he could no longer rise up on his feet; and 
 so he died, calling for his beloved master." 
 
 How soon such precepts of kindness, in the 
 tender tones of a mother, may incorporate them- 
 selves with the nature of an infant, we know not. 
 But we do know that those baleful dispositions, 
 which desolate human happiness, are often early 
 developed. It was Benedict Arnold, the traitor, 
 who in his boyhood loved to destroy insects, to 
 mutilate toads, to steal the eggs of the mourning 
 bird, and torture quiet, domestic animals, who 
 eventually laid waste the shrinking, domestic 
 4
 
 38 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 charities, and would have, drained the life-blood 
 of his endangered country. 
 
 Let your third lesson be truth. Grant the little 
 learner all the aid in your power, for the growth 
 of this cardinal virtue. Do not be severe for 
 little faults, and especially for accidents. Do not 
 set fear in array against truth, in the breast of your 
 child. It is stronger, and will prevail ; for its 
 moral code is yet unsettled, but the passions, like 
 Minerva, have sprung armed into life. As your 
 child becomes acquainted with the import of 
 words, accustom it to speak to you freely of its 
 i'aults. Explain to it, that it is an erring being, 
 that your discipline is intended to make it better, 
 more acceptable to God, happier when it grows 
 up, and in the life to come. Assure it, that you 
 should be wanting in your duty, if you failed to 
 reform its errors, and therefore exhort it to tell 
 you frankly when it has erred, as the physician 
 requires of the sick man a full account of his 
 symptoms, ere he proportions the remedy. A child, 
 thus instructed, was often led by the nurse to 
 his mother's room, when he had offended, and left 
 there, without any accusation, save his own lisp- 
 ing voice ; and it was invariably found on com- 
 paring his evidence with the facts, that he had 
 preserved the beauty of truth inviolate. This 
 result would be more frequently seen, if we did 
 not terrify the infant delinquents. They are
 
 FIRST LESSONS. 39 
 
 often puzzled with the meaning of words, when 
 questions are rapidly addressed to them ; even their 
 reliance on our justice forsakes them, if they discern 
 the lineaments of anger ; and self-preservation, the 
 first law of nature, coming into action, overthrows 
 their infirm integrity. 
 
 " My goodness groivs weak" said a boy, of five 
 years old, running into his mother's arms: "help 
 me to be good." Doubtless we might longer con- 
 tinue as guardian angels to our children, if we 
 cultivated in them habits of perfect confidence, 
 and forebore to terrify them for trivial delin- 
 quencies. 
 
 As an important ally of truth, we should pro- 
 tect their simplicity. The whole structure of 
 society is so artificial, that to a child it is a per- 
 petual mystery. A little boy when taking his 
 leave at night, to go to bed, said to one of the 
 circle, whom he kissed, "you have not got a 
 pretty face." Another, who sat near, expressed 
 surprise at the remark, and to him also he said, 
 "I do not like your face, neither." His mother 
 inquired, " whose face do you like ?" Pointing 
 to the handsomest of the group, he replied, " hers, 
 my grown-up sister's face." Now, what at first 
 view seemed rudeness, was simply an expression 
 of the perception of beauty. He wished to impart 
 the new pleasure that had entered into his infant 
 heart, and he chose at first to give the proposition
 
 40 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 a negative form. In a mature, and educated per- 
 son, this would have been a breach of politeness. 
 But the little one uttered only the truth. He had 
 not learned the adage, that " truth is not to be 
 spoken at all times." Nor could he, until his 
 judgment had acquired strength, or rather, until 
 he had become hackneyed in the world's policy. 
 The mother, who was prepared to reprove him, 
 saw that he ought not to be reproved. Still we 
 cannot begin too early to teach our children, to 
 say nothing that will wound the feelings of 
 another. This precept must be sedulously en- 
 forced, until it takes the form of habit, and the 
 root of principle. Those individuals, who are the 
 most strictly careful to speak no words that will 
 unnecessarily give pain, are usually the most ready 
 to acknowledge, that it is the fruit of education, 
 or example, more than of any inherent sympa- 
 thy, or native tenderness for their fellow-creatures. 
 To respect truth, yet to bear upon the tongue 
 the " law of kindness," is a branch of education 
 which parents should impress upon all who are 
 under their controul. The politeness which springs 
 from such a soil, is worthy of a Christian. 
 
 Yet, why need we compel our children to adopt 
 the conventional forms of society, when they sub- 
 vert simplicity ? Why commence a warfare against 
 Nature, almost as soon as she developes herself? 
 Why help to root out that singleness of heart,
 
 FIRST LESSONS. 41 
 
 which is the most winning and remarkable flower 
 in the garden of life? We tell our young chil- 
 dren that they must be polite. We force them 
 to kiss strangers, and to say what they do not feel, 
 and to repress what they do feel, because it is 
 polite. Again, we tell them, in graver teachings, 
 that they must speak the truth. We throw their 
 little minds into a ferment of doubt, to discover 
 what is truth, and what is politeness, and to draw 
 that line which no casuist has yet ever drawn. 
 And ere we are aware, the fresh integrity of the 
 soul escapes. We rebuke, we punish them for in- 
 sincerity. Are not the usages of refined society, 
 too much based upon it ? Why then force infancy 
 into them before its time? Its social feelings 
 develope but slowly; why hasten to conform 
 them to those complex customs, and hollow cour- 
 tesies, which are but too often modifications of 
 falsehood. Rather, guard its simplicity, and plant 
 deep in the seclusion of the nursery, that root of 
 truth, whose fruits are for the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 In teaching the three primary lessons of obe- 
 dience, kindness, and truth, there are others, 
 which naturally interweave themselves, and claim 
 importance in the moral code of infancy. A 
 mother's vigilant eye will not overlook them, 
 while laying the foundation for a future super- 
 structure of virtue. Among them, she will surely 
 be assiduous to foster delicacy. This seems to 
 4
 
 42 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 me to be natural to young children, as far as I 
 have been acquainted with them, unless contam- 
 inated by evil example. They shrink from ex- 
 posure of their persons. Let this feeling be re- 
 spected where it exists, and implanted where it 
 does not. Permit them to hear neither stories 
 or words, which create impure associations, any 
 more than you would, such as are tinctured with 
 profanity. For though they may repeat them, 
 without knowledge of their import, still it is 
 dangerous to load memory with defilement, trust- 
 ing that it will always remain inert. Perhaps, 
 these cautions may be deemed superfluous. Yet 
 as long as purity of thought and character, are 
 essential to excellence, even the slightest fence 
 around their first germinations, is worthy of being 
 strengthened. 
 
 I am confident that mothers are not sufficiently 
 careful, with regard to the conversation of domes- 
 tics, or other uneducated persons, who, in their 
 absence, may undertake to amuse their children. 
 " If the little girl cries, while I am gone," said 
 a mother to an Irish domestic, recently hired, tell 
 her a story, and she will be quiet." Ah ! and 
 
 . what kind of a story ? You will not be there 
 to hear it. But the tender intellect, already suf- 
 ficiently advanced to be soothed with stories, may 
 imbibe foolish, or vulgar, or frightful imagef, and 
 
 I take their colouring, like soft wool, sinking in
 
 FIRST LESSONS. 43 
 
 Tyrian purple. " Tell her a story /" Why that 
 is the very aliment which her opening mind 
 seizes with the greatest eagerness. And you are 
 ignorant whether that aliment may not be mingled 
 with corruption. It was a wise man, who said 
 he cared not who made the laws of a nation, if 
 he might only have the making of their songs. 
 With greater truth, may it be said of unfolding 
 infancy ; any one who chooses may give it grave 
 lessons, but look out for its story-tellers. Thus 
 it is, that unfortunate babes are terrified, and made 
 to dread a dark room, or a lonely chamber, until 
 the sleep that should solace them, is but a com- 
 munion with nameless monsters, and they are 
 frightened out of their sweet birthright, the fear- 
 lessness of innocence. 
 
 Let mothers mingle their teachings, with smiles, 
 and the dialect of love. It is surprising how soon 
 an infant learns to read the countenance, how it 
 decyphers the charm of a cheerful spirit, how it 
 longs to be loved. "Do you love me well?" the 
 musician Mozart asked in his infancy, of all the 
 servants of his father, as one after the other, they 
 passed him, in their various employments. And 
 if any among them, to tease him, answered " no," 
 he covered his baby-face, and wept. 
 A little deaf and dumb boy, selected for his 
 favourite, among many sisters, her who possessed 
 the most beaming and radiant countenance. In 

 
 44 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 the eloquent idiom of that peculiar class of per- 
 sons, he said, " you are the goddess of laughings, 
 of greatest smiles, of smallest smiles ; so, I love 
 you, best of all." 
 
 I have seldom been more painfully struck, than 
 with the woe-worn countenance of a silent babe, 
 by the side of its miserable mother, in the State's- 
 prison. No conversation was allowed, among the 
 convicts. Smiles, are not the dialect of guilt. So, 
 there it sat, or lay, for it was too young to walk, 
 with its wishful eyes ever turned on her who had 
 borne it in sin, and who had no heart to cheer it, 
 for she was herself wretched. No loving word, 
 aided it to shape its discordant articulations. The 
 baleful breath of guilt, seared its young percep- 
 tions, like a lava-stream. I longed to take it from 
 the bosom of crime, and from those haggard and 
 hateful brows, which were stamping upon it their 
 own lineaments. And I never before so deeply re- 
 alized the importance, that the little pilgrim of im- 
 mortality should be taken at the veiy gate of life, 
 into an atmosphere of innocence, and the cradle 
 of love.
 
 MATERNAL LOVE. 45 
 
 . 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 MATERNAL LOVE. 
 
 To love children, is the dictate of our nature. 
 Apart from the promptings of kindred blood, it is 
 a spontaneous tribute to their helplessness, their 
 innocence, or their beauty. The total absence of 
 this love induces a suspicion that the heart is not 
 right. " Beware," said Lavater, " of him who hates 
 the laugh of a child." "I love God, and every 
 little child," was the simple, yet sublime sentiment 
 of Richter. 
 
 The man of the world pauses in his absorbing 
 career, and claps his hands, to gain an infant's 
 smile. The victim of vice gazes wishfully on the 
 pure, open forehead of childhood, and retraces those 
 blissful years that were free from guile. The man 
 of piety loves that docility and singleness of heart, 
 which drew from his Saviour's lips the blessed 
 words, " of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 Elliot, the apostle of the Indians, amid his la- 
 borious ministry, and rude companionship, shewed 
 in all places the most marked attention to young 
 children. In extreme age, when his head was
 
 46 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 white as the Alpine snows, he felt his heart warm 
 at their approach. Many a pastor, whom he had 
 assisted to consecrate, bore witness to the pathos 
 of his appeal, the solemnity of his intonation, when 
 he inquired, " Brother, lovest thou our Lord Jesus 
 Christ? Then feed these lambs." 
 
 The love of children, in man is a virtue: in 
 woman, an element of nature. It is a feature of 
 her constitution, a proof of His wisdom, who, hav- 
 ing entrusted to her the burden of the early nur- 
 ture of a whole race, gave that sustaining power 
 which produces harmony, between her dispositions, 
 and her allotted tasks. 
 
 To love children, is a graceful lineament in 
 the character of young ladies. Anxious as they 
 usually are, to acquire the art of pleasing, they 
 are not always aware what an attraction it im- 
 parts to their manners. It heightens the influ- 
 ence of beauty, and often produces a strong effect, 
 where beauty is wanting. 
 
 "Love children," said Madame de Maintenon, 
 in her advice to the young dauphiness ; " whether 
 for a prince or a peasant, it is the most amiable 
 accomplishment." It was this very trait in her 
 own character, that won the heart of Louis the 
 Great. When she was governess of his children, 
 and past the bloom of life, he surprised her one 
 morning, in the royal nursery, sustaining with 
 one arm, the oldest son, then feeble from the ef-
 
 MATERNAL LOVE. 47 
 
 fects of a fever, rocking with the other hand a 
 cradle, in which lay the infant princess, while on 
 her lap reposed the sleeping infant. His tender- 
 ness as a father, and his susceptibility as a man, 
 accorded that deep admiration which would have 
 been denied to the splendour of dress, the parade 
 of rank, or the blaze of beauty. 
 
 But how feeble are all the varieties of love, 
 which childhood elicits, compared to that which 
 exists in a mother's breast. Examine, I pray you, 
 its unique nature, by contrast and comparison. 
 We are wont to place our affections where our 
 virtues are appreciated, or to fix our reliance where 
 some benefit may be conferred. But maternal love 
 is founded on utter helplessness. A wailing cry, 
 a foot too feeble to bear the burdens of the body, 
 an eye unable to distinguish the friend who feeds 
 it, a mind more obtuse than the new-born lamb, 
 which discerns its mother amid the flock, or the 
 duckling that hastens from its shell to the stream, 
 are among the elements of which it is compounded. 
 
 It is able also to subsist without aliment. Other 
 love requires the interchange of words or smiles, 
 some beauty, or capability, or moral fitness, either 
 existing, or supposed to exist. It is wont, as it 
 advances in ardour, to exact a vow of preference, 
 above all the world beside, and if need be, to guard 
 this its Magna Charta, with the sting of reproach, 
 or the fang of jealousy. It is scarcely proof against
 
 48 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 long absence, without frequent tokens of remem- 
 brance, and its most passionate stage of existence 
 may be checked by caprice. 
 
 But I have seen a mother's love endure every 
 test unharmed, and come forth from the refiner's 
 furnace, purged from that dross of selfishness, which 
 the heart is wont to find, among its purest gold. 
 A widow expended on her only son, all the full- 
 ness of her affection, and the little gains of her 
 industry. She denied herself every superfluity, that 
 he might receive the benefits of education, and 
 the indulgences that boyhood covets. She sat si- 
 lently by her small fire, and lighted her single 
 candle, and regarded him with intense delight, as 
 he amused himself with his books, or sought out 
 the lessons for the following day. The expenses 
 of his school were discharged by the labour of 
 her hands, and glad and proud was she to be- 
 stow on him, privileges, which her own youth 
 had never been permitted to share. She believed 
 him to be diligently acquiring the knowledge which 
 she respected, but was unable to comprehend. His 
 teachers, and his idle companions, knew other- 
 wise. He, indeed, learned to astonish his simple 
 and admiring parent, with high-sounding epithets, 
 and technical terms, and to despise her for not 
 understanding them. When she saw him discon- 
 tented, at comparing his situation with that of 
 others, who were above him in rank, she denied
 
 MATERNAL LOVE. 49 
 
 herself almost bread, that she might add a luxury 
 for his table, or a garment to his wardrobe. 
 
 She erred in judgment, and he in conduct ; but 
 her changeless love surmounted all. Still, there 
 was little reciprocity, and every year diminished 
 that little, in his cold and selfish heart. He re- 
 turned no caress ; his manners assumed a cast of 
 defiance. She strove not to perceive the altera- 
 tion, or sadly solaced herself with the reflection, 
 that "it was the nature of boys" 
 
 He grew boisterous and disobedient. His re- 
 turns to their humble cottage became irregular. 
 She sat up late for him, and when she heard his 
 approaching footstep, forgot her weariness, and wel- 
 comed him kindly. But he might have seen re- 
 proach written on the paleness of her loving brow, 
 if he would have read its language. During those 
 long and lonely evenings, she sometimes wept as 
 she remembered him in his early years, when he 
 was so gentle, and to her eye so beautiful. "But 
 this is the nature of young- men" said her lame 
 philosophy. So, she armed herself to bear. 
 
 At length, it was evident that darker vices were 
 making him their victim. The habit of intempe- 
 rance could no longer be concealed, even from a 
 love that blinded itself. The widowed mother 
 remonstrated with unwonted energy. She was 
 answered in the dialect of insolence and bru- 
 tality. 
 
 5
 
 60 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 He disappeared from her cottage. What she 
 dreaded, had come upon her. In his anger, he 
 had gone to sea. And now, every night, when 
 the tempest howled, and the wind was high, she 
 lay sleepless, thinking of him. She saw him, in 
 her imagination, climbing the slippery shrouds, or 
 doing the bidding of rough, unfeeling men. Again, 
 she fancied that he was sick and suffering, with 
 none to watch over him, or have patience with 
 his waywardness, and her head, which silver hairs 
 began to sprinkle, gushed forth, as if it were a 
 fountain of waters. 
 
 But hope of his return began to cheer her. 
 When the new moon looked with its slender cres- 
 cent in at her window, she said, " I think my boy 
 will be here, ere that moon is old." And when 
 it waned and went away, she sighed and said, 
 " my boy will remember me." 
 
 Years fled, and there was no letter, no recog- 
 nition. Sometimes she gathered tidings from a 
 comrade, that he was on some far sea, or in some 
 foreign land. But no message for his mother. 
 When he touched at some port in his native 
 country, it was not to seek her cottage, but to 
 spend his wages in revelry, and re-embark on a 
 new voyage. 
 
 Weary years, and no letter. Yet she had 
 abridged her comforts, that he might be taught 
 to write, and she used to exhibit his penmanship
 
 MATERNAL LOVE. 
 
 with such pride. But she dismissed the reproach- 
 ful thought. " It was the nature of sailors." 
 
 Amid all these years of neglect and cruelty, 
 Love lived on. When Hope refused nourishment, 
 she asked food of Memory. She was satisfied with 
 the crumbs from a table which must never be spread 
 again. Memory brought the broken -bread which 
 she had gathered into her basket, when the feast 
 of innocence was over, and Love received it as 
 a mendicant, and fed upon it and gave thanks, 
 She fed upon the cradle-smile; upon the first ca- 
 ress of infancy; upon the loving years of child- 
 hood, when, putting his cheek to hers, he slum- 
 bered the live-long night, or when teaching him 
 to walk, he tottered with outstretched arms to her 
 bosom, as a new-fledged bird to its nest. 
 
 But Religion found this lonely widow, and 
 communed with her at deep midnight, while the 
 storm was raging without. It told her of a " name 
 better than of sons or of daughters," and she 
 was comforted. It bade her resign herself to the 
 will of her Father in Heaven, and she found 
 peace. 
 
 It was a cold evening in winter, and the snow 
 lay deep upon the earth. The widow sat alone 
 by her little fire-side. The marks of early age 
 had settled upon her. There was meekness on 
 her brow, and in her hand a book from whence 
 that meekness came.
 
 52 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 A heavy knock shook her door, and ere she 
 could open it, a man entered. He moved with 
 pain, like one crippled, and his red and downcast 
 visage was partially concealed by a torn hat. 
 Among those who had been familiar with his 
 youthful countenance, only one, save the Being 
 who made him, could have recognized him, through 
 his disguise and misery. The mother looking 
 deep into his eye, saw a faint tinge of that fair 
 blue, which had charmed her, when it unclosed 
 from the cradle-dream. 
 
 "My son! My son!" 
 
 Had the prodigal returned by a late repentance, 
 to atone for years of ingratitude and sin ? I will 
 not speak of the revels that shook the peaceful 
 roof of his widowed parent, or of the profanity 
 that disturbed her repose. The remainder of his 
 history is brief. The effects of vice had debilitated 
 his constitution, and once, as he was apparently 
 recovering from a long paroxysm of intemperance, 
 apoplexy struck his heated brain, and he lay a 
 bloated and hideous carcase. 
 
 The poor mother faded away, and followed him. 
 She had watched over him, with a meek, nursing 
 patience, to the last. Her love had never turned 
 away from him, through years of neglect, brutality, 
 and revolting wickedness. "Bearing all things, 
 believing all things, hoping all things, enduring 
 all things," was its motto.
 
 MATERNAL LOVE. 53 
 
 Is not the same love in the hearts of us all, 
 who are mothers? And wherefore has it been 
 placed there, that deathless love? Sisters, why is 
 it placed there? 
 
 To expend itself in the physical care of our 
 children, in the indulgence of their appetites? A 
 nurse, or a servant, might do this, for money. 
 To adorn their persons? That is the milliner's 
 province. To secure showy accomplishments? A 
 fashionable teacher will do this better. To spend 
 itself on aught that earth can bestow? I pray 
 you, not thus to degrade its essence or its mission. 
 
 The wisdom that never errs, attempers means 
 to ends. It proportions the strongest affections to 
 the greatest needs. It arms the timid, domestic 
 bird, with an eagle's courage, when its young are 
 to be defended. It has implanted in our bosoms 
 a love, next in patience to that of a Redeemer, 
 that we may perform the ministry of an angel, 
 and help to people with angels the court of 
 Heaven.
 
 54 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 WE all acknowledge the strength of habit. Its 
 power increases with time. In youth, it may 
 seem to us, like the filmy line of the spider; in 
 age, like the fly caught in its toils, we struggle 
 in vain. " Habit, if not resisted," says St. Augus- 
 tine, "becomes necessity." 
 
 The physical force of habit, is thus clearly 
 illustrated by Dr. Combe: "A tendency to resume 
 the same mode of action at stated times, is pe- 
 culiarly the characteristic of the nervous system; 
 and on this account, regularity is of great conse- 
 quence in exercising the moral and intellectual 
 powers. All nervous diseases have a marked ten- 
 dency to observe regular periods, and the natural 
 inclination to sleep at the approach of night, is 
 another instance of the same fact. It is this prin- 
 ciple of our nature, which promotes the formation 
 of what are called habits. If we repeat any kind 
 of mental effort every day at the same hour, we 
 at last find ourselves entering upon it, without 
 premeditation, when the time approaches."
 
 HABIT. 65 
 
 This law of our nature, which is so often 
 brought to bear upon intellectual progress, should 
 be enlisted as an adjunct in moral education. 
 Can we be too attentive to the habits that our 
 children form 1 too assiduous that the virtues 
 which we cherish in them, should have a deep 
 root in correct principle? We wish them to be- 
 come benevolent. The proper basis of their bene- 
 volence, is sympathetic feeling, a desire for the 
 comfort and improvement of others, in conformity 
 to the command and example of their Heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 That fine sentiment of Terence, "I am a man, 
 and therefore I feel for all mankind," might be 
 uttered with additional emphasis by our sex, 
 whose sympathies should be ever kept in action, 
 by our own infirmities, dependences, and sorrows. 
 Let us therefore, in our domestic teachings, strive 
 to extirpate selfishness, especially from the breasts 
 of our daughters. Selfishness is not to be en- 
 dured in woman. In the catalogue of her faults, 
 we do not expect to have forbearance with that. 
 It wars with the nature of her duties, and sub- 
 verts her happiness. It will be found on a com- 
 parative analysis of character, that those females 
 who through life have been distinguished for true 
 goodness, were eminently disinterested. 
 
 Forgetfulness of self, and that amiable temper 
 which at once ensures and imparts happiness, are
 
 56 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 not adverse to decision of character. On the con- 
 trary, their combination is natural, and necessary 
 to produce high excellence. We are not told that 
 the disciple who leaned on the breast of his 
 Master, was deficient in decision of character, 
 but we know that he possessed more of those 
 amiable virtues which engage affection, than he, 
 who "sudden and quick in quarrel," drew his 
 sword, and smote the servant of the high-priest. 
 The ardent temperament, which prompted the 
 asseveration, "though I die with thee, I will not 
 deny thee," is alluring ; but John withstood the 
 shock of temptation, when Peter fell. 
 
 To teach the science of self-government, is the 
 great end of education. Every hint, to assist in 
 promoting a correct balance of feeling, is impor- 
 tant to the mother. She will probably, some- 
 times, be annoyed, by a tendency to peevishness, 
 in her little ones. Let her be doubly watchful 
 against being fretful herself. Nothing is sooner 
 caught, by those whose virtues are feeble, than 
 the language of complaint. If we indulge in it 
 ourselves, how can we hope to suppress it in our 
 children? With what propriety can we reprove 
 them? Let us check in their presence, every 
 murmur that may rise to our lips, and teach 
 them by our own cheerful manner, to walk with 
 an open and admiring eye, through the picture- 
 gallery of life. "Keep aloof from sadness," says
 
 HABIT. 57 
 
 an Icelandic writer, of the 12th century, " for sad- 
 ness is a sickness of the soul. Men would often 
 give gold to buy back a passionate word, and 
 nothing so destroys unity, as the exchange of evil 
 language." 
 
 Kind words, and affectionate epithets, between 
 children of the same family, are delightful. Though 
 the love of brothers and sisters is planted .deep in 
 the heart, and seldom fails to reveal itself on every 
 trying emergency, yet its developements and daily 
 interchange, ask the regulation of paternal care. 
 Competitions should be soothed, differences com- 
 posed, and forbearance required, on the broad 
 principle of that fraternal duty, which God has 
 enjoined 
 
 In familiar conversation, examples might be 
 quoted from history, of the sweet exercise of fra- 
 ternal affection, where the softening influences of 
 the Christian religion were unknown. Some little 
 listeners were once very pleasantly impressed, by 
 hearing the story of the love of the Emperor 
 Titus, for his brother Domitian. It was the more 
 praise-worthy, because there was between them no 
 congeniality of taste. Domitian often spoke un- 
 kindly to his brother, and after his elevation to 
 the throne, even attempted to instigate the army 
 to rebellion. But Titus made no change in his 
 treatment. He would not suffer others to men- 
 tion him with disrespect. He ever spoke of him,
 
 58 LETTERS- TO MOTHERS. 
 
 as his beloved brother, his successor to the em- 
 pire. Sometimes, when they were alone, he ear- 
 nestly entreated him with tears, to reciprocate that 
 love which he had always borne him, and would 
 continue to bear him, to the end of life. This 
 fraternal attachment was the more affecting, because 
 exemplified by a heathen, and partaking of the 
 character of that precept of the religion of Jesus, 
 to "render good for evil," which he could never 
 have been taught. 
 
 The deportment of the older children of the 
 family, is of great importance to the young- 
 er. Their obedience, or insubordination, operates 
 throughout the whole circle. Especially, is the sta- 
 tion of the eldest daughter, one of eminence. She 
 drank the first draught of the mother's love. She 
 usually enjoys most of her counsel, and compan- 
 ionship. In her absence, she is the natural vice- 
 roy. Let the mother take double pains to form 
 her on a correct model ; to make her amiable, 
 diligent, domestic, pious ; trusting that the image 
 of those virtues, may leave impression on the 
 soft, waxen hearts of the younger ones, to whom 
 she may, in the providence of God, be called to fill 
 the place of a maternal guide. 
 
 Children should be required to treat domestics 
 with propriety. Those, on whom the comfort of a 
 family so essentially depends, are entitled to kind- 
 ness and sympathy. The theory, that industry,
 
 HABIT. 59 
 
 and good conduct, are worthy of respect, in what- 
 ever rank they are found, cannot be too early 
 illustrated and enforced on the members of a 
 household. " Do not press your young children 
 into book-learning," said Spurzheim, "but teach 
 them politeness;" meaning the whole circle of 
 charities, which spring from the consciousness of 
 what is due to their fellow-beings. 
 
 Be careful to teach your children gratitude. 
 Lead them to acknowledge every favour that they 
 receive, to speak of their benefactors, and to re- 
 member them in their prayers. Accustom them 
 to distinguish with a marked regard, their instruc- 
 tors, and those who have aided them in the attain- 
 ment of goodness or piety. It is an interesting 
 circumstance in the life of Ann, Countess of Pem- 
 broke, who was distinguished more than two cen- 
 turies since, by her learning, her decision of char- 
 acter, the languages she acquired, and the honours 
 she enjoyed, that she erected a monument to the 
 memory of her tutor, and always spoke of him 
 .with the most affectionate veneration, as her 
 guide in the rudiments of knowledge. 
 
 Filial love should be cherished. It has espe- 
 cially, a softening and ennobling effect, on the mas- 
 culine heart. It has been remarked that almost 
 all illustrious men, have been distinguished by love 
 for their mother. It is mentioned by Miss Pardoe, 
 that a " beautiful feature in the character of the
 
 60 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Turks, is reverence for the mother. Their wives 
 may advise or reprimand, unheeded, but their 
 mother is an oracle, consulted, confided in, listened 
 to with respect and deference, honoured to the latest 
 hour, and remembered with affection and regret 
 even beyond the grave." " Wives may die," say 
 they, "and we can replace them, children perish, 
 and others may be born to us, but who shall 
 restore the mother when she passes away, and is 
 seen no more ?" 
 
 Gratitude is a principal ingredient in filial affec- 
 tion. It often reveals itself in a most touching 
 manner, when parents moulder in the dust. It 
 induces obedience to their precepts, and tender 
 love for their memory. A little boy was once 
 passing the ornamented garden of a rich man. 
 He was observed to look earnestly and wishfully 
 at some sprouts, that were germinating on the 
 trunk of an old poplar. On being asked what he 
 wanted, he said, "My..rnpther loved flowers, and 
 every green, living thing. She has been dead two 
 years, yet I have never planted one where she 
 sleeps. I often wish to. I was just thinking how 
 pretty, one of these would look there." The gen- 
 tleman kindly gave him a rose-bush, and the fresh 
 wand of a weeping willow. Then the poor, little 
 fellow lifted up his streaming eyes, and gave 
 thanks in a broken voice for himself, and for his 
 dear, dead mother.
 
 HABIT. 61 
 
 In developing the character of our children, let 
 us ever keep in view their distinct departments, 
 sentient, social, intellectual, accountable ; and give 
 nutriment, and exercise, to each. Let us make 
 them industrious, as a means of happiness, and a 
 safeguard from temptation. The value of time 
 should be taught them, even of its smallest parti- 
 cles. Sir Walter Scott, in enforcing the senti- 
 ment of Franklin, that " time is money," has well 
 added, "when we change a guinea, the shillings 
 escape, as things of small account ; so when we 
 break a day by idleness in the morning, the rest 
 of the hours lose their importance in our eyes." 
 But from the highest of all motives, that for our 
 days, hours, and moments, we must give account 
 to God, should we warn our children to improve 
 their time, and dread to waste it. 
 
 Yet not in studies above their years, or in irk- 
 some tasks, should children be employed. The 
 joyous freshness of their young natures should be 
 preserved, while they learn the duties that fit them 
 for this life, and the next. Wipe away their 
 tears. Remember, how hurtful are heavy rains to 
 the tender blossom just opening on the day. Cher- 
 ish their smiles. Let them learn to draw happiness 
 from all surrounding objects : since there may be 
 some mixture of happiness in every thing but sin. 
 It was once said of a beautiful woman, that from 
 her childhood, she had ever- spoke smiling, as if 
 6
 
 62 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 the heart poured joy upon the lips, and they 
 turned it into beauty. 
 
 May I be forgiven, for so repeatedly pressing 
 on mothers, to wear the lineaments of cheerful- 
 ness? "To be good, and disagreeable, is high- 
 treason against the royalty of virtue," said a cor- 
 rect moralist. How much is it to be deprecated, 
 // when _piety r _Ae_ only fountain of tru^Joy, fails 
 of making that joy visible to every one. If hap- 
 piness is melody of soul, the concord of our feel- 
 ings with the circumstances of our lot, the harmony 
 of our whole being, with the will of the Creator, 
 how desirable that this melody should produce the 
 response of sweet tones, and a smiling counte- 
 nance, that even slight observers may be won 
 by the charm of its external symbols. 
 
 A mother, who was in the habit of asking her 
 / children, before they retired at night, what they 
 had done through the day, to make others happy, 
 found her young twin-daughters silent. The old- 
 er ones spoke modestly of deeds and dispositions, 
 founded on the golden rule, "do unto others, as 
 you would that they should do unto you." Still 
 those little, bright faces, were bowed down in se- 
 rious silence. The question was repeated. "I 
 can remember nothing good, all this day, dear 
 mother. Only, one of my school-mates was 
 happy, because she had gained the head of the 
 class, and I smiled on her, and ran to kiss
 
 HABIT. 63 
 
 her. So she said I was good. This is all, dear 
 mother." 
 
 The other spoke still more timidly. "A little 
 girl who sat by me, on the bench at school, had 
 lost a baby-brother. I saw that while she studied 
 her lesson, she hid her face in the book and wept. 
 I felt sorry, and laid my face on the same book, 
 and wept with her. Then she looked up, and 
 was comforted, and put her arms round my neck. 
 But I do not know why she said, that I had done 
 her good." 
 
 The mother knew how to prize the first blos- 
 somings of sympathy. She said, "Come to my 
 arms, beloved ones ; to rejoice with those who re- 
 joice, and weep with those who weep, is to obey 
 our blessed Redeemer." 
 
 Mothers, whatever you wish your children to 
 become, strive to exhibit in your own lives and 
 conversation. Do not send them into an unex- 
 plored country, without a guide. Put yourselves 
 at their head. Lead the way, like Moses, through 
 the wilderness, to Pisgah. The most certain mode 
 for you to fix habits, is the silent ministry of ex- 
 ample. Thus impressed on the young mind, 
 amid the genial atmosphere of a happy fire-side, 
 they become incorporated with established trains 
 of thought, and with the elements of being. They 
 have their jjand upon the soul, till through the grave, 
 and gate of death, it goes forth to the judgment.
 
 64 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 I knew the children of a family, who seemed 
 always amiable. Their countenances wore the 
 sunshine of the heart. Among their young as- 
 sociates, they were obliging and kind. If there 
 were mischief or trouble in school, they had 
 neither " part or lot in the matter." Wherever 
 they visited, not only their friends in the parlour, 
 but the servants loved them, and wished them to 
 continue long their guests. Those who were 
 married, diffused throughout their households the 
 spirit of order and happiness. On enquiring how 
 they had been educated, I found that the mother 
 had kept them much with herself, during the most 
 plastic period of their existence, and that the rules 
 which she had given them, had regulated her own 
 conduct. The quiet beauty of example, and the 
 influences of a happy fire-side, were the machi- 
 nery which she had used, to render them amiable, 
 benevolent and pious. 
 
 A standard of good manners should be estab- 
 lished in the family-circle. We appreciate the 
 value of such manners, in mixed society. They 
 are a letter of credit, in the hand of a stranger. 
 So much is every person subject to their fascina- 
 tion, that the unworthy study to acquire them, as 
 a means of ensnaring their prey. Why should 
 the wife, or the husband, lay aside those courte- 
 sies, which are associated with the giowth, per- 
 haps with the birth, of their love? Some writer
 
 HABIT. 65 
 
 has remarked that the cardinal duties are claimed 
 as rights, but the refined attentions, the watchful 
 kindnesses, which make the stream of domestic 
 life so sparkling, will ever rank as precious favours, 
 which it is ungenerous to omit. They ought not 
 indeed, to be omitted, were it only for the sake of 
 the children, whose eyes are ever fixed upon the 
 parents, in the spirit of imitation. It is not wise 
 to exact from those little beings, the forms of eti- 
 quette, which ceremonious intercourse prescribes. 
 They too often demand the sacrifice of honesty 
 of speech, and originality of character. Such 
 observances vary with ranks, countries, and ages 
 of the world, but the principles of true politeness 
 are the same, resting on good will to man, and 
 pointing to that more glorious attainment, the love 
 of God. 
 
 It was a high testimony to the fine manners of 
 Mrs. Macauley, the accomplished historian, which 
 was once borne by an intimate friend : " I have 
 seen her exalted on the dangerous pinnacle of 
 prosperity, surrounded by flattering friends, and 
 an admiring world. I have seen her marked out 
 by prejudice, as an object of dislike and ridicule. 
 I have seen her bowed down, by bodily pain and 
 weakness. But never did I see her forget the 
 urbanity of a lady, the conscious dignity of a 
 rational being, or fervent aspirations after the 
 highest degree of attainable perfection."
 
 66 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Perhaps, we reflect too little on the courteous- 
 ness of Jesus, our Master and Exemplar. " When 
 ye come into an house," said he, " salute it." We 
 all know, that the oriental modes of salutation 
 involved much more of ceremony than our own. 
 Still, the Saviour, who ever decried the giving 
 of undue honour to men, sanctions and enjoins 
 them at the entrance of every dwelling. Neither 
 are these marks of respect to be reserved for 
 those whom we best love, or most desire to con- 
 ciliate. "If ye salute your brethren only, what 
 do ye more than others? Do not even the pub- 
 licans so?" The inference is obvious, that all 
 should be treated with respectful regard, as beings 
 formed by the same Creator, children of one great 
 family. 
 
 From his disciples, though not educated'in re- 
 finement, or called from among the ranks of the 
 rich and noble, do we not receive the same in- 
 struction? Was it not a humble fisherman, who 
 inspired by the religion of the skies, said, " be 
 courteous?" The courtesy of a Christian is no 
 trifling part of education. Mothers, teach it to 
 your children. 
 
 Let us, during the whole process of their edu- 
 cation, feel and fear the omnipotence of habit. 
 For if the toiling atom beneath the waters is 
 able to construct a reef which may make the 
 proudest ship a wreck, shall we dare to look
 
 HABIT. 67 
 
 upon the slightest evil habit, and say it is harm- 
 Jess 1 Though its work may have been done 
 secretly as under the flood, yet the cry of a lost 
 soul may be its herald at the judgment.
 
 68 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 HEALTH. 
 
 WE have all of us seen, with pity and regret, 
 a sickly mother, burdened with the cares of her 
 household. She has felt that there were em- 
 ployments which no one could discharge as well 
 as herself; modifications of duty, in which the 
 interest of her husband, the welfare of her chil- 
 dren, the comfort of her family, were concerned, 
 which could not be deputed to another, without 
 loss. Therefore, she continues to exert herself, 
 above, and beyond her strength. 
 
 Still, her step is languid, and her eye joyless. 
 The "spirit indeed is. willing, but the flesh is 
 weak." Her little ones observe her dejected man- 
 ner, and grow sad. Or, they take advantage of 
 her want of energy, and become lawless. She, 
 herself, cannot long persist in a course of labour, 
 that involves expense of health, without some 
 mental sympathy. The most amiable temper will 
 sometimes become irritable, or complaining, when 
 the shrinking nerves require rest, and the demands 
 of toil, and the claims upon painful thought, are
 
 HEALTH. 69 
 
 perpetual. Efforts, which, to one in health, are 
 like dew-drops shaken from the eagle's wing, seem 
 to the invalid, like the ascent of the Alps, or like 
 heaping Pelion upon Ossa. 
 
 Admitting that a sickly woman has sufficient 
 self-controul, to repel the intrusion of fretfulness, 
 and preserve a subdued equanimity, this, though 
 certainly deserving of praise, is falling short of 
 what she would wish to attain. The meek look 
 of resignation, though it may cost her much to 
 maintain, is not all that a husband wishes, who, 
 coming from the vexed atmosphere of business 
 or ambition, would fain find in his home, the 
 smile of cheerfulness, the playful charm of a 
 mind at ease. Men prize more than we are 
 aware, the health-beaming countenance, the elas- 
 i tic step, and all those demonstrations of domes- 
 tic order, in which unbroken activity delights. 
 They love to see a woman equal to her own 
 duties, and performing them with pleasure. They 
 do not like to have the principal theme of domes- 
 tic conversation a detail of physical ills, or to be 
 expected to question like a physician, into the 
 variety of symptoms which have supervened since 
 their departure. Or if this is occasionally borne 
 with a good grace, where ill health is supposed 
 to be temporary, yet the saddening effects of an 
 enfeebled constitution cannot always be resisted, 
 by him who expected in his wife a " yoke-fellow,"
 
 70 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 able to endure the rough roads and sharp ascents 
 of life. A nature, possessing great capacities for 
 sympathy and tenderness, may doubtless be im- 
 proved by the exercise of those capacities. Still 
 the good gained, is only from the patient, or per- 
 haps, the Christian endurance of a disappointment. 
 But where those capacities do not exist, and 
 where religious principle is absent, the perpetual 
 influence of a sickly and mournful wife is as a 
 blight upon those prospects which allure men to 
 matrimony. Follies, and lapses into vice, may be 
 sometimes traced to those sources which robe 
 home in gloom. 
 
 There are, indeed, instances of manly affection 
 so generous and devoted, as never to be weary of 
 the office of a comforter, where years of helpless 
 sickness in the object of its choice have only the 
 effect of increasing its own fervid constancy. We 
 have, doubtless, all witnessed it, and felt that it 
 was above earthly praise. Yet, there is often so 
 much of political economy, mingling with matri- 
 mony, that though the combination cannot be com- 
 mended, it is still necessary to take the world 
 much as we find it, and adapt precepts rather to 
 the general state of things, than to those beautiful 
 exceptions, which are "few, and far between." 
 
 We have often beheld sickness endured with 
 such angelic serenity, with so evident a brighten- 
 ing of every Christian grace, that the healthful
 
 HEALTH. 71 
 
 and happy have sought its chamber of discipline, 
 feeling that it was as the "very gate of heaven." 
 The smile of chastened resignation has a beauty, ^ 
 an eloquence, which the flush of prosperity may 
 not boast. The young, seated by the pillow of 
 such a monitor, are in the way of wisdom. Suf- \X 
 fering endured with holy acquiescence, sublimates 
 the character and conforms it to its Divine Ex- 
 emplar. 
 
 Still I have thought it right to give a strong 
 delineation of the disappointed earthly hope, which 
 a broken constitution often creates^that I might i -"" 
 incite mothers to early attention to the health of 
 their daughters, " if by any means, I might provoke 
 to emulation, these which are my flesh, and might 
 save some of them." 
 
 But if to manhood, the influence of perpetual 
 debility, in the partner of its joys, is so dispiriting, 
 how much more oppressive is it to those little ones, 
 who are by nature allied to gladness. Childhood, 
 whose birthright is its innocent joy, must hush 
 its sportive laugh, and repress its merry footstep, 
 as if its plays were sins. Or if the diseased nerves 
 of the mother do not habitually impose such sacri- 
 fices, it learns from nature's promptings, to fashion 
 its manners, or its voice, or its countenance, after 
 the melancholy model of the sufferer whom it 
 loves, and so forfeits its beautiful heritage of 
 young delight. Those sicknesses to which the
 
 72 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 most robust are subject, by giving exercise to 
 self-denial, and offices of sympathy from all the 
 members of a household, are doubtless, often bless- 
 ed as the means of improvement, and the messen- 
 gers which draw more closely the bonds of true 
 affection. 
 
 But it must be sufficiently obvious, that I speak 
 of that want of constitutional vigour, or of that 
 confirmed feebleness of habit, which either create 
 inability for the duties, which in our country de- 
 volve upon a wife, a mother, and mistress of a 
 family, or cause them to be discharged in languor 
 and wretchedness. And I speak of them, that the 
 attention of those, who conduct the earliest phy- 
 sical education of females, may be quickened to 
 search how evils of such magnitude may be 
 obviated. 
 
 Mothers, is there any thing we can do, to ac- 
 quire for our daughters a good constitution ? Is 
 there truth in the sentiment sometimes repeated, 
 that our sex is becoming more and more effemi- 
 nate? Are we as capable of enduring hardship 
 as our grand-mothers were ? Are we as well 
 versed in the details of house-keeping, as able to 
 bear them without fatigue, as our mothers ? Have 
 our daughters as much stamina of constitution, 
 as much aptitude for domestic duty, as we our- 
 selves possess? These questions are not interest- 
 ing to us simply as individuals. They affect the
 
 HEALTH. 73 
 
 welfare of the community. For the ability or in- 
 ability of woman to discharge what the Almighty 
 has committed to her, touches the equilibrium of vx 
 society, and the hidden springs of existence. 
 
 Tenderly interested as we are for the health 
 of our offspring, let us devote peculiar attention 
 to that of our daughters. Their delicate frames 
 require more care, in order to become vigorous, 
 and are in more danger through the prevalence 
 of fashion. Frequent and thorough ablutions, a 
 simple and nutritious diet, we undoubtedly secure 
 for all our children. 
 
 But I plead for the little girl, that she may 
 have air and exercise, as well as her brother, and 
 that she may not be too much blamed, if in her 
 earnest play she happen to tear, or soil her ap- 
 parel. I plead that she be not punished as a 
 romp, if she keenly enjoy those active sports 
 which city gentility proscribes. I plead that the 
 ambition to make her accomplished, do not chain 
 her to her piano, till the spinal column which Q^ 
 should consolidate the frame, starts aside like a ^ V^vC/^ 
 broken reed; nor bow her over her book, till the o^ 3 
 vital energy which ought to pervade the whole 
 system, mounts into the brain, and kindles the 
 death-fever. 
 
 Mothers, if you would do your duty, get a trea- 
 tise on Anatomy, and become familiar with its 
 rudiments. At least, acquaint yourself with the 
 7 

 
 74 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 physiology of the skin, the lungs, the circulation 
 of the blood, and the digestive organs. I cannot 
 flatter myself that I am imparting any thing new, 
 when I mention that the former is composed of 
 three laminae or layers, and that the inner one is 
 a tissue of nerves and blood-vessels, so minute, 
 that the point of the finest needle cannot be 
 introduced without puncturing some of them. 
 Through these ever-open, and invisible pores, the 
 waste matter of our continually changing bodies 
 escapes, equalling in weight more than twenty 
 ounces every twenty-four hours. This evacua- 
 tion, if checked, so overtaxes other excretory or- 
 gans, as to produce disease, and if retained on 
 the surface, and returned through the absorbents, 
 acts as a poison in the system. Daily and entire 
 ablution, with correspondent friction, is necessary 
 to preserve in a healthful state, an organ of such 
 great importance to the animal economy. 
 
 The sympathy between the skin and lungs is 
 so established, and intimate, that a neglected state 
 of the former has much to do with the produc- 
 tion and progress of pulmonary disease, that fre- 
 quent and favourite messenger of death. Food, 
 after being received into the stomach, sends forth 
 its nutritive portions, in the form of chyle, to be 
 mingled with the blood. This junction is formed 
 at the right side of the heart, but the mixture of 
 new and old fluid is not fitted to sustain life, until
 
 HEALTH. 75 
 
 propelled through the left side of the heart, it is 
 submitted by the agency of the lungs to the air. 
 Then taking its true colour, it is transmitted 
 through the arteries to the most remote extremity, 
 and called back ugain from its life-giving visits, 
 to pass review in its sleepless citadel. Thus the 
 whole volume of blood, which in an adult is 
 from three to four gallons, passes once every 
 three minutes through the heart, on its way to 
 and from the lungs. And those unresting la- 
 bourers, the heart and lungs, from the first mo- 
 ment of existence, till we return to dust, continue 
 their labours, independent of our volition, won- 
 drous symbols of that Almighty goodness, which, 
 whether we wake or sleep, is "new every morn- 
 ing, fresh every moment." 
 
 Outlines of the mysterious mechanism of our 
 clay-temple, we ought certainly to study, that we 
 need not, through ignorance, interfere with those 
 laws on which its organization depends. Ren- 
 dered precious, by being the shrine of an undying 
 spirit, our ministrations for its welfare assume an 
 almost fearful importance. Appointed as the mother 
 is, to guard the harmony of its architecture, to 
 study the arts on which its symmetry depends, 
 she is forced to perceive how much the mind is 
 affected by the circumstances of its lodgement, 
 and is incited to cherish the mortal, for the sake 
 of the immortal.
 
 76 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Does she attach value to the gems of intel- 
 lect? Let her see that the casket which contains 
 them, be not lightly endangered, or carelessly 
 broken. Does she pray for the welfare of the 
 soul? Let her seek the good of its companion, 
 who walks with it to the gate of the grave, and 
 rushes again to its embrace on the morning of 
 the resurrection. 
 
 As the testimony of medical men has de- 
 servedly great weight, on subjects of this nature, 
 permit me to offer to the attention of mothers a 
 few passages from Dr. Comstock's Physiology: 
 
 " It is well known to physiologists, that if pres- 
 sure be made, and continued on any part of the 
 system, the part so pressed, will be gradually di- 
 minished. Thus, if one limb be tightly bandaged, 
 for a length of time, it will become smaller than 
 the other. 
 
 " To understand the reason of this, it is neces- 
 sary to state, that every part of the system is 
 furnished with two sets, or kinds of vessels, called 
 capillaries ; one set being designed to secrete, or 
 produce; the other, to absorb, or remove. In the 
 living animal, both these kinds are constantly per- 
 forming their opposite functions. 
 
 " The flesh, and all the other parts of the body, 
 are formed by the secretory system, which con- 
 sists of the fine extremities of the arteries. The 
 food being converted into chyle, by the process
 
 HEALTH. 77 
 
 of digestion, is conveyed into the circulation, to 
 be converted into blood. From the blood thus, 
 formed, the secreting vessels produce all the dif- 
 ferent kinds of substance, of which the several 
 parts of the animal system are composed ; one di- 
 vision forming flesh, another cartilage, and another 
 bone. 
 
 " On the contrary, the absorbent system takes up 
 the various fluids, which are either employed in 
 the process of secretion, or, having performed that 
 office, are to be conveyed out of the body. The 
 absorbents take up the chyle, by millions of mouths, 
 and deliver it into the circulation. They also 
 absorb the superabundant moisture, which is se- 
 creted in eveiy interior part of the body; and 
 consequently, did they cease to act, this watery 
 fluid would accumulate, and an universal dropsy 
 ensue. This disease is owing to the deficient 
 action of the absorbents. 
 
 "Such being the appropriate functions of these 
 two great systems of vessels, distributed in every 
 part of the animal frame, it is plain, that the iden- 
 tical particles of which they are composed, are 
 perpetually changing, so that in this respect, we 
 are not the same individuals now that we were 
 formerly, nor will our bodies, at a future time, 
 contain a particle of the identical matter which 
 they do at this moment. In childhood and youth, 
 while the frame is growing, the secretion js. greater
 
 78 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 than the absorption ; in adults, and the middle 
 aged, the effects of the two systems are equal ; 
 but in old age, the absorption is greater than the 
 secretion : hence, the weight and dimensions of 
 the body are diminished, and the skin, instead of 
 preserving its tension, becomes wrinkled, in con- 
 sequence of the loss of a part of the bulk it had 
 been accustomed to cover. 
 
 "In applying these principles to the use of stays, 
 it is almost unnecessary to say, that during the 
 growth of the system, pressure on any of its 
 parts, though it be inconsiderable in force, yet, if 
 long continued, will prevent their increase; and 
 this, not only for want of room to expand, but 
 also, by interfering with the functions of the se- 
 creting system in that part. Beside this obvious 
 effect of confinement, during the growth of the 
 system, it is well known, that in the adult, as well 
 as in the young, pressure will also diminish any 
 part on which it is made. Not only the soft and 
 fleshy portions may be thus absorbed and removed, 
 but even the bones do not resist the power of 
 these minute vessels ; portions of their solid parts 
 being sometimes carried away by their action. 
 
 " The pressure of stays around the waist, it is 
 quite clear, from the foregoing principles, must, 
 in youth, and while the system is growing, pre- 
 vent the full developement of the muscles of the 
 back, by presenting an impediment to their in-
 
 HEALTH. 79 
 
 crease of bulk. Even if not assumed, till the sys- 
 tem has nearly or quite attained its full size, as 
 at the age of sixteen, or nineteen, still the conse- 
 quences may be equally pernicious, since the form, 
 in this case, will be supposed to require a degree 
 of tension in the lacing-cords, somewhat propor- 
 tionate to the time they have been omitted. The 
 effect will therefore be, to increase the absorption, 
 and diminish the secretion of the parts pressed 
 upon, and thus to reduce the bulk, and, conse- 
 quently, the strength and vigour of the muscles. 
 
 " Now, the spinal column is chiefly supported in 
 its erect position by those strong muscles of the 
 back, called the dorsal muscles ; and if, by any 
 means, these are diminished in bulk, or vigour, 
 the spine will inevitably become distorted ; and, 
 as we have shown that tight lacing produces the 
 first effect, so it is equally certain that the last 
 will follow. 
 
 "We have nothing to do with the mere ex- 
 travagances, or follies, if they exist, of the female 
 costume in the present day; our design being 
 only to speak of such fashions, or habits of dress- 
 ing, as produce deformity and disease: and on 
 these subjects, there are facts so common and so 
 deplorable, that they ought to induce thousands 
 to raise their voices and their authority against 
 the practices to which their origin is so plainly 
 to be traced."
 
 80 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Counselled clearly as we have thus been, on 
 the tendency of compression, to produce diseases 
 of the spine, we ought to be ever awake to its 
 
 v danger in the region of the heart and lungs. A 
 slight ligature there, in the earlier stages of life, 
 is fraught with danger. To disturb or impede 
 those labourers, who turn the wheels of life, both 
 night and day, how absurd and ungrateful. Sam- 
 son was bound in fetters, and ground in the 
 prison-house, for a while, but at length he crushed 
 the pillars of the temple, and the lords of the 
 Philistines perished with him. Nature, though she 
 may be long in resenting a wrong, never forgets 
 
 v it. Against those who violate her laws, she often 
 rises as a giant in his might, and when they 
 least expect it, inflicts a fearful punishment. 
 
 Fashion seems long enough to have attacked 
 health in its strong-holds. She cannot even prove 
 that she has rendered the form more graceful, as 
 some equivalent for her ravages. In ancient 
 
 '<* Greece, to whom our painters and sculptors still 
 look for the purest models, was not the form left 
 untutored? the volume of the lungs allowed free 
 play? the heart permitted, without manacles, to 
 do the great work which the Creator assigned it? 
 The injuries iftflicted by compression of the 
 vital parts, are too numerous to be here recounted. 
 Impaired digestion, obstructed circulation, pulmo- 
 nary disease, and nervous wretchedness, are in
 
 HEALTH. 81 
 
 their train. A physician, distinguished by practi- 
 cal knowledge of the Protean forms of insanity, 
 asserted, that he gained many patients from that 
 cause. Another medical gentleman of eminence, 
 led by philanthropy, to investigate the subject of 
 tight lacing, has assured the public that multitudes 
 annually die by the severe discipline of busk and 
 corset. His theory is sustained by collateral proof, 
 and illustrated by dissections. 
 
 It is not sufficient, that we mothers protect our 
 younger daughters while more immediately under 
 our authority, from such hurtful practices. We 
 should follow them, until a principle is formed 
 by which they can protect themselves against the 
 tyranny of fashion. It is true, that no young lady 
 acknowledges herself to be laced too tight. Habits 
 that shun the light, and shelter themselves in sub- 
 terfuge, are ever the most difficult to eradicate. 
 A part of the energy which is essential to their 
 reformation, must be expended in hunting them 
 from their hiding-places. Though the sufferer 
 from tight lacing will not own herself to be uncom- 
 fortable, the laborious respiration, the suffused 
 countenance, the constrained movement, perhaps 
 the curved spine, bear different testimony. 
 
 But in these days of diffused knowledge, of 
 heightened education, is it possible that any female 
 can put in jeopardy the enjoyment of health, even 
 the duration of existence, for a circumstance of
 
 82 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 dress 1 Will she throw an illusion over those who 
 strive to save her, and like the Spartan culprit, 
 conceal the destroyer that feeds upon her vitals? 
 We know that it is so. Who that has tested the 
 omnipotence of fashion will doubt it ? This is, by 
 no means, the only sacrifice of health that she 
 imposes. But it is a prominent one. Let us, who 
 are mothers, look to it. Let us be fully aware of 
 the dangers of stricture on the lungs and heart, 
 during their season of developement. 
 
 Why should we not bring up our daughters, 
 without any article of dress which could disorder 
 the seat of vitality. Our sons hold themselves 
 erect, without busk or corset, or frame-work of 
 whalebone. Why should not our daughters also? 
 Did not God make them equally upright? Yes. 
 But they have " sought out many inventions." 
 
 Let us educate a race who shall have room to 
 breathe. Let us promise, even in their cradle, 
 that their hearts shall not be pinioned as in a vice, 
 nor their spines bent like a bow, nor their ribs 
 forced into the liver. Doubtless, the husbands 
 and fathers of the next generation will give us 
 thanks. 
 
 Yet, if we would engage in so formidable a 
 work, we must not wait until morbid habits have 
 gathered strength. Our labour must be among 
 the elements of character. We must teach in the 
 nursery, that " the body is the temple of the Holy
 
 HEALTH. 83 
 
 Ghost." We must leave no place in the minds 
 of our little ones, for the lunatic sentiment, that 
 the mind's healthful action, and the integrity of 
 the organs on which it operates, are secondary to 
 the vanities of external decoration. If they have 
 received from their Creator, a sound mind, and 
 a sound body, convince them that they are account- 
 able for both. If they deliberately permit injury 
 to either, how shall they answer for it before their 
 Judge ? 
 
 And how shall the mother answer it, in whose 
 hand the soul of her child was laid, as a waxen 
 tablet, if she suffer Fashion to cover it with fan- 
 tastic images, and Folly to puff out her feverish 
 breath, melting the lines that Wisdom pencilled 
 there, till what Heaven would fain have polished 
 for itself, loses the fair impression, and becomes 
 like common earth.
 
 84 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 I HAVE a few words to say to mothers on a 
 point of domestick economy. In a country like 
 ours, where there are few large estates, and where 
 almost every father of a family is subjected to some 
 kind of labour, either for the maintenance of those 
 who are dear, or the preservation of possessions on 
 which they are to depend when he shall be taken 
 from them, the duty of the " help-meet," to lighten 
 as far as possible these burdens, by a consistent 
 economy, is too obvious to need illustration. To 
 adapt whatever may be entrusted to her care, to 
 the best ends, and to make it subservient to the 
 greatest amount of good, should be her daily study. 
 There is, perhaps, no community of women, who 
 more faithfully, or dexterously, than the wives and 
 mothers of New England, carry this wisdom and 
 forethought into all the details of that science by 
 which the table is spread, and the apparel adapted, 
 to the ever-changing seasons. The same judgment 
 which so admirably regulates food and clothing, it 
 would be desirable to apply to another and a higher
 
 ECONOMY. 85 
 
 department. It is to mothers, with the care of 
 young children, that these remarks on economy 
 are peculiarly addressed. They have the charge 
 of immortal beings, whose physical, mental and 
 moral temperament, are for a long period, exclu- 
 sively in their hands. Nothing save the finger of 
 God has written on the tablet, when it is commit- 
 ted to them. It is important that they secure time 
 to form deep and lasting impressions. 
 
 Let them, therefore, devote their first strength, 
 and their utmost effort, to the highest duties. The 
 heart soon developes itself, and asks culture. 
 Through the feelings and affections it bursts forth, 
 even while the infant is considered not to have 
 advanced beyond animal nature. The preferences, 
 the passions, reveal themselves, like the young 
 tendrils of the vine, reaching out feebly and 
 blindly. The mother must be assiduous, in teach- 
 ing them where to twine. While the character 
 of the babe is forming, let every action and indi- 
 cation of motive be a subject of observation. But 
 how can she be adequate to this, if the whole atten- 
 tion to the personal comfort of several young chil- 
 dren devolves upon herself? If she is to make 
 and mend their articles of dress, bear them in her 
 arms during their period of helplessness, and exhaust 
 herself by toils throughout the day, and watchings 
 by night, how can she have leisure to study their 
 varying shades of disposition, and adapt to each 
 8
 
 86 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 the fitting mode of discipline, as the skilful gardener 
 suits the plant to the soil ? Will she not be some- 
 times moved to apostrophize them, like the leader 
 of the wandering, repining Israelites, "how can 
 I alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, 
 and your strife?" 
 
 The remedy is, for the mother to provide her- 
 self with competent assistance, in the sphere of 
 manual labour, that she may be enabled to become 
 the constant directress of her children, and have 
 leisure to be happy in their companionship. This 
 would seem to be a rational economy. The thrifty 
 village-matron, when she returns from church, 
 takes off her Sunday dress, and deposites it in its 
 accustomed place, substituting one better fitted to 
 her household duties. She is not blamed for pre- 
 serving her most valuable garment for its appro- 
 priate uses. Let every mother pay herself the 
 same respect, which the good farmer's lady pays 
 her " bettermost gown :" not the homage of a 
 miserly parsimony, but a just protection in fresh- 
 ness and order, for fitting and dignified offices, 
 
 " My husband cannot afford to hire a nurse for 
 the little ones," said a young friend. "We have 
 so many, that we must economize." 
 
 Her mother suggested that the expenditure 
 should be saved in some other department of 
 housekeeping, in the toilette, or in luxurious en- 
 tertainment. But the counsel was not accepted
 
 ECONOMY. 87 
 
 by the daughter, who, in her zeal for economy, 
 failed to comprehend its elementary principles. 
 
 She commenced her task with vigour, and con- 
 fidence in the correctness of her own decision. 
 Sickness in the various forms that mark the pro- 
 gress of dentition, and neglect of slight diseases 
 in their first symptoms, came upon her young 
 family. Uninstructed by experience, she gave 
 powerful medicines for trifling maladies, or sum- 
 moned and teazed physicians, when Nature was 
 simply perfecting her own operations. The chil- 
 dren who had emerged from infancy, were in- 
 dulging bad dispositions, and acquiring improper 
 habits. She knew it. But what could she do? 
 She was depressed by fatigue. The wardrobe of 
 her numerous little ones continually required her 
 attention. It would not do for them to be un- 
 fashionably clad, or appear worse than their neigh- 
 bours. So, the soul being most out of sight, must 
 suffer most. Blindness to evil, or hasty punish- 
 ment, rendering it still more inveterate, were the 
 only resources of her hurried and hurrying mode 
 of existence. For her, there seemed no rest. If 
 health returned to her young family, mental dis- 
 eases were disclosed. She became spiritless, ner- 
 vous and discouraged. She was harrassed by the 
 application of force among the inferior machinery. 
 When it was necessary that power should be 
 brought to bear upon the minds committed to
 
 88 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 her care, she was painfully conscious that her 
 energies had spent themselves in other channels. 
 Running up the shrouds like a ship-boy, the helm, 
 where she should stand, was left unguided. The 
 pilot, steering among rocks, does not weary him- 
 self with the ropes and rigging, which a common 
 sailor as well manages, and better understands. 
 
 The temper and constitution of the young 
 mother became equally impaired. Her .husband 
 complained of the bad conduct and rude manners 
 of the children. " What could she do ? She was 
 sure there was nothing but toil and trouble, by 
 night, and by day." This was true. There was 
 an error in economy. The means were not adapt- 
 ed to their highest ends. She was an educated 
 woman, and a Christian. Her children should 
 have reaped the advantage of her internal wealth, 
 as soon as their unfolding minds cast forth the 
 first beam of intelligence. But she led the life 
 of a galley-slave, and their heritage was in pro- 
 portion. 
 
 Is this an uncommon example 1 Have we not 
 often witnessed it? Have we not ourselves ex- 
 hibited some of its lineaments ? 
 
 The proposed remedy, is to employ an efficient 
 person in the nurse's department. I say efficient, 
 for the young girls, to whom this responsibility is 
 sometimes entrusted, are themselves an additional 
 care. I am not willing," said a judicious father,
 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 "to place my infant in the arms of one, with 
 whom I would not trust an expensive glass dish." 
 Half-grown girls are not the proper assistants to a 
 young mother. They themselves need her super- 
 intendence, and create new demands on time 
 already too much absorbed. 
 
 "I know she is small," says the mistaken pa- 
 rent, "but she will do to hold a baby" 
 
 Holding a baby, is not so slight a vocation 
 as many suppose. Physicians assert that defor- 
 mity is often produced, by keeping an infant in 
 those uneasy positions to which a feeble arm re- 
 sorts ; and health and life have been sacrificed 
 to accidents and falls, through the carelessness, 
 or impatience, of an over-wearied girl. The ar- 
 gument for the substitution of an immature nurse, 
 drawn from the circumstance of the saving of 
 expense, is doubtless futile ; for the apparel and 
 means of education, which a conscientious per- 
 son feels bound to provide for a young girl, 
 will equal the wages of a woman. In many 
 departments of domestic labour, the help of mi- 
 nors is both pleasant and profitable ; and the lady 
 who brings them up properly, confers a benefit 
 on the community, and may secure to herselfj 
 lasting gratitude and attachment. 
 
 But the physical welfare of infancy is of such 
 immense importance, that it seems desirable that 
 those whom the mother associates with herself 
 8*
 
 90 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 in this department, should have attained full 
 strength, both of mind and body. Moral integ- 
 rity, patient and kind dispositions, industrious 
 habits, and religious principles, are essential to the 
 faithful discharge of these deputed duties, and 
 to render that influence safe, which they will ne- 
 cessarily acquire over the little being whose com- 
 fort they promote. Such qualities are deserving 
 of respect, in whatever station they may be 
 found ; and I would suggest, both as a point of 
 policy and justice, the attaching higher consider- 
 ation to the office of a nurse, when her charac- 
 ter comprises them. If the nurture of an immor- 
 tal being for immortality is an honourable work, 
 and if its earliest impressions are allowed to be 
 most indelible, those who minister to its humblest 
 wants, partake in some measure of its elevated 
 destiny; as the porters and Levites derived dig- 
 nity from the temple-service, though they might 
 not wear the Urim and Thummim of the High- 
 Priest, or direct the solemn sacrifices, when the 
 flame of Heaven descended upon the altar. 
 
 To the inquiry, why this kind of assistance is 
 more needed by the mother in our own days, 
 than by her of the "olden time," by whom the 
 care of children, the operations of the needle, the 
 mysteries of culinary science, and all the com- 
 plicated duties of housekeeping, were simultane- 
 ously performed, without failure or chasm, the
 
 ECONOMY. 91 
 
 natural reply is, that the structure of society is 
 different, and from an educated parent, the mod- 
 ern system of division of labour asks new and 
 extended effort. She requires aid, not that she \ 
 may indulge in indolence, but that she may de- 
 vote the instruments entrusted to her to their 
 legitimate uses. There is, perhaps, no sphere of 
 action, where indolence is both so fatal and so 
 sinful, as in that of a mother of young children. 
 She is a sentinel who should never sleep at her 
 post. She cannot be long relieved without hazard, 
 or exchanged without loss. She should therefore 
 be careful of her strength, her health, and her 
 life, for her children^ sake. If she employ a 
 subaltern, it is that she may give herself more 
 exclusively to their highest and best interests. 
 
 Let her be persuaded, whatever may be the de- 
 mands upon her time, or then: advantages for 
 gaining knowledge from other sources, to spend 
 systematically a portion of time in their daily 
 instruction. Let her also be with them, when 
 they retire at night, to review the day's little 
 gatherings and doings, and to point the tender 
 spirit to the Giver of all its gifts. Let the period 
 devoted to them, be as far as possible uninterrupt- 
 ed by the presence of others, and chosen, in the 
 morning, before care has seized the teacher's mind, 
 or temptation saddened the beloved pupil. Let 
 the time be spent in reading some book adapted
 
 92 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 to their comprehension, which conveys useful 
 knowledge or moral and religious instruction, 
 questioning them respecting its contents, and add- 
 ing such illustrations, as the subject, or their pe- 
 culiar state of intellect and feeling, may render 
 appropriate ; having it always understood, that at 
 night, some recapitulation will be expected of the 
 lessons of the day. 
 
 The mother who regularly does this, will find 
 herself in the practice of a true and palpable 
 economy. She will be induced to furnish herself 
 with new knowledge, and to simplify it, for those 
 whom she seeks to train up for the kingdom of 
 heaven. She will not strive to combine fashion- 
 able amusement, or dissipation of thought, with 
 her solemn and delightful obligations. She will 
 labour as "ever in her Great Task-Master's Eye," 
 to do for the minds and souls of her children, 
 that which none can perform as well as herself, 
 which, if she neglects, may not be done at all, 
 and which, if left undone, will be a loss, for 
 which Eternity must pay.
 
 EARLY CULTURE. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 EARLY CULTURE. 
 
 WHO can compute the value of the first seven 
 years of life? Who can tell the strength of im- 
 pressions, made ere the mind is pre-occupied, pre- 
 \ judiced, or perverted ? Especially, if in its wax- 
 /en state, it is softened by the breath of a mother, 
 will not the seal which she stamps there, resist 
 the mutations of time, and be read before the 
 Throne of the Judge, when the light of this sun 
 and moon are quenched and extinct? 
 
 We are counselled on this point by the hum- 
 blest analogies. Does not he who would train a 
 dog, or tame a tiger, or exhibit an elephant for 
 gain, begin his system early, before time has ren- 
 dered the muscles rigid, or rooted ferocity in 
 habit, or set bounds to sagacity by impairing the 
 docile spirit? And is animal nature worthy of 
 more earnest effort than intellectual? or can mo- 
 tives of gain, be compared with the hallowed im- 
 pulses that move parents to seek the good of 
 their offspring? 
 
 The husbandman wakes early, though the
 
 94 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 mother sleeps. He scarcely waits for the breath 
 of spring to unbind the soil, ere he marks out his 
 furrow. If he neglected to prepare the ground, 
 he might as well sow his seed by the -way-side, 
 or upon the rock. If he deferred the vernal toil, 
 till the suns of summer were high, what right 
 would he have to expect the autumn-harvest, or 
 the winter-store? The florist mingles his com- 
 post, he proportions warmth and moisture, he is 
 patient and watchful, observant of the atmosphere 
 and of the seasons, else he knows that his richest 
 bulbs would be cast away. Should the teacher 
 of the infant heart be less diligent than the corn- 
 planter, or the culturer of a tulip? 
 
 The industry displayed in the various trades 
 and occupations, should be a stimulant to the 
 mother, who modifies a material more costly 
 than all others, more liable to destruction by 
 brief neglect. The hammer of the early work- 
 man admonishes her not to wait till the "burden 
 and heat of the day." Is the manufacturer of 
 delicate fabricks inattentive to the nature of the 
 fleece which he purchases, or to the lineage of 
 the flock that produced it? Are not the most 
 refined processes of the loom affected by the 
 character of the leaf on wliich the silk-worm fed, 
 or the fibre of the flax that is broken like a 
 malefactor upon the wheel? The artizan who 
 is ambitious to spread the most snowy and per-
 
 EARLY CULTURE. 95 
 
 feet sheet for the writer's pen, is he indifferent 
 whether the pulp be pure? if he would tinge it 
 with the cerulean or the rose-tint, does he ne- 
 glect to infuse the colouring matter with the ele- 
 mental mass ? Is the builder of a lofty and mag- 
 nificent edifice careless of its foundations, and 
 whether its columns are to rest upon a quick- 
 sand, or a quagmire? And should the maternal 
 guardian of an immortal being, be less anxious, 
 less skilful, less scrupulous, than the worker in 
 wool and silk, in linen and paper, or than the 
 artificer in brick and stone? Shall the imperish- 
 able gem of the soul, be less regarded than the 
 "wood, hay, and stubble," that moulder or con- 
 sume around it? 
 
 Mothers, take into your own hands the early 
 instruction of your children. Commence with 
 simple stories, from the Scriptures, from the va- 
 ried annal of history, from your own observa- 
 tion of mankind. Let each illustrate some moral 
 or religious truth, adapted to convey instruction, 
 reproof, or encouragement, according to your know- 
 ledge of the character and disposition of your be- 
 loved students. Care and study may be requi- 
 site to select, adapt, and simplify. But can any 
 do this so patiently as a mother, who feels that 
 her listening pupil is a part of herself? 
 
 Cultivate in your children, tenderness of con- 
 science, a deep sense of accountability to God, a
 
 96 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 conviction that their conduct must be regulated 
 by duty, and not by impulse. Read to them 
 books of instruction, selected with discrimination, 
 or make use of them as texts for your ewn com- 
 mentary. In your teachings of religion, avoid 
 all points of sectarian difference, and found the 
 morality which you inculcate, on the Scriptures 
 of truth. Give one hour every morning to the 
 instruction of your children, one undivided hour 
 to them alone. Ere they retire, secure, if possi- 
 ble, another portion of equal length. Review 
 what has been learned throughout the day, recall 
 its deeds, its faults, its sorrows, its blessings, to 
 deepen the great lessons of God's goodness and 
 forbearance, or to sooth the little heart into sweet 
 peace with Him, and all the world, ere the eyes 
 close in slumber. Let the simple music of some 
 evening hymn, and their tender prayer of contri- 
 tion and gratitude, close the daily intercourse with 
 your endeared pupils, and see if this system does 
 not render them doubly dear. 
 
 Do not deprive them of these stated seasons of 
 instruction, without the most imperative necessity. 
 Let your youngest share in them as soon as it 
 opens its bright eyes wider at the words, "shall 
 mother tell a story?" Then the little flower of 
 mind is ready for a dew-drop. Let it be small, 
 and so fragrant, that another will be desired at 
 the morrow's dawn. Speak of the dove that
 
 EARLY CULTURE. 97 
 
 winged its way back to the ark, and of the good 
 man who put forth his hand and drew her in 
 through the window, to gladden her sorrowing 
 mate. Tell how the wide, wasting waters swept 
 over a disobedient world. Describe the lonely 
 ark upon the mighty deep, bearing in safety the 
 righteous family, while all the ungodly of the 
 earth were drowned. Speak of the brow of Ara- 
 rat rising above the dark main, of the exultation 
 of the rescued animals, the warbling song of the 
 birds let loose from their prison, and the higher 
 joy of Noah, and his beloved ones, who knew 
 how to pray and praise their Almighty Deliverer. 
 One sacred story, thus broken into parts, is suf- 
 ficient for many feedings of the infant mind. Be 
 careful not to surfeit it, nor yet too much to 
 indulge the curiosity of the ear to hear, without 
 awakening the understanding to extract some use- 
 ful aliment. In the broad range of sacred story, 
 give a prominent place to the life and teachings 
 of our Saviour, to the many forms in which his 
 compassions wrought among the sick, the hun- 
 gering, and the blind, the tempest-tost, the dying, 
 and the dead, how he loved little children, and 
 drew them to his bosom, and blessed them, when 
 sterner souls forbade their approach. 
 
 Not only by the volume of Inspiration, but by 
 their daily intercourse with the animal creation, 
 and from the ever open page of Nature, guide 
 9
 
 98 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 them to duty and to God. Take in your arms 
 their favourite kitten, and pointing out its grace- 
 ful proportions, teach a lesson of kindness. While 
 the dog sleeps at the feet of his master, tell of 
 the virtues of his race, of their fidelity and en- 
 during gratitude, and bespeak respect for the 
 good qualities of the inferior creation. Teach 
 their little feet to turn aside from the worm, and 
 spare to trample the nest of the toiling ant. Point 
 out the bird, " laying the beams of its chambers " 
 among the green leaves, or the thick grass, and 
 make them shudder at the cruelty which could 
 rifle its treasures. Inspire them with love for 
 all innocent creatures, with admiration for every 
 beautiful thing ; for it is sweet to see the principles 
 of love and beauty, leading the new-born soul to 
 its Maker. 
 
 As you explain to the young child, the proper- 
 ties of the flower that he holds in his hand, speak 
 with a smile of Him, whose "touch perfumes it, 
 and whose pencil paints." Make the voice of 
 the first brook as it murmurs beneath the snow, 
 and the gesture of the waving com, and the icicle 
 with its pen sharpened by frost, and the sleeted 
 pane with its fantastic tracery, and the nod of 
 the awful forest, and the fixed star on its burning 
 throne, adjuncts in teaching your child the won- 
 derful works of the Almighty. 
 
 The mother who is thus assiduous in the work
 
 EARLY CULTURE. 99 
 
 of early education, will find in poetry an assist- 
 ant not to be despised. Its melody is like a harp 
 to the infant ear, like a trumpet stirring up the 
 new-born intellect. It breaks the dream 'with 
 which existence began, as the clear chirping of 
 the bird wakes the morning sleeper. It seems to 
 be the natural dialect of those powers which are 
 earliest developed. Feeling and Fancy put forth 
 their young shoots ere they are expected, and 
 Poetry bends a spray for their feeblest tendrils, or 
 rears a prop for their boldest aspirings. 
 
 Even its first intercourse with the young mind, 
 may be for a higher purpose than amusement. 
 Entering the nursery, hand in hand with song, it 
 need not confine itself to unmeaning carols, or to 
 useless echoes. It may be as the sun-beam to 
 the broken soil. Quickening perception, and giv- 
 ing pleasant food to memory, it leads to that in- 
 quisitive research, which, next to application, en- 
 sures proficiency in the more severe sciences, and 
 higher departments of knowledge. 
 
 Still, its principal and best affinity is with the 
 heart. Its power of creating tender and indeli- 
 ble impressions, has not always been fully appre- 
 ciated. This stamps it as an efficient co-adjutor 
 in moral and religious instruction. It comes 
 forth as the usher, and ally of the mother. It 
 goes with her into the mental field, in the fresh- 
 ness of the grey dawn, ere tares have sprung up
 
 100 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 to trouble the good seed. It nurtures the listen- 
 ing babe, with the "sweet words of sweetly 
 uttered knowledge." " It holdeth," said Sir Philip 
 Sydney, "little children from their play, and old 
 men from the chimney corner." Especially does 
 it prompt the cradle-sleeper to love the God and 
 Father of us all, and as he advances in stature, 
 walks with him amid the charms and harmonies 
 of Nature, speaking the language of a clime 
 where beauty never fades, and where melody is 
 immortal. 
 
 Simple, vocal musick, the mother will be 
 desirous to introduce into her system of early 
 education. Its softening, soothing, cheering in- 
 fluences, have been too often tested to need addi- 
 tional evidence ; and its affinity with devotion has 
 been felt by every one who has heard a little 
 group singing their sacred song, ere they retired 
 to rest, while even the infant on its mother's knee, 
 imitated her tones, its heart swelling with the 
 spirit of praise, ere the understanding was able 
 to comprehend its dialect. 
 
 Yet it was not my intention in this letter, to 
 have defined the department of early education, 
 but simply to urge mothers to consider it then* 
 province. I feel persuaded, that after they have 
 for a few years, superintended daily and system- 
 atically the culture of the beings entrusted to 
 them, they would not be willing to exchange it
 
 EARLY CULTURE. 101 
 
 for the place, or the power, or the fame of any 
 created being. Yet amid this happiness, who 
 can refrain from trembling at the thought, that 
 every action, every word, even every modifica- 
 tion of voice or feature, may impress on the 
 mental tablet of the pupil, traces that shall exist 
 forever. 
 
