If the claims of a parent be such as I have described, then no defect of character, still less any outward deficiency, can justify the daughter in a disregard of father or mother. Wealth does not increase the filial obligations, neither does poverty diminish them. Honors, dress, fashion did not lay the foundation of your duty to love and respect your parents. Let them then live in obscurity, or be constrained to wear plain apparