THE MAYFLOWER.
Intemperance.
It is a great mistake to call nothing intemperance but that degree of physical excitement which completely overthrows the mental powers. There is a state of nervous excitability, resulting from what is often called moderate stimulation, which often long precedes this, and is, in regard to it, like the premonitory warnings of the fatal cholera—an unsuspected draft on the vital powers, from which, at any moment, they may sink into irremediable collapse.
It is in this state, often, that the spirit of gambling or of wild speculation is induced by the morbid cravings of an over-stimulated system. Unsatisfied with the healthy and regular routine of business, and the laws of gradual and solid prosperity, the excited and unsteady imagination leads its subjects to daring risks, with the alternative of unbounded gain on the one side, or of utter ruin on the other. And when, as is too often the case, that ruin comes, unrestrained and desperate intemperance is the wretched resort to allay the ravings of disappointment and despair.
Religious instruction at home.
The only difficulty, after all, is that the keeping of the Sabbath and the imparting of religious instruction are not made enough of a home object. Parents pass off the responsibility on to the Sunday-school teacher, and suppose, of course, if they send their children to Sunday-school, they do the best they can for them. Now, I am satisfied, from my experience as a Sabbath-school teacher, that the best religious instruction imparted abroad still stands in need of the coöperation of a systematic plan of religious discipline and instruction at home; for, after all, God gives a power to the efforts of a parent that can never be transferred to other hands.
What girls should be taught.
If, amid the multiplied schools, whose advertisements now throng our papers, purporting to teach girls everything, both ancient and modern, high and low, from playing on the harp and working pin-cushions up to civil engineering, surveying, and navigation, there were any which could teach them to be women,—to have thoughts, opinions, and modes of action of their own,—such a school would be worth having. If one half of the good purposes which are in the hearts of the ladies of our nation were only acted out without fear of anybody’s opinion, we should certainly be a step nearer the millennium.