 Other teachers may toil, perhaps in vain, to 
 purify the streams that have grown turbid, or to 
 turn them back from perverted channels. The 
 dominion of the mother is over the fountain, ere 
 it has contracted a stain. Let her not believe 
 that the impressions which she may make in 
 the first years of life, need be slight, or readily 
 effaced by the current of opposing events. The 
 mother of the Rev. John Newton, was assiduous 
 in her instructions at that early period. It was 
 the only season allotted her for intercourse with 
 him. When he was seven years old, death sum- 
 moned her from his side. Faithfully had she 
 laboured to implant principles of piety. After he 
 was withdrawn from her guidance, strong temp- 
 tation beset him. He yielded, until he became 
 exceedingly degraded. Many sorrows were his 
 portion ere his restitution to virtue. When at 
 length, he became a faithful and laborious divine, 
 he bore witness that the early precepts of his 
 mother had interposed between him and destruc- 
 tion. " To the care of my mother," he says, I 
 9*
 
 102 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 owe that bias towards religion, which, with the co- 
 operating grace of God, at length reclaimed, and 
 brought me back to the paths of peace. A pru- 
 dent and pious woman, in the capacity of wife 
 and mother, is a greater character than any hero 
 or philosopher, of either ancient or modern times. 
 The first impressions which children receive in 
 the nursery, under the mother's immediate care, 
 are seldom obliterated. Sooner or later, their in- 
 fluence conduces to form the future life. Though 
 the child trained up in the way he should go, 
 may for a season depart from it, there is always 
 reason to hope that he will be found in it, when 
 he is old. The principles instilled into the mind 
 in infancy, may seem dormant for a while, but the 
 prayers with which the mother watered what 
 she planted there, are, as some old writers say, 
 "upon the Lord's file." Times of trouble recall 
 these principles to the mind, and the child thus 
 instructed, has something to recur to. Thus it 
 was with me. I was the only son of my mother. 
 She taught me. She prayed for me, and over me. 
 Had she lived to see the misery and wickedness 
 into which I afterwards plunged, I think it would 
 have broken her heart. But in the Lord's time, 
 her prayers were answered. Distress led me to 
 recollect her early care. So was I led to look 
 the right way for help. Happy and honoured is 
 the woman, who is thus qualified to instruct her 

 
 EARLY CULTURE. 103 
 
 children, and does it heartily, in the spirit of faith 
 and prayer." 
 
 Friends ! mothers ! how long will it be, ere 
 we shall be removed from our stewardship? ere 
 a stranger may be seated where we have been 
 wont to preside at the table, and the hearth- 
 stone? How brief will be the interval ere the 
 infants that we now caress, shall be rocking the 
 cradle of their own infants, or treading like us the 
 threshold of that house of forgetfulness, whence 
 there is no return? Bound on this ceaseless, 
 unresting march in the footsteps of buried gene- 
 rations, enlisted in that warfare whence there is 
 no discharge, let us, on whom such pressing re- 
 sponsibilities devolve, take as our motto, "what 
 thou doest, do quickly." 
 
 The dews of the morning are scarcely more 
 fleeting than the plastick period of the minds on 
 which we operate. Every day removes them 
 further from our jurisdiction. The companions 
 with whom they are to associate, the world in 
 which they are to act, hasten onward with oppo- 
 sing influences, and an indurating power. Now, 
 while the garden of the soul is ours, let us give 
 diligence to implant the germs of holy principle, 
 of unswerving goodness, of humble piety, of the 
 fear of sin, of faith in the Redeemer. " Now, while 
 it is called to-day" 
 
 God, in bestowing on us the privilege of being
 
 104 LETTER^ TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Christian mothers, has nothing higher in reserve 
 for us, till we take the nature and the harp of 
 seraphs. Then, as we stand adoring near the 
 Throne, may the chorus of our joyful song be, 
 "Lo, here are the children whom thou hast gra- 
 ciously given thy servants. Not one is lost."
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 105 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 I AM not without hope of persuading mothers 
 to take charge of the entire education of their 
 children, during the earlier years of life. After 
 devoting daily a stated period, morning and eve- 
 ning, to their moral and religious training, I can- 
 not but trust that the pleasure of the communion 
 will lead to a more extended system of domestic 
 culture. Indeed, it is not possible to convey in- 
 struction to the heart, without acting as a pioneer 
 for the intellect. The docility, the application, 
 the retentive energy, which the mother awakens 
 in her child, while she teaches it the principles ' 
 of justice, and the love of truth, and the reve- 
 rence of the Creator, lead her continually, though 
 it may be unconsciously, into the province of 
 scholastic education. 
 
 "Whoever educates his children well," says 
 Xenophon, in his letter to Crito, " gives * them 
 much, even though he should leave them little." 
 If parents felt that by spending three hours daily, 
 they might secure for each of their offspring an
 
 106 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 ample fortune, not to be alienated, but made sure 
 to them through life, would they grudge the sa- 
 crifice? Let the mother try, if by an equal ex- 
 penditure of time, she may not purchase for them 
 a patrimony, which rust cannot corrode, or the 
 robber rifle, or the elements that sweep away 
 perishable wealth, have power to destroy. If she 
 feels it impossible to dispense with their attend- 
 ing school, let her at least teach them herself 
 to read, ere she sends them there. I once heard 
 an aged and intelligent gentleman speak with de- 
 light of the circumstance, that he learned to read 
 from maternal instruction. He gave it as one 
 reason why knowledge was pleasant to his soul, 
 that its rudiments entered there with the associa- 
 tion of gentle tones, patient explanations, and ten- 
 der caresses. 
 
 The correct reading of our copious language 
 is not a branch of such simplicity, that it may 
 be well taught by careless, or slightly educated 
 instructors. The perfect enunciation which is so 
 important to publick speakers, is best acquired 
 when the organs of articulation are most flexible, 
 and ere vicious intonations are confirmed by habit. 
 One of the most accomplished orators that I have 
 ever heard, used to take pleasure in referring his 
 style of elocution to his mother, who taught him 
 early to read, and devoted much attention to his 
 distinct utterance, and right understanding of the
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 107 
 
 subjects that he rendered vocal. "A principle of 
 equity," said a lady to her child, "should lead 
 you to a clear and careful articulation, for what 
 right have you to rob a single letter of its sound ? 
 Still less right have you to cheat those friends of 
 their time, who are listening to you." "Speaking 
 so as not to be understood, and writing so as not 
 to be read, are among the minor immoralities," 
 said the excellent Mrs. H. More. 
 
 A mother, who succeeds in teaching her child 
 to read, and partakes the delight of perceiving 
 new ideas enrich and expand its intellect, will be 
 very apt to wish to conduct its education still 
 further. And if it is in her power to do so, why 
 does she send it to school at all, during its most 
 susceptible years? Who can be so deeply inter- 
 ested in its improvement as herself? Why then 
 does* she entrust it to the management of stran- 
 gers? Why expose it to the influence of evil 
 example, ere its principles are sufficiently strong 
 to withstand temptation? Why yield it to the 
 excitement of promiscuous association, when it 
 has a parental home, where its innocence may 
 be shielded, and its intellect aided to expand? 
 
 "I have no time," replies the mother. How 
 much time will it require? Two or three hours 
 in a day, is a greater proportion than any teacher 
 of a school would devote exclusively to them. 
 Even if they could receive such an amount of
 
 108 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 instruction in school, the division of their own 
 attention among their companions would diminish 
 its value to them. 
 
 Let their lessons be short, but thoroughly com- 
 mitted. While they study, it ought not to be 
 necessary for you to watch and superintend them. 
 The presence of a judicious nurse, or of even 
 the oldest child, should be sufficient to preserve 
 order, while you reserve your more precious time 
 for recitation, explanation, and illustration. I am 
 bold to say, if three hours a day were wisely pro- 
 portioned, and systematically set apart for this 
 purpose, it would be all that the first eight or 
 ten years of life would need, and more than they 
 usually obtain. The intellect of quite young chil- 
 dren should be sparingly taxed. Physical dan- 
 gers of a formidable nature, are connected with 
 their close confinement, or long enforced appli- 
 cation. If you have a rural spot, where they can 
 have pure air and exercise, consider it a blessing ; 
 and let the play, and muscular activity, which 
 nature points out, be a part of your daily system 
 of education. 
 
 I imagine another mother saying in the depth 
 of her humility, "I am not qualified." Profound 
 erudition is not demanded. Yet if it were, who 
 ought to have a stronger motive to attain it, than 
 a mother, for her children's sake? Reading, or- 
 thography, and the definition of words, penman-
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 109 
 
 ship, arithmetic, and the expression of thought in 
 the simple epistolary or descriptive style, she is 
 surely capable of teaching. Still, these can scarce- 
 ly be too thoroughly learned, since they are the 
 necessary ground-work of a complete education. 
 I should think the patience and affection of the 
 mother, would render her an excellent instruc- 
 tress in those branches which demand continual 
 repetition, and exercise. Is there any thing so in- 
 explicable in Geography, and the elements of the 
 Natural Sciences, that she need shrink back from 
 them, aided as she is by treatises from the most 
 gifted minds? 
 
 A course of History can scarcely be grasped by 
 the intellect in its tutelage; yet biographical se- 
 lections may be made from it, at the mother's 
 pleasure, in her own words, and combined with 
 the outlines of chronology. For instance, when 
 her young pupils have learned the geographical 
 features of a country, and demonstrated its rela- 
 tive position and localities on their atlas, she 
 may reward their accuracy, by describing one of 
 the most illustrious characters which it has pro- 
 duced, either in ancient or modem times. This 
 little fragment of history, with its atom of chro- 
 nology, will act as a grappling-iron to the geo- 
 graphy which was made its basis, and each will 
 give to the other a firmer hold on memory. A 
 number of such facts, presented under the double 
 10
 
 110 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 allurement of stories and of rewards, and riveted 
 by the mother's care, will serve as stepping stones, 
 when the broad stream of History, flowing from 
 Eden onward, shall be forded by the wonder- 
 ing traveller. 
 
 "I have too much to do in my family," says a 
 careful matron, "to attend to the instruction of my 
 children." Do not be too ambitious a house- 
 keeper. Is it not better that there should be some 
 deficiency in the luxurious variety, or elegant 
 arrangement of a table, than in the hearts and 
 minds of your children ? But why need there be 
 deficiency any where? Energy, and adherence 
 to system, will accomplish wonders. 
 
 The mistress of a large household, in New 
 England, was exceedingly attentive to all the 
 minutiae of housekeeping. Her brass and silver, 
 and mahogany, bore the finest polish. She ex- 
 celled in rich culinary compounds, and her table 
 had in the neighbourhood no competitor. She 
 was so situated, that much of her own personal 
 exertion was necessary to produce these results. 
 Her ambition was solaced to know that she 
 maintained among nice housekeepers, the highest 
 place. The dresses of her many children evinced 
 care, and attention to the reigning modes. But 
 she did not feel that she had any time to bestow 
 on their minds. They attended school when it 
 was convenient, but their progress having no
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. Ill 
 
 parental supervision, was exceedingly desultory. 
 Their moral and religious culture also suffered, 
 though she was by profession and in reality a 
 Christian. A wasting sickness, impeding all ac- 
 tivity, forced her into habits of deeper reflection, 
 and she felt that in her scale of duty, she had 
 permitted the least important to usurp the high- 
 est place. With affecting regret she said, as death 
 approached, "I have led a laborious life, scarcely 
 allowing myself time for thought. It seems prin- 
 cipally to have been spent in preparing food and 
 clothing for the family. I can recollect but little 
 else. And now I feel that I have "spent my 
 money for that which is not bread, and my 
 labour for that which satisfieth not." 
 
 "I have so many children," says another, "that 
 I cannot think of doing more than seeing that 
 they are sent to school." How many had Mrs. 
 Ramsay, of South Carolina, when she took charge 
 of their whole education, and prepared her sons 
 for college? Does not her biographer mention 
 that she was the mother of eleven children, 
 during the first sixteen years after her marriage? 
 Beside the charge of a large and well-ordered 
 household, and assisting her husband in the lite- 
 rary labours which he combined with his medical 
 profession, she gave the most indefatigable atten- 
 tion to the physical, religious and intellectual edu- 
 cation of her children. That they might daily
 
 112 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 read their Bible with pleasure, she connected with 
 it an extensive collection of prints, for the younger ; 
 and for the more advanced, " Watts' View of Scrip- 
 ture History," "Newton on the Prophecies," and 
 other books which unite the Old with the New 
 Testament, and make sacred and uninspired His- 
 tory, mutual interpreters. While endeavouring to 
 store their minds with useful knowledge, she 
 compiled for them a grammar of the English 
 language, not finding the treatises of Lowth and 
 Ash, which had been used in her own tutelage, 
 easily subject to the comprehension of childhood. 
 From her accurate knowledge of French, she was 
 able early to impart it to them; and for their 
 sakes, studied the Greek and Latin classicks, until 
 she became an excellent teacher in both those 
 languages. With the same motive, she prosecuted 
 the study of Botany, to considerable extent, re- 
 freshed her knowledge of Natural and Civil His- 
 tory, Biography, Astronomy, Chronology, Phi- 
 losophy, with an extensive course of Voyages and 
 Travels. She continued her instructions daily 
 with regularity, and conducted her daughters at 
 home, through the studies and accomplishments 
 taught at boarding schools, and her sons through 
 a course which thoroughly fitted them to enter 
 college. 
 
 "I do not feel prepared," says another mother, 
 "to give up all society, and turn myself into a 

 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 113 
 
 care-worn school-teacher." This would indeed be 
 undesirable. Whoever forsakes social intercourse, 
 deadens the impulse to generous sympathy and 
 active benevolence, which, like the nervous energy 
 in the physical constitution, quickens the remotest 
 extremities of the frame, and impels to harmo- 
 nious and efficient exertion. Mrs. Ramsay, the 
 striking example which we have just quoted, pre- 
 served her social feelings in healthful activity, 
 though she seldom visited during the day. Eve- 
 nings, when the stated instruction of her beloved 
 pupils was closed, she was ready and cheerful, 
 for the intercourse of friendship. That a routine 
 of ceremonious visiting, involving late hours, high 
 dress, luxurious entertainment, and much expense 
 of time and thought, is not consistent with the 
 faithful instruction of children, is admitted. Will 
 any Christian mother hesitate which she ought to 
 renounce? I am most happy to have a case in 
 point. A young lady, whose beauty, wealth, accom- 
 plishments, and European travel, rendered her an 
 object of admiration among the fashionable circles 
 of our most fashionable metropolis, after her mar- 
 riage, undertook the domestick education of her 
 three little ones, and writes, " I find more heartfelt 
 pleasure, more agreeable retrospection, in one hour 
 spent in endeavouring to elicit thought and feel- 
 ing from my children, than in any other pursuit, 
 or amusement." A precious suffrage from one 
 10*
 
 114 LETTER^ TO MOTHERS. 
 
 perfectly qualified to judge, and an encouragement 
 to such mothers as shrink at the threshold of their 
 higher duties 
 
 Methinks, I hear the voice of some fair sceptic 
 exclaiming, "I doubt whether it would be as well 
 for my children to be educated at home. They 
 require the stimulus to exertion, which is found 
 in schools." Are you quite sure of it? Is not 
 the emulation which you quote, often but another 
 name for "envying and strife?" May not an 
 ambitious mind b^e so incited by it, as to make 
 exertions which would be destructive of health? 
 We think such instances are not uncommon. 
 
 But will not the duty of obedience, the desire 
 of pleasing you, or the satisfaction of knowledge, 
 impel your children to the brief lessons which 
 you appoint? Do they all require the external 
 prompting to which you allude ? Is not one ca- 
 pable of higher motives? If so, select that one 
 as an example, and let your approbation, bearing 
 decidedly upon that one, "provoke the others to 
 good works." If all are equally torpid, there are 
 methods by which all may be aroused. I knew 
 a mother who kept two blank books, one bound 
 in red, the other in black. For every well-com- 
 mitted lesson, or proof of improvement, a mark 
 of credit was entered in the red book. Indolence, 
 and other faults, gained a mark in the sad-coloured 
 one. At the close of every week or month, the
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 115 
 
 father, with some seriousness of ceremony, inspected 
 these records, and earnestly aided by his praise or 
 blame the arduous task of the maternal teacher. 
 Another mother used only the red book for her 
 children, allowing them for a certain number of 
 marks, a stipulated sum, paid at the end of every 
 month, and to be devoted to their charities. Some 
 allege that this introduces a too mercantile feature 
 into education. Is it not better than indolence? 
 Various other modes may be devised to give im- 
 pulse to domestic culture, for why need a mother 
 be less ingenious, or less fruitful in expedients, 
 than a school-mistress? Yet let her be careful 
 not to urge too much the progress of her younger 
 pupils, lest health suifer, or the temper gather 
 asperity from competition. 
 
 Possibly, there may be some mother frank 
 enough to say, " My children must go to school : 
 it is such a relief to have them sometimes out 
 of the way." So a mother thought, who took 
 her little girl from the nursery, and bade her 
 scarce older brother lead her with him to school. 
 There she sat upon the hard bench, her tiny feet 
 swinging above the floor, till the feebly-strung 
 muscles were weary and in pain. She looked, 
 in her wondering innocence, upon the ways of 
 naughty children, and imbibed more of the evil, 
 than of the goodness which rebuked it. She opened 
 her ears wide at the sound of improper words,
 
 116 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 and adopted their use, without knowing their 
 meaning. So she, who was sent from home be- 
 cause of the noise of her lively play, or the in- 
 terruptions of her curious questioning, brought a 
 deeper care, by becoming a subject of moral dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 She was once proceeding homeward, more de- 
 murely than when she first attended school, for 
 the consciousness of wrong conduct had found 
 its way to her heart, and quelled its buoyant hap- 
 piness. It was touching to see a little one so 
 sad. Her brother left her for a moment, to slide 
 down an ice-covered hill. He charged her to wait 
 for him in the spot where he placed her. But 
 soon she attempted to run to him. A pair of gay 
 horses threw her down, and a loaded sleigh pass- 
 ing over her, literally divided her breast. She 
 was taken up breathless, a crushed and broken 
 flower. She was out of the way. 
 
 A mother, in one of our smaller country-towns, 
 had a large family of daughters. She thought it 
 would be a relief to her, if but one of them 
 were out of the way. So she selected the wild- 
 est, to be sent to a boarding-school. She had 
 been accustomed to rural sports and employments, 
 and free exercise about her father's grounds. The 
 impure atmosphere of a crowded city in summer, 
 the close stoves in winter, the comparative and 
 enervating stillness of the whole year, induced a
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 117 
 
 change of habits, and declension of health. Long 
 sitting at the piano, and the rigid compression of 
 corsets, troubled the seat of life. When she re- 
 turned home on vacations, it was exultingly re- 
 marked by the parents, how lady-like she had 
 grown, and how much more delicate than her 
 ruddy sisters. Indeed, she was pale as a lily, and 
 inactive to a remarkable degree. It was not long 
 ere spinal disease revealed itself; and muscular 
 energy, and pure animal spirits, were lost. She 
 indeed existed, but the wreck of her former self. 
 Debility and confinement cut her off from society, 
 and from the joys of life. She was out of the way. 
 There is yet another form of putting children 
 out of the way, which, though by no means com- 
 mon in our country, is still visible, with certain 
 modifications, in fashionable life. It consists in 
 consigning their infancy too exclusively to the 
 charge of hirelings, and to the bounds of the nur- 
 sery. A young mother complained that her chil- 
 dren were so numerous, and so near of an age, 
 that she had neither repose or comfort. She 
 found it impossible to nurse them. Her husband 
 also thought it would hurt her form, and make 
 her old before her time. By this philosophy, she 
 reserved to herself all the suffering of introdu- 
 cing infancy into the world, and excluded that 
 heartfelt and hallowed intercourse, which gives to 
 pain "an over-payment of delight."
 
 118 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 She placed her nursery in the highest story of 
 her lofty house, that she need not be disturbed 
 by its noise. She said she went there " as often 
 as possible, though it was excessively fatiguing to 
 climb those endless stairs." But she always pro- 
 cured an ample number of nurses, without refe- 
 rence to expense, and was satisfied that they had 
 the most excellent care. One day she was in- 
 formed that her youngest was sick. She went 
 to it, but thought the nurse was unnecessarily 
 alarmed. She staid with it as long as was in her 
 power, considering she was engaged to a ball that 
 evening. After she was entirely dressed, she took 
 pains to come up again and inquire after it. The 
 nurse told her it was no better. She was sure 
 the nurse was unreasonably timid. It had but a 
 slight cough. Still she did not remain at the 
 ball as late as usual, or dance with her usual 
 spirit. She said to her husband, that such was 
 her anxiety for the little one, that she should not 
 have gone at all, had she not felt under the 
 strongest obligations to attend the first entertain- 
 ment of her most particular friend. At her re- 
 turn, she hastened to the nursery. The hopeless 
 stage of croup had seized the agonizing victim. 
 Another also betrayed the same fatal indications. 
 The skill of the physician, and the frantic grief 
 of the mother, were alike vain. With the fearful 
 suddenness which often marks the termination of
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 119 
 
 the diseases of infancy, two beautiful beings soon 
 lay like sculptured marble. With the assiduous 
 care of the mother, the result might indeed have 
 been the same, and yet it was a touching and 
 mournful thought at this time of sorrow, that it 
 had been a principal object, ever since their birth, 
 to have them kept out of the way. And now 
 they had gone to return no more. 
 
 But will He who gave us our children, justify 
 us in devising means to have them put out of 
 our way ? Was it to be supposed that the mother, 
 on whose bosom he laid them, would be mainly 
 anxious to escape from their care? that she 
 should find her nerves so much injured by their 
 merry voices, their healthful play, or their active 
 curiosity, as to be willing to endanger their well- 
 being, if they might only be removed from her 
 presence 1 
 
 I am aware that these thoughts on domestic 
 education may be deemed prolix. And yet it 
 would be easier to apologize for saying so much, 
 than to satisfy the conscience for having said so 
 little: so important is it, that mothers be aroused 
 to do more for the true welfare of their children 
 than they have hitherto done. "No instruction," 
 says an eloquent French writer, "will throw deep 
 roots into a country, unless it reach children 
 through the mother, and men through women. 
 The public instructor is only a drv instrument,
 
 120 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 who teaches the alphabet ; the mother of a family 
 is a moral power, ripening thought, at the same 
 time that she opens hearts to love, and souls to 
 charity." 
 
 It is not to be expected, that all who might de- 
 sire it, are so situated as to be able to take charge 
 of the education of their children. Still there 
 are many whom fortune favours, who have "no 
 heart for the matter." It would seem the duty 
 of those mothers to attempt it, who are relieved 
 from the necessity of labour for their subsistence, 
 who have comfortable health, a competent share 
 of knowledge, and minds open to improvement, 
 especially if they have a rural situation, where 
 their little pupils can enjoy free exercise, a room 
 which can be devoted exclusively to their instruc- 
 tion, and in the family a sister, friend, or well- 
 trained dependent, capable of acting as assistant 
 or substitute. 
 
 Let us keep our children for our own, during 
 their earlier years. The world will have them 
 long enough afterwards. \
 
 IDIOM OF CHARACTER. 121 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 IDIOM OF CHARACTER. 
 
 ONE striking advantage of a system of educa- 
 tion conducted at home, is, that it may be adapted 
 to the different dispositions of its subjects. In a 
 school, this is almost impossible. Had the teacher 
 the tact to discover the nameless idiosyncracies 
 of those under his care, the very nature of his 
 office would preclude him from thoroughly avail- 
 ing himself of that knowledge. His code of laws 
 cannot bend to the differing taste, and construc- 
 tion of his pupils. How can he turn aside from 
 the labours of scholastick culture, to study the end- 
 less variety of character, and to inquire whose 
 feeble virtue needs a prop, or whose timid intellect, 
 encouragement. 
 
 This knowledge of the varying nature of her 
 children, is almost intuitive to a discerning mother. 
 Those who have reared large families, assert that 
 there are no two alike. The self-confidence of 
 one requires restraint, and the diffidence of another 
 seeks a sheltering kindness ; one is controuled 
 through the affections, another, by arguments 
 11
 
 122 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 addressed to the understanding; to one, the re- 
 proof of the eye brings tears ; another must have 
 the induction of particulars, and the poignancy 
 of remonstrance, or of suffering, to produce con- 
 trition. The evil of subjecting all to the same 
 discipline, must be obvious. Yet, where they are 
 cultivated in masses, it seems inevitable. . Some 
 are so utterly confounded by the presence of supe- 
 riors, as never to do themselves justice ; others with 
 a reckless hardihood pass on, disguising both super- 
 ficial attainment and defective principle. Some 
 Cowper may shrink and agonize, unpitied; some 
 Benedict Arnold wear his traitor's mask undetect- 
 ed ; some Buonaparte enact on a miniature scale, 
 schemes of latent ambition, or of petty tyranny. 
 
 These elements of character, the mother has the 
 means of discovering, and should attempt the task 
 to rectify. She would blame the folly of the gar- 
 dener, who should plunge the amaryllis in dry sand, 
 or shelter the arctic pine in his green-house : let 
 her avoid similar errors in the nurture of plants 
 that are to exist forever. 
 
 Home-education is often a source of great hap- 
 piness to its subjects. An instance of it is thus 
 described by a father, who, with the assistance of 
 the mother, took charge of his son's intellectual 
 culture, from his earliest years, and found it an 
 employment imparting perpetual delight : 
 
 " His first perceivable inclination, was for diaw-
 
 IDIOM OF CHARACTER. 123 
 
 ing, in which he engaged when almost an infant. 
 While occupied in this favourite amusement, a 
 dissected alphabet was placed before him, and so 
 great was his desire to furnish his little drawings 
 with suitable titles, that he soon, made himself 
 master of it. 
 
 " Now, a new field of pleasure was opened for 
 him to range in, and from the productions of the 
 pencil, his mind was turned to the various arrange- 
 ments, and combinations of these letters. So, 
 that, at an age, when many children have scarcely 
 learned their names, he was forming them into 
 short sentences, not only of a playful, but of a 
 devotional cast. This not only ascertained the 
 growth of his intellectual powers, but gave satis- 
 factory assurance to his affectionate parents, that 
 their pious instructions had not been lost jupon 
 his tender heart. 
 
 "As the higher branches of knowledge allured 
 him, he devoted himself assiduously to their ac- 
 quisition. He was cheerfully prepared for every 
 necessary exercise, and always inclined rather 
 to exceed, than to fall short of his appointed task. 
 He complained of no difficulty, he solicited no 
 help. He considered the little labours of every 
 day, as a reasonable service, and readily, on 
 all occasions, submitted his will to that of his 
 father. During his studies, his sweet and placid 
 disposition was constantly displaying itself.
 
 124 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 " While quite a child, he became acquainted with 
 the rudiments of the Latin tongue, and by many 
 fair words persuaded his nurse (a very worthy 
 young woman, who had attended him from his 
 infancy) to become his scholar. Such pleasure 
 did he derive from his studies, that he left no 
 means untried, to engage her attention, and would 
 often set before her the honourable distinction of 
 excelling in knowledge all the young women in 
 her parish. He drew up for her, an abridgement 
 of his Grammar, to which he added a short vocabu- 
 lary, and was never without a few slips of paper 
 in his pocket, on which was some noun regularly 
 declined, for her benefit. If the day had failed to 
 furnish sufficient time to attend to his lessons, he 
 redoubled his assiduity when she conducted him 
 to his chamber at night, and was never content 
 without hearing her repeat the Lord's prayer in 
 Greek." 
 
 His desire to impart to his kind nurse the 
 pleasures of knowledge, proved both the simple 
 benevolence of his nature, and the happiness which 
 he derived from a system of parental culture. 
 Might this not be more frequently enjoyed by 
 children in their earlier years, if mothers were 
 willing to make efforts correspondent to the im- 
 portance of the object ? 
 
 Permit me to say to those mothers who interest 
 themselves in the education of their children, be
 
 . , 
 
 IDIOM OF CHARACTER. 125 
 
 assiduous early to implant domestic tastes in the 
 minds of your daughters. Let your little girl sit 
 by your side, with her needle. Do not put her 
 from you, when you discharge those employ- 
 ments which are for the comfort of the family. 
 Let her take part in them, as far as her feeble 
 hand may be capable. Teach her that this will 
 be her province, when she becomes a woman. 
 Inspire her with a desire to make all around her, 
 comfortable and happy. Instruct her in the rudi- 
 ments of that science, whose results are so beat- 
 tiful. Teach her, that not selfish gratification, 
 but the good of a household, the improvement of 
 even the humblest dependent, is the business of 
 her sex. When she questions you, repay her 
 curiosity, with clear and loving explanations. 
 When you walk out, to call on your friends, 
 sometimes take her with you. Especially, if you 
 visit the aged, or go on errands of mercy to the 
 sick and poor, let her be your companion. Allow 
 her to sit by the side of the sufferer, and learn 
 those nursing services which afford relief to pain. 
 Associate her with you. Make her your friend. 
 Purify and perfect your own example for her 
 sake. And while you mingle with domestic train- 
 ing, and with the germs of benevolence, a know- 
 ledge of the world of books, to which it will be a 
 sweet privilege to introduce her, should you be 
 able to add not a single fashionable accomplish- 
 11*
 
 126 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 ment, still be continually thankful, if you have 
 been successful in shielding her from the conta- 
 gion of evil example. 
 
 The Countess of Pembroke, illustrious for her 
 love of science, and the fortitude with which she 
 endured the trials of those troublous times in 
 which she lived, thus speaks in her journal, with 
 affecting simplicity, of her obligations to maternal 
 care and piety : 
 
 "From my dear mother, I drew that milk of 
 goodness, which makes the mind strong against 
 all the storms of fortune. Many dangerous de- 
 vices of enemies have I passed through without 
 harm, by the help, as I think, of her prayers, in- 
 cessantly imploring of God my preservation and 
 safety. In my domestic troubles I gave myself 
 up to retiredness, as much as I could, making 
 good books and virtuous thoughts my compan- 
 ions, which can never be daunted by slanders, or 
 adversities, however unjustly they may happen. 
 And by a happy disposition I overcame evil, the 
 prayers of my blessed mother helping me there- 
 unto." 
 
 In the discipline of sons, mothers need a double 
 portion of. the wisdom that is from above. Let 
 them ever keep in view the different spheres of 
 action allotted to the sexes. What they blame as 
 obstinacy, may be but that firmness, and fixed- 
 ness of purpose, which will hereafter be needed
 
 IDIOM OP CHARACTER. 127 
 
 to overcome the obstacles of their adventurous 
 course. Perhaps, it is hardly to be expected that 
 they should be reduced to the full degree of fem- 
 inine subordination, any more than inured to the 
 routine of domestic employment. The German 
 poet has well depicted the early-unfolded linea- 
 ments of the ruling sex : 
 
 " Boys are driven 
 
 To wild pursuits by mighty impulses. 
 Out of a mother's anxious hand they tear 
 The leading-strings, and give the reins to nature, 
 Even as the sportive hoof of the young horse 
 Raises the dust in clouds." 
 
 The mother, who in the infancy of her chil- 
 dren, puts into the arms of the girl a doll, and 
 patiently endures the noise from the hammer of 
 the boy-baby, conforms to the difference and to 
 the destination which has been marked on them 
 by Creating Wisdom. 
 
 But is she therefore to take any less pains to 
 soften and mould her sou to his duty? Oh no. 
 On the contrary, she must lake" more, and begin 
 earlier. Her toil for him must emphatically be 
 amid the dews of the morning. For by the con- 
 stitution of society, he must be earlier removed 
 from the influence of home than his pliant sister, 
 and by the innate consciousness of being born to 
 bear rule, will sooner revolt from the authority 
 of woman. Let the mother, while she refrains
 
 128 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 from attempting to break down the barrier which 
 an Unerring Hand erected between the sexes, lose 
 no time in enthroning herself in the heart of her 
 son. Let her cultivate tenderness of conscience, 
 and fix deep in his soul the immutable distinc- 
 tion between right and wrong, that, from an early 
 implanted reverence for the law of God, he may 
 be qualified to "become a law unto himself." 
 She should keep her hold on his affections, -and 
 encourage him to confide to her, without reserve, 
 his intentions and his hopes, his errors and his 
 enjoyments. Thus maintaining her pre-eminence 
 in the sanctuary of his mind, her image will be 
 as a tutelary seraph, not seeming to bear rule, 
 yet spreading perpetually the wings of purity and 
 peace over its beloved shrine, and keeping guard 
 for God. 
 
 Let mothers beware of adopting the opinion, 
 i that though they may do much for daughters, 
 yet sons are beyond their controul. This is a 
 false and fatal conclusion. It is true, that with 
 regard to them, the inspired injunction may be 
 quoted with double power, "what thou doest, do 
 quickly." Maternal influence, unless early riveted, 
 is often reduced to a mere shadow, by the pur- 
 suits and excitements of popular education. "I 
 compare the sending a boy to a publick school, 
 or college," says a judicious writer, "to the act 
 of the Scythian mothers, who threw their new-
 
 IDIOM OF CHARACTER. 129 
 
 born children into the sea: the greater part were, 
 of course, drowned, but the few who escaped 
 with life, were uncommonly strong and vigor- 
 ous." Could any additional argument be needed 
 to induc.e mothers to throw the shield of their 
 preserving and hallowing influences over their 
 sons, ere they emerge from the cradle, it might 
 be found in the fact which both history and ob- 
 servation confirm, that the most illustrious men 
 have been often modified in . their early years by 
 the hand of the mother. " Give us," said an ex- 
 perienced instructor, "such boys as have been 
 blessed with the instruction of pious mothers. 
 Truths thus instilled, are interwoven with the 
 fibres of the soul." 
 
 Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, 
 was an extraordinary woman. Notwithstanding 
 the rudeness of her own native realm of Britain, 
 and the low state of learning among her sex, she 
 wrote several works, among which was a book 
 of Greek verses ; and the principles which she 
 early infused into the mind of that Christian em- 
 peror, undoubtedly had great influence in deter- 
 mining his future course. 
 
 The mother of the illustrious Lord Bacon 
 breathed into his mind, in the forming period of 
 childhood, her own love of learning; and while 
 she instructed him in the rudiments of science, 
 awakened that spirit of liberal curiosity and re-
 
 130 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 search which afterwards induced him to take "all 
 knowledge to be his province." Her influence 
 also on the mind of King Edward 6th, to whom 
 in his early years she was governess, was emi- 
 nently happy. He derived from her much of that 
 spirit of zealous and consistent piety which was 
 developed in her own youth, and moved her, 
 while occupied with other studies, to translate 
 from the Italian twenty-five sermons on abstruse 
 and important tenets of faith. 
 
 The Baron Cuvier, from the extreme feebleness 
 of his childhood, came almost constantly under the 
 care of his mother. The sweetness of this inter- 
 course, dwelt on his memory throughout the 
 whole of his life. He loved to recall her atten- 
 tions, to dwell on every circumstance that remind- 
 ed him of her. But she did not confine her cares 
 to his health alone. She exerted herself to form 
 his mind. She taught him to read fluently at the 
 age of four years, made him draw under her in- 
 spection, listened daily to his recitations in Latin, 
 though she had not herself been instructed in that 
 language, perused with him the best authors, in- 
 stilled into him a reverence for religious duties, 
 and fostered that ardent desire for knowledge, 
 which afterwards rendered him so illustrious. 
 
 It is a touching testimony which William Ros- 
 coe, so celebrated for his writings and his philan- 
 thropy, thus pays to his maternal guide. After
 
 IDIOM OF CHARACTER. 131 
 
 speaking of a teacher to whom he was gratefully 
 attached, he says, " to his care, and to the instruc- 
 tions of a kind and affectionate mother, I believe 
 I may safely attribute any good principles which 
 may have appeared in my conduct during life. 
 To my mother, I owe the inculcation of those 
 sentiments of humanity, which became a principle 
 in my mind. Nor did she neglect to supply me 
 with such books as contributed to my literary im- 
 provement." Sir Walter Scott says, "if I have 
 been enabled to do any thing in the way of paint- 
 ing the past times, it is owing very much to the 
 studies with which my mother presented me." 
 
 The agency exercised by the mother of Wash- 
 ington, in forming that character which the world 
 delighted to honour, is a subject of elevating 
 contemplation. His undeviating integrity and 
 unshaken self-command, were developments of 
 her own elements of character, fruits from those 
 germs which she planted in the soil of his in- 
 fancy. She combined the Spartan firmness and 
 simplicity, with the deep affections of a Christian 
 matron, and all this concentrated influence was 
 brought to bear upon her son, who, by the early 
 death of his father, passed more entirely under 
 her discipline. He, who has been likened to 
 Fabius, to Cincinnatus, and to other heroes of 
 antiquity, only to show how he transcended each 
 by the consistency of a Christian, he who caused
 
 132 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 the shades of Mount Vernon to be as sacred to 
 the patriot as the shrine at Mecca to the pilgrim, 
 shares his glory with her who wrought among the 
 rudiments of his being with no idle or uncertain 
 hand. The monument which now designates her 
 last repose, speaks eloquently to her sex, bidding 
 them to impress the character of true greatness 
 upon the next generation. It warns them to pre- 
 pare by unslumbering efforts, for their own solemn 
 responsibility. Let her who is disposed to indulge 
 in lassitude, or to forget that she may stamp an 
 indelible character either for good or evil, on the 
 immortal mind submitted to her regency, go, and 
 renounce her errors, and deepen her energies, and 
 relumine her hopes, at the tomb of "Mary, the 
 mother of Washington." 
 
 But though we cannot all rationally expect to 
 rear distinguished men, since it is the lot of but 
 few to attain distinction, yet it is equally our duty 
 to persevere kindly and prayerfully, with un- 
 promising materials. The future payment often 
 transcends the culturer's hope. The mother of 
 the celebrated Sheridan, who was herself a lite- 
 rary woman, pronounced him the dullest and 
 most hopeless of her sons 
 
 Boys have sometimes a roughness, or apparent 
 want of impressibility, which exceedingly troubles 
 a susceptible parent. In this structure of mind, 
 there is much to stimulate effort, and to encourage
 
 IDIOM OF CHARACTER. 133 
 
 hope. A powerful writer has said, that " the finest, 
 richest, and most generous species of character, is 
 perhaps that which early presents the most re- 
 pulsive surface. Within the rough rind, the 
 feelings are preserved unsophisticated, vigorous 
 and healthy. The noli me tangere outside, keeps 
 out that insidious swarm of artificial sentimentali- 
 ties, which taint and adulterate, and may final- 
 ly expel all natural and vigorous emotions from 
 within us. The idea of a perfect man, has always 
 been figured forth in our minds, by the emblem 
 of the lion coming out of the lamb, or the lamb 
 coming out of the lion." 
 
 I am persuaded that mothers too much endea- 
 vour to equalize idiom of character. But it usually 
 proves one of the many unsuccessful attempts of 
 warring against nature. If, indeed, it could be 
 accomplished, what would it be, but to level those 
 beautiful undulations, which He who diversified 
 the wonderful frame of creation, saw fit also to 
 intersperse amid the realm of mind, giving to 
 society somewhat of that variation, which, in the 
 landscape, we so much admire. In moral ob- 
 servance, in religious duty, there must be no com- 
 promise ; but let the native taste sometimes look 
 forth unblamed, and the differing opinion be not 
 too closely fettered, and the firm resolve, that 
 column of future majesty in man, be not cause- 
 lessly smitten down. 
 12
 
 134 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 There is a levity of character, which persuades 
 a desponding mother, though incorrectly, that her 
 instructions make no abiding impression. "I do 
 not dislike extreme vivacity in children," said the 
 excellent Miss Hannah More. "I would wish to 
 see enough to make an animated character, when 
 the violence of animal spirits shall subside by 
 time. Such volatile beings are thought peculiarly 
 difficult to manage, but it is easier to restrain ex- 
 cess, than to quicken inanity." When we see the 
 demands which the cares and labours of life make 
 upon the animal spirits, it seems safest to set out 
 with a superflux. Gravity in childhood, may 
 become stupidity in old age, and the mother who 
 feels herself tried with the exceeding vivacity of 
 her young family, can remember that it is a tem- 
 perament which this hard-working world will be 
 sure to reduce, even if her monitions and their 
 own good sense should fail to regulate it. 
 
 There are also instances on record to encour- . 
 age and cheer them, with regard to the most un- 
 promising children, of whom perhaps they are 
 tempted to say in moments of anguish, that they 
 have "laboured in vain, and spent their strength 
 for naught." Dr. Barrow, one of the most learned 
 and eloquent English divines, on whom the criti- 
 cal Dr. Johnson pronounced the strongest ver- 
 dict of praise, was in early life regardless of study. 
 He seemed even to have conceived an aversion
 
 IDIOM OP CHARACTER. 135 
 
 for books, and became so addicted to idle and 
 contentious company, that his father, in bitterness 
 of spirit, exclaimed, "should it please God to 
 take away any of my children, I pray him that 
 it may be my son Isaac." His mother had long 
 patience. She sustained herself on His strength, 
 who has power to bring good out of evil. Pa- 
 rental care, and systematic instruction, were per- 
 severed in, and gained a great reward. As the 
 son, who was pronounced so hopeless, grew up, he 
 evinced a temper which won all hearts, and made 
 such progress in science, as to fill with honour 
 the mathematical chair, which Newton afterwards 
 assumed. Among the most profound and uni- 
 versal scholars which his country could boast, he 
 maintained the highest rank. He was also distin- 
 guished as a powerful advocate of that religion, 
 whose transforming influences he so eminently 
 illustrated. 
 
 The excellent Cecil, whose writings are the 
 wealth and solace of many a pious heart, was in 
 early life both unpromising arid undutiful. "1 
 was desperate," said he. "I was determined to 
 go on board a privateer. But I had a pious 
 mother. She talked to me, and wept while she 
 talked. There are soft moments, even to despera- 
 does. God does not all at once abandon them." 
 One of the largest and most intelligent audiences 
 in London, who were under his spiritual care,
 
 136 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 were once exceedingly moved to hear him ex- 
 claim from his pulpit, with surprising candour 
 and humility, "as a publick witness for God and 
 for his truth, I must tell you that you should 
 never despair. No distressed woman ever hoped 
 more against hope, than the mother of your 
 preacher. But she prayed, and waited patiently. 
 She put her trust hi an Omnipotent Arm. She 
 not only prayed, but she instructed his mind, and 
 then waited God's season. She lived long enough 
 to hear that child preach the gospel, which he 
 had once despised. And she said, 'Now, Lord, 
 lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'" 
 
 Though the great power of maternal teaching 
 over the mind, during its period of waxen ten- 
 derness, is now generally conceded, though some 
 of the most distinguished men have been proud 
 to refer the early blossoms of intellect, the prompt- 
 ings of virtue, or the aspirations of piety, to the 
 influence of a mother, yet how far the same 
 agency may check the career of guilt, or silently 
 and steadfastly operate even among the "children 
 of disobedience," it is less easy to ascertain. A 
 man, who from a youth of irreligion, was re- 
 claimed to piety, acknowledged, that though he 
 used to receive the admonitions of his mother 
 with an affectation of pride and scorn, they fixed 
 themselves in his heart, like a barbed arrow, so 
 that tears would fall from his eyes as he passed
 
 IDIOM OP CHARACTER. 137 
 
 along the streets. The vicious seldom make such 
 frank disclosures. Their clouded trains of senti- 
 ment are not often accessible to the recording pen- 
 cil. Still, we have a case in point, a voice from 
 the region of guilt, speaking of a pious mother. 
 
 In one of the prisons of New England, is a 
 man, considerably past his prime, who has been 
 a doer of evil, and a wanderer over the face of 
 the earth. Retribution of various kinds has over- 
 taken him in his career of crime. Yet he has 
 endured all, with singular hardihood and obsti- 
 nacy. He acknowledges that nothing among the 
 punishments of man, or the precepts of God, has 
 ever made him " feel serious, but the words of his 
 mother." When her last hour drew nigh, she 
 sent for him to her chamber. He was then a 
 boy of twelve years old. She took his hand, as 
 he stood by her bed, and said, "I am going to 
 leave you, and shall return no more." In the 
 most solemn manner, she besought him to remem- 
 ber his Creator, and so to take care of his soul, 
 as to meet her in heaven. She continued to ad- 
 monish him, until the hand which pressed his 
 was cold in death. For almost half a century, 
 this son was passing through grades of crime, too 
 revolting for description. Yet in his deepest de- 
 gradations, he confesses that he has never been 
 able utterly to drive from his conscience the 
 words of his pious mpther, or to recall them with- 
 12*
 
 138 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 out emotion. May they not yet be made instru- 
 ments of repentance? May not the seed which 
 has so long retained life in an uncongenial soil, 
 yet be quickened to bear fruit? Who can define 
 the limits of a mother's influence, save the God 
 of the mother? 
 
 A pious mother, in her prayers with her little 
 son, was accustomed to lay her hand upon his 
 head. She died while he was yet too young to 
 realize the loss which he had sustained. He 
 grew up an uncurbed and wayward boy, whom 
 none seemed to understand, and few to love. 
 Yet in his most reckless and passionate parox- 
 ysms, something seemed partially to restrain and 
 rule him. He said it was a hand upon his head, 
 like his mother's hand. Often he yielded at its 
 touch, and wept bitterly. In the flush and fever 
 of youth, he travelled widely over foreign lands. 
 Vice tempted him, and the virtue which should 
 have withstood it, had but a frail rooting. Still, 
 something withheld him. It was the same hand 
 upon his head, a soft, cool hand. He dared not 
 utterly to cast off its controul. 
 
 In his old age he said to some children, "a 
 hand is upon my head, upon my few, hoary 
 locks, the same hand that used to rest in prayer, 
 among the fresh, sunny curls of my infancy. And 
 if I am ever saved, it will be by that mother's 
 hand, and my Redeemer's mercy." 

 
 SCHOOLS. 139 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 SCHOOLS. 
 
 FROM the ardour with which I have advocated 
 domestic education, I hope it will not be inferred 
 that I feel little interest in the welfare of schools. 
 Oh no ! I would not be so untrue to my coun- 
 try, as to omit any argument which would tend 
 to their support and elevation. " For the wealth 
 of a state," said the great Reformer, "consists not 
 in having great treasures, solid walls, fair pal- 
 aces, weapons and armour; but its best, and no- 
 blest wealth, and its truest safety, is in having 
 learned, wise, honourable, and well-educated 
 citizens." 
 
 If I have urged mothers to do much for their 
 children, it is because I have felt it to be both 
 their duty and their privilege to do more than 
 they ever have done. If I have laboured to 
 shew them what I deemed "the more excellent 
 way," I have not been ignorant that but few 
 would think of entering it. With the multitude, 
 whose industry earns a subsistence, the educa- 
 tion of their children would be impossible. The
 
 140 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 few, who may be persuaded to assume it, will 
 probably depend more or less on the assistance 
 of private teachers. So, that the character, attain- 
 ments and principles of the great body of in- 
 structors, are important to the prosperity and 
 safety of the land. It was the pen of Burke 
 that wrote, "Education is the cheapest defence 
 of a nation." "It is a better safeguard for 
 liberty," says Governor Everett, " than a standing 
 army. If we retrench the wages of the school- 
 master, we must raise the wages of the re- 
 cruiting sergeant." 
 
 In order to elevate the character of our schools, 
 let them be more select. They are often so 
 much thronged, and exhibit such disparity of 
 age, that the portion of individual improvement 
 must be small and impeded. In Prussia, which 
 we are still constrained to aclmowledge as our 
 model, in many features of scholastick education, 
 fifteen are considered an ample number for a 
 single mind to rule, and operate upon, to advan- 
 tage. A teacher, to fulfill the higher purpose of 
 his profession, should secure the intimacy and 
 seek the confidence of his pupils. But how can 
 this be done, when they are so numerous, and so 
 frequently changed, as to continue comparatively 
 strangers 1 
 
 Those schools which desire eminence, should 
 establish habits of order and punctuality. The 

 
 SCHOOLS. 141 
 
 division of time, and its adaptation to different 
 studies, should be as clearly denned to each class, 
 as the position of countries on a map. Rules, 
 embracing every gradation of duty, or variety of 
 deportment, which bear on moral and intellectual 
 proficiency, should be drawn up, explained, daily 
 read, and, if necessary, the signature of each pupil 
 taken, as a pledge of their assistance in maintain- 
 ing them. The correct discipline of a school is 
 its moral wealth ; each of its members should 
 feel, that whoever infringes it, impairs the com- 
 mon stock. It may usually be sustained with 
 perfect kindness, and often forms a bond of last- 
 ing attachment between teacher and scholar. 
 
 More munificence in the salaries of our public 
 schools, would advance their permanence and ex- 
 cellence. Were their income sufficient to induce 
 well-educated men to choose the work of instruc- 
 tion as a profession for life, they would assume 
 a higher rank, both in theory and practice. Teach- 
 ers engaged for a transient period, using their 
 school as a stepping-stone to some other station, 
 perhaps, occupied at the same time in the study 
 of the profession on which their future subsist- 
 ence is to depend, bring but wandering thoughts 
 and divided affections to a service which demands 
 the concentration of both. The community will 
 find parsimony ill-placed, where the mental and 
 moral culture of its youth are concerned.
 
 142 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 The establishment of Normal Schools, would be 
 a great blessing to our country, and is a sub- 
 ject which demands public attention and munifi- 
 cent patronage. For in our primary and district 
 schools, where reformation is the most necessary, 
 the education of their teachers is often exceed- 
 ingly defective. "In every age, even among the 
 heathen," said Luther, "the necessity has been 
 felt of having good tutors and schoolmasters, in 
 order to make any thing respectable of a nation. 
 But surely, we are not to sit still and wait until 
 they grow up of themselves. We can neither 
 chop them out of wood, nor hew them out of 
 stone. God will work no miracles to furnish that 
 which we have means to provide. We must 
 therefore apply our care and money to train up 
 and to make them." 
 
 Well-chosen libraries, connected with the schools 
 in our remote villages, are a desirable appendage. 
 A regular system of drawing out and returning 
 the books should be established ; perhaps the right 
 of doing so, might be used as a reward of good 
 scholarship and correct conduct. A condition 
 should always be annexed, that each one who 
 has been favoured with the perusal of a volume, 
 should render some account of its contents to the 
 teacher, in presence of the school, that all may 
 share in the benefit. Some knowledge of the 
 structure of the mind is requisite, to guide even
 
 SCHOOLS. 143 
 
 the youngest pupils to improvement. Yet in our 
 obscure villages, if there is any decayed, old 
 woman, who is too feeble to acquire a living by 
 the spinning-wheel, or needle, how often is it said, 
 that she will do to "keep a school for the little 
 ones." For the little ones! at that most plastick 
 period of life, when the impressions which are 
 received are to last forever? 
 
 Simpson, of Edinburgh, in his work on Popu- 
 lar Education, says most justly, "Prussian law- 
 givers have wisely considered the best plan of 
 teaching as a dead letter, without good and able 
 teachers ; and to expect these without training, 
 is to look for a crop without ploughing or sowing. 
 An instructor, well endowed with knowledge, and 
 distinguished by a lively and exciting manner of 
 communication, who can keep alive wonder, and 
 put into his lessons a fine admixture of the high- 
 er feelings, will possess a power over his pupil's 
 will and happiness, which forms a striking con- 
 trast to the heart-withering irksomeness of the 
 old schools, in which an antiquated and most 
 hurtful appeal to the inferior feelings of fear, 
 self-exultation, vanity or covetousness, was found 
 necessary to stimulate the languid faculties." 
 
 It is obvious, that the character of our schools 
 should keep pace with the spirit of our very ad- 
 vancing age. This must be done, by demanding 
 of teachers, high degrees of intellectual attain-
 
 144 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 ment, of moral principle, and of that deep reli- 
 gious feeling, which shunning sectarian barriers, 
 incorporates itself with every imparted rudiment 
 of knowledge. When they are thus elevated, 
 let them be held in honour. Let the statesman 
 consider them as his co-adjutors. Let jurispru- 
 dence view them as having power to check crime 
 in its earliest germinations, and to diminish the 
 population of our prisons, more than all the ter- 
 rors of the penal code. Let the guardians of 
 virtue and piety, take them into hallowed brother- 
 hood. Let parents uphold them with their 
 marked respect, and foster in their children the 
 noble sentiment of Alexander, " I am indebted 
 to my father for living, but to my teacher for 
 living well" 
 
 Those who have faithfully laboured in the work 
 of education for many years, should receive marks 
 of distinction from the community. Among the 
 schoolmasters in the duchy of Baden, was one 
 who had continued in his profession for half a 
 century. The opening of the year, 1836, com- 
 pleted the jubilee. ' It was determined to desig- 
 nate it by a festival. The Grand Duke wished 
 also to add his tribute of respect. He sent him. 
 the gold medal, only bestowed on the most emi- 
 nent civilians, and a letter in his own hand- 
 writing, a compliment which he seldom paid to 
 sovereigns. The venerable man was conducted
 
 SCHOOLS. 145 
 
 in procession to the church, accompanied by vocal 
 musick from his pupils, of the most sweet and 
 touching character. Then the Prefect, in the 
 presence of a large assembly, presented him the 
 medal and the autograph, and in an address 
 proffered the gratitude which the State felt was 
 due, for his services to its children. After pray- 
 ers, and devotional music, they returned to a 
 festive repast, still enlivened with appropriate 
 musick, and with expressions of applause and 
 affection for the grey-haired instructor. The 
 effect of the whole, was not only to breathe new- 
 life into the winter of age, but to impress on the 
 minds of all present, that a pious, faithful teach- 
 er, was one of the best friends of the nation, and 
 worthy of honour, from all true patriots. 
 
 Demonstrations of a regard thus publick, would 
 be repugnant to the delicacy of female instruct- 
 ors. Yet those mothers who commit their heart's 
 jewels to their keeping, should treat them as 
 friends and counsellors, and cheer them with 
 their confidence. Their influence is sometimes 
 stronger in correcting faults of character, than 
 even that of the parent. Let them be selected 
 with the most careful discrimination, and then 
 considered as adjuncts in a high and holy work. 
 
 Young ladies of affluence need not consider it 
 beneath them, to engage in the work of instruc- 
 tion. It is one of the best modes to complete
 
 146 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 their own education. It consolidates their know- 
 ledge, and gives them readiness in bringing it 
 forth when it may be needed. It is no bad prepa- 
 ration for matrimony, since it induces habits of 
 order, industry and self-controul, beside impart- 
 ing that knowledge of human nature, which is so 
 valuable to her who expects to sit on the throne 
 of that complicated little kingdom, a household. 
 
 If in the female heart, there exists, as has been 
 asserted, a love of power, there is no sphere in 
 which it may be enjoyed so perfectly, as in that 
 of teaching the young mind, through the affec- 
 tions. Hear the testimony of Madame de Genlis, 
 to this point, written after she had reached her 
 fiftieth year. Of a young governess, to whose 
 almost sole care her mother yielded her, when a 
 child, she says, " I became attached to her from the 
 first, and my attachment was as lasting as it was 
 lively. Indeed, I loved and admired her so much, 
 that she might have taught me whatever she had 
 chosen. She had the spirit of an angel, and in 
 our solitary walks spoke often to me of the Deity. 
 We admired with feelings of extasy, the skies, the 
 trees, the flowers, reading in the works of God's 
 hands, the proofs of his existence. That idea, 
 animated and embellished all nature in our eyes. 
 Often, on awaking in the night, I used to leave 
 my bed, and prostrate myself on the floor, in 
 prayer to the Deity." Such an effect had the
 
 SCHOOLS. 147 
 
 goodness of heart and unaffected piety of a young 
 teacher of sixteen, upon the ingenuous heart of 
 her pupil. 
 
 The employment of teaching is congenial to 
 happiness. I rejoice to be enabled to add my 
 own experience to the truth of this assertion. 
 Some of the most delightful years of my life, 
 were devoted to the instruction of young ladies. 
 And how could it be otherwise, when the pleasure 
 of witnessing their improvement, was mingled 
 with the consciousness of improving with them as 
 a fellow-learner, when every laborious depart- 
 ment of the vocation was cheered by the sweet- 
 est sympathies, by demonstrations of attachment 
 and gratitude, not to be doubted or mistaken, and 
 which have continued with me into the wane of 
 life. How often, on entering the school-room, 
 and seeing fifteen bright faces turned toward me 
 with the smile of welcome, have I silently given 
 thanks for my blessed employment, and with that 
 desire of setting a good example, which those 
 feel who urge others to it, repeated in my heart, 
 the words of the apostle, " for their sakes, I sanc- 
 tify myself." Truly ungrateful should I be, not 
 to bear glad testimony to the privilege of being 
 associated with beings, who, in the blossom and 
 beauty of youth, sought knowledge and goodness 
 in preference to the vanity and pride of life, and 
 who, regarding each other as one lovely fajtnily 3
 
 148 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 drew me also within the circle of their own sister- 
 ly fellowship. When I recall the lineaments of 
 those beautiful and buoyant spirits, who touched 
 as with the wand of enchantment five downy- 
 footed years, I am reminded of the fabled answer 
 made by a piece of turf, to him who questioned 
 whence its odour proceeded. " Roses were plant- 
 ed on my soil. Their perfume deliciously pene- 
 trated through all my pores. Otherwise, I had 
 been still but a mass of clay." 
 
 I hope the time will speedily come, when fe- 
 males shall have charge of the whole education of 
 their own sex. Especially, should those establish- 
 ments where young ladies reside as in a home, 
 be under feminine superintendence. Had ladies 
 heretofore considered it as it really is, a privilege 
 to teach, they would have claimed such stations 
 as their right, and have strenuously prepared them- 
 selves, to fill them with fidelity, and honour. "We 
 shall insist on this point," says Mrs. Hale, "that no 
 man ought to name himself alone, as responsible 
 for the education of young ladies at a boarding- 
 school. It is a contumely to the delicacy, moral 
 sentiment, and mental ability of our sex, which 
 every true-hearted, noble-spirited woman should 
 resent. It is an infringement of our privileges, 
 and they are neither so many or so large, that we 
 can afford to lose a single link from the chain of 
 influence and respect, without a murmur." 

 
 SCHOOLS. 149 
 
 Some of the reasons, why females should qual- 
 ify themselves to conduct the whole education of 
 their sex, are peculiar to our country. Here, the 
 roads to wealth and distinction are thrown open 
 equally to all. Men are continually solicited by 
 strong motives, to gain or glory. Competition in 
 some form or other, stimulates every individual 
 of every rank. So restless, almost Sabbathless 
 are their struggles, that foreigners call our coun- 
 try a great work-shop, and say that our men look 
 care-worn from their youth. Moved thus by the 
 incentives to wealth or power, will the most 
 energetic, and the best endowed, stoop to the 
 drudgery of teaching ignorant children? Will 
 ' they endure it sufficiently long, to become versed 
 in its countless details? Will the mind which is 
 ambitious to amass millions, be content with its 
 petty gains? Here then, is a sphere for the pa- 
 tience and quietness of woman to enter, and win 
 a reward which earth can never give. 
 
 It is true, that here and there, men of erudi- 
 tion and benevolence may devote themselves to 
 the work of education, as to a permanent profes- 
 sion. But what proportion can these be expected 
 to bear, to the wants of our rapidly increasing 
 and broadly emigrating population? Will the 
 pioneer of the unplanted wild, or the colonist on 
 the western prairie, gather around him the chil- 
 dren of an infant settlement, and instil into them 
 13*
 
 150 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 the simple rudiments of science, or watch the 
 growth of the moral stamina of principle, and of 
 character? Will the man of enterprize turn from 
 his schemes, the rail-road, the canal, or the land- 
 speculation, to submit to the tedious processes, or 
 study the nameless refinements of female culture? 
 The wealthy may indeed secure the aid of men 
 of talents, in the education of their daughters. 
 But these will be only exceptions. To borrow 
 the fine simile of the philosophick Douglas, they 
 bear no more comparison to the great mass who 
 need instruction, than "the surface of ocean 
 which is stirred by the breeze, or radiant in the 
 sunbeam, bears to the depth of waters that lie 
 dark and unmoved beneath."
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 151 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING every argument that can 
 be adduced, . there will undoubtedly be many 
 mothers, who decline taking an active part in the 
 intellectual culture of their children. Yet let 
 them not, with equal supineness, venture to ne- 
 glect their religious instruction. For if "religion 
 is the ritual of a tender and lowly mind, looking 
 through the beauty and majesty of Nature, to its 
 God." willing to believe what He has revealed, 
 and docile to do what He has commanded, there 
 surely exists, in the simplicity of childhood, a 
 preparation for its spirit, which the lapse of years 
 may impair. 
 
 Can it be necessary to repeat the precept, that 
 prayer should be early taught, and rendered ha- 
 bitual, at stated seasons, especially at those of re- 
 tiring to rest, and waking in the morning? That 
 it should be felt as a privilege, and not as a task, 
 will require judicious maternal attention. Begin 
 with the simplest form of words, solemnly and 
 affectionately uttered. As by little and little, the
 
 152 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 infant learns to lift up its heart, tell it that it has 
 permission to bring its humble wants, thanks, and 
 sorrows, in its own lisping language, to a Father 
 in Heaven. Sooner than perhaps is expected, 
 may the guileless spirit be led to intimate com- 
 munion with the hearer of prayer. For there 
 are, between that and Him, no deep descents into 
 actual transgression; no long-continued clouds of 
 alienated feeling, which darken His countenance, 
 and crush in dust the heart of the way-worn 
 pilgrim. 
 
 When you are convinced that regular seasons 
 of retirement are observed as a duty, or regarded 
 as a privilege, let your next lesson be, that the 
 softest sigh, the voiceless aspiration, are audible 
 to the ear of Duty. Wait till this advance in 
 piety has been secured, and then reverence the 
 secresy of devotion in your children. If you are 
 assured that they are prepared for that precept of 
 the Saviour, "enter into thy closet, and shut thy 
 door," allow the breath of the soul to ascend un- 
 restrained to Him who "giveth the Holy Spirit 
 to them who ask Him." 
 
 Though the young suppliants may most en- 
 joy seasons of solitary intercourse with their 
 Maker, still they must be sedulously taught never 
 to be ashamed of the practice of devotion, or of 
 its appropriate posture of humility ; never to omit 
 it, at rising, or retiring, for any circumstance what-
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 153 
 
 ever. "I thought my aunt was a pious woman," 
 said a very little child, "but now she cannot be, 
 for I see she does not kneel down and pray to 
 God, before she goes to sleep." A distinguished 
 divine, when quite young, was once embarrassed, 
 while on a journey, by being obliged to lodge in 
 the same room with a stranger. Naturally timid, 
 he was tempted to omit his nightly prayers, or to 
 disguise their performance. But he reflected, and 
 conscience prevailed. "Should not those who 
 lodge together, pray together?" said he, as he 
 knelt by his bed-side. The traveller, though not 
 religious, and much older than himself, respected 
 the piety of the boy, and sought his friendship. 
 
 While the mother earnestly enforces the duty 
 of devotion, at stated seasons, she must not re- 
 strict it to those seasons. She should lead her 
 young pupils, step by step, to mingle their re- 
 quests for divine guidance, their praises for con- 
 tinued mercy, not only with every unforeseen ex- 
 igence, but with the common circumstances of 
 their daily course. Ejaculatory prayer, the silent 
 lifting up of the heart, by the fireside, at the 
 table, in the midst of companions, studies, or the 
 occupations of industry, may make the whole of 
 life ah intercourse with its Giver. This mode of 
 devotion must have been contemplated by the 
 Apostle, in his injunction, "I will, that men pray 
 every-where."
 
 154 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 There is a sweet and simple custom prevalent 
 in Iceland, which marks the habitual devotion 
 of its inhabitants. Whenever they leave home, 
 though for a short journey, they uncover their 
 heads, and, for the space of five minutes, silently 
 implore the protection and favour of the Almighty. 
 Dr. Henderson, from whom this fact is derived, 
 and who observed it in the Icelanders who often 
 attended him on his excursions, also remarked it 
 in the humblest fishermen, when going forth to 
 procure food for their families. After having put 
 out upon the sea, they row the boat into quiet 
 water, at a short distance from the shore, and, 
 bowing their uncovered heads, solicit the blessing 
 of their Father in Heaven. Even at passing a 
 stream, which in their country of precipices is 
 often an operation fraught with danger, they ob- 
 serve the same sacred custom. This affecting 
 habit of devotion has been imputed to the fact, 
 that from their isolated situation, and modes of 
 life, the mother is almost the only teacher, and 
 her instructions seem to have become incorpora- 
 ted with their very elements of being. Let us 
 not permit our Icelandic sisters to go beyond 
 us in enforcing the duty and practice of .devo- 
 tion. 
 
 Next to the exercise of prayer, we should im- 
 plant in the minds of our children a reverence 
 for the Sabbath. An ancient writer has said im-
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 155 
 
 pressively, that "in the history of Creation, we 
 may see that God placed wisdom above power, 
 and the holy rest higher than both. For it is 
 not said, but the mass and matter of the earth 
 was made in a moment, though its order and ar- 
 rangement cost the labour of six days: but the 
 seventh day, in which the Great Architect con- 
 templated his work, is blessed above all others." 
 
 Let us imitate this climax. Whatever may 
 have been the industry, or success of the week, 
 its improvement or its happiness, let us feel that 
 its crown of blessing is the holy rest and con- 
 templation of the Sabbath. This solemn and glad 
 consciousness will assist us to present it to our 
 children in its true aspect. We should make 
 them understand that God claims it as his own; 
 and that if it is wrong to defraud an earthly 
 friend, it must be a sin of still deeper die to seek 
 to defraud an Almighty Benefactor. Teach them 
 that all his commands have reference to their 
 good, but that this has obvious connection with 
 their spiritual improvement, and ought to be 
 strictly regarded. 
 
 One of the simplest rudiments of Sabbath ob- 
 servance, is for the mother to sooth her little 
 ones into a placid frame of mind. We cannot 
 expect from them that delight in duty, which is 
 the reward of more advanced piety. We must 
 wait with patience, and labour in hope, not
 
 156 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 placing our standard of requisition too high, lest 
 the young aspirant bow as under a yoke of 
 bondage. 
 
 Mothers, be careful, by your own example, to 
 teach that rest from worldly occupation and dis- 
 course, which the consecrated day prescribes, and 
 by your heightened and serene cheerfulness, 
 awaken a desire of imitation. Point out, in the 
 stillness of the Sabbath morn, in the tint of the 
 opening flower, or in the snowy drapery of win- 
 ter, the untiring goodness and wisdom of the Cre- 
 ator. By those mercies, which, from their con- 
 tinued presence, we are too apt to pass unnoticed, 
 lead their hearts to that Giver, who forgets not 
 the ungrateful. Describe with what delight the 
 gift of the pure air would fill the poor prisoner, 
 or the dweller in a noxious clime; how the 
 power of walking freely over the fresh, green 
 turf would be prized by the cripple, or the sick, 
 long chained to a couch of suffering; with what 
 rapture the sparkling water would be hailed by 
 the wandering Arab, the weary caravan, the pant- 
 ing carnel in the sandy desert. To enkindle one 
 spark of hallowed gratitude, or pious love, in the 
 little bosoms that beat so near your own, is a 
 work in unison with the spirit of the day of 
 God. 
 
 Be careful that the books, which your children 
 read, are congenial to this holy season. Selections
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 157 
 
 made by yourself from the historical parts of the 
 Bible, and pictures illustrating them, afford a plea- 
 sant and profitable mode of instruction. In the 
 choice of subjects, or in your explanation of them, 
 you can keep in view some adaptation to individual 
 character, or train of thought, and thus, without 
 seeming to do it, delicately reprove a fault, or 
 cherish a drooping virtue. Committing hymns and 
 sacred precepts to memory, is also an excellent 
 exercise. How often do the aged carry to the 
 utmost verge of life, the catechisms and sacred 
 poetry they were accustomed to learn in their child- 
 hood. When Beza, the celebrated reformer, became 
 old, and had forgotten even the countenances and 
 names of his friends, he could still repeat the epis- 
 tles of St. Paul, which he had committed to 
 memory when very young, and principally on the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 Spend as much time as you can, in religious 
 conversation with your children. Do not dismiss 
 them to the Sunday school, and think no more 
 about them. Is it not a sacred pleasure to instruct 
 them on this blessed day ? and would you not share 
 in it ? Some unfortunate ones there are, for whom 
 no religious parent, or friend at home, are interested. 
 To such, the Sunday school teacher is an invalua- 
 ble treasure, a " light shining in a dark place," to 
 guide the wanderer's feet in the way of peace. 
 With deep gratitude and love, should those bands 
 14
 
 158 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 of devoted teachers be regarded, who, throughout 
 the cities and villages of our land, resign the sweet 
 rest of the Sabbath, for the sake of the souls of 
 others. Doubtless their self-denial, and fidelity, 
 will be remembered at the judgment, and win for 
 them a fuller portion of eternal felicity. 
 
 But because Sunday school teachers are willing 
 to "jeopard themselves, even unto death," is the 
 indolence of parents to be excused? If they are 
 in possession of religious knowledge, and leisure, 
 why should not the younger members of their families 
 participate in this wealth ? and they enjoy the high 
 pleasure of imparting it? 
 
 Require of your children a quiet deportment, 
 and reverent attention, during the public services 
 of the church. It is not wise to permit their attend- 
 ance there, while they are so young as to interrupt 
 the devotion of others, for the benefit they may be 
 expected to receive, will scarcely counterbalance 
 the inconvenience sustained by older worshippers. 
 It is related of Joshua Rowley Gilpin, that his 
 parents had so thoroughly impressed him with 
 reverence for the house of God, that at his first 
 introduction there, though at a very early age, he 
 testified deep awe, and ever afterwards, while listen- 
 ing to ministrations from the pulpit, revealed in 
 his deportment the most unaffected decorum and 
 piety. 
 
 His father thus describes the delightful manner
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 159 
 
 in which that part of the Sabbath which was spent 
 at home, passed with their son, whose education 
 was conducted by his parents : " Unrestrained by 
 the presence of witnesses, we gave on that sacred 
 day, an unlimited indulgence to our affectionate 
 and devotional feelings. We conversed as parts of 
 the same family; we congratulated each other, as 
 members of the Christian Church ; we rejoiced over 
 each other, as heirs of the same glorious promises. 
 Some interesting passage of Scripture, or some 
 choice piece of divinity, generally furnished the 
 matter of our discourse, and while we endeavoured 
 to obtain a clear and comprehensive view of the 
 subject before us, a divine light seemed sometimes 
 to break in upon us, satisfying our doubts, exalting 
 our conceptions, and cheering our hearts. With 
 one consent, we have then laid aside our book, that 
 we might uninterruptedly admire the beauties and 
 enjoy the glories of the opening prospect. While 
 thus solacing ourselves with a view of our future 
 enjoyments, and the place of our final destination, 
 we have solemnly renewed our vows, resolving for 
 the joy that was set before us, to endure the cross, 
 despising the shame,' in humble imitation of our 
 adorable Master. In such a frame of mind, we 
 found it possible to speak of probable sufferings, 
 and painful separations, with the utmost compo- 
 sure. And with such a termination of our course 
 in sight, we could cheerfully leave all the casual-
 
 160 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 ties of that course to the Divine disposal ; fully 
 persuaded, that whatever evil might befal us by 
 the way, an abundant compensation would be 
 made for all, on our arrival at home." 
 
 It seems scarcely necessary to remark, that our 
 young pupils ought not to be initiated into contro- 
 versial, or metaphysical subtleties. Their under- 
 standings have not sufficient strength to grasp the 
 disputes that divide Christendom. They are per- 
 plexed by distinctions of doctrine, when their 
 feeble comprehension might have been guided out 
 of the labyrinth, by the simple precept, that 
 " the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wis- 
 dom." Their religion should be eminently that 
 of the heart, a love of their Father in Heaven, 
 a love of all whom he has made, an obedience to 
 his commands, a dread of his displeasure, a con- 
 tinual reference to him for aid, renovation, and 
 forgiveness through the Saviour, and a conscious- 
 ness that every deed, however secret, is open to 
 his eye, every word, every motive, to be brought 
 into judgment. This foundation will bear a broad 
 superstructure, when years expand the lineaments 
 of character, and time's trials teach self-knowledge, 
 humility, and reliance on omnipotent strength. 
 
 Perhaps some mother exclaims, " she who thinks 
 herself fit to communicate such instruction, ought 
 to have much knowledge herself." Certainly ; and 
 one great benefit of the undertaking is, that she
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 161 
 
 is thus induced to study, and to increase in the 
 knowledge of divine things. 
 
 "But how are we to acquire this knowledge? 
 We have not time to hear all who speak in public, 
 or to read half the books that are written." 
 
 The leisure of a faithful mother, is indeed cir- 
 cumscribed. When she is unable to go forth, 
 as she might desire, and seek for instruction, let 
 her make trial of the injunction of the Psalmist, 
 to "commune with her own heart, and in her 
 chamber, and be still." " The retiring of the mind 
 into itself," said a man of wisdom, "is the state 
 most susceptible of divine impressions." 
 
 To study the scriptures, to solicit the aid of 
 the Holy Spirit, to draw forth from memory the 
 priceless precepts of a religious education, and 
 reduce them to practice, are more congenial to 
 maternal duty, than the exciting system of the 
 ancient Athenians, who, according to the Apostle, 
 "spent their time in nothing else, but either to 
 tell, or to hear some new thing." "Transplant 
 thyself into some enclosed ground," said an an- 
 cient writer, " for it is hard for a tree that stand- 
 eth by the way-side, to keep its fruit until it be 
 fully ripe." To overload a field with seed, how- 
 ever good, yet neglect the process that incorpo- 
 rates it with the mould, is but to provide food 
 for the fowls of the air. This must emphatically 
 be the case, when the mistress of a family leaves 
 14*
 
 162 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 imperative duties unperformed at home, and wan- 
 ders frequently abroad, though it seem to be in 
 search of wisdom. Her thoughts, if she is con- 
 scientious, will so hover about her forsaken 
 charge, as to leave no fixedness of attention, for 
 the discussions of the speaker. His voice may 
 indeed be like the lovely song of a very plea- 
 sant instrument, but it must fall on a partially 
 deafened ear. In spite of every endeavour, her 
 heart will be travelling homeward to the feeble 
 babe, the uncontrouled children, or the lawless 
 servants. 
 
 A mother, in rather humble life, was desirous 
 to attend an evening meeting. Her husband, who 
 was obliged to go in another direction, advised 
 her to remain at home. He urged, that- the 
 weather was cold, and there was no one to leave 
 with the babe, and two other little ones, except 
 a young, indiscreet girl, whom they were bring- 
 ing up, and who being apt to fall asleep with 
 the infant in her arms, he feared it might fall 
 into the fire upon the hearth, or perhaps, the 
 house be consumed. But as she had gone, a 
 night or two before, and no accident had hap- 
 pened, she said she thought she would trust 
 providence again. So she went, yet her heart 
 misgave her. As she opened the door of the 
 lecture-room, the speaker rising, pronounced his 
 text:
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 163 
 
 "With whom hast thou left those few sheep 
 in the wilderness?" 
 
 The force of his elocution, and the coincidence 
 of the passage with her own rather reproachful 
 train of thought, so wrought upon her feelings, 
 that in a short time, she silently left her seat, and 
 returned home. Afterwards she acknowledged, 
 that this circumstance had aided to convince her, 
 how essential a part of religion it was, to watch 
 over the unfledged birdlings of her own nest. 
 
 Though the paths of instruction are preferable 
 to-jthe haunts of fashion and folly, as far as "light 
 excelleth darkness," yet is it not possible, that 
 there may be such a thing as religious dissipa- 
 tion ? If so, it is peculiarly to be deprecated in a 
 mother, one of whose first obligations is to " show 
 piety at home," and whose simple presence, even 
 the sound of her protecting voice from a distant 
 apartment, is often far more essential to the wel- 
 fare of the little kingdom which she rules, than 
 she herself imagines. 
 
 A lady once asserted that she had heard nine 
 sermons, or lectures, during the week, adding as a 
 proof of her zeal and self-denial, that she had left 
 some of her family sick, in order to attend 
 them. Now, if these nine discourses embodied 
 the intellectual strength of profound and educated 
 men, it would be exceedingly difficult for a ma- 
 tron, burdened with the cares peculiar to her sta-
 
 164 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 tion, so to "mark, learn, and inwardly digest" this 
 mass of knowledge, as to receive proportionate 
 gain. And I could not help recollecting the noble 
 lady of ancient times, who had determined to visit 
 all Palestine, and then take up her abode in Beth- 
 lehem, that she might make Christ's inn her 
 home, and die where he was born, of whom 
 Fuller, the historian, quaintly remarks, that " see- 
 ing she left three daughters, and her poor little 
 infant Foxotius behind her, he was fain to think, 
 for his own part, that she had done as accepta- 
 ble a deed to God, by staying to rock her child 
 in the cradle, as to enter Christ's manger." 
 
 I would not, were it in my power, say aught 
 to diminish the ardour of my sex, to keep up 
 with the spirit of this advancing age, and above 
 all, to hold in the highest estimation the know- 
 ledge of things divine. Rather, would I increase 
 a thousand-fold, their reverence for such know- 
 ledge, and for those who teach it. But let not 
 the mother of little ones, forget that her para- 
 mount duty is to impart to them what she has 
 herself learned, and proved, and held fast, as an 
 "anchor to the soul." Whatever accession she 
 makes to her own spiritual wealth, let her sim- 
 plify and share it with the flock over whom 
 the Chief Shepherd hath made her overseer. Let 
 none of her manna-gatherings be in the spirit 
 of idle, aimless curiosity, but with the earnest 

 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 165 
 
 intention better to obey the command of dying 
 love, "Feed my lambs." 
 
 How quiet, yet efficient, was the maternal in- 
 fluence of Monica over Augustine, as it has 
 been delineated by one of the powerful pens 
 of our country, which has also mingled with 
 the biography many collateral traits of the civil 
 and ecclesiastical history of the fourth and fifth 
 centuries. Truly admirable was her patience 
 with the waywardness of her son, when "her 
 voice, or rather the voice of God in her, he 
 despised, thinking it to be only the voice of a 
 woman ;" her fidelity in admonishing him of er- 
 ror, and warning him of danger ; her persever- 
 ance, which drew from an eminent Christian the 
 assertion, that it was impossible for a child of 
 such prayers to perish ; her trust in God, by 
 which the "wormwood of her anguish was al- 
 ways sweetened by some infusion of divine 
 hope;" and her rapturous praise, at the conver- 
 sion of the object of her fondest care, when the 
 "vine, which had for such a distance crept 
 along on the surface, was about suddenly to 
 shoot up, and twine around the tree of life." 
 Would that the example of this ancient saint 
 were more frequently imitated, and that our 
 children more fully profited by the efficacy of 
 maternal prayers. 
 
 It was a high suffrage, once accorded to the
 
 166 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 piety of Fenelon, by an infidel, who exclaimed: 
 " let me get out of his house, or I shall be a 
 Christian." May the beauty of holiness so rest 
 upon our households, that every dweller there, 
 as well as every guest, may both love and adopt 
 its lineaments. 
 
 Can woman ever do too much to evince her 
 gratitude to the religion of Christ? Look at her 
 situation among the most polished heathen. Trace 
 the depths of her domestic depression, even in 
 the proudest days of Greece and Rome. What 
 has she been under the Moslem? Humbled by 
 polygamy, entombed in the harem, denounced as 
 soulless. Only under the Gospel dispensation has 
 she been accounted an equal, the happy and 
 cherished partaker of an immortal hope. 
 
 Even amid the brightness that beamed upon 
 ancient Zion, her lot was in strong shadow. 
 Now and then she appears with the timbrel of 
 the prophetess ; or as a beautiful gleaner in the 
 fields of Boaz ; or as a mother, giving the son 
 of her prayers to the temple-service. But these 
 are rather exceptions to a general rule, than proofs 
 that she was an equal sharer in the blessings of 
 the Jewish polity. 
 
 How afflicting is her lot among uncivilized na- 
 tions, and throughout the realms of paganism ! 
 See the American Indian, binding the burden 
 upon his weaker companion, and walking on
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 167 
 
 pitiless, in his unembarrassed strength. See her 
 among the Polynesian islands, the slave of de- 
 graded man ; or beneath an African sun, crouch- 
 ing, to receive on her head the load which the 
 camel should bear. See her in heathen India, 
 cheered by no gleam of the domestic affections, 
 or household charities. 
 
 A gentleman, long a resident in the east, men- 
 tions that among the pilgrims who throng to the 
 temple of Juggernaut, was a. Hindoo family, 
 who had travelled two thousand miles on foot. 
 They had nearly reached the end of their 
 toils and journey, when the mother was taken 
 sick. On perceiving that she was unable to 
 travel, the husband abandoned her. Creeping a 
 few steps at a time, she at length reached, with 
 her babe, a neighbouring village. There she be- 
 sought shelter, but in vain. A storm came on, 
 and she laid herself down, in her deadly sick- 
 ness, under a tree. There she was found in the 
 morning by the benevolent narrator, drenched 
 with rain, and the infant clinging to her breast. 
 He removed her, and gave her medicine, but it 
 was too late. The flame of life was expiring. 
 He besought many individuals to take pity on 
 the starving child. The universal reply was, 
 "No. It is only a girl." He went to the owner 
 of the village, a man of wealth, and implored 
 his aid. The refusal was positive. "Is the
 
 168 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 mother dead? Let the child die too. What else 
 should it do? Have you not said it was a 
 girl?" So, the Christian took the miserable infant 
 under his protection. Having procured some 
 milk, he mentioned that he should never forget 
 the look with which the poor famished creature 
 crawled to his feet, and gazed up in his face, as 
 she saw the food approaching. So strongly were 
 his compassions moved, that he determined to 
 take her with him to his own land, that she 
 might receive the nurture of that religion, which 
 moves the strong to respect the weak, and opens 
 the door of heaven to every humble and trusting 
 soul. 
 
 Surely, woman is surrounded by an array of 
 [motives of unspeakable strength, to be an advo- 
 /cate for pure religion, a teacher of its precepts, 
 / an exemplification of its spirit. The slightest in- 
 novation of its principles, she is bound to repel. 
 The faintest smile at its institutions, she must 
 discountenance. To her, emphatically, may the 
 words of the Jewish lawgiver be addressed, "it is 
 / not a vain thing ; it is your life. 1 " 
 
 That she may do this great work effectually, 
 
 f let her " receive the truth, in the love of it." 
 
 Let her contemplate with affection the character 
 
 / of her Saviour, and earnestly seek more entire 
 
 / conformity to that religion, through which she 
 
 receives such innumerable blessings. Let her say
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 169 
 
 with more firmness than did the ardent disciple, 
 "though all men forsake thee, yet will not I." 
 Ever should she assiduously cherish the spirit, so 
 beautifully ascribed to her by the poet, 
 
 " Not she, with serpent-kiss, her Saviour stung ; 
 Not she, denied him with a traitor-tongue : 
 She, when apostles shrank, could brave the gloom, 
 Last at the Cross, and earliest at the tomb."
 
 170 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 DUTY TO THE COMMUNITY. 
 
 WE mothers, best discharge our duty to the com- 
 munity, by training up those who shall give it 
 strength and beauty. Our unwearied labours 
 should coincide with the aspirations of the Psalm- 
 ist, that " our sons may be as plants grown up in 
 their youth, our daughters as corner-stones, pol- 
 ished after the similitude of a palace." We would 
 not wish to leave to society, where we have our- 
 selves found protection and solace, a bequest that 
 would dishonour our memory. 
 
 I feel peculiar solicitude with regard to the 
 manner in which our daughters are reared. Being 
 more constantly with us, and more perfectly under 
 our controul, than sons, they are emphatically 
 our representatives, the truest tests of our system, 
 the strongest witnesses to another generation, of 
 our fidelity, or neglect. 
 
 " Unless women," said the venerable Fellenberg, 
 " are brought up with industrious and religious 
 habits, it is in vain that we educate the men : 
 for they are the ones, who keep the character 

 
 DUTY TO THE COMMUNITY. 171 
 
 Xr>f men in its proper elevation." Our duty to 
 the community, which must be discharged by the 
 education of a whole race, comprises many un- 
 obtrusive, almost invisible points, which, in detail, 
 seem trivial or desultory, but which are still as 
 important as the rain-drop to the cistern, or the 
 rill to the broad stream. 
 
 A long period allotted to study, a thorough im- 
 plantation of domestic tastes, and a vigilant guard- 
 ianship over simplicity of character, are desirable 
 for the daughters of a republick. That it is wise 
 to give the greatest possible extent to the season 
 of tutelage, for those who have much to learn, is 
 a self-evident proposition. If they are to teach 
 others, it is doubly important ; and there is no 
 country on earth, where so many females are 
 employed in teaching, as in our own. Indeed, 
 from the position that educated women here 
 maintain, it might not be difficult to establish the 
 point, that they are all teachers, all forming other 
 beings upon the model of their own example, 
 however unconscious of the fact. To abridge the 
 education of the educator, is to stint the culture 
 of a plant, whose " leaves are for the healing of 
 the nations." 
 
 I was delighted to hear a young lady say, at 
 the age of nineteen, " I cannot bear to think yet 
 of leaving school. I have scarcely begun to 
 learn." With propriety might she express this
 
 172 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 sentiment, though she was eminent both in stu- 
 dies and accomplishments, if the great Michael 
 Angelo could adopt for his motto, in his nine- 
 tieth year. " ancora imparo," "and yet I am 
 learning." 
 
 It has unfortunately been too much the custom 
 in our country, not only to shorten the period 
 allotted to the education of our sex, but to fritter 
 away even that brief period in contradictory pur- 
 suits and pleasures. Parents have blindly lent their 
 influence to this usage. To reform it, they must 
 oppose the tide of fashion, and of opinion. Let 
 them instruct their daughters to resist the prin- 
 ciple of conforming in any respect to the example 
 of those around them, unless it is rational in itself, 
 and correctly applicable to them as individuals. 
 A proper expenditure for one, would be ruinous 
 extravagance in another. So, if some indiscreet 
 mothers permit their young daughters to waste 
 in elaborate dress, and fashionable parties, the 
 attention which should be devoted to study, need 
 their example be quoted as a precedent 1 To do 
 as others do, which is the rule of the unthinking, 
 is often to copy bad taste, and erring judgment. 
 We use more discrimination in points of trifling 
 import. We pause and compare patterns, ere we 
 purchase a garment which perchance lasts but for 
 a single season. Why should we adopt with little 
 inquiry, or on the strength of doubtful precedent,
 
 DUTY TO THE COMMUNITY. 173 
 
 a habit, which may stamp the character of our 
 children forever? 
 
 The youngest girl should be taught, when cir- 
 cumstances require, not to fear to differ from her 
 companions, either in costume, manners, or opin- 
 ion. Singularity, for its own sake, and every 
 approach to eccentricity, should be deprecated and 
 discouraged. Even necessary variations from those 
 around, must be managed with delicacy, so as not 
 to wound feeling, or exasperate prejudice. But 
 she who dare not be independent, when reason 
 or duty dictate, will be in danger of forfeiting 
 decision of character, perhaps, integrity of prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 Simple attire, and simple manners, are the nat- 
 ural ornaments of those who are obtaining their 
 school-education. They have the beauty of fit- 
 ness, and the policy of leaving the mind free, for 
 its precious pursuits. Love of display, every step 
 towards affectation, are destructive of the charms 
 of that sweet season of life. Ceremonious visit- 
 ing, where showy apparel, and late hours pre- 
 vail, must be avoided. I feel painful sympa- 
 thy for those mothers, who expose their young 
 daughters to such excitements, yet expect them 
 to return, unimpaired and docile, to the re- 
 straints of school-discipline. " Those who forsake 
 useful studies," said an eminent philosopher, " for 
 useless speculations, are like the Olympic game- 
 15*
 
 174 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 sters, who abstained from necessary labours, that 
 they might be fit for such as were not so." 
 
 Shall I allude to the want of expediency, in 
 exhibiting very young ladies in mixed society? 
 Their faces become familiar to the public eye. 
 The shrinking delicacy of their privileged period 
 of life, escapes. The dews of the morning are 
 too suddenly exhaled. They get to be accounted 
 old, ere they are mature ; more is expected of 
 them, than their unformed characters can yield ; 
 and if their discretion does not surpass their 
 years, they may encounter severe criticism, per- 
 haps, calumny. When they should be just emerg- 
 ing, as a fresh-opened blossom, they are hack- 
 neyed to the common gaze, as the last year's 
 Souvenir, which by courtesy or sufferance, main- 
 tains a place on the centre-table, though its value 
 has deteriorated. Is not the alternative either a 
 premature marriage, or an obsolete continuance in 
 the arena of fashion ? with a somewhat mortifying 
 adherence to the fortunes of new votaries, as grade 
 after grade, they assert their claims to fleeting 
 admiration, or vapid flattery ? 
 
 How much more faithfully does the mother 
 perform her duty, who brings forth to society, no 
 crude, or superficial semblance of goodness, but 
 the well-ripened fruit of thorough, prayerful cul- 
 ture. Her daughter, associated with herself, in 
 domestic cares, at the same time that she gath- 

 
 DUTY TO THE COMMUNITY. 175 
 
 ered the wealth of intellectual knowledge, is now 
 qualified to take an active part in the sphere 
 which she embellishes. Adorned with that sim- 
 plicity which attracts every eye, when combined 
 with good-breeding, and a right education, she 
 is arrayed in a better panoply than the armour 
 of Semiramis, or the wit and beauty of Cleopatra, 
 for whom the Roman lost a world. 
 
 Simplicity of language, as well as of garb and 
 manner, is a powerful ingredient in that art 
 of pleasing, which the young and lovely of our 
 sex are supposed to study. The conversation of 
 children, is rich in this charm. Books intended 
 for their instruction or amusement, should con- 
 sult this idiom. Ought not females to excel in 
 the composition of elementary works for the 
 juvenile intellect, associated as they are with it, 
 in its earliest and least-constrained developements ? 
 The talented and learned man is prone to find 
 himself embarrassed by such a labour. The more 
 profound his researches in science, and the know- 
 ledge of the world, the farther must he retrace 
 his steps, to reach the level of infantine simpli- 
 city. Possibly, he might ascend among the stars, 
 and feel at home, but to search for honey-dew 
 in the bells of flowers, and among the mosses, 
 needs the beak of the humming-bird, or the wing 
 of the butterfly. He must recall, with painful effort, 
 the far-off days, when he "thought as a child,
 
 176 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 spake as a child, understood as a child." For- 
 tunate will he be, if the "strong meat" on which 
 he has so long fed, have not wholly indisposed 
 him to relish the "milk of babes." If he is able 
 to arrest the thoughts and feelings, which charmed 
 him when life was new, he will still be obliged 
 to transfuse them into the dialect of childhood. 
 He must write in a foreign idiom, where, not 
 to be ungrammatical is praise, and not utterly 
 to fail, is victory. Perhaps, in the attempt, he 
 may be induced to exclaim, with the conscious 
 majesty of Milton, "my mother bore me, a 
 speaker of that, which God made my own, and 
 not a translator." 
 
 It has been somewhere asserted, that he who 
 would agreeably instruct children, must become 
 the pupil of children. They are not, indeed, 
 qualified to act as guides, among the steep cliffs 
 of knowledge, which they have never traversed. 
 But they are most skilful conductors to the 
 green plats of turf, and the wild flowers that 
 encircle its base. They best know where the 
 violets and king-cups grow, which they have 
 themselves gathered, and where the clear brook 
 makes mirthful music, in its pebbly bed. 
 
 Have you ever listened to a little girl, telling 
 a story to her younger brother or sister? What 
 adaptation of subject, circumstance, and epithet. 
 If she repeats what she has heard, how natur-
 
 DUTY TO THE COMMUNITY. 177 
 
 ally does she simplify every train of thought. 
 If she enters the region of invention, how wisely 
 does she keep in view the taste and comprehen- 
 sion of her auditor. Ah, how powerful is that 
 simplicity, which so readily unlocks, and rules 
 the heart, and which "seeming to have nothing, 
 possesseth all things." 
 
 Those who are conversant with little children, 
 are not always disposed sufficiently to estimate 
 them, or to allow them the high rank which 
 they really hold in the scale of being. In re- 
 garding the acorn, we forget that it comprises 
 within its tiny round, the future oak. It is this 
 want of prospective wisdom, which occasions ig- 
 norant persons often to despise childhood, and 
 renders some portions of its early training, sea- 
 sons of bitter bondage. " Knowledge is an im- 
 pression of pleasure" said Lord Bacon. They 
 who impart it to the young, ought not to inter- 
 fere with its original nature, or divide the toil 
 from the reward. Educated females, ought espe- 
 cially to keep bright the links between knowledge 
 and happiness. This is one mode of evincing 
 gratitude to the age in which they live, for the 
 generosity with which it has renounced those 
 prejudices, which in past times circumscribed the 
 intellectual culture of their sex. 
 
 May I be excused for repeatedly urging them, 
 to convince the community that it has lost no-
 
 178 LETTJERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 thing by this liberality? Let not the other sex 
 be authorized in complaining, that the firesides 
 of their fathers were better regulated than their 
 own. Give them no chance to throw odium 
 upon knowledge, from the faults of its allies and 
 disciples. Rather let them see, that by a partici- 
 pation in the blessings of education, you are made 
 better in every domestic department, in every rela- 
 tive duty, more ardent in every hallowed effort 
 of benevolence and piety. 
 
 I cannot believe that the distaste for household 
 industry, which some young ladies evince, is the 
 necessary effect of a more expanded system of 
 education. Is it not rather the abuse of that sys- 
 tem? Or may it not radically be the fault of 
 the mother, in neglecting to mingle day by day 
 domestic knowledge with intellectual culture? in 
 forgetting that the warp needs a woof, ere the 
 rich tapestry can be perfect? I am not prepared 
 to assert that our daughters have too much learn- 
 ing, though I may be compelled to concede that 
 it is not always well balanced, or judiciously 
 used. 
 
 Education is not indeed confined to any one 
 point of our existence, yet it assumes peculiar 
 importance at that period when the mind is most 
 ductile to every impression. Just at the dawn of 
 that time, we see the mother watching for the 
 first faint tinge of intellect, "more than they who
 
 DUTY TO THE COMMUNITY. 179 
 
 watch for the morning." At her feet a whole 
 generation sit, as pupils. Let her learn her own 
 value', as the 'first educator, that, in proportion to 
 the measure of her influence, she may acquit her- 
 self of her immense responsibilities. 
 
 Her debt to the community must be paid 
 through her children, or through others whom 
 she may rear up to dignify and adorn it. Aris- 
 totle said, "the fate of empires depended on edu- 
 cation." But that in woman dwelt any particle 
 of that conservative power, escaped the scrutiniz- 
 ing eye of the philosopher of Greece. The far- 
 sighted statesmen of our own times have disco- 
 vered it. 
 
 A Prussian legislator, at the beginning of the 
 present century, promulgated the principle, that 
 "to the safety and regeneration of a people, a 
 correct state of religious opinion and practice was 
 essential, which could only be effected by proper 
 attention to the early nurture of the mind." He 
 foresaw the influence of the training of infancy 
 upon the welfare of a nation. 
 
 Let our country go still further, and recognize 
 in the nursery, and at the fireside, that hallowed 
 agency, which, more than the pomp of armies, 
 shall guard her welfare, and preserve her liberty. 
 Trying, as she is, in her own isolated sphere, the 
 mighty experiment, whether a Republic can ever 
 be permanent; standing in need, as she does, of
 
 180 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 all the checks which she can command to curb 
 faction, cupidity, and reckless competition ; rich 
 in resources, and therefore in danger from her 
 own power ; in danger from the very excess of 
 her own happiness, from that knowledge which 
 is the birth-right of her people, unless there go 
 forth with it a moral purity, guarding the un- 
 sheathed weapon ; let this our dear country not 
 slight the humblest instrument that may advance 
 her safety, nor forget that the mother, kneeling 
 by the cradle-bed, hath her hand upon the ark of 
 a nation.
 
 READING AND THINKING. 181 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 READING AND THINKING. 
 
 THIS is emphatically the age of book-making, 
 and miscellaneous reading. Profound thought is 
 becoming somewhat obsolete. The rapidity with 
 which space is traversed, and wealth accumula- 
 ted, the many exciting objects which arrest at- 
 tention in our new, and wide country, indispose 
 the mind to the old habits of patient investiga- 
 tion, and solitary study. 
 
 That class of books, which enforce meditation, 
 hence acquire additional value. They operate as 
 an equipoise, or a sedative to the too excited 
 intellect. In proportion to the depth of thought, 
 which they require, is their healthful action, by 
 calling home the mind, which is in danger of 
 becoming discursive and desultory. 
 
 Among the evils of a distaste for reading, are 
 the worldly and common trains of thought, which 
 usurp dominion over us. Those every-day em- 
 ployments, which the hands might discharge, and 
 leave the mind in some measure at liberty, cast 
 off the yoke of vassalage, and seat themselves on 
 16
 
 182 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 the throne. They take us captive, and cover us 
 with dust. Then the jar of life's machinery 
 deafens us, and our ear becomes untuned to the 
 "deep-inwoven melodies" of contemplation. 
 
 Subjects of discourse are prone to become 
 trifling or personal, unless elevated and replen- 
 ished from the world of books. Such a result 
 would be hazardous to our sex, who are pro- 
 verbially gregarious and sociable. Mothers should 
 guard against it, for their temptations are great, 
 to make the cares and mysteries of housekeeping 
 the too general theme of conversation, till egotism 
 or selfishness, disguised in amiable forms, steal 
 over them unawares. 
 
 Though books are invaluable adjuncts both to 
 our respectability and comfort, yet unless we se- 
 lect those which suggest profitable subjects for 
 thought or conversation, it might be better for 
 many of us, if we read less. The numerous 
 periodical publications of the day, act as a 
 stimulant to the mental appetite, provoking it 
 beyond its capacity of digestion. " Nothing," says 
 Dugald Stewart, "has such a tendency to weaken s 
 not only the powers of invention, but the intel- 
 lectual powers in general, as extensive reading, 
 without reflection. Mere reading books, oppresses, 
 enfeebles, and is, with many, a substitute for 
 thinking." 
 
 That we read too much, and reflect too little,
 
 READING AND THINKING. 183 
 
 will scarcely be doubted. The flood of desul- 
 tory literature sweeps on like a deluge, and the 
 mind, like the bird of Noah, spreads a weary 
 wing over the shoreless ocean, yet finds no rest- 
 ing-place. The disposition to seek out the "chief 
 seats at synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at 
 feasts," which flourishes under our free govern- 
 ment, leads some to become authors, and teach- 
 ers, who have need to learn. 
 
 It would be well if more attention were be- 
 stowed by parents, on the character of books 
 which are put into the hands of children. Even 
 their style of execution, the character of the type, 
 paper and embellishments, are important ; for the 
 taste is earlier formed, than we are apt to ima- 
 gine. As the education of the eye is among 
 the first efforts of instruction, it is a pity to vi- 
 tiate it by evil models. A fair book is a beau- 
 tiful object to a child, and will be more care- 
 fully preserved, and generally more attentively 
 perused, than if its exterior were repulsive. 
 
 Parents should always inform themselves what 
 books their children are reading. They should, 
 if possible, first peruse them, and see whether 
 they are calculated to impart wholesome nutri- 
 ment, or stupifying anodyne, or deadly aconite. 
 We cannot take it for granted, that because they 
 have a book in their hand, their souls are safe. 
 I was acquainted with a father and mother, who
 
 184 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 carefully perused every book which was to be 
 entrusted to their children, and marked with the 
 scrupulousness of refined and religious taste, such 
 parts as they considered either injurious, or in- 
 apposite ; and so perfect were the habits of obe- 
 dience which they had enforced, that the pen- 
 cilled passages were left unread. 
 
 The ambition to have children read at a very 
 early age, seems ill-placed. Apart from any ill 
 effect of infantine application upon health, is not 
 the attainment rather the sound of words, than 
 the reception of ideas'? 
 
 "My daughter could read as well at three 
 years old as she does now," says some fond 
 mother, trespassing a little upon that province of 
 boasting, from which the "very chiefest of the 
 apostles" has excluded us. Had the child been 
 gifted with the wisdom of the stripling David, it 
 would have objected to be thus girded with the 
 heavy armour of a veteran. What can be the 
 motive for thrusting weapons into a hand which 
 is too weak to wield them? What is the use of 
 repeating words which the understanding cannot 
 comprehend? Is it even safe, to force an imma- 
 ture intellect into unnatural prominence? 
 
 I once admired precocity, and viewed it as the 
 breath of Deity, quickening to ripe and rare ex- 
 cellence. But I have since learned to fear it. 
 Minds, which in childhood distanced their cotem-
 
 READING AND THINKING. 185 
 
 poraries, so often cease to advance in the same 
 ratio, become restive, inert, or apparently deteri- 
 orated, that I cannot but regard with more true 
 satisfaction, a fabric built up slowly and solidly. 
 
 "I left my boy at his books," says the parent, 
 with a self-complacent smile. Now, though it is 
 far better to read than to do mischief, we cannot 
 always be certain that reading is a defence from 
 every danger. A boy, if idle, may choose a book 
 as a refuge from incumbent industry; or, if ill- 
 disposed, may select an improper one ; or, if 
 thoughtless, may read the best volume without 
 remembrance or improvement. So, though a taste 
 for reading is an indication of mental health, and 
 a claim on gratitude, yet let no mother feel per- 
 fectly at ease about her children, simply because 
 they read, unless she knows the character of the 
 books that engage their attention, and what use 
 is made of the knowledge they impart. 
 
 "I shall never feel satisfied," says another pa- 
 rent, "till my son acquires a love of reading." 
 Study the impulse of his mind. Perhaps his 
 tools are his books. The Roman might have 
 been accounted idle, while he traversed the shore 
 to collect the wave-worn fragments of the broken 
 ship of Carthage: yet thence arose the navy of 
 Rome. Noah might have been accounted vision- 
 ary, while he built the ark, amid "the contradic- 
 tion of sinners," but under the impulse of heaven* 
 16*
 
 186 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 We know that Newton was misunderstood while 
 he pondered the frail orb of the soap-bubble ; and 
 Fulton ridiculed while he propelled that first ad- 
 venturous vessel, whose countless offspring were 
 soon to mock the winds, and tread the waves 
 with their feet of fire. 
 
 Count not the child an idler, who studies the 
 Book of Nature, or invigorates by active exercise 
 the wonderful mechanism of the body. Yet I 
 would not speak lightly of the love of reading. 
 Oh no! This cannot be done by those who 
 reverence knowledge. I simply assert that Na- 
 ture exhibits a diversity of operations. The va- 
 rious trades and professions must be filled. If all 
 were sedentary men, who would compel the earth 
 to yield her increase? or preside at the forge of 
 the artificer? or speed the shuttle of the artizan? 
 or spread the sail that bears to remotest regions 
 subsistence and wealth? 
 
 The use and ingenuity of the hands should be 
 encouraged in children. Neither should their 
 ruling tastes be too much counteracted in select- 
 ing their business for life. The due admixture 
 and welfare of different trades and professions in 
 the body politic, is like the fine economy of the 
 frame. "So that the eye cannot say to the hand, 
 nor again the hand to the feet, I have no need 
 of you." It is becoming but too common to de- 
 press mechanics and agriculturists, the very sinews
 
 READING AND THINKING. 187 
 
 and life-blood of the land, and to uplift a sort of 
 speculating indolence, which in the end may 
 make the drones disproportionate to the honey in 
 our national hive. 
 
 Yet whatever mental tendency our children 
 may reveal, or to whatever employment they are 
 destined, let us teach them the art of thinking. 
 Let us prize the slightest fragment of thought, 
 which in broken whispers they submit to our ear. 
 While we require their opinion of the sentiments 
 and language of authors, the traits of character 
 which they perceive around, and the trains of 
 thought which they find most salutary or agreea- 
 ble, let us gently but faithfully regulate a dazzled 
 imagination, or a defective judgment. It has 
 been said of one of our distinguished divines, 
 that his mind in childhood received impulse and 
 colouring from a pious mother, who taught him 
 how to think. Though she was early removed, 
 he imbibed from her tuition that love of letters, 
 that taste for original and independent research, 
 which impelled him to conquer all the hardships 
 of restricted circumstances, and obtain the benefits 
 and honours of classick education. 
 
 Mothers should never remit their exertions, until 
 by teaching their children to think, they familiar- 
 ize them with the power and use of their own 
 minds. Especially let them not "despise the day 
 of small tilings," nor despair, if the effect of their
 
 188 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 arduous labour is not immediately or distinctly 
 visible. A friend of the great Michael Angelo 
 saw him one day at work upon a statue. Long 
 afterward he called, and it was yet unfinished. 
 
 "Have you been idle?" 
 
 " Ah, no. I have retouched here, and polished 
 there. I have softened this feature, and brought 
 that muscle forth in bolder relief. I have given 
 more expression to the lip, more grace and ener- 
 gy to the form." 
 
 "Still these are but trifles." 
 
 "It may be so. But trifles make perfection, 
 though perfection itself is no trifle." 
 
 The sculptor upon his dead marble, ought not 
 to surpass in patience, us, who fashion the living 
 image, and whose work is upon the " fleshly ta- 
 bles of the heart." Can we keep too strongly in 
 view, the imperishable nature, the priceless value 
 of those for whom we toil 1 In every child, there 
 is an endless history. Compare the annals of the 
 most boasted nation, with the story of one unend- 
 ing existence. Has not our Saviour already 
 shown the result, in his parallel between the gain 
 of the whole world, and the loss of one soul? 
 Assyria stretched out its colossal limbs, and sank 
 ignobly, like the vaunting champion on the 
 plains of Elah. Egypt came up proudly, with 
 temple, and labyrinth, and pyramid, but fell 
 down manacled at the feet of the Turk. Greece,
 
 READING AND THINKING. 189 
 
 so long the light of the world, deserted by poet 
 and philosopher, fled, pale as her own sculpture, 
 from the same brutal foe. Rome thundered, and 
 fell. She struggled indeed, and was centuries in 
 dying. But is she not dead? Can the mummy 
 in the Vatican, from its gilded sarcophagus, be 
 indeed that Rome before whom the world trem- 
 bled? 
 
 The story of these empires fills many pages. 
 The little child reads them, and is wearied. But 
 when their ancient features shall have faded from 
 the map of nations, and the tomes that recorded 
 their triumphs and their fate, blacken in the last 
 flame, where shall be the soul of that little child 1 ? 
 Mother ! where ? 
 
 Will it not, then, have but just begun its eternal 
 duration? Will not its history be studied by 
 archangels ? Proud Philosophy perchance view- 
 ed it as a noteless thing, an atom. Doth God, 
 the father of the Spirit, thus regard it? 
 
 Mothers, of the four millions of children who 
 are yet to be educated in this Western World, 
 to whom our country looks, as her defence and 
 glory, Mothers, of four millions of immortal be- 
 ings, have you any time to lose? any right to 
 loiter on your great work?
 
 190 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 EXAMPLE. 
 
 Do 1 hear some mother say, "if we do all that 
 is proposed for our children, we shall have no 
 time to do any thing for ourselves. We must 
 certainly give up all hope of mental proficiency. 
 We cannot attempt to cherish intellectual tastes, 
 or to maintain an acquaintance with the litera- 
 ture of the day." 
 
 I have heretofore assumed that a mother, who 
 attends to the education of her children, neces- 
 sarily advances with them. But she may also 
 secure the means of a more than collateral im- 
 provement. By a correct system of management, 
 she may avoid falling behind the standard of the 
 times. 
 
 To do this, she must understand more than the 
 mere theory of housekeeping. She must have 
 such knowledge of its practical parts, that every 
 wheel may be kept in motion. Disorder in the 
 kitchen department re-acts directly upon the par- 
 lour; and discomfort in the family, deprives the 
 head of it of all power of pleasant, or profitable
 
 EXAMPLE. 191 
 
 mental application. It seems necessary to be 
 sufficiently acquainted with the duties which we 
 demand of others, to know whether they are pro- 
 perly discharged, and when the wearied labourer 
 requires repose. Novices in housekeeping, often 
 err in these matters. They are deceived by 
 specious appearances, without knowing how their 
 domestics spend their time ; or they impose toil 
 at the proper seasons of rest. 
 
 "I have an excellent cook," said a young 
 housekeeper. " But I think I shall have to dis- 
 miss her, she is so cross. I only wanted her to 
 make me some blanc-mange and custards yester- 
 day, and just because her dinner-dishes were out 
 of the way, and her kitchen put up nice for the 
 afternoon, she did nothing but murmur, that I 
 had not given her those orders before." 
 
 I wish mothers would encourage in their 
 daughters, a practical knowledge of the culinary 
 art. I do not mean simply the composition of 
 cakes, sweetmeats and pastry : temptations, which, 
 if they were less frequently offered, our cata- 
 logue of diseases would be undoubtedly car- 
 tailed. But I allude to the broad principles of 
 the art, that platform on which our life stands, 
 the preparation of bread and meat, vegetables 
 and fruit, so that they may be salutary in their 
 influence on the system, and neatly and elegantly 
 presented to the eye. I would not have our 

 
 192 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 tables made either " a snare, or a trap, or a stum- 
 bling-block." It is not well for a lady to shelter 
 any habitual deficiencies of this nature, with 
 the excuse that she attends to her children. 
 "This, ought she to have done, and not to leave 
 the other undone." 
 
 Cookery, it is surely the business of the mis- 
 tress of a family either to do, or to see well done. 
 So much has been recently written by medical 
 men, on diet and digestion, that no additional 
 proof can be needed, of the close affinity which 
 the culinary art bears to health. Neither is it a 
 despisable discipline of the mind. Its details are 
 almost endless, and whoever conquers them, and 
 has them constantly at command without refer- 
 ence, or mistake, may lay claim to memory, in- 
 dustry, energy, and some other departments of 
 intellect, of no common order. 
 
 It is conceded to be desirable that the varieties 
 of exercise for our sex should be multiplied, since 
 it is not always convenient or possible for them 
 to take it in the open air, and the want of it is a 
 source of much serious suffering. Here then is 
 a species of exercise, more useful than callisthe- 
 nicks, more benevolent than the jumping-rope, or 
 battledoor, and bearing on the politicks of the 
 family, with sufficient distinctness to gratify even 
 a love of power. And if the wisdom of a Lace- 
 demonian king were extolled, because to the ques-
 
 EXAMPLE. 193 
 
 tion, " what it was most proper for boys to 
 learn ?" he replied, " what they ought to do, when 
 they come to be men ;" can the judgment of the 
 mother be praised, who keeps out of the view 
 of her daughters, what will be required of them 
 when they become women? Correct judges 
 will never deem it derogatory to female dignity, 
 to take an active part, when necessary, in what- 
 ever promotes the comfort and economy of the 
 household for which it legislates. 
 
 The wife of the Lord Protector Cromwell, was 
 a most excellent and prudent housewife. He 
 was repeatedly sustained in arduous and trying 
 situations, by her energy and dignified character. 
 It has been remarked, that good housewives 
 usually acquire influence over their husbands ; as 
 it is natural to confide in the opinions of those 
 who are distinguished in their respective spheres. 
 Yet men of cultivated mind, though not slow in 
 appreciating the value of good housekeeping, 
 usually desire in woman some degree of intellect- 
 ual congeniality or taste. In proportion as they 
 possess knowledge, will they find it difficult to 
 respect an ignorant companion. So convinced 
 was Rousseau, of the importance of education to 
 domestic intercourse, that he deeply regretted he 
 had not exerted himself to supply its deficiencies 
 in his wife. "I might have adorned her mind 
 with knowledge," said he, "and this would have 
 17
 
 194 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 closely united us in retirement. It is especially 
 in solitude, that one feels the advantages of living 
 with another who can think." 
 
 For those who complain that the cares of 
 housekeeping so absorb their time, that nothing 
 remains, there is still the remedy of added sim- 
 plicity, in the style of living, and in dress. Lei- 
 sure may be thus rescued, for other and higher 
 pursuits. Competitions may be checked, which 
 sometimes make neighbourhoods, or even villa- 
 ges, more like combatants in the Olympic games, 
 than quiet friends, or sincere well-wishers. More- 
 over, the ancient athletse had the advantage ; for 
 though they " ran all, yet one received the prize," 
 but here, they run all, while life lasts, and yet 
 gain neither goal, nor garland. 
 
 Is not that serenity of manner and counte- 
 nance which distinguishes the sect of Friends, or 
 Quakers, and makes their young females so beau- 
 tiful, somewhat dependent on their simplicity of 
 garb, and their superiority to those changing 
 modes, which exact from the votary of fashion 
 the vigilance of Argus, with some good degree 
 of the pliancy of Proteus ? 
 
 Simplicity of taste, extending both to dress, 
 and manner of living, is peculiarly fitting in the 
 daughters of a republick. Reflecting minds, even 
 from the ranks of nobility and royalty, have 
 borne suffrage in its favour. They have tested
 
 EXAMPLE. 195 
 
 by experience the inability of show, to confer 
 happiness. Like the magnificent monarch of 
 Israel, who surrounded himself with what the 
 multitude most envy, they have pronounced all 
 but " vanity and vexation of spirit." Jane d' Al- 
 bert, the illustrious Queen of Navarre, strongly 
 expressed her preference of simple and unobtru- 
 sive enjoyments. "How inferior," said she, "is 
 grandeur of life, to rectitude of mind !" and re- 
 serving, as it were, an argument to her theory, 
 even after death, gave orders that her body should 
 be laid, without pomp, in her father's tomb. 
 
 If the superfluities of life are retrenched, the 
 time thus saved should not be yielded to indo- 
 lence, or any other modification of selfishness. 
 Home should be the centre, but not the boundary 
 of our duties ; the focus of sympathy, but not the 
 point where it terminates. The action of the 
 social feelings is essential to a well-balanced 
 character. Morbid diseases are generated by 
 an isolated life: and what is praised as love of 
 home, sometimes deserves the censure of a differ- 
 ent name. Simple hospitality is the handmaid 
 of friendship and of benevolence. In the social 
 visit, heart opens to heart, and we become the 
 sharer of secret joys and sorrows, which ceremo- 
 nious intercourse would never have unlocked. 
 
 A venerable clergyman, who had been eminent 
 through life for true hospitality, said to his chil-
 
 196 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 dren, "receive your guest with the same smile, 
 the same kind welcome, whether you happen to 
 have a nice dinner, or none at all." It is pride, 
 or hardness of heart, which coldly repels the un- 
 expected visitant, because we may be unprepared 
 for an elegant, or luxurious table. 
 
 There is something delightful in the lineaments 
 of southern hospitality. The perfect ease with 
 which a guest is received, naturalized in the 
 family circle, and all the painful reserve of a 
 stranger banished, is so beautiful, that it seems 
 to take rank as a virtue. We, of the northern 
 States, contend for the possession of equal warmth 
 of feeling, but have by no means attained to such 
 happy modes of expressing it. We are prone to 
 impute the difference to different modes of do- 
 mestic organization. It is true, that to receive 
 visitors, with a house full of servants, or with 
 only one, or, as it may happen, none at all, can- 
 not be a matter of indifference to the lady of the 
 house. If her thoughts are busied about "what 
 they shall eat, or what they shall drink," when 
 there is no cook, and wherewithal they shall be 
 served, when there is no waiter, and how she, 
 being finite, can best appear at the same time in 
 parlour and kitchen, and figure both as mistress 
 and maid, she may be forgiven for some indica- 
 tions of an absent mind, or hurried deportment. 
 Still, were we less proud, more willing that our
 
 EXAMPLE. 197 
 
 friends should take us just as we are, there would 
 be a greener growth of sympathy among us, and 
 less cause of complaint, that our frigid climate has 
 wrought some effect upon the heart. 
 
 I wish that housekeepers would bestow a little 
 more thought upon their mode of intercourse with 
 domestics. "Oblige your children," says the vener- 
 able Matthew Carey, "to treat domestics with 
 uniform civility. A cardinal rule, the dictate of 
 common sense, reason, and religion, is to treat 
 them as you would wish to be treated yourselves. 
 When they do their duty to your satisfaction, 
 give them their meed of praise : it will encourage 
 them to continue in a right course." If our con- 
 tract with them were less mercenary in its na- 
 ture ; if we considered them as brought under 
 our roof, not merely to perform menial offices, 
 but to be made better, to become sharers in our 
 kind feelings, recipients of our advice, subjects of 
 our moral teachings, partakers in the petitions 
 which daily ascend to the Universal Father; if 
 we more frequently examined our conduct to 
 them, by the test of the Golden Rule, more fre- 
 quently remembered that for them, as well as for 
 us, "Christ both died and rose, and revived," we 
 should have the sweet consciousness of having 
 increased their true happiness, as well as our 
 own. 
 
 It was not the least among the virtues of the 
 17*
 
 198 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 excellent Lady Elizabeth Hastings, that she con- 
 sidered her servants as humble friends, and strove 
 to elevate their characters. "She presided over 
 her domestics," said her biographer, "with the dis- 
 positions of a parent. She not only employed 
 the skill of such artificers as were engaged about 
 her house, to consult the comfort and convenience 
 of her servants, that they might suffer no unne- 
 cessary hardship, but also provided for the im- 
 provement of their minds, the decency of their 
 behaviour, and the propriety of their manners." 
 If a lady so accomplished, as to have been desig- 
 nated in the writings of Sir Richard Steele as 
 the "divine Aspasia," the possessor of immense 
 wealth, and a member of the nobility of a royal 
 realm, thus devoted time and tenderness to her 
 servants, why should those, who under a republi- 
 can government, profess equality, fear to demean 
 themselves by similar condescension? 
 
 The want of good domestics is a general com- 
 plaint. It constitutes one of the most formidable 
 evils in housekeeping. From the number of ma- 
 nufactories, where female labour is in demand, 
 and the dislike of servitude which prevails in a 
 free country, it is more likely to increase than to 
 diminish. The foreigners, on whom we are often 
 compelled to rely, the daughters of Erin or Switz- 
 erland, cannot, from their estrangement of cus- 
 tom, and diiference of dialect, readily assimilate
 
 EXAMPLE. 199 
 
 to our wishes. We expect too much of them, 
 when we require them to learn and remember, 
 to devise and execute, like our own early-educa- 
 ted people. What, then, is to be the remedy? 
 If we cannot so simplify the structure of our 
 establishments as to do with fewer domestics, is 
 there any mode that we can adopt to render 
 them more trust-worthy, or to secure their per- 
 manent assistance? Can we educate them our- 
 selves ? 
 
 Formerly, in the small towns and villages of 
 New England, when a bride entered her new 
 home, she brought with her a child of the poor. 
 She instructed her personally in the light services 
 that were to be allotted her; she held herself ac- 
 countable, for her neatness, and skilful industry, 
 and love of truth; she took pride in her good 
 appearance, and correct behaviour; she daily 
 heard her read, and if there were no appropriate 
 school in the vicinity, saw that she was taught 
 at home, during the long evenings of winter, to 
 write, and to perform the simpler operations of 
 arithmetick; she often called her to sit near her, 
 with her needle, and encouraged her to take such 
 an interest in the concerns of the household, as 
 made her labours a heart-service; she impressed 
 on her, strict moral principle, and required that at 
 the family altar, and the house of God, she should 
 be found in her place. The care of providing
 
 200 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 her fitting apparel, and the responsibility for her 
 good conduct, awoke in the young matron some 
 semblance of maternal solicitude ; and when sud- 
 denly forsaken by hirelings, or perhaps left alone, 
 with unexpected guests, she has been astonished 
 at what that young hand would zealously per- 
 form, or, in her sicknesses, been soothed by grate- 
 ful, affectionate attentions, which could not be 
 purchased with money. And I have seen the 
 same matron, when time had silvered her bright 
 locks, visiting, with benevolent pleasure, the com- 
 fortable, well-ordered homes of the humble friends 
 she had thus reared, and rejoicing to see the good 
 habits which she had herself implanted, bringing 
 forth fruit in another generation. 
 
 This custom of educating domestics, though 
 somewhat fallen into disuse, is here and there 
 laudably cherished. Some notable housekeepers 
 have set the example of having the three depart- 
 ments of cook, chambermaid, and waiter, filled by 
 girls under eighteen, and every service discharged 
 with the regularity of clock-work. The succes- 
 sion was preserved unbroken, by receiving a new 
 member into the class, as the oldest attained ma- 
 turity, and was advanced to the higher station 
 of nurse, with the perquisite of wages, or bound 
 apprentice to a trade, or, as is often the case in 
 the agricultural districts of our country, prepared, 
 by an early marriage, for a household of her
 
 EXAMPLE. 201 
 
 own. Such an arrangement must, however, re- 
 quire much personal attention and energy, and a 
 hand at the helm, which, as was said of the 
 ministry of William Pitt, "caused its steadiness 
 to be felt in every motion of the vessel." 
 
 Few ladies, in our own times, will venture to 
 admit more than one scholar of this nature. Most 
 of them shrink back from it as an appalling care. 
 It is indeed a care, and to a conscientious mind 
 not a slight one. But the sphere of a faithful 
 housekeeper is sprinkled with cares, like the inde- 
 finable stars in the galaxy; and this is a care 
 which may be moulded into an ally, and set in 
 array against other cares, with some hope of ad- 
 vantage. Among the many young and lovely 
 beings, whose hearts are now trembling at the 
 thought of leaving the parental hearth-stone, yet 
 thrilling with the hope of presiding over one for 
 the object of their fondest love, is there not one 
 anxious to mark this great era of life, by an act 
 of benevolence, and willing to take some orphan 
 girl to her new home, and train her up in use- 
 fulness and piety? Is there not some matron, 
 who has never attempted this charity, who might 
 undertake it, for the sake of the unprovided and 
 sorrowing poor, and find it a gain to her own 
 house? It is peculiarly a deed of mercy, in large 
 cities, thus to shelter the foundling, or outcast 
 child, from degradation and vice. Risk of disap-
 
 202 LET.TERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 pointment must indeed be incurred, but there is 
 hope of a pure and precious payment, and that 
 it will bear proportion to the fidelity and sense 
 of religious obligation with which the trust is 
 discharged. Should this form of household teach- 
 ing again become prevalent, would not an array 
 of well-trained domestics be discernible on the 
 face of society ? Admitting that they did not long 
 continue in a state of servitude, the intercourse 
 during their minority might still be made mu- 
 tually serviceable. Does not this kind of teach- 
 ing rank among the forms of patriotism, which 
 woman's sphere comprehends ? 
 
 But of whatever class or countiy our domes- 
 tics are, let us encourage them to consider the 
 interests of the family their own, and by taking 
 them into our sympathies, try to make them 
 worthy of our regard and friendship. Then 
 would some of the most formidable obstacles of 
 housekeeping be surmounted, and mothers have 
 more time for other duties, and more enjoyment 
 in them. 
 
 I am persuaded, that we might perform all 
 that devolves on us, and still persevere in a 
 course of intellectual improvement. One of the 
 most formidable objections to matrimony, and 
 frequently urged by gentlemen who have not en- 
 tered into its bonds, is, that it puts an end to 
 feminine accomplishment.
 
 EXAMPLE. 203 
 
 A mail of the world, and a close observer, once 
 said, "When a lady is married, she seems in 
 haste to dismiss whatever once rendered her at- 
 tractive. If she had spent ever so much time in 
 learning music, she shuts up her piano. If she 
 excelled in painting, she lays aside her pencil. 
 If she had fine manners, she forgets them. She 
 forsakes society. She puts an end to her early 
 friendships. She has no time to write a letter. 
 Ten to one, she grows careless in her dress, and 
 does not reserve even neatness, to comfort her 
 husband. I am myself too sincere an admirer of 
 the sex, to. lend a hand in the demolition of all 
 that makes them beautiful." Now, is the opinion 
 of this observing gentleman, truth, or satire? 
 Doubtless, a mixture of both. 
 
 Still a part of the censure may be resolved 
 into praise. That new cares and affections, clus- 
 tering round a home, should turn the heart from 
 lighter pursuits, and extrinsic pleasures, is natu- 
 ral, if not unavoidable. But this point must be 
 guarded. Nothing that is really valuable ought 
 to escape. The attractions which first won the 
 love of a husband, should be preserved, were it 
 only for that tender remembrance. Friends 
 ought not to be neglected. Correspondences 
 need not be renounced. There are surely some 
 accomplishments which might be retained. Why 
 should our sex, by carelessness or lassitude,
 
 .204 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 throw reproach on a state for which Heaven has 
 formed them? Do I hear some mother, and 
 mistress of a family, exclaim, " How can I write 
 letters? It is impossible for me to find time to 
 copy them. Besides, I never was an adept in 
 the rules of letter-writing." 
 
 " Time to copy letters ! " Who would think of 
 such a thing? A copied letter is like a trans- 
 planted wild-flower, like a caged bird. Let the 
 writers of formal treatises copy them as often as 
 they will, and poets dip and re-dip their poems 
 in the fountain of the brain, as deep as Achilles 
 was plunged by his mother, but leave that one 
 little " folio of four pages" free from the " wim- 
 ples and crisping-pins " of criticism. Shut out, if 
 you will, every star in your literary firmament, 
 that nature and simplicity have enkindled, and 
 tolerate nothing there, but right fashionable draw- 
 ing-room lamps, yet leave, I pray you, one single 
 arrow-slit, through which the eye of honest feeling 
 may look unblamed, and let that be the letter 
 which friend writeth to friend 
 
 " Rules for letter-writing ! " What rules can it 
 require? We learn to talk without rules, and let- 
 ter-writing is but to talk upon paper. It seems 
 one of the natural vocations of our sex, for it 
 comes within the province of the heart. It has 
 been somewhere said, that with women, the heart 
 is the citadel, and all beside, the suburbs ; but
 
 EXAMPLE. 205 
 
 that with men, the heart is only an out-work, 
 whose welfare does not materially affect the prin- 
 cipal fortress. According to the anatomy of Fon- 
 tenelle, we have one fibre more in the heart, than 
 the other sex, and one less in the brain. Possi- 
 bly, he might have been qualified to excel in dis- 
 sections of the heart, from the circumstance of 
 being supposed by most of his cotemporaries, to 
 have none of his own. 
 
 "Rules for letter-writing!" Set up the note- 
 book, before your harpsichord, or piano, but insult 
 not the Eolian harp, with the spectre of a gamut, 
 and leave the rebeck as free as the dancer's heel. 
 The especial excellence of the epistolary art, is, 
 that as "face answereth to face, in water," so it 
 causeth heart to answer to heart. Let the ambi- 
 tious author wrestle as he is able, with the visions 
 of frowning readers that beset his dreams, or 
 shrink beneath the mace of criticism, suspended 
 over him, like the sword of Damocles, but permit 
 us, women, now and then, to escape to some 
 quiet nook, and hold sweet converse with a dis- 
 tant friend. Amid the tavern-meals, which the 
 mind so continually takes, allow it now and then 
 one solitary repast, upon the simple, sugared 
 viands, that it loved in childhood. Pouring out 
 the thoughts, in the epistolary style, has such 
 power to confer pleasure, to kindle sympathy, to 
 comfort affliction, to counsel inexperience, and to 
 18
 
 206 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 strengthen piety, that it is great cause of regret 
 when it is entirely laid aside. 
 
 Economy of time, and energy of purpose, may 
 so combine domestic and maternal duties, with in- 
 tellectual improvement, that each department will 
 prosper. We have all of us known some few 
 happy examples of the union of fine social feel- 
 ings, cherished recollections of friendship, and 
 cultivation of intellect, with all the sacred chari- 
 ties of home. Such was the Empress Eudocia, 
 amid the hindrances and temptations of the lux- 
 urious court of Constantinople. She continued 
 to make proficiency in the branches of Icnowledge 
 which in youth she had loved. Amid every 
 other employment, or allurement, literature and 
 religion maintained their power over her mind. 
 She composed a poetical paraphrase, of many of 
 the historic and prophetic books of the Bible ; 
 also, of the life of our Saviour, and the writings 
 of some of the fathers. They are mentioned with 
 approbation, by the author of the "Decline and 
 Fall of the Roman Empire ; " and Europe, in 
 those early ages, saw with admiration a woman, 
 a wife, a mother, and an empress, engaged in re- 
 searches so unusual, and so profound. 
 
 Feeling, as we do, the importance of the station 
 which Heaven has assigned us, let us examine 
 with a vigilant eye, what influence the systems 
 of education which we authorize, are likely to
 
 EXAMPLE. 207 
 
 exercise upon its happiness. How are our daugh- 
 ters brought up? Admitting that matrimony will 
 be their probable destination, is there any adap- 
 tation in their habits, tempers and tastes, to the 
 duties of that destination? After the gilding and 
 garniture that adorn its entrance, have become 
 familiar, and the flowers that sprang up at its 
 threshold begin to feel the frost, are they pre- 
 pared to become rational companions, discreet 
 counsellors, prudent guides, skilful housekeepers, 
 judicious and affectionate mothers ? If they have 
 entered hastily, or without counting the cost, this 
 most responsible station, if their acquisitions, 
 whether of music, or drawing, or dancing, or 
 fashionable manners, or personal decoration, or 
 light literature, or the surface of languages, have 
 been made for the sake of display, the very prin- 
 ciple on which their education has proceeded must 
 be reversed, perhaps, eradicated. Will they make 
 this change gracefully, meekly, with happiness 
 to themselves, and those around them? That 
 is the experiment. It would be kind in us 
 mothers, not to expose our daughters to hazard, 
 on subjects of such high import. It would be a 
 mercy to ourselves, as well as to them, if we felt 
 a reasonable assurance, that they were qualified 
 for the sphere which they have entered. 
 
 It would be wise also for daughters to investi- 
 gate, how far their studies, their pursuits, their
 
 208 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 daily habits, have any good practical tendency ; 
 how many of them must be modified, reformed, 
 or wholly laid aside, when the duties of life 
 come upon them; and which of them are most 
 likely to obstruct, or render irksome, the occupa- 
 tions of maturity. 
 
 But, mothers, the weight of this business is 
 with you. Do you desire those whom you edu- 
 cate, to become good housekeepers? Be so your- 
 selves. Would it grieve you to see them igno- 
 rant how to promote the prosperity of their fami- 
 ly, careless of their own persons, negligent of 
 their friends, inattentive to the true welfare of 
 their children? Avoid these errors in your own 
 conduct. 
 
 Do you wish them to unite with the faithful 
 performance of every domestic duty, social vir- 
 tues, and mental attainments ? Shew them the 
 possibility, the beauty of such a combination. 
 Ever keep in mind, that the loftiest teachings, 
 the most eloquent precepts, must lose half their 
 force, without the sanction of your own example.
 
 OPINION OP WEALTH. 209 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 OPINION OF WEALTH. 
 
 EARLIER than we suppose, children form opin- 
 ions of those who are around them. They are 
 anxious to know who are good, and how they 
 have earned that distinction. We should be 
 ready to guide their first ideas of what is worthy 
 of praise, or dispraise, for these are the germina- 
 tions of principle. Let us not inoculate them 
 with the love of money. It is the prevailing evil 
 of our country. It makes us a care-worn people. 
 " I know an American," said a satirical traveller, 
 "wherever I meet him, by the perpetual recur- 
 rence of the word dollar. See if you can talk 
 with him one hour, and not hear him use it." 
 
 Not only does the inordinate desire of wealth 
 engross conversation, but turn thought from its 
 nobler channels, and infect the mind as with an 
 incurable disease. It moves the ambitious to 
 jealous or fierce competition, and the , idle to 
 fraud, and the unprincipled to crime. Ask the 
 keepers of our prisons, what vice peoples many 
 of their cells ? They will tell you, the desire to 
 18*
 
 210 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 get money without labour. Ask the chaplain of 
 yonder penitentiary, what crime that haggard 
 man has committed, whom he is toiling to pre- 
 pare for an ignominious death? He replies, "the 
 love of money led him to strike at midnight the 
 assassin's blow." 
 
 The determination to be rich, when disjoined 
 from honest industry, opens the avenues of sin; 
 and even when connected with it, is dangerous, 
 unless regulated by the self-denying spirit of re- 
 ligion. Allowed to overleap the limits of mode- 
 ration, it becomes a foe to domestic enjoyment, 
 and tramples on the social pleasures and charities 
 of life. 
 
 Since, then, the science of accumulation is in 
 its abuse destructive, and in its legitimate use 
 unsafe, without the restraint of strict principle, let 
 us not perplex the unfolding mind with its pre- 
 cepts, or confound it with its combinations. The 
 child hears perpetual conversation about the dear- 
 ness or cheapness of the articles with which he 
 is surrounded. Perhaps the associations which 
 he forms, are not between the furniture and its 
 convenience, between his apparel and its fitness 
 or comfort, but between the quantity of money 
 which they cost, or the adroitness with which the 
 merchant was beaten down. He is interested by 
 frequent remarks from lips that he reveres, about 
 how much such and such a person is worth;
 
 OPINION OF WEALTH. 211 
 
 and hears the gradation gravely settled between 
 neighbour and neighbour. " Does worth mean 
 goodness ?" inquires the child. " No. It means 
 money." "Worth makes the man, and want of 
 it the fellow," said the ethical poet. But the 
 child, coming with his privately amended diction- 
 ary, says, "Money makes the man ;" of course, 
 he whose purse is empty, is less than a man. 
 Some person is spoken of as possessing distin- 
 guished talents. The listening child is prepared 
 to admire, till the clause, "he can never make a 
 fortune," changes his respect to pity or indiffer- 
 ence. The piety of another is mentioned, his 
 love of doing good, his efforts to make others bet- 
 ter and happier. "But he is poor." Alas, that 
 the forming mind should be left to undervalue 
 those deeds and motives, which, in the sight of 
 heaven, are the only true riches. 
 
 Possibly, in the freedom of domestic discourse, 
 some lady is censured for vanity or ignorance, 
 for ungrammatical language, or an ill-spelt epis- 
 tle. But "she is rich," may be the reply, and 
 he sees the extenuation accepted. If he is skil- 
 ful at drawing inferences, or indisposed to study, 
 he says, "money is an excuse for ignorance, so 
 if I have but little knowledge, it is no matter, if 
 I can only get rich." He hears a man spoken 
 of as unkind, or intemperate, or irreligious. He 
 listens for the sentence of blame, that such con-
 
 212 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 duct deserves. "He is worth half a million," is 
 the reply. And there is silence. " Can money 
 excuse sin ?" asks the poor child, in silent rumi- 
 nations. 
 
 It is unwarily remarked at the table, "such a 
 young man will be very rich when his father 
 dies." Beware lest that busy casuist arrive at 
 the conclusion, that a parent's death is not a 
 great affliction if he leaves something behind: 
 that if his possessions are very large, the event 
 may be both contemplated and borne with indif- 
 ference. Now, though the long teaching of a 
 selfish world, may fasten this result on the minds 
 of men, it should never enter the simple sanctu- 
 ary of a child's heart, displacing the first, holiest 
 affections of nature. 
 
 A little girl once heard some conversation in 
 the family about the hiring of a sempstress, and 
 reported it to her sister. "One is very poor," said 
 she, '-'and has an aged mother and two little chil- 
 dren to support. The other is not so poor. But 
 she does not ask as much by several cents a 
 day. I heard it said that she does not work as 
 well. But, then, she works cheaper, and dresses 
 better. So we have hired her. Yet, sister, I felt 
 sorry for the widow with the babies, for she 
 looked sad and pale, and said she had no way to 
 get bread for them but her needle. I was afraid 
 they would cry to be fed, and that the lame
 
 OPINION OF WEALTH. 213 
 
 grand-mother would suffer." The sister who had 
 lived longer in this world of calculation, said, " it 
 is perfectly right to hire her who asks the least, 
 because it saves money." 
 
 Now, my dear friends, is it not both unkind 
 and hazardous thus to puzzle the moral sense of 
 our children? to leave them to believe that wealth 
 is both an excuse for ignorance and a shelter for 
 vice? that it is but another name for virtue? that 
 for the want of it, neither talent or piety can 
 atone? that it is right to desire the death of a 
 relative to obtain it ? or to grind the face of the 
 poor to save it? How could the most inveterate 
 enemy injure them so directly and permanently, 
 as by making their earliest system of ethics a 
 contradiction and a solecism? Yet this is done 
 by the cftiversation and example of parents, who 
 love them as their own souls. 
 
 Of what effect is it, that we repeat to them in 
 grave lectures on Sundays, that they must "lay 
 up for themselves treasures in heaven," when they 
 can see us, the other six days, toiling after, and 
 coveting only "treasures on earth?" When we 
 tell them that they must not "value the gold that 
 perisheth," neither "love the world, nor the things 
 of the world," if they weigh the precepts with 
 our illustration of them, will they not think that 
 we mean to palm on them what we disregard 
 ourselves, and despise our cunning? or else, that
 
 214 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 we assert what we do not believe, and so distrust 
 our sincerity? 
 
 It is indeed necessary, where the subsistence 
 of a family is to be acquired, that much atten- 
 tion and industry should be employed. Parents 
 must often confer together on items of expense, 
 and understand each other in every point of 
 economy. But these consultations may surely be 
 so managed as not to absorb the thoughts of 
 their offspring. It is not necessary that they mo- 
 nopolize all the discourse at the fireside, or that 
 the domestic board be turned into an exchange- 
 table, or that the child of a few summers be 
 made a sharper. 
 
 Among the forms of benevolence, which in our 
 age of the world are multiplied and various, per- 
 haps few of us sufficiently keep in %iew the 
 charity of wages. To assist the poor, through 
 their own industry, ennobles them. It keeps 
 alive that love of independence, which is so im- 
 portant in a free country. To grudge, or stint 
 the wages of female labour, is false economy. It 
 is to swell the ranks of degradation and vice. 
 In our sex it is unpardonable cruelty; for the 
 avenues in which they can gain an honest sub- 
 sistence, are neither so numerous or so flowery, 
 that we may close them at pleasure, and be in- 
 nocent. We ought not to consider ourselves as 
 doing the duty of Christians, though we subscribe
 
 OPINION OF WEALTH. 215 
 
 liberally to foreign and popular charities, while 
 we withhold the helping hand, or the word of 
 sympathy, from the female labourer within our 
 own gates. 
 
 I know not that I narrate an uncommon, or 
 peculiar circumstance, when I mention a young 
 girl, brought up in comparative affluence, who, 
 at the sudden death of her father, was .left with- 
 out resources. The mother's health failed, through 
 grief and misfortune, and she nobly resolved to 
 earn a subsistence for both. She turned to the 
 needle, with which she had been dextrous for 
 amusement, or the decoration of her own apparel. 
 A little instruction enabled her to pursue, from 
 house to house, the occupation of a dress-maker. 
 
 At first, some of the delicate feelings of early 
 culture clung around her. She dared scarcely to 
 raise her eyes, at the table of strangers'; and 
 when at night, money was given her, she felt 
 half ashamed to take it. But want soon extin- 
 guished those lingerings of timidity and refine- 
 ment. Before her pittance was earned, it was 
 mentally devoted to the purchase of some com- 
 fort for her enfeebled mother. It soon became 
 evident that her common earnings were insuffi- 
 cient. She took home extra work, and abridged 
 her intervals of rest. Her candle went not out 
 by night, and sometimes when her mother had 
 retired, she almost extinguished the fire, continu-
 
 216 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 ing to \vork with chilled hands and feet, lest the 
 stock of fuel should not suffice until her slender 
 earnings would allow her to purchase more. 
 
 Her nervous system became overwrought and 
 diseased. Those for whom she worked, were 
 often querulous, and hard to please. She felt 
 an insuperable longing for a kind word, an 
 encouraging look, for some form of sympathy, to 
 sustain the sensitive spirit. Those who hired 
 her, had not put these into the contract. Work, 
 on her part, and money on theirs, was all the 
 stipulation. They did not perceive that her step 
 grew feeble, as day by day, she passed through 
 the crowded streets to her task, or night after 
 night returned to nurse her infirm mother. A 
 sudden flush came upon her cheek, and she 
 sank into the grave, before the parent for whom 
 she had toiled. 
 
 The wife of a sailor, during his long periods 
 of absence, did all in her power, to aid him in 
 diminishing then* expenses. He was not of that 
 class, who spend their wages on their arrival 
 in port, and forget their family. But as that 
 family increased, his earnings, without rigid econ- 
 omy on her part, would have been insufficient 
 for their support. 
 
 At length, the bitter news came, that her hus- 
 band was lost at sea. When the first shock of 
 grief had subsided, she summoned her resolution,
 
 OPINION OP WEALTH. 217 
 
 and determined to do that for her children, which 
 their father had so often expressed his wish to 
 have done: that they should be kept togeth- 
 er, and not be dependent on charity. She med- 
 itated what mode of livelihood would best ena- 
 ble her to comply with a wish, to her so sa- 
 cred. She had great personal strength, and a 
 good constitution. She made choice of the hard- 
 est work, which is performed by females, be- 
 cause it seemed to promise the most immediate 
 reward. Often, after her hard task of washing, 
 did she forget her weariness, as in the dusky 
 twilight, she hastened toward her lowly home, as 
 the mother-bird nerves her wing, when she draws 
 nearer to her nest. 
 
 But she found her sickly babe a sufferer from 
 these absences, and sometimes accidents befel the 
 other little ones, from her having no person with 
 whom to leave them. The sum which she had 
 earned, would not always pay for the injury they 
 had sustained by the want of her sheltering care. 
 It occasionally happened, that if the lady for 
 whom she worked, was out, or engaged with com- 
 pany, she returned without her payment, for 
 which, either to wait, or to go again, were incon- 
 veniences, which those who dwell in abodes of 
 plenty cannot estimate. 
 
 Was there not some labour which she could 
 perform at home, and thus protect the nurslings, 
 19
 
 218 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 for whose subsistence she toiled? The spinning- 
 wheel, and loom, first presented themselves to her 
 thought, for she had been skilful in their use, in 
 the far-off agricultural village where her youth 
 was spent. But domestic manufactures had be- 
 come unfashionable, and she could obtain no such 
 employment. Coarse needle-work, seemed her 
 only resource. At this, she wrought incessantly, 
 scarcely allowing herself time to get, or to par- 
 take of a scanty meal. But after all was done, 
 the remuneration was inadequate to their necessi- 
 ties. She could scarcely supply a sufficiency of 
 the coarsest food. Her children shivered, as the 
 winter drew on. Their garments, though con- 
 stantly mended, were thin, and their poor little 
 feet, bare and blue. She drew back from the 
 miserable fire, that they might be warmed, and 
 shuddered as she saw the means of sustaining 
 this comfort, wasting away. 
 
 Still, the injunction of her departed husband 
 lay deep and warm in her heart. She asked no 
 charity. She remitted no exertion. And her 
 whole life was as one prayer to God. 
 
 At this crisis, a society formed on the true 
 principle of benevolence, to aid poverty through 
 its own efforts, arose, to save her from destruc- 
 tion. Its express object was to improve the con- 
 dition of the tempest-tost mariner, and his suf- 
 fering household. It comprised an establishment,
 
 OPINION OF WEALTH. 219 
 
 where garments were made for seamen; and here 
 she obtained a constant supply of needle-work, 
 with liberal and prompt payment. One of its 
 most beautiful features, was a school, where the 
 elementary branches of a good education were 
 gratuitously taught. Here, instruction in the use 
 of the needle was thoroughly imparted; and as 
 soon as the pupils were able to finish a gar- 
 ment for the clothing-store, they were encouraged 
 by receiving a just payment. 
 
 Now, the small, lowly room of the widow was 
 brightened with comfort. And her heart was too 
 full for words, when her little girls came running 
 from school, with a shout of joy, the eldest one 
 exclaiming : 
 
 " See, mother, see, here are twenty cents. 
 Take them, and buy a frock for the baby. They 
 gave them to me, for making a sailor's gingham 
 shirt, strong and good. My teacher says, I shall 
 soon sew well enough, to make one of a nicer 
 kind, for which I am to receive seventy-five 
 cents. Then, I will help pay your house-rent. 
 O, I never was so happy in my life. And yet, 
 1 could not help crying when I worked, for I re- 
 membered that you used to make exactly such 
 shirts for dear father ; and I did not know but 
 the man for whom I made this, might be lost at 
 sea, and never come back to his home any 
 more."
 
 220 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 "Here is a book," said the little sister, "which 
 my teacher let me take from the school library 
 to bring home, and read to you, while you sit at 
 work. And she is so good and kind to me, 
 mother; she takes as much pains to have me 
 learn, as if we were ever so rich; and I love her 
 dearly." 
 
 "Blessings on her," said the widow, through 
 her grateful tears. "Heaven's blessing on the So- 
 ciety, and on every lady into whose heart God 
 has put it to help the desolate poor, through 
 their own industry." And night and morning she 
 taught her kneeling babes the prayer of gratitude 
 for their benefactresses. 
 
 Let us encourage every variety of effort by 
 which our sex can win a subsistence, and foster 
 in the young that spirit which prefers the happy 
 consciousness of being useful, to any form of in- 
 dolent and helpless dependence? In our bounty 
 to the poor, let us keep in mind the principle of 
 aiding them as far as possible, through their own 
 exertions, for she who thus studies their moral 
 benefit, elevates them in the scale of being, and 
 performs an acceptable service to her country and 
 to her God. 
 
 Mothers, speak often to your daughters on 
 these subjects. Instruct them in the economy of 
 charity. Your responsibility comprises both earth 
 and heaven.
 
 OPINION OF WEALTH. 221 
 
 There are many works from writers of the 
 present day, which afford valuable hints for con- 
 versation, on the subject of being respectable and 
 happy without the possession of wealth. From 
 your own observation, you can illustrate the truth 
 of this theory. You can convince them, from the 
 page of history, that virtue, and talent, and the 
 heart's true felicity, may exist without the tinsel 
 of gold. You can impress on them from a Book 
 Divine, that to gain the whole world, would not 
 balance one sigh of a lost soul. 
 
 Years and intercourse with mankind will soon 
 enough impress the lesson of pecuniary acquisi- 
 tion. You need not post in advance of the world, 
 with the world's lessons. It is not expected that 
 you should erect the "tables of the money- 
 changers, and seats for those who sell doves," in 
 the temple of those hearts which might, at least 
 for a few of their tenderest years, be consecrated 
 to " Nature's sweet affections and to God." 
 
 19*
 
 222 LETTER3 TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER XYIII. 
 
 HOSPITALITY. 
 
 CHILDREN are, in some measure, educated by 
 the style of parental hospitality. They are natu- 
 rally gregarious, and the expansion of the social 
 principle gives them pleasure. They receive the 
 strongest impressions through their senses, and 
 there is a consent of the senses in the satisfac- 
 tion which awaits the coming of a guest. The 
 cheerful preparation which they see, the agreeable 
 additions to the table, the putting on of the best 
 robe, the smiling face of the welcomed friend, the 
 kind words addressed to them, cause their little 
 hearts to swell with delight. Neither is this 
 sharing of their good things with others, an inert 
 precept in moral regimen. It fosters a simple 
 form of benevolence, and helps to extirpate those 
 lesser plants of selfishness, which are prone to a 
 quick growth, in the moist, rich soil of infancy. 
 
 Children sometimes see their parents extending 
 the rites of hospitality to the sick friend, or the 
 sorrowful stranger, and they imbibe that class of 
 deeper sympathies, which flow forth towards the
 
 HOSPITALITY. 223 
 
 homeless and the poor. Nor are the lessons of 
 love, to their race, thus learned, of little value. 
 The happiness which they feel from seeing others 
 happy, is better than that which they derive from 
 solitary acquisition. The pleasure thus reflected 
 from the smile of a guest, is one of the rudi- 
 ments of benevolence. 
 
 Permit your young children, therefore, when- 
 ever it is proper, to share the warmth of an un- 
 ceremonious hospitality. For this reason, as well 
 as for others still more important, be strenuous 
 to secure for them the privileges of a home. The 
 custom, so prevalent in our larger cities, of aban- 
 doning housekeeping, and becoming lodgers either 
 in public hotels, or private families, is fraught 
 with evils. When such an arrangement is the 
 result of necessity, it should be submitted to, like 
 any other form of adversity. But if parents could, 
 by any additional economy, or increase of per- 
 sonal exertion, maintain their own table, and 
 family altar, they should do it for the sake of 
 their little ones. However small may be the nest, 
 where their new-fledged offspring are nurtured, 
 no matter, if they can only brood over it with 
 their own wing. Under the roof of another, the 
 husband and father can neither command the re- 
 spect, or exercise the authority, which are his 
 prerogatives, nor the wife exhibit before those 
 who fashion themselves after her model, the full
 
 224 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 beauty and energy of conjugal and maternal ex- 
 ample. But especially are young children re- 
 strained in their freedom and happiness, and 
 compelled to feel somewhat of the melancholy 
 distrust of strangers and exiles. Instead of being 
 cheered by seeing their parents, like the fixed 
 stars, diffusing blessings to the remotest satellite, 
 they behold them like wandering planets, seeking 
 light and heat from others, or perhaps like com- 
 ets, whose true rotation has never been calcu- 
 lated, careering through and perplexing other 
 
 It is indeed most desirable that little children 
 should enjoy the comforts of a home, and share 
 the cordial of true hospitality. But it is almost 
 equally desirable, that they should be sheltered 
 from that ostentatious and heartless intercourse 
 which fashion authorizes. Every entrance of it 
 under their own roof, interferes with their ac- 
 commodation and quiet. Parents and domestics 
 are absorbed in preparations which to them are 
 mysterious. The access of ornaments, the array 
 of fashionable garniture, the heaping together of 
 luxuries, are not for them. The attention of 
 those whom they love, is turned away, or mo- 
 nopolized by objects which they cannot under- 
 stand. They shrink back to their nurseries, dis- 
 pirited and forsaken. Perhaps they expend upon 
 each other their heightened consciousness of un-
 
 HOSPITALITY. 225 
 
 happiness, while the ruling minds that should 
 regulate their tempers are elsewhere. 
 
 Yet this is but the lighter shade of the evil. 
 Imagine them exposed, as it sometime happens, 
 to the excitement of the scene. If the party is 
 not very large, mother consents that they should 
 just appear. Now, here is a new and wonderful 
 happiness. The little casuists are busy to know 
 in what it consists. Varied and splendid cos- 
 tumes strike their eye. Ah ! fine dress must be 
 happiness. Will they henceforth be more content 
 with their own simple garb, or more likely to es- 
 teem humble virtue, in plain attire? They see 
 many rich viands. These are surely a species 
 of happiness. Their appetites are solicited, either 
 to be repelled, or to be indulged at the expense 
 of health and simplicity of taste. If they have 
 been adorned and exhibited for the occasion, they 
 will be familiarized to the dangerous nutriment 
 of flattery. " How pretty !" " What beautiful crea- 
 tures !" will be the exclamations of the unthink- 
 ing, or of the sycophants who wish to ingratiate 
 themselves with the parents. The little wonder- 
 ing heart lifts up its valve, and receives the stim- 
 ulant. Its humility and chastened resolves are 
 put to flight. Affectation and admiration of self, 
 prematurely enter. The tare is not only among 
 the wheat, but before it. If the little beings have 
 not forfeited their frankness, ten to one but you
 
 226 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 may hear, in words, as well as in conduct, "I 
 don't love to do as I am told, nor to get my les- 
 son, and it is no matter, for I am a pretty and 
 a beautiful creature." 
 
 But the principle of display is not more de- 
 structive to the natural and happy simplicity of 
 childhood, than the routine of fashionable visiting 
 to the welfare of true hospitality. The more ar- 
 tificial and ostentatious we become, the farther 
 we recede from that hospitality which Reason 
 sanctions as a virtue, and the voice of Inspiration 
 enjoins as a duty. In ancient times it nourished 
 like a vigorous plant. Beneath its branches the 
 traveller found shelter from the noon-day sun, 
 and covert from the storm. 
 
 Yet in proportion as nations have advanced 
 in refinement, they have neglected its culture. 
 They may, indeed, have hedged it about with 
 ceremonies, or encumbered it with trappings. 
 But its verdure has been suffered to fade, and its 
 root to perish. Like the stripling shepherd, it 
 has drooped beneath the gorgeous armour of 
 royalty. Among the smooth stones of the brook, 
 it would better have found the defence that it 
 needed. 
 
 Under the oak at Mamre, it sat with the patri- 
 arch, and entertained angels. It lingered amid 
 oriental climes, as in a congenial atmosphere, 
 and has never utterly forsaken the tent of the
 
 HOSPITALITY. 227 
 
 wandering Arab. With a cowled head, it shroud- 
 ed itself in cloisters, and for ages neither pilgrim 
 or mendicant touched the bell at the convent 
 gate in vain. The chosen people in the infancy 
 of their nation, revered its injunctions, for they 
 were twined with the most tender and thrilling 
 recollections, and fortified by a command from 
 Jehovah : " The Lord our God loveth the stran- 
 ger; love ye, therefore, the stranger, for ye were 
 strangers in the land of Egypt." 
 
 The Moslem, amid his ferocity and despotism, 
 regards the rites of hospitality. He expresses his 
 sense of the solemnity of its requisitions, by the 
 proverb anciently incorporated with his language, 
 "when the stranger saith alas! the heart of Allah 
 is wounded." Some uncivilized nations have of- 
 fered a rude homage at its shrine. The roving 
 tribes of the North American forests spread their 
 only blanket for the stranger's bed. They set 
 before him the last morsel of food, though their 
 households are in danger of famine. When the 
 Old World paid its first visit to the New, the 
 Mexicans saluted the men of Spain with clouds 
 of fragrant incense, not knowing how soon it 
 was to be quenched in their own blood. The 
 modern South American Republicks still welcome 
 their guests with the simple offering of a fresh 
 flower. 
 
 Most of the refined nations of our own times
 
 228 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 confide the usages of hospitality to the keeping 
 of the gentler sex. Especially, in this new West- 
 ern World, the household gods, those Lares and 
 Penates of. the Romans, are cordially entrusted 
 to our care. Elevated as we now are, by intel- 
 lectual advantages, beyond all previous example, 
 it might rationally be expected that a degree of 
 lustre and dignity, heretofore unknown, would 
 dignify social intercourse. Still, we see it very 
 prominently identified with the pleasures of the 
 table. To make the satisfactions of the palate 
 the principal tests of hospitality, seems to accord 
 with a less refined state of society, or to augur 
 some destitution of intellectual resource. 
 
 Would our ladies set the example of less elabo- 
 rate entertainments, of less exuberant feasting, 
 more room would be left for the mental powers 
 to expand, and the feelings to seek interchange, 
 in conversation. At least, they might save their 
 husband's purses, their servants' tempers, and 
 themselves a world of fatigue. Let them recol- 
 lect that it is but a relic of barbarism which 
 they cherish, when they allure their guests to in- 
 dulgence of appetite, perhaps to hurtful excess. 
 For temptations of the palate, though they may 
 be multiplied by the hospitable lady, out of pure 
 benevolence, cannot be yielded to with impunity, 
 by all whom her invitations thus expose. Her 
 skill in culinary compounds may wound the
 
 HOSPITALITY. 229 
 
 health of those whom she best loves. It would 
 be but a sorry compliment for the dyspeptick 
 husband to murmur forth, like him of Eden, his 
 sad extenuation, "the woman whom thou gavest 
 to be with me, gave me and I did eat;" or for 
 the more indignant guest, when ^seeking his phy- 
 sician, to exclaim, "the serpent beguiled me, and 
 I did eat." 
 
 It was formerly too much the custom to press, 
 among the pledges of hospitality, the draught that 
 inebriates. More light, and a better creed, have 
 modified this practice. But still it is not extinct. 
 If it be asked, why the Christian inhabitants of a 
 most Christian land should choose as the inter- 
 preter of their hospitality an usage more danger- 
 ous than the sword of Damocles, there is no bet- 
 ter answer than "because it is the fashion." 
 The cup will not, indeed, mark him who par- 
 takes, with its immediate poison; but may it not 
 foster what shall rankle in his veins, with fatal 
 contagion, threatening not only the body, but the 
 soul? 
 
 When philosophers have inquired how woman, 
 whose happiness and safety are so deeply involved 
 in the purity of those around, could thus dare to 
 trouble the fountains of temperance and of virtue, 
 the only reply has been, "it is the fashion? 
 Holy men, the guardians of God's altar, have de- 
 manded, why she hath been thus faithless to her 
 20
 
 230 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 trust. And she hath answered, " it is the fash- 
 ion" But when the garniture is stripped from 
 all earthly things, when that dread assembly is 
 convened, where none will dare to plead the om- 
 nipotence of fashion, when a voice from the 
 Throne of the Eternal questions of the plague- 
 spot upon the soul of the guest, the brother, the 
 husband, or the child, what shall the answer be?
 
 RESPECT TO AGE. 231 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 RESPECT TO AGE. 
 
 IT is one proof of a good education, and of 
 refinement of feeling, to respect antiquity. Some- 
 times it seems the dictate of unsophisticated na- 
 ture. We venerate a column which has with- 
 stood the ravages of time. We contemplate with 
 reverence the ivy-crowned castle, through which 
 the winds of centuries make melancholy musick. 
 We gather with care the fragments of the early 
 history of nations, which, however mouldering or 
 disjointed, have escaped the shipwreck of time. 
 There are some who spare no expense in col- 
 lecting coins and relics, which rust has penetra- 
 ted, or change of customs rendered valueless, save 
 as they have within them the voice of other 
 years. Why, then, should we regard with indif- 
 ference the living remnants of a former age, 
 through whose experience we might both be en- 
 riched and made better? 
 
 The sympathy of a kind heart prompts respect 
 to the aged. Their early and dear friends have 
 departed. They stand alone, with heads whitened
 
 232 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 and vigour diminished. They have escaped the 
 deluge that overwhelmed their cotemporaries. But 
 they have not passed unscathed through the 
 water-floods of time. Tender and marked atten- 
 tions are due to those weary voyagers. They 
 ought not to be left as the denizens of some soli- 
 tary isle, where love never visits, and which the 
 gay vessels newly launched on the sea of life, 
 pass by, with flaunting streamers, and regard not. 
 The tribute of reverence which is their due, adds 
 as much to the honour of him who pays, as to 
 the happiness of those who receive it. 
 
 Respect to Age, is best impressed on children 
 by the example of their parents, who should daily 
 exhibit a transcript of the reverent deportment 
 they require them to evince. If then' own pa- 
 rents are living, they have the best of all possi- 
 ble opportunities to teach that kind observance 
 of word, look, and manner, that assiduity to pro- 
 mote comfort, that tenderness in concealing infirm- 
 ity, that skill to anticipate the unspoken wish, 
 that zeal to repay some small part of the count- 
 less debt incurred in life's earliest years, which 
 they themselves would desire to receive, should 
 they live to become old. 
 
 How often do we see disrespect to parents, 
 visited with evils in this life. We might infer it 
 from the language of the fifth commandment, 
 which, in promising a reward to those who
 
 RESPECT TO AGE. 233 
 
 honour their parents, implies that the punishment 
 of those who withhold that honour will be equal- 
 ly palpable. The natural progress of events leads 
 also to such a result. From a principle of imita- 
 tion, the child frames his manners on the model 
 which his parents sanction. Their mode of treat- 
 ment to their own parents is perpetuated in him. 
 The neglect or reverence which their daily con- 
 duct exhibits, becomes incorporated with his own 
 habits and character; baleful dispositions repro- 
 duce themselves : so that what is counted as a 
 judgment, may be but the spontaneous action of 
 a bitter root, bearing its own fruit. Yet it is not 
 surprising that the Almighty, who has not utterly 
 disjoined the thread of retribution from the web 
 of this brief life, should punish, visibly and fear- 
 fully, the sin of disobedience to parents. Without 
 dwelling, at this time, on so heinous a dereliction 
 of a most sacred duty, let us turn to the interest- 
 ing subject of reverence to age. 
 
 The universal opinion of those who scrutinize 
 the state of society in our country, is, that in 
 the treatment of the aged, there is a diminution 
 of respect. Even the authority of parents, and 
 teachers, seems to be borne with uneasiness, and 
 to be early shaken off. Those, whose memory 
 comprises two generations, assert, that in these 
 points, without doubt, the former days were bet- 
 ter than these. 
 20*
 
 234 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Some have supposed this change naturally to 
 arise from the spirit and institutions of a repub- 
 lick. Equality of rank, destroys many of the 
 barriers of adventitious distinction. But the 
 hoary head, when crowned with goodness and 
 piety, is an order of nobility, established by God 
 himself. It marks a stage of ripened excellence, 
 ready for admission among the "just made per- 
 fect." If deficiency in duty to those who have 
 attained such illustrious distinction, is so obvious, 
 as to mark the character of a whole generation, 
 it must be traced to the structure of families, 
 rather than to the form of our government. 
 
 Reverence for Age, being a divine command, 
 should form an inseparable part of the earliest 
 Christian education. It must be inculcated with 
 the rudiments of religion, when the mind is in 
 its forming state. It is inexplicable that parents 
 should neglect to impress on their children the 
 solemn injunction, " Thou shalt rise up before 
 the hoary head, and honour the face of the old 
 man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord." The 
 command derives force from the situation in 
 which it is placed, guarded by the majesty of Him 
 from whom it emanates, and linked with the 
 duty which man owes to his Maker, and his 
 Judge. 
 
 It is rather a surprising fact, that some heath- 
 en nations should have been more exemplary in
 
 RESPECT TO AGE. 235 
 
 their treatment of the aged, than those who en- 
 joy moral arid religious culture: that the dim 
 teachings of nature should be more operative 
 among ignorant men, than the "clear shining of 
 the Sun of Righteousness" upon those who be- 
 lieve the gospel. 
 
 The Spartans, so proudly adverse to every 
 form of delicacy and refinement, paid marked 
 deference to age, especially when combined with 
 wisdom. A fine tribute to their observance of 
 this virtue, "was rendered them by the old man, 
 who, having been refused a seat in a crowded 
 assembly at Athens, saw the rougher Lacedemo- 
 nians rise, in an equally dense throng, and rever- 
 ently make room "for him: "the Athenians know 
 what is right, but the Spartans practise it." 
 
 The wandering sons of the American forests 
 shewed the deepest respect to years. Beneath 
 each lowly roof, at every council-fire, the young 
 listened reverently to the voice of the aged. In 
 their most important exigences, the boldest war- 
 riors, the haughtiest chieftains, consulted the 
 hoary-headed men, and waited for their words. 
 Their deportment illustrated the assertion of 
 the friend of Job, "I am young, and ye are 
 old; therefore I was afraid to show you my 
 opinion." 
 
 The reverent regard accorded to length of days 
 by tb.e rude natives of these western wilds, re-
 
 236 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 sembled in some measure that which was evinced 
 by the chosen people of old ; as if those wander- 
 ing tribes preserved in their own habitations the 
 smothered embers of the fires swept from the 
 altars of Zion. Dwelling, as we do, in the re- 
 gions from whence they were exiled; exhuming 
 with our plough-shares the very bones from their 
 fathers' sepulchres; uttering daily, in the names of 
 our rivers and mountains, the dialect of a race 
 driven away as an exhalation when the sun aris- 
 eth, it would surely have been well, that, in this 
 one respect, their spirit had remained among us, 
 or, at least, that their example had not been to 
 our reproach. 
 
 If we admit that there is a general declension 
 in duty to the aged, and if it must be traced to 
 error in domestic culture, heads of families are 
 responsible for the evil. 
 
 Mothers, is riot much of the fault at our own 
 doors ? If so, where is the remedy ? Must it 
 not be sought in the power of early instruction, 
 and in the influence of example? Is there as 
 fair a prospect of success in admonishing those 
 who have been long in error, as in forming cor- 
 rect habits for the yet uncontaminate 1 
 
 Begin, then, with your little ones. Require 
 them to rise and offer a seat, when an old person 
 enters the room ; never to interrupt them when 
 speaking, but to solicit their advice, and reverence
 
 RESPECT TO AGE. 237 
 
 their opinions. You will say that these are sim- 
 ple rules. Yes. But the lofty tree springs from 
 a diminutive germ. Show them the reason for 
 even these simple rules, in the book of God. 
 Consider the slightest disrespect to aged relatives, 
 or any person advanced in years, as a fault of 
 magnitude. If you have yourself a parent, or a 
 surviving friend of that parent, make your own 
 respectful deportment a mirror by which they 
 can fashion their own. Confirm these habits, 
 until they obtain a permanent root in principle, 
 and determine that your own offspring shall not 
 swell the number of those who disregard the 
 divine precept to "honour the hoary head." 
 
 I was acquainted with the father and mother 
 of a large family, who, on the entrance of their 
 own aged parents, rose and received them with 
 every mark of respect, and also treated their co- 
 temporaries as the most distinguished guests. 
 Their children, beholding continually this defer- 
 ence shown to the aged, made it a part of their 
 own conduct. Before they were capable of com- 
 prehending the reason on which it was founded, 
 they copied it from the ever-open page of paren- 
 tal example. The beautiful habit grew with 
 their growth. It was rewarded by the approba- 
 tion of all who witnessed it. Especially was it 
 cheering to the hearts of those who received it, 
 and who found the chill and solitude of the vale
 
 238 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 of years, alleviated by the tender love that walked 
 by their side. 
 
 I saw the same children when their own pa- 
 rents became old. This hallowed principle, early 
 incorporated with their character, bore a rich 
 harvest for those who had sown the seed. The 
 honour which from infancy they had shewn to 
 the hoary head, mingling with the fervour of 
 filial affection, produced a delightful combination; 
 one which, even to the casual observer, had an 
 echo of that voice from heaven, "train up a 
 child in the way he should go, and when he is 
 old, he will not depart from it."
 
 HAPPINESS. 239 
 
 ' W &*. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 HAPPINESS. 
 
 IT was a pleasant theory of an ancient musi- 
 cian, that the "soul was but a harmony." How- 
 ever erroneous the philosophy may be, it fur- 
 nishes a profitable hint. The habit of eliciting 
 from the discord of opposing circumstances a 
 song of praise, is of inestimable value. It was 
 said of Klopstock, the German poet, that his 
 "mind maintained a perpetual spring, a never- 
 failing succession of beauty and of fragrance; if 
 the rose wounded him, he gathered the lily; if 
 the lily died on his bosom, he cherished the 
 myrtle." Such affinity had this temperament 
 with buoyancy of spirits, and a perpetual flow 
 of the freshness of life, that even when the 
 snows of four-score years had settled upon his 
 brow, he was designated by the epithet of the 
 "youth forever? 
 
 This harmony of our nature with the tasks 
 that are appointed it, is not only peculiarly 
 graceful in woman, but in a measure necessary 
 to the complete fulfilment of her destiny. In
 
 240 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 her capacity of wife and mother, she is the 
 keeper of the happiness of others. Can she be 
 worthy of such high trust, unless she is able to 
 be the keeper of her own? She is expected to 
 be a comforter. But how can this be, unless the 
 materials of her own character are well-balanced 
 and combined? She is expected to add bright- 
 ness to the fire-side. Can she do this, unless the 
 principle of light is inherent? She is expected 
 to be as a sun-beam on the cloud, the bow of 
 promise amid the storms of life. Therefore, the 
 foundation of her own happiness must be above 
 the region of darkness and tempest. 
 
 The desire of happiness is implanted in all cre- 
 ated beings. Its capacities are capable of cultiva- 
 tion and extension, beyond what at first view 
 would be imagined. The means by which it is 
 attained and imparted, should be studied as a 
 science, especially by that sex whose ministry is 
 among those affections which make or mar the 
 music of the soul. 
 
 A mind ever open to the accession of know- 
 ledge, may be numbered among the elements of 
 happiness. The free action of intellect, as well 
 as the due exercise of the muscular powers, pro- 
 motes the health and harmony of the system. 
 
 The cultivation of friendship, and of the social 
 affections, should be assiduously regarded. If, ac- 
 cording to the definition of an ancient philoso-
 
 HAPPINESS. 241 
 
 pher, "happiness be the sharing of pleasure and 
 pain with another," it is less important to try to 
 escape the evils of this life of trial, than to learn 
 the art of dividing them. 
 
 A habit of looking on the bright side of charac- 
 ter, and of finding excuses for error, is conducive 
 to happiness. It is a modification of benevolence, 
 which every day gives opportunity to exercise. 
 It is of the same kindred with that spirit of piety 
 which expatiates on the blessings of providence, 
 and delights to select themes of discourse from 
 those mercies which are "new every morning, 
 and fresh every moment." 
 
 Enlarged views of mankind lead to forbear- 
 ance. The mind that comes in contact with few 
 objects, gradually learns to view them through a 
 contracted medium, to magnify their relative im- 
 portance, and to fasten upon their leading points 
 with avidity, or acrimony. Thus, the arrival of 
 a stranger in a small village, is an object of 
 eager attention. His appearance is described, his 
 business canvassed. In a metropolis, the throng 
 pass on their several ways unheeded. In seclu- 
 ded neighbourhoods, the movements of every in- 
 dividual are discussed, his motives conjectured, 
 his mistakes " set in a note-book." But the mind, 
 accustomed to a wider range, perceives imperfec- 
 tion to be the lot of all, and expecting in the 
 purest ore, some alloy, learns not bitterly to 
 21
 
 242 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 condemn infirmities of which it is itself a par- 
 taker. 
 
 Instruct the young, under your care, not to 
 adopt the erroneous opinion of some novices, that 
 unless they censure the faults of others, they may 
 be supposed unable to detect them. Tenderness 
 of heart, is no proof of blindness of mind, any 
 more than liberality of opinion implies deficiency 
 of intellect. It will often be found a more acute 
 exercise of discernment, to discover the excellen- 
 ces than the foibles of those who surround them. 
 Teach them, therefore, as a means of happiness, 
 not severely to condemn the faults they perceive; 
 to seek rather for opportunities to admire, or to 
 excuse, than to blame ; and often to turn the 
 meek glance inward upon their own hearts. 
 
 From the same desire, to promote their own 
 happiness, teach them patience. Childhood has 
 need of it. The quiet, waiting spirit, is usually 
 uncongenial to its vivacity. In its happiest state, 
 it has trials, which, though to us, may seem scarce- 
 ly to deserve the name, yet are sufficiently great, 
 in proportion to the strength given to sustain 
 them. The texture of the temper is often se- 
 verely tested among companions, and at school. 
 Arm your children against these exigences, that 
 they need not add to unavoidable evils, the re- 
 volting of an unruled spirit. If they sometimes 
 encounter blame, when their intentions are cor-
 
 HAPPINESS. 243 
 
 rect, teach them, that this is not in reality so 
 hard to bear, as at first it appears. For those 
 who have the support of an approving conscience, 
 can enter into that pavilion, and be comforted 
 amid the " strife of tongues." If they are blamed 
 for their faults, they surely ought not to com- 
 plain, since this is but the award of justice. 
 
 Teach them, by your own example, how to 
 endure trials with patience ; how to forget them 
 in the contemplation of higher things ; how to re- 
 pay them with Christian kindness. The great 
 Boerhaave, who notwithstanding his goodness had 
 many enemies, said, "I will never repeat their 
 calumnies. They are sparks, which, if you do 
 not blow them, will go out of themselves." Early 
 fortify your pupils against those causes that are 
 prone to disturb their serenity, and require of 
 them as a part of their daily duty, to form the 
 habit of being happy. 
 
 The most disinterested have the best materials 
 for happiness. They are seen forgetting their 
 own sorrows, that they may console those of 
 others. May it not, therefore, be assumed that 
 the subjugation of self is happiness ? 
 
 The lineaments of cheerfulness are important. 
 A smiling brow, and a pleasant-toned voice, are 
 adjuncts of happiness. A wife is not always 
 aware how much her husband may be thus 
 cheered, when he returns harrassed by the per-
 
 244 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 plexities of business, perhaps soured by inter- 
 course with harsh and unfriendly spirits. She 
 should spare to add to his secret burdens the ir- 
 ritation of her own repinings. Household incon- 
 veniences, though they may be great to her, are 
 apt to appear to him as the " small dust of the 
 balance." It is not wise to choose them as the 
 subjects of discourse, except where his counsel 
 or decision are imperatively needed. It is sweet 
 to a wife to feel that she is regarded as 
 
 " The light and musick of a happy home. 
 It was her smile that made the house so gay, 
 Her voice that made it eloquent with joy ; 
 Her presence peopled it. Her very tread 
 Had life and gladness in it." 
 
 But if the lineaments of happiness are so beau- 
 tiful in a wife, they are still more indispensable 
 to a mother. The child opens the door of its 
 heart to the kind tone, the smiling brow, the eye 
 reflecting the joy within. Especially while en- 
 gaged in teaching her little ones, let the mother 
 preserve every symbol of cheerfulness: the mild 
 manner, the gentle word, the tender caress. 
 Love and knowledge, entering together, form 
 a happy and hallowed alliance. We are scarcely 
 aware how much little children admire pleasant 
 
 "My children," said a widowed father, "our 
 circle has been long desolate. I hope ere long
 
 HAPPINESS. 245 
 
 to be able to present you with a new mother. 
 You must all promise me to love her." Plea- 
 sure was visible on every countenance. A new 
 mother! It was a delightful idea to their af- 
 fectionate hearts. They shouted forth their joy. 
 Soon one of the most favoured of the number, 
 a boy of a sweet spirit, climbed his father's knee. 
 "Please to choose for us a mother who will 
 laugh. And we would all like it well, if you 
 would bring us home one that knows how to 
 play? There spoke forth the free, happy nature 
 of childhood. 
 
 Christians ought to be happy, and, being so, 
 should make it visible. The words and example 
 of our Saviour convey this lesson. "When ye 
 fast, be not of a sad countenance." If even the 
 penitential parts of our religion do not allow this 
 demeanour, can faith, and hope, and joy, re- 
 quire it? 
 
 Every woman, in advancing the happiness of 
 her family, should look beyond the gratification 
 of the present moment, and consult their ultimate 
 improvement. She should require all the mem- 
 bers of her household to bear their part towards 
 this end. The little child, too young to contri- 
 bute aught beside, may bring the gift of a smile, 
 the charm of sweet manners. The kiss of the 
 rose-lipped babe enters into the account. The 
 elder children should select from their studies, or 
 21*
 
 246 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 from the books they are perusing, some portion to 
 relate, which will administer to general informa- 
 tion or rational amusement. All, according to 
 their means, should be taught to swell the stock 
 of happiness. 
 
 The present age is rich ill devices to promote 
 and diversify fire-side enjoyment. Guides for 
 drawing, juvenile musick, cabinets of natural his- 
 tory, sports that keep study in view, beautiful 
 books, combining knowledge with amusement, 
 abound and multiply. Parents should zealously 
 take part in these with their children. They 
 need not fear a loss of dignity. Whatever ren- 
 ders home rationally happy, and quickens the lit- 
 tle footsteps that turn towards it, is a branch of 
 political wisdom, as well as of paternal duty. 
 
 I could wish that domestic anniversaries were 
 more regarded. They furnish rallying points for 
 the hope and love of childhood: pictured scenes, 
 where memory may fondly linger in future years, 
 or in a far-off clime. The birth-day of a parent, 
 or a grand-parent, of a brother, a sister, or a fa- 
 voured domestic, might be made seasons of le- 
 gitimate and cordial gratulation. They might 
 cause the blood to course more briskly through 
 the bounding veins of our children, as flowery 
 spots by the way-side, licensed seasons of seeking 
 the happiness of others, rather than of their own. 
 The preparation of simple gifts, exercises both
 
 HAPPINESS. 247 
 
 their ingenuity, their judgment, and their affec- 
 tions. Their little secret consultations on such 
 subjects, and the rich pleasure they feel in sur- 
 prising some dear one with an unexpected gift, 
 should be respected. As far as possible, these 
 gifts should be the production of their own 
 hands, or the purchase of their earnings. The 
 latter result is not so difficult as might be ima- 
 gined. There are many kinds of needle-work, 
 and of domestic occupation, for which a mother 
 might feel it both pleasant and proper to compen- 
 sate her daughters. Thus she might aid in con- 
 firming habits of industry, while she supplied the 
 aliment for tokens of friendship, and deeds of 
 charity. 
 
 A mother once told me, that from the time her 
 little girl first was able to hem a handkerchief 
 neatly, she had allowed her a regular price for 
 whatever she had done for the family. She com- 
 menced a little book, in which she taught her to 
 record her receipts and expenditures, with mer- 
 cantile punctuality; and perhaps, this laid the 
 foundation of an accuracy in accounts, and ca- 
 pacity for business, which distinguished her when 
 she became a woman. Having an affectionate 
 disposition, she made a list of the birth-days, not 
 only of her immediate relatives, and the members 
 of the household, but those of her pastor, her 
 teachers, and her most intimate friends. At the
 
 
 248 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 return of these anniversaries, they were often de- 
 lighted to receive from her an affectionate note, 
 or some article of her own manufacture, or a 
 book purchased from the purse, into which she 
 never put her hand without a pleasant conscious- 
 ness that the contents were the fruits of her own 
 industry, and would impart happiness to those 
 whom she loved. 
 
 A man of wealth once allotted a portion of 
 his ample garden to his young sons. They were 
 to cultivate it as they pleased, with a right to 
 ask the advice of the gardener, but not to claim 
 his personal assistance. For the sallads which 
 they proudly brought to the table, the strawber- 
 ries that enriched the dessert, the ears of corn 
 gathered by their own hands into the garner, they 
 received a fair payment. To induce habits of 
 punctuality and exactness, their father required 
 them to keep an account of every production, 
 with the correspondent dates, and to present him 
 a bill, in due form, at the close of their harvest- 
 season. At receiving the annual amount, their 
 first pleasure was to allow their little sister an 
 equal portion with themselves. The remainder 
 was strictly their own, but with an understanding 
 that it was not to be expended in selfish gratifi- 
 cations. Many benefits were secured by this wise 
 paternal arrangement: the delight ot horticulture 
 inspired the boys with a love of home, drew 

 
 HAPPINESS. 249 
 
 them from the risk of sports with promiscuous 
 companions, and taught them the manly con- 
 sciousness of useful industry, not often tasted by 
 the children of the rich ; neatness of penmanship, 
 and accuracy in accounts, were collaterally aided; 
 while fraternal affection, generosity, and benevo- 
 lence, were alike gratified. All these were but 
 different forms of happiness. 
 
 The sacred festival of Christmas, the ancient 
 one of New- Year, and the annual Thanksgiving 
 appointed in many of our States, are periods in 
 which the young should be particularly incited 
 to remember the poor. Especially at the hal- 
 lowed celebration of His lowly birth, whose mis- 
 sion was to "seek and to save the lost," should 
 their minds be directed to the destitute family, 
 the neglected child, or the benighted heathen. In 
 furnishing the basket for the sick, and famishing, 
 the garment for the shivering sufferer, or the 
 volume of instruction for the ignorant, I have 
 seen fair brows lighted up with a more joyous 
 and eloquent beauty, than the most splendid gift 
 could have imparted. For with the latter, there 
 would have been the momentary thrill of recep- 
 tion, or the pride of exhibition, both centering in 
 self; but with the former would entwine the last- 
 ing remembrance of having caused the heart of 
 the sorrowful to sing for joy. 
 
 Parents, who are always delighted to see their
 
 250 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 children happy, should consider in what their 
 true happiness consists. Mistakes are sometimes 
 niade with regard to its nature. I knew a mother 
 replete with benevolence and the soul of affection. 
 She found her husband and children made happy 
 by the pleasures of the palate. Her life was de- 
 voted to that end. Elegance, and unending va- 
 riety, characterized her table. Her invention was 
 taxed, her personal labour often put in requisi- 
 tion, for efforts to which the genius of her ser- 
 vants was unequal. She loved the glowing smile 
 that repaid her toils. The motive was affection- 
 ate : what were its results ? In some, convivial- 
 ity ; in others, gluttony ; in all, a preference of 
 sense to spirit. 
 
 Another mother wished to make a family of 
 beautiful daughters happy. She encouraged the 
 gay amusements in which youth delights. Ex- 
 pensive dresses and rich jewelry were found ne- 
 cessary. She could not bear to see her daughters 
 outshone and mortified. She taxed the purse of 
 her husband beyond its capacity, and contrary to 
 his judgment. Her principal argument was, "I 
 know you love to see our young people happy." 
 Her theory of happiness ended in a spirit of dis- 
 play, a necessity of excitement, a habit of com- 
 petition, a ruinous extravagance. 
 
 If we would advance the true felicity of others, 
 we must not only know in what it consists, but
 
 HAPPINESS. 251 
 
 must also be happy ourselves. Let us remember 
 that we must give account at last, for our happi- 
 ness, as well as for any other sacred deposite. 
 A capacity for it has been given us; how have 
 we improved it? Have we suffered it to grow 
 inert, or morbid? 
 
 A cup was put into our hands, capable of 
 containing the bright essences which this beau- 
 tiful creation yields. Have we allowed it to be 
 filled with tears? have we dampened its crystal 
 surface with perpetual sighs? 
 
 The flowers of affection were sown along our 
 path. Did we gratefully inhale them, or com- 
 plain that weeds sometimes mingled with them, 
 that the roses were not without thorns, that the 
 fairest and purest were never exempt from mil- 
 dew, and frost, and death? 
 
 If we are so happy as at last to arrive at 
 heaven, and some reproving seraph at its gate, 
 should ask why we came mourning or repining 
 along our pilgrim-path, and assure us that the 
 dispositions of that blessed clime ought to have 
 been cultivated below, that joy and praise were 
 the elements of its atmosphere, how earnestly 
 should we wish that the whole of our life had 
 been a preparation for that Eternity of love, and 
 that we had travelled thither with a countenance 
 always radiant, "an everlasting hymn witliin our 
 souls."
 
 252 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 ADVERSITY. 
 
 To bear the evils and sorrows which may b 
 appointed us, with a patient mind, should be the 
 continual effort of our sex. It seems, indeed, tc 
 be expected of us ; since the passive and enduring 
 virtues are more immediately within our pro 
 vince. 
 
 How often does adversity strengthen the char 
 acter, impart powerful motives of action, and un 
 fold hidden energies, 
 
 "As darkness shows us worlds of light, 
 We never saw by day." 
 
 The trials and dangers, through which Queer 
 Elizabeth past, in early life, gave her a discretior 
 and firmness of character, which she could neve: 
 have learned amid the effeminacy of courts 
 Without these causes, the high enthusiasm wouk 
 never have burst forth, which greeted her, when 
 about to pass from prison-durance to a throne 
 she appeared on horseback at the camp in Til 
 bury, and said nobly to the soldiers and people
 
 ADVERSITY. 253 
 
 "I am come among you all, not as for my re- 
 creation and sport, but as being resolved in the 
 midst and heat of battle, to live or die amongst 
 you. I have but the body of a weak and feeble 
 woman, but I have the heart of a king, and a 
 king of England too, and can lay down for my 
 God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, 
 my honour and my blood, even in the dust." 
 
 It is universally acknowledged that the vicissi- 
 tudes which Louis Philippe, the present king of 
 France, for many years sustained, have contribu- 
 ted to render him one of the most distinguished 
 sovereigns in Europe, as well as one of the most 
 exemplary and amiable men, in private life. 
 
 To descend from the scale of royalty, what 
 country has such an array of self-made men. as 
 our own? men whose hardships lay at the root 
 of their greatness, and who, in the " baptism of 
 fame, have given themselves their own name." 
 How many instances have we seen, where unex- 
 pected reverses of fortune, were blest as benefits 
 to a rising family, extirpating the rust of indo- 
 lence or selfishness, and contributing to render 
 each one, more useful, more respectable, more ra- 
 tionally happy.' Should such changes happen to 
 either ourselves or our children, let us not in- 
 dulge despondence, but receive them with cheer- 
 ful courage, as rough teachers of a higher wis- 
 dom, than might otherwise have been learned. 
 22
 
 254 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Let us, while all is fair and bright around us, 
 meditate on the uses of affliction, and thus like 
 the "armourer accomplishing the knight," be in 
 some measure girded for its approach. None are 
 exempted from the visitations of disappointment 
 and sorrow. All should be made better by them. 
 Every one kindles a flame, which might help to 
 melt the dross of selfishness, or consume our in- 
 ordinate love of the world ; and their ashes, were 
 we more faithful in such husbandry, would quick- 
 en the germination of that holy seed, whose ri- 
 pened fruit is for a better world. 
 
 We cannot perceive that an unbroken course 
 of prosperity is favourable to devotion. Sloth, 
 pride, and want of sympathy for the woes of 
 others, are too often its attendants. It might 
 seem an anomaly to say, that a superabundance 
 of gifts from the Author of all our mercies 
 should induce forgetfulness of Him. And yet, 
 does not our observation of human nature show, 
 that the poorest are often the most thankful for 
 slight bounty? that the habitual sufferer is prone 
 to the deepest devotion? that those on whom lit- 
 tle has been bestowed, engrave the name of the 
 Giver most legibly upon the living-stone of their 
 hearts? 
 
 A poor inhabitant of the northern isles of Scot- 
 land left for the first time the rugged shore of 
 St. Kilda, where, in the dark cabin of his father,
 
 ADVERSITY. 255 
 
 he had been nurtured, as the arctick pine, amid 
 the crevices of the rock. When the boat ap- 
 proached the coast of Mull, he gazed with won- 
 der, as on an unbounded hemisphere. A pas- 
 senger mocked the simple-hearted man, with tales 
 of the magnificence which reigned there. He 
 also ridiculed the poverty of St. Kilda. The 
 son of the rock listened in silence. If he felt 
 the caustick, he forbore to retaliate. At length 
 the officious narrator said, "heard ye ever of 
 God in that bleak island of St. Kilda?" 
 
 "From whence came you?" inquired the taci- 
 turn and grave Highlander. 
 
 "O, from a beauteous land, where the fields 
 give us wheat before we ask for it, where rich 
 fruits make the air fragrant, and honey fills every 
 flower." 
 
 "Came ye from so fair a land? Man might 
 forget God there. In my own St. Kilda he never 
 can. Building his home on a rock, suspended 
 over a precipice, chilled by the wintry wind, 
 tossed on the wild ocean, he never can forget 
 his God. No, he hangs every moment on his 
 arm." 
 
 Where man shall turn for solace in adversity, 
 has been his earnest inquiry ever since he was 
 placed upon the earth. Since his expulsion from 
 Paradise, he has ever had seasons of wandering 
 and of woe, " seeking rest, and finding none."
 
 256 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Nature prompts the sorrowful to repose upon 
 some kindred spirit, to lay part of their burden 
 upon the nearest in friendship or affection. Yet 
 there are evils, which the most perfect union of 
 hearts cannot alleviate. The perpetual sadness 
 of a broken spirit is beyond the reach of external 
 intercourse. Indeed, the most incurable evils 
 sometimes spring from the closest affinities. The 
 parent may be doomed to see the child, in whom 
 his proudest hopes were garnered up, smite 
 down those hopes and trample their roots, though 
 they grew in the "deep of his heart." Will 
 friendship comfort him? The wife may find the 
 idol of her love, the victim of vice, or estranged 
 from her as an enemy. What remaining affec- 
 tion can fill the void in her soul? Bereavements 
 may be so bitter and entire, that none shall be 
 left to comfort . the lonely survivor. The poor 
 chieftain of the forest was not left without a 
 parallel, when he exclaimed in his desolation, 
 "who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one." 
 
 Still the question returns, where shall we look 
 for solace under such adversities as transcend the 
 help of man? The poetry of Philosophy replies, 
 that Time is the physician of grief. We see that 
 he is so for common losses, or for those that 
 more immediately affect the passions. But are 
 there not afflictions, whose extent is made more 
 evident by the lapse of years? where the tem-
 
 ADVERSITY. 257 
 
 pest of sorrow indeed abates, but where the 
 waste of comfort, the desolation of hope, the im- 
 possibility of restitution, only become more ap- 
 parent? To such, Time acts only as a torch- 
 bearer, revealing the extent of a ruin, which he 
 has no power to repair. He may, indeed, cause 
 the tide of weepirfg to roll back, but it is to dis- 
 cover the magnitude of the wreck, the multitude 
 of precious things thrown over in the storm, frag- 
 ments of treasure, which the tantalizing surge 
 displays for a moment, and then swallows up for- 
 ever. 
 
 Time may, indeed, be a successful physician 
 for the sorrows of youth. Then, the buoyant 
 heart voluntarily co-operates with any sanitary 
 regimen. It is fruitful in substitutes for lost de- 
 lights. In its vigorous policy, it scarcely waits 
 for Time to aid in repairing the breaches in its 
 sanctuary. When its tendrils are stricken from 
 one prop, how soon are they seen clasping an- 
 Dther, and covering it with blossoms. 
 
 Far otherwise is it in the wane of life. The 
 heart, often bruised, often smitten, clings with a 
 more rigid grasp to its diminishing joys. As the 
 circle grows narrower, it struggles to spread itself 
 over the whole of it, to touch and to guard every 
 point. But the pilgrim of many lustrums cannot 
 hope to call forth in young bosoms the recipro- 
 city which the fervour of his own prime enkin^ 
 22*
 
 258 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 died. Between him and them "is a great gulf 
 fixed." The affections lose the power of re-pro- 
 duction. They have no longer that Promethean 
 fire, by which dead elements are quickened into 
 friendship. The path of life has become to them 
 as the "valley of dry bones." They wander 
 through it, without the ability to bid one skele- 
 ton arise, and be clothed with flesh. They be- 
 come too inert to enchain even the living and 
 willing objects that surround them. Like the ru- 
 minating animals, they slumber over the food 
 which once they pursued, as the fleet roe-buck 
 upon the mountains. 
 
 It is possible also, that, with years, a kind of 
 hallowed jealousy may steal over the soul. Per- 
 haps it may refuse to admit new imagery to a 
 shrine, where its earliest-chosen, longest-consecra- 
 ted idols dwelt, and were worshipped. With a 
 morbid, yet blameless constancy, it may hermeti- 
 cally seal the vase, where its first, purest odours 
 had birth and were exhaled. 
 
 Therefore, the medical influence of Time, at 
 its highest power, ranks only as a sedative. It 
 cannot extirpate those roots of sorrow, which 
 strike to the extremest verge of human life. Es- 
 pecially will the hoary-headed, if they trust Time 
 as their sole physician, find him stupifying their 
 senses with a transient opiate, but leaving the 
 heart's wounds to rankle and rankle, till, like the
 
 ADVERSITY. 259 
 
 bereaved patriarch, they "go down into the grave, 
 to the lost one, mourning." 
 
 The inquiry still recurs, where shall we turn, 
 under the deepest calamities that are appointed 
 to humanity? A sterner philosophy than that at 
 first quoted, answers, ' rise above them, be insen- 
 sible to them." Oh, but man is too frail and sen- 
 sitive, too much wrapped up in a net-work of 
 nerves, and too faint at heart, to stand against 
 the dread artillery of woe. A baleful wind sweeps 
 away his strength ; a frown on the face of one 
 he loves, drinks up his spirit; the fickle breath 
 of the populace inflates him; the dew-drops in 
 his broken cistern dry up, and he is in bitter- 
 ness ; fever touches his clay-temple, and he is 
 gone. Is he, who cannot cope with the feeblest 
 agent, expected to stand unmelted in the "seven- 
 times heated furnace?" He cannot resist the ele- 
 ments : how can he endure the wrath of their 
 Omnipotent Ruler, when he "ariseth to shake 
 terribly the earth?" 
 
 That remedy for adversity, which neither the 
 light of nature discovered, nor the pharmacopeia 
 of Time contained, of which Philosophy both in 
 its poetry and its stoicism has failed, is contained 
 in a single prescription of the Gospel, the sub- 
 mission of our will to that which is divine. 
 How simply is it illustrated in the aspiration of 
 Thomas a Kempis : " Give me what thou wilt,
 
 260 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 and in what measure, and at what time, thou 
 wilt. Do with me what thou knowest to be 
 best, what best pleaseth thee. Place me where 
 thou wilt, freely dispose of me in all things." 
 
 Still more concisely was it expressed by Fene- 
 lon, " I am silent ; I offer myself in sacrifice ; 
 henceforth I have no will, save to accomplish 
 thine:" but ah, how much more forcibly in that 
 agonizing sigh from Gethsemane, "not my will, 
 but thine be done" when even the strengthening 
 angel was astonished, and Earth trembled as she 
 tasted the first trickling drops of her Redeemer's 
 blood.
 
 LOSS OP CHILDREN. 261 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 LOSS OF CHILDREN. 
 
 To bear the loss of children with submission, 
 requires the strong exercise of a Christian's faith. 
 It seems to contradict the course of nature, that 
 the young and blooming should descend to the 
 tomb, before the aged and infirm. We expect to 
 see the unfolding of a bud which we have 
 watched till it had burst its sheath, trembling 
 with joy and beauty, as it first met the sunbeam. 
 " These same shall comfort us, concerning all our 
 toil," is the voice in the heart of every parent, 
 who contemplates the children for whom he has 
 laboured and prayed. 
 
 The death of a babe, creates no common sor- 
 row. Even the burial of one that has never 
 breathed, brings a keen pang to a parent's heart. 
 The political economist, who estimates the value 
 of every being, by the strength of his sinews, or 
 the gain which he is capable of producing to 
 the community, views the removal of infancy 
 as but the wiping away of "the small dust from 
 the balance." But he has not, like the mother,
 
 262 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 knelt and wept over its vacant cradle, stretched 
 out his arms at midnight for its pliant form, 
 and found only emptiness, listened in vain for 
 its little quiet breathing, and felt his heart deso- 
 late. The scales in which a mother weighs her 
 treasures, are not the same in which the man of 
 the world weighs his silver and gold. Her grief 
 is often most poignant for the youngest and faint- 
 est blossom. Thus feeling anguish, where others 
 scarcely see cause for regret, has she not an op- 
 portunity more permanently to benefit by the dis- 
 cipline of Heaven? Is she not moved to deeper 
 sympathy with all who mourn? Is she not bet- 
 ter fitted to become a comforter? more strongly 
 incited to every deed of mercy ? When she sees 
 a little coffin pass, no matter whether the mother 
 who mourns be a stranger, or a mendicant, or 
 burnt dark beneath an African sun, is she not to 
 her, in the pitying thrill of that moment, as a 
 sister ? 
 
 Yet not alone in the quickening of sympathy, 
 or the excitement to benevolence, do such deep 
 afflictions bring gain to the sufferer. Other seeds 
 of goodness are sown in the softened soil. The 
 thoughts and affections are drawn upward. The 
 glorified spirit of the infant is a star to guide the 
 mother to its own blissful clime. Is it not her 
 wish to be where her babe is? And will she 
 not strive to prepare herself for its pure society?
 
 LOSS OF CHILDREN. 263 
 
 If the cares or sins of earth ever threaten to gain 
 the victory, she is arrested by a little hand reach- 
 ing from the skies, by the cherub voice which 
 implores, "Oh, mother, come to me." 
 
 Sometimes grief loses itself in gratitude, that 
 those who once called forth so much solicitude, 
 are free from the hazards of this changeful life. 
 Here, temptations may foil the strongest, and sins 
 overshadow those whose opening course was most 
 fair. From all such dangers, the early smitten, 
 the "lambs whom the Saviour taketh untas.kedj 
 untried," have forever escaped. To be sinless, 
 and at rest, is a glorious heritage. Sorrow hath 
 no more dominion over them. No longer may 
 they be racked with pain, or pale with weakness, 
 or emaciated by disease. No longer will their 
 dove-like moaning distress the friend watching by 
 their sleepless couch, nor the parents shudder, 
 with untold agony, to find that they have no 
 power to sooth the last fearful death-groan. We, 
 who still bear the burdens of a weary pilgrim- 
 age, who have still to meet the pang of disease, 
 and to struggle ere we pay our last debt to the 
 destroyer, cherish as our strongest consolation the 
 hope of entering that peaceful haven which they 
 have already attained. 
 
 How affecting was the resignation of the poor 
 Icelandick mother: "Four children were given 
 me. Two are with me, and two with God.
 
 264 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 Those who are with God are the happiest. I 
 do not feel troubled about them. I am only 
 anxious that those who remain with me may so 
 live, that, by and by, they may be with him too." 
 
 "The most lovely and promising of my chil- 
 dren have been smitten," said a mourning parent. 
 " If it were not so, I could have borne it better." 
 But did not the very goodness and piety which 
 endeared them to you, render them more fit to 
 be companions of the pure spirits around the 
 Throne? Their virtues, their loveliness, seem in- 
 deed to have made your loss the greater. But 
 would you have had them less virtuous, less 
 lovely? You do not grudge that the gift should 
 have been in some degree worthy of Him who 
 jesumed it. Oh no! You cannot regret that 
 their fair promise of excellence was unclouded, 
 when they went down to the dust. 
 
 I once saw a sight, mournful, yet beautiful. 
 Twin infants, in the same coffin. Their waxen 
 brows had been so much alike, that only the eye 
 of domestic intimacy could distinguish them. 
 One was suddenly wounded by a dart from 
 those countless diseases, which are in ambush 
 around the first years of life. The other moaned 
 and cried incessantly for his companion. Nothing 
 could divert or sooth him. But Death united 
 them. So soon did the survivor sicken, that his 
 brother waited for him in the coffin. There
 
 LOSS OP CHILDREN. 265 
 
 were bright rose-buds in their little hands, as 
 they slumbered side by side. Together they had 
 entered the gate of life, and at the gate of death 
 were scarcely divided. When, after the silent lapse 
 of time, the mother was able to speak of her be- 
 reavement with composure, she said, that from 
 among the sources whence she had derived com- 
 fort, was the thought that they would be always 
 together. While in their health and beauty, she 
 had sometimes anxiously contemplated those 
 many changes and adversities which might di- 
 vide their path from each other, "far as the 
 poles apart," and possibly estrange those hearts, 
 which, like kindred drops, Nature seemed to 
 have melted into one. 
 
 Surely, the thought of the indissoluble union 
 of their dear ones, must be a consolation to af- 
 flicted parents. Here, they met but to part again. 
 There, they are to be forever with the Lord. 
 Here, they must sometimes have left home, and 
 been among strangers. Then, what anxieties dis- 
 turb the parental bosom, lest they might be sick, 
 and need care or comfort, in error or heaviness, 
 and suffer for counsel, and sympathy. But they 
 are where nothing hurtful can intrude. No long- 
 er they feel the timidity of strangers. They are 
 at home in the house of their Father. A fami- 
 ly broken up on earth, re-assembled in Heaven. 
 Those who dwelt for a little time in the same 
 23
 
 266 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 tent of clay, are gathered together, around the al- 
 tar of immortality. 
 
 We sometimes see parents suddenly bereft of 
 all their children. To have their most precious 
 treasures swept utterly away, and find that home 
 desolate, which was wont to resound with the 
 voice of young affection, and the tones of inno- 
 cent mirth, is a sorrow which none can realize, 
 save those who bear it. All human sympathies 
 fall short of the occasion. The admonition not 
 to mourn, is misplaced. " Jesus wept" Is not 
 this a sufficient sanction for the mourner's tear? 
 He who appoints such discipline, never intended 
 that we should be insensible to it, or that we 
 should gird ourselves in the armour of pride to 
 meet it, or seal up the fountain of tears, when he 
 maketh the heart soft. 
 
 If we attempt to comfort those who lament 
 the extinction of a whole family, cut down in 
 their tender years, what shall we say? We are 
 constrained to acknowledge that earth has no sub- 
 stitute for such a loss. Dear afflicted friends, ask 
 it not of earth, but look to Heaven. Is not the 
 interval of separation short ? How soon will the 
 years fleet, ere you lie down to slumber in the 
 same narrow bed appointed for all the living. 
 If they died in the Redeemer, and you live in 
 obedience to his commands, how rapturous will 
 be the everlasting embrace in which you shall
 
 LOSS OP CHILDREN. 267 
 
 enfold them. Can you pourtray, can you even 
 imagine that meeting in heaven? 
 
 " When I meet with the grief of parents, pour- 
 trayed upon the tomb-stone," said Addison, "my 
 heart melts with compassion ; but when I see 
 the tombs of parents themselves, I consider the 
 vanity of grieving for those who must so soon 
 follow." 
 
 You will not, then, become a prey to despond- 
 ence, though loneliness broods over your dwell- 
 ing, when you realize that its once cherished in- 
 mates have but gone a little in advance to those 
 mansions which the Saviour hath prepared for 
 all who love him. Can you not sometimes find 
 it in your hearts to bless God that your loss is 
 the gain of your children? While they were 
 here below, it was your chief joy to see them 
 happy. Yet you were not sure of the continu- 
 ance of their happiness for a single hour. Now, 
 you are assured both of the fullness of their 
 felicity, and of its fearless continuance. 
 
 We are delighted when our children are in the 
 successful pursuit of knowledge, in the bright 
 path of virtue, in the possession of the esteem of 
 the wise and good. In sending them from home, 
 we seek to secure for them the advantages of 
 virtuous and refined society, the superintendence 
 of pious and affectionate friends. Were one illus- 
 trious in power and excellence to take a parental 

 
 268 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 interest in their welfare, or were they admitted 
 to be the companions of princes, should we be 
 insensible to the honour? Let us not, then, with 
 a wholly unreconciled spirit, see them go to be 
 angels among angels, and to dwell gloriously in 
 the presence of that "high and holy One, who 
 inhabiteth Eternity." 
 
 Is it not a holy privilege to add to the number 
 of those who serve God without sin ? You must 
 not now behold the dazzling of their celestial 
 wings, as they unfold them without weariness to 
 do his will. But those whom you rocked in your 
 cradle, whom you consecrated by prayer and in 
 baptism, are of that host. You cannot hear the 
 melody of ethereal harps, attuned to unending 
 praise. But they, in whose hearts early piety was 
 implanted by your prayers, who learned from 
 your lips to warble the sacred hymn at eve, 
 swell that exulting strain. Perhaps, from their 
 cloudless abode, they still watch over you. Per- 
 haps, with a seraph smile, they hover around 
 you. Will they not rejoice to behold you walk- 
 ing to meet them, with a placid brow and sub- 
 missive spirit, solacing yourself with such deeds 
 of goodness to others as are approved in the 
 sight of heaven? 
 
 Afflictions are often the instruments of increas- 
 ing and maturing the "peaceable fruits of righ- 
 teousness." Peculiar ones ought, therefore, to pro-
 
 LOSS OF CHILDREN. 269 
 
 duce prominent gain. What sorrows can be 
 more peculiar and poignant, than the desolation 
 of parents, from whom all their children have 
 been removed, and who stand in hopeless soli- 
 tude, the last of all their race ? Are they not 
 incited to eminence in those efforts of benevo- 
 lence, which contain balm for the chastened 
 spirit ? 
 
 There was one, and my heart holds her image 
 as among the most perfect of earthly beings, who 
 in early life was written childless. Her three 
 beautiful sons were taken from her in one week. 
 In one week! and their places were never sup- 
 plied. The little student of seven years was 
 smitten while over his books, the second at his 
 sports, the youngest on his mother's knee. The 
 deepest humility, the most earnest searchings of 
 heart, were the immediate results of this bereave- 
 ment. It dwelt on her mind, that, for some de- 
 ficiency in her Christian character, this chastise- 
 ment had been appointed. The language of her 
 contrite prayer was, "Lord, what wilt thou have 
 me to do?" And he told her. And she became 
 a "mother in Israel." A sleepless, untiring be- 
 nevolence was the striking lineament of her life. 
 After the stroke of widowhood fell upon her, and 
 she stood entirely alone, it seemed as if every 
 vestige of selfishness was extinct, and that her 
 whole existence was devoted to the good of 
 23*
 
 270 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 others. She acquainted herself with the various 
 necessities of the poor, the sick, the aged, and 
 the orphan. Her almoners bore gifts suited to 
 their needs, while the giver sought to be undis- 
 covered and unknown. Her charity shrank from 
 the notice and praise of man. 
 
 But especially to children, her whole soul 
 poured itself forth. She distributed fitting books 
 to the idle and to the ignorant, to the erring and 
 to the good; to some, that they might be en- 
 couraged in the right way, and ,to others, that 
 they might be allured to enter it. Those of her 
 neighbours and friends she gathered often around 
 her table, made them happy by her affability, 
 cheered them with her sweet, sacred songs, and 
 improved the influence thus gained, to impress 
 on them the precepts of heavenly wisdom. May 
 I not hope that the heart of some reader en- 
 shrines the blessed image of the same benefactor, 
 whose countenance was to my childhood more 
 beautiful amid the furrows and silver hairs of 
 fourscore-and-eight years, than any where youth 
 and bloom revelled; for it was beautiful, through 
 the goodness that never waxeth old, and it was 
 the eye of gratitude that regarded it. 
 
 For the stranger, the emigrant, and the poor 
 African, how active were her sympathies. The 
 outcast Indian found in her mansion, bread and 
 a garment, and, what was dearer to him than all,
 
 LOSS OF CHILDREN. 271 
 
 kind, pitying words. Endowed with a lofty and- 
 cultivated intellect, and with that wealth which 
 the world is wont to estimate still more highly, 
 she humbled herself to the meanest creature, that 
 she might do them good. She seemed willing to 
 become "their servant, for Jesus' sake." 
 
 What part her deep afflictions bore in this 
 meek and sublimated benevolence, whether they 
 were as the crucible to the gold, or as the re- 
 finer's fire to the silver, we cannot tell. He who 
 sent them, knoweth. 
 
 Though resignation under bereavement, or the 
 springing of spiritual graces from its bitter root, 
 are solemn and salutary lessons to the beholder, 
 is it not possible to advance even higher in the 
 school of Christ? 'May not a Christian be able 
 to yield, without repining, the dearest idols to 
 Him who loved him and gave himself for him? 
 To reveal its complacence by gifts, seems to be 
 one of the native dialects of love. The little 
 child presents its favourite teacher with a fresh 
 flower. It hastens to its mother, with the first, 
 best rose from its little garden. In the kiss to 
 its father, with which it resigns itself to sleep, it 
 gives away its whole heart. 
 
 Nor does love falter, though its gifts involve 
 sacrifices. The young bride leaves the hearth- 
 stone of her earliest remembrances, and lifts her 
 timid brow in the home of strangers, or follows
 
 272 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 her chosen protector to a wild land, and unin- 
 habited, willingly trusting to him her "all of 
 earth, perchance her all of heaven." The mother 
 grudges not the pang, the faded bloom, the weary 
 night- watchings with which she rears her infant. 
 Must an earthly love ever transcend that which 
 is divine? Will Christian parents always yield 
 with reluctance their children to that Beneficent 
 Being, whom "not having seen, they love?" 
 
 "How have you attained such sweet resigna- 
 tion?" said a pastor to a young mother, who had 
 newly buried her first-born. She replied, "When 
 my boy was with me, I used to think of him 
 continually, whether sleeping or waking. To me 
 he seemed more beautiful than other children. I 
 was disappointed if visitors omitted to praise his 
 eyes, or his curls, or the robes that I wrought 
 for him with my needle. At first, I believed it 
 the natural current of a mothers love. Then I 
 feared it was pride, and sought to humble myself 
 before Him who resisteth the proud. 
 
 One night, in dreams, I thought an angel stood 
 beside me, and said, "where is the little bud that 
 thou nursest in thy bosom? I am sent to take 
 it. Where is thy little harp? Give it to me. 
 It is like those which breathe the praise of God 
 in heaven." I awoke in tears. My beautiful 
 boy drooped like a bud which the worm pierces. 
 His last wailing was like the sad musick from
 
 LOSS OP CHILDREN. 273 
 
 shattered harp-strings. All my world seemed 
 gone. Still, in my agony, I listened, for there 
 was a voice in my soul, like the voice of the 
 angel who had warned me : " God loveth a 
 cheerful giver." I laid my lip on the earth, and 
 said, "let my will be thine." And as I arose, 
 though the tear lay on my cheek, there was a 
 smile there also. Since then, it has been with 
 me. Amid the duties f every day, it seems to 
 say, "the cheerful giver! the cheerful giver!" 
 
 "That smile," said her venerable pastor, "like 
 the faith of Abraham, shall be counted unto thee 
 as righteousness."
 
 274 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 SICKNESS AND DECLINE. 
 
 THOSE who are subject to varieties of physical 
 infirmity, should study the philosophy of sickness. 
 They should not only learn a fitting deportment 
 under it, but seek those spiritual benefits which 
 all afflictions are intended to produce. 
 
 Patience and fortitude, when we suffer, found- 
 ed on the consciousness that we are in the hands 
 of our Heavenly Father, whose love will not fail, 
 and whose wisdom cannot err; a docile trust in 
 the physician to whom we have confided our 
 case ; and that cheerful hope which can find the 
 bright side of even unfavourable symptoms, or 
 unpleasant occurrences, are among the first les- 
 sons in the science of salutary endurance. We 
 should be careful to cultivate good feelings to- 
 wards all who are around us, and to overrule 
 the irritability which sometimes arises from ob- 
 struction in the paths of our accustomed useful- 
 ness. While by promptness in adopting appoint- 
 ed remedies, we voluntarily co-operate with every 
 sanitary process, we should guard against that
 
 SICKNESS AND DECLINE. 275 
 
 undue haste to recover, which plunges ardent 
 natures into baneful, and even fatal imprudences. 
 Sometimes, a reluctance, and depression of 
 spirits, are indulged by those who have the pros- 
 pect of becoming mothers, which are both injuri- 
 ous and unchristian. One of the weapons with 
 which to repel this want of reconciliation, is 
 drawn from the armoury of common sense. Is 
 not the state of matrimony that, in which the 
 Almighty has decreed our race to be perpetuated? 
 Those, who have an unconquerable aversion to 
 its results, ought not to place themselves in peril. 
 If these results were not sufficiently obvious, if 
 they "had not been told us from the beginning, 
 and understood from the foundations of the earth," 
 if changes and sorrows had happened to us, 
 which had never befallen others, we might be 
 more justified in complaining of a state which 
 had caused them. At present, there is neither 
 room for surprise, nor right to murmur. As well 
 might the voyager, who enters a ship, with full 
 knowledge of its destination, complain of arrival 
 at the port. 
 
 "Did I but purpose to embark with tb.ee, 
 On the smooth surface of a summer sea ? 
 But would forsake the ship and make the shore, 
 When the winds threaten, or the billows roar?" 
 
 The state to which we allude, involves inconve- 
 niences and sufferings, but it should be sufficient
 
 276 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 for a Christian, that Divine Wisdom has both or- 
 dained and illumined it. And how much better 
 is it, for the individual, and for all around, how 
 much more generous to those most interested in 
 her welfare, that instead of yielding to. lassitude, 
 or low spirits, she should cultivate cheerfulness, 
 arid gratitude. 
 
 How sweetly do the Germans speak of a friend, 
 with such expectations, as being in "good hope" 
 The mothers of our American forests, that red- 
 brow'd and almost forgotten race, passed with the 
 same meek brow, and sweet-toned voice, on their 
 life of hardship, scarcely pausing, as they planted 
 the corn, or gathered in the harvest, or steered 
 the canoe, or snared the habitant of the deep, 
 until the cry of the new-born was heard. His- 
 tory teaches us that the Romans, and other ancient 
 nations, laboured to make a state of gestation 
 one of cheerful exercise, both to the body and 
 mind. The mother of Buonaparte, for several 
 months before his birth, was much on horse- 
 back, with her husband, entering into those mili- 
 tary plans and details which occupied his mind. 
 Napoleon, who greatly respected her, sometimes 
 intimated that his own structure of character had 
 been modified by her heroism, and often re- 
 peated emphatically, as a maxim, " the mother 
 forms the man" 
 
 The state which we mention, is doubtless a
 
 SICKNESS AND DECLINE. 277 
 
 discipline of character. Its temporary renuncia- 
 tion of the world's pleasures, the apprehension 
 which it often creates, and the danger with which 
 it may be connected, are themes for communion 
 with Him, who alone has power to strengthen, to 
 save, and to put into the heart a song of new 
 joy. It adds force and tenderness to the aspira- 
 tions of the Psalmist, " Let me now fall into the 
 hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great." Is 
 it not a holy state ? Should it not therefore be 
 happy? Does it not call up an irrepressible cou- 
 rage, to know that we guard the destinies of a 
 being never to die ? Were there no physical ills 
 connected with the name of mother, her lot would 
 be one of too unmingled felicity, for a mortal. 
 Other sicknesses have only the hope to recover. 
 But in hers, there is hope both of recovery, and 
 of gain ; the great gain of adding another loving 
 and beautiful being to the circle already so dear; 
 a circle, which it is her prayer may be unbroken, 
 in a home of glory. 
 
 The care of the sick, is a science to which 
 time and attention should be devoted. It is a 
 part of the business of our sex. Appointed as 
 we are, to varieties of indisposition, we are the 
 more readily " touched with the infirmities" of 
 others. Let us see that our daughters are early 
 versed in those details, by which suffering is alle- 
 viated. It is not enough to carry a nursing-kind- 
 24
 
 278 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 ness in the heart. Many do this, who yet seem 
 unable properly, or effectually, to express it. 
 While performing services in the chamber of the 
 sick, they perhaps forget to shade the light from 
 the enfeebled eye, or to soften the footstep, or tone, 
 for the trembling nerve, or to prepare properly 
 the little nourishment that impaired digestion can 
 admit; so that with the most laborious efforts, 
 and kindest sympathies, they' fail to administer 
 comfort. 
 
 It would seem that slow, wasting sickness, was 
 a severe trial of the passive virtues, and the 
 Christian graces. Yet how often do we see it 
 calling forth the most affecting patience and re- 
 signation. Among" many such instances, I think 
 now of a friend of early days, who was appointed 
 to the debility and weariness of a long decline. 
 Her social feelings, and her warm sympathies for 
 others' sorrow, seemed to act as remedies for her 
 own. Without complaint, she resigned the inter- 
 course with Nature, which had been to her 
 inexpressibly dear ; the walk, the ride, the sight 
 of the fresh-smelling buds on her favourite trees, 
 and the first, soft grass, stealing with early vio- 
 lets, over the walks that winter had embrowned. 
 Gradually, her books, companions from the cra- 
 dle, and her pen, so prized in her hours of in- 
 tellectual musing, were resigned. Still, there was 
 no murmur. And when the fearful cough, in-
 
 SICKNESS AND DECLINE. 279 
 
 vading her last resort, almost precluded the con- 
 versation in which she both delighted and excelled, 
 her gentle eye told the peace within. One night, 
 which her physicians intimated would be her last 
 on earth, I was privileged to be with her, for I 
 desired to stand at her side, when the broken 
 clay should yield up the beautiful spirit. Ema- 
 ciation, and infantine helplessness, were upon her, 
 and delirium had dictated her broken speech for 
 many days. Yet she fancied herself surrounded 
 by bright objects, by the orange-groves, and jes- 
 samine bowers of sunnier skies, and by the 
 winged spirits of the happy dead, to whom she 
 was so near. But though reason wandered, the 
 memory of the heart was perfect, and I never 
 once approached her pillow, that she did not re- 
 gard me with loving eyes, or draw my head 
 downward to hers, or detain my hand in her flut- 
 tering clasp, or thank me for the drop with which 
 I moistened her lips, or whisper a kind wish that 
 I would rest beside her, and not fatigue myself 
 for her sake. And it was the more affecting, that 
 the imperishable elements of her own lovely na- 
 ture, and changeless friendship, should gleam 
 forth with such purity, amid fragments of wild 
 thought, and incoherent exclamations, and misty 
 gazings into a shadowy world. And so Death 
 stole upon her like a gentle sleep, into which she
 
 280 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 entered with a smile ; " patience having had its 
 perfect work." 
 
 Entire resignation, is probably the highest at- 
 tainment of our faith. Though it comes forth 
 out of " great tribulation, as the fine gold from 
 the fire of the refiner," yet its rudiments should 
 be studied amid the common business of life. 
 Like Demosthenes, preserving the key-note of 
 eloquence, amid the thunder of the sea, we 
 should rehearse them, amid the daily throng of 
 perplexities and toils. When serene piety has 
 learned to surmount both the lesser and greater 
 evils of life, when we have no longer any will, 
 but to accomplish that of Him who sent us, we 
 are rapidly preparing for a removal where His 
 face is seen without a cloud. 
 
 While a slow and hopeless decline asks only 
 the exercise of resignation, there are varieties of 
 'chronic disease which require the action of other 
 graces. Though many of the pleasures of life 
 are stricken off, some of its duties and responsi- 
 bilities remain. To balance these correctly, to 
 endure seclusion, perhaps to suffer pain, yet not 
 to shrink from obligation, need the exercise of 
 no common judgment, or in-operative piety. To 
 cultivate any remaining capacity of usefulness, 
 to advance the comfort of those around, is a 
 source of consolation. This seemed to be under- 
 stood by the wife of the poor shepherd of Salis-
 
 SICKNESS AND DECLINE. 281 
 
 bury Plain, who, being disabled from all use of 
 her feet by rheumatism, was most thankful that 
 she could still sit up in her bed, and mend clothes 
 for her family. Equally persevering, though of 
 a different character, was the industry of the 
 authoress of that beautiful story, who saved the 
 dotting of her i's, and the crossing of her tf's, for 
 a day of head-ache. 
 
 Protracted debility gives leisure for meditation. 
 The mind has scope to expatiate on such oppor- 
 tunities of doing good as are left within its power. 
 How may those within its more immediate circle 
 be benefitted? Are there any children, or young 
 people in the household, to whom it may be a 
 teacher of patience and wisdom? Is there any 
 grey-haired person whom it may make happy? 
 The old are cheered by having the current of 
 thought turned to their early days, and by find- 
 ing an attentive listener to their narratives. Tell 
 them also of what transpires day by day ; keep 
 up their interest in passing events : for their 
 memory does not decay so much from necessity, 
 as through the neglect of others to feed it with 
 fresh aliment. Sometimes read or relate to them 
 healthful works of the imagination. They restore 
 emotions which stir the stream of life, and keep 
 it from growing stagnant. They bring back a 
 host of pleasant memories, and give new life to 
 buried joys. 
 
 24*
 
 Z2 LETTEJRS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 It is often salutary to unite the aged with 
 happy and well-behaved children. The extremes 
 of human life tend naturally and gracefully to- 
 wards each other, like the horns of the waxing 
 and waning moon. Though the chief consola- 
 tion of age should be drawn from the world 
 which it approaches, we must not suffer it to feel 
 useless in that world where it still lingers. 
 
 Let us grudge no exertion, whether in health 
 or sickness, to make the aged happy, remember- 
 ing how soon we must be numbered among them, 
 if we are spared from the grave. For how si- 
 lently do years steal over us. Our babes grow 
 up, and bring their own babes to be dandled 
 upon our knees. Still, we fail to realize how 
 rapidly we drift down the stream of time. In 
 the beautiful expression of Scripture, "grey hairs 
 are here and there upon him, but he knoweth it 
 not." 
 
 Should it be the will of our Heavenly Father, 
 that any of us should remain after our cotempo- 
 raries are gone to rest, let us strive to grow old 
 gracefully. Let us not hastily renounce our part 
 in accustomed duty, or be ready to make our- 
 selves cyphers in existence, or jealously conceive 
 that we are burdens to those around. But, pre- 
 serving an interest in the history of our own 
 times, and in the concerns of those around us, 
 let us not captiously ask, "why the former days
 
 SICKNESS AND DECLINE. 283 
 
 were better than these, for we do not inquire 
 wisely concerning this." 
 
 Especially let us cultivate love and forbearance 
 for the young. Taking part in their simple and 
 highly-relished pleasures, let us keep our seat at 
 life's banquet, as a satisfied, not satiated guest. 
 Let the recollection of our own early levities 
 soften every disposition to censure those who 
 are beginning the race of life ; and let us teach 
 them that the fruits of true wisdom ripen and 
 mellow, rather than acidulate, by the lapse of 
 years. 
 
 Let us pay, without murmuring, the tax which 
 Earth levies upon its ancient tenants. If the 
 deafened ear no longer excites the mind, if the 
 right hand forgets its cunning, if the feet refuse 
 the burden which from infancy they bore, it is 
 because those weary labourers have need of re- 
 pose. The Sabbath of existence has come. It 
 brings with it a season of silence, in which to 
 meditate, to release the soul from earthly ties, to 
 prepare it for a higher state of being. Present 
 events make but slight impression. The far-off 
 past is more vivid than the moving current of 
 things. Memory reverses her tablet, bringing 
 again the lines with which life began. Among 
 those traces, there will be room for penitence, 
 for gratitude, for renunciation of all self-righ- 
 teousness. Then, may trust in a Redeemer,
 
 284 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 and well-grounded confidence of acceptance with 
 Heaven, be the soul's incorruptible armour, as 
 we 
 
 'Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore, 
 Of that vast Ocean we must sail BO soon."
 
 DEATH. 285 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 THERE is a subject, which, perhaps more than 
 any other, is presented to children errroneously 
 and injuriously. It is that of the exchange of 
 worlds. They see it surrounded with every ac- 
 companiment of gloom. They may be told that 
 the soul of the departed friend is in a happier 
 world. But they witness bitter and uncontroul- 
 able mourning, and the evidence of their senses 
 overpowers the lifeless precept. Fear of death 
 takes possession of them, before they can compre- 
 hend the faith which looks beyond the coffin, the 
 knell, and the tomb: so, that "all their life-time 
 they are subject to bondage." 
 
 Christians err in not speaking to each other 
 more frequently and familiarly of death. Teach- 
 ers of youth, and mothers, should not hesitate to 
 make it the theme of their discourse. And when 
 they do so, let them divest their brow of gloom, 
 and their tone of sadness. While they mingle it 
 with solemnity, they should soften it from terror, 
 lest they bow down the tender mind, like those
 
 2b LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 heavy rains, which wash away the bloom of the 
 unfolding flower. 
 
 I once attended a funeral in a remote village 
 of Moravians. It was in the depth of summer. 
 Every little garden put forth beauty, and every 
 tree was heavy with fresh, cool verdure. 
 
 It was a Sabbath afternoon, when a dead in- 
 fant was brought into the church. The children 
 of the small congregation wished to sit near it, 
 and fixed their eyes upon its placid brow, as on 
 a fair piece of sculpture. The sermon of the 
 clergyman was to them. It was a paternal ad- 
 dress, humbling itself to their simplicity, yet lofty, 
 through the deep, sonorous tones of their native 
 German. Earnestly and tenderly they listened, 
 as he told them how the baby went from its 
 mother's arms to those of the compassionate Re- 
 deemer. When the worship closed, and the pro- 
 cession was formed, the children, two and two, 
 followed the mourners, leading each other by the 
 hand, the little girls clothed in white. 
 
 The place of slumber for the dead, was near 
 the church, where they had heard of Jeus. It 
 was a green, beautiful knoll, on which the sun, 
 drawing towards the west, lingered with a smile 
 of blessing. The turf had the richness of velvet, 
 not a weed or a straw defaced it. Every swell- 
 ing mound was planted with flowers, and a kind 
 of aromatic thyme, thickly clustering, and almost
 
 DEATH. 287 
 
 shutting over the small, horizontal tomb-stones, 
 which recorded only the name and date of the 
 deceased. In such a spot, so sweet, so lowly, so 
 secluded, the clay might willingly wait its re- 
 union with the spirit. 
 
 Before the corpse, walked the young men of 
 the village, bearing instruments of music. They 
 paused at the gate of the place of burial. Then 
 a strain from voice and flute, rose, subdued and 
 tremulous, like the strings of the wind-harp. It 
 seemed as if a timid, yet prevailing suppliant, 
 sought admission to the ancient city of the dead. 
 
 The gate unclosed. As they slowly wound 
 around the gentle ascent, to the open grave, the 
 Pastor, with solemn intonation, repeated passages 
 from the Book of God. Thrilling, beyond ex- 
 pression, amid the silence of the living, and the 
 slumber of the dead, were the blessed words of 
 our Saviour, "I am the resurrection and the 
 life." 
 
 He ceased, and all gathered round the brink 
 of the pit. The little ones drew near, and look- 
 ed downwards into its depths, sadly, but with- 
 out fear. Then came a burst of music, swelling 
 higher and higher, till it seemed no longer of 
 earth. Methought it was the welcome in heav- 
 en, to the innocent spirit, the joy of angels over 
 a new immortal, that had never sinned. Wrap- 
 ped, as it were, in that glorious melody, the little
 
 288 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 body was let down to its narrow cell. And all 
 grief, even the parent's grief, was swallowed up, 
 in that high triumph-strain. Devotion was there, 
 giving back what it loved, to the God of love, 
 not with tears, but with music. Faith was there, 
 standing among flowers, and restoring a bud to 
 the Giver, that it might bloom in a garden which 
 could never fade. 
 
 Will those children ever forget the lesson learn- 
 ed at that infant's grave? When I looked on 
 their sweet, serious faces, as they walked lov- 
 ingly from the place of tombs, I thought they 
 felt, what those of grey hairs are often "too 
 slow of heart to believe," that in death, there is 
 victory. 
 
 In order to give to those whom we instruct, 
 cheering and consoling views of Death, we must 
 correct our own. We must make it the subject 
 of daily contemplation, praying for divine grace, 
 to consider it as the consummation of our highest 
 hope, the end for which we wiere bom, the sum- 
 mons to arise, and take upon us the nature of 
 angels. We have seen, or read, with what calm- 
 ness the righteous have passed away. Some- 
 times, scarce a feature has been changed, a 
 thought ruffled, in the transition. Beda, while dic- 
 tating from the Bible, to his disciples, put his 
 hand into the hand of death, and scarcely felt its 
 coldness. Herder was writing a hymn to the
 
 DEATH. 289 
 
 Deity, with his pen upon the last line, when he 
 passed into his presence. 
 
 We should not shun the chamber of the dying. 
 The bed on which they lie, is the teacher of 
 wisdom, both solemn and sublime. The pious 
 Margaret, mother of king Henry 7th, maintained 
 under her own roof, a number of poor persons. 
 She supplied their wants, and consoled them in 
 sickness, and in pain. Especially would she be 
 always by their side, at then* death, and attend 
 them to their grave. Being asked, why she thus 
 voluntarily exposed herself to such scenes of sad- 
 ness, she replied, "that I may learn how to 
 die." 
 
 The Almighty has surrounded Death, with 
 many circumstances of dread, that the rash and 
 thoughtless might not rush upon it, when harrow- 
 ed up by disappointment, or disgusted at the 
 world. The heathen in his ignorance, and the 
 sinner in his guilt, alike tremble at its approach. 
 But the Christian should neither shrink back from 
 the last messenger, nor grieve bitterly for those 
 friends who are called before him. Nature's tear 
 at parting, cannot be restrained. Yet let no vio- 
 lent and bitter sorrow visit the death-bed of the 
 Christian. It is a Pagan sentiment. It should 
 find no place near their pillow, for whom Christ 
 died. While we mourn, the happy, unfettered 
 spirit traverses a celestial region. It has attain- 
 25
 
 290 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 ed a purer existence. By a voice, which our 
 earthly ear might not hear, God called it, and 
 it arose, and put off its cumbrous garments, that 
 it might perfectly do his will. An invisible hand 
 drew it within the casement of the ark. Why 
 should we, who still ride the billows, and bide 
 the storm, lament for the bark that hath found 
 a secure shelter? a haven from whence it shall 
 go forth no more? Why should we forget to 
 give glory to God, for having taken to unchang- 
 ing bliss, the friend whom we loved? 
 
 Death, to the suffering body, and the willing 
 soul, is the herald of release. Its terrors, for 
 surely it hath terrors, arise from other sources : 
 from tilings left undone, that ought to have been 
 done, and from things done, that ought not to 
 have been done. Let us guard against these 
 fearful evils, now in the time of health and hope, 
 and live every day, as if it were to be our last 
 on earth. When disappointments press on the 
 spirit, and the world seems joyless, some have 
 mistaken this despondence for resignation to death. 
 But the repining, with which we look on the 
 cloud, or the tempest, or the broken idol, is not 
 the principle which will bear us triumphantly 
 through the dark valley. It is possible to be 
 weary of life, and yet unwilling to die. Faith- 
 ful duty, and daily penitence, and prayerful trust, 
 are the safest armour for those, who know not
 
 DEATH. 291 
 
 at what hour they may be summoned. "Do 
 all things, as if you were to die to-morrow," 
 said a writer of antiquity. Thus, Death, com- 
 ing as a guest, long prepared for, may be both 
 welcomed by us, and bear to us the welcome 
 of angels. 
 
 We pay deference to good teachers. We de- 
 sire to secure the benefits of their wisdom for 
 ourselves and for our children. But who teaches 
 like Death? Who like him reveals character? 
 and unveils motives which had lain for many 
 years in a locked casket? and strips the illusion 
 from the things which men covet? and makes us 
 feel our own pitiable weakness, in not being able 
 to soften the last pang for those we love ? " The 
 sun is best seen at his rising and setting," says 
 Boyle; "so men's native dispositions are most 
 clearly perceived while they are children, and 
 when they come to die." Though the chamber, 
 where the man of wealth meets his doom, dis- 
 plays every comfort and luxury that art can de- 
 vise, who can behold the almost infantine help- 
 lessness of their possessor, without a new and 
 deep feeling of the poverty of all costly things, 
 the silk, the velvet, and the silver, which so many 
 envy, and for which some sell their souls ? Truly 
 they seem as the "small dust of the balance," 
 when he may not reach out a hand to touch 
 them, or even bestow a glance upon them, for a
 
 292 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 heavy business absorbs him, and time is for him 
 no longer, and his soul is demanded, and must 
 go forth, to give account of itself, and of the use 
 it has made of those treasures from which it 
 parts. 
 
 We should consider the goodness of God, in 
 giving to our wearied frames the repose of the 
 grave. The dim eye seeks a long sleep. The 
 ear rests from the toil of gathering sounds. The 
 lip grows silent. The limbs cease from their 
 labour. The senses, those reporters of the mind, 
 resign their office. In the citadel of life, the 
 sentinels slumber. The red fluid, so long circu- 
 lating through its thousand channels, stagnates. 
 The clay fabric, mysteriously tenanted by the un- 
 resting spirit, is ready to dissolve. "God giveth 
 his beloved, sleep." 
 
 Let not the couch where Nature takes her last 
 farewell, be troubled by demonstrations of undis- 
 ciplined sorrow from those who surround it. 
 The ill-judged efforts of friends, too often height- 
 en the suffering they would fain relieve. Changes 
 of position, fruitless attempts to administer medi- 
 cine or nourishment, the restless ofliciousness of 
 grieving affection, distress the voyager to the 
 world of spirits. Even a heathen emperor could 
 counsel that the great transition should be made 
 with calmness. "Thou hast taken ship, thou 
 hast sailed, thou hast come to land. Go tran-
 
 DEATH. 293 
 
 quilly out of the ship into another life. Are not 
 the Gods there?" 
 
 Death, physiologically considered, is the tend- 
 ing of the mortal part to its appointed and need- 
 ful rest. It is not probably attended by the ex- 
 treme agony with which imagination invests it. 
 The principle of consciousness is often sooner 
 released, than some of the organs on which it has 
 been accustomed to act. They continue a part 
 of their functions, from habit, rather than voli- 
 tion, as the strings of the harp may vibrate with 
 a prolonged echo, after the hand that swept them 
 has departed; so that the friend, on whose con- 
 vulsions we gaze, is sometimes insensible to the 
 pain at whose indications we shudder. 
 
 But, admitting that the pangs of death trans- 
 cend what have been endured through life : how 
 brief are they, how unworthy to be "compared 
 to the glory that shall be revealed." May we not 
 even suppose the happiness of heaven to be 
 heightened by the contrast? The deep darkness 
 of the shadowy vale, yielding to a day which 
 knows no night, the sharp severance of body and 
 soul, lost in those pleasures which the "heart of 
 man hath never conceived," the moans of disso- 
 lution, exchanged for the musick of cherubim and 
 seraphim, the tear of parting from earthly friends, 
 forgotten in the greeting of the "spirits of the 
 just made perfect," what is there in the whole 
 25*
 
 294 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 ran^e of material things that can furnish type or 
 shadow of such a contrast? Was it not in the 
 mind of the eloquent Pascal, when he said, "the 
 glory of our faith shines with much greater bright- 
 ness, by our passing to immortality, through the 
 shades of death." 
 
 How many instances have we known, of not 
 merely a calm departure, but a joyful translation 
 to the realms of bliss. A pious clergyman of 
 Scotland had lived to a venerable old age. One 
 morning, after breakfasting with his family, he 
 reclined a while in his chair, silently meditating. 
 Suddenly he spoke, "Daughter, hark! doth not 
 my Master call me?" Asking for his Bible, he 
 perceived that his eyes were dim, and he could 
 no longer read its precious words. " Find for 
 me," said he, " the eighth chapter of Romans, and 
 lay my finger on the passage, 'I am persuaded 
 that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin- 
 cipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
 things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
 other creature, shall be able to separate us from 
 the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord.' Now is my finger placed upon these 
 blessed words?" Being assured that it was, he 
 said, "Then God bless you, God bless you all, 
 dear children. I have refreshed myself with you 
 this morning, and shall be at the banquet of my 
 Saviour ere it is night." And thus he died.
 
 DEATH. 295 
 
 Another pious man, who had practised daily 
 reading and explanation of the Scriptures in his 
 family, continued it during his last illness. Once, 
 while remarking upon a chapter, he suddenly 
 exclaimed, "What brightness do I see? Have 
 you lighted any candles?" They replied that 
 they had not, for it was a summer's afternoon, 
 and the twilight had not yet come. Then, in a 
 clear, glad voice, he said, " now, farewell, world ! 
 and welcome, heaven! for the day-star from on 
 high hath visited me. Oh, speak it when I am 
 gone, and tell it at my funeral, that God dealeth 
 familiarly with man. I feel his mercy, I see his 
 majesty; whether in the body, or out of the body, 
 I cannot tell: God knoweth. But I behold things 
 unutterable." And, filled with joy, he expired. 
 
 Once, when Spring had begun to quicken the 
 swelling buds, a fair form that was wont to linger 
 among them, came not forth from her closely- 
 curtained chamber. She was beautiful and young, 
 but Death had come for her. His purple tinge 
 was upon her brow. The lungs moved feebly, 
 and with a gasping sound. It would seem that 
 speech had forsaken her. The mother bent over 
 her pillow. She was her only one. Earnestly 
 she besought her for one word, "only one more 
 word, my beloved." It was in vain. 
 
 Yet again, the long fringes of her blue eyes 
 opened, and what a bursting forth of glorious
 
 296 LETTERS TO MOTHERS. 
 
 joy! They were raised upward, they expanded, 
 as though the soul would spring from them in 
 extasy. Then, there was a whispering of the 
 pale lips. The mother knelt down, and covered 
 her face. She knew that the darling whom she 
 had brought into the world, was to be offered up. 
 
 But there was one, deep, sweet, harp-like ar- 
 ticulation, "praise." And all was over. Then, 
 from that kneeling mother, came the same tremu- 
 lous word, "jjraise." Yet there was an ashy 
 paleness on her brow, and they laid her, faint- 
 ing, by the side of the breathless and beautiful. 
 There she revived, and finished the sentence that 
 the young seraph had begun, "praise ye the 
 Lord." The emotions of that death-scene were 
 too sublimated for tears. 
 
 More surely might we hope thus to part with 
 our dear ones, and thus to die in Jesus, did we, 
 in our brief probation, live near him, and for him. 
 
 Mothers, while we guard with solicitude, for 
 our children, the principle of life, so wonderful 
 in its infusion, so solemn in its departure, so 
 mysterious in the modes of its future, disem- 
 bodied existence, let us nurse in them, with equal 
 vigilance, that faith which turns the pang of 
 separation into praise, and lights the paleness of 
 death with a smile of glory. 
 
 Approaching the close of thoughts which it 
 has been so pleasant both to cherish and to ex-
 
 
 DEATH. 297 
 
 press, I hope it may not be imagined that this 
 simple volume arrogates aught of oracular wis- 
 dom. It is but as the basket, into which a few 
 flowers have fallen, a few fruits been gathered, as 
 I pursued my pilgrim-way. 
 
 Friends, who have here with me meditated on 
 many duties, and on the event that terminates 
 them, dear friends, whom I shall never see in the 
 flesh, may we meet in the vestments of immor- 
 tality. With those whom we have given birth, 
 and nurtured, and borne upon our prayers, in the 
 midnight watch, and at the morning dawn, may 
 we stand, not one lost, a glorious company, where 
 is neither shade of infirmity, or sigh of penitence, 
 or fear of change, but where "affection's cup 
 hath lost the taste of tears."

 
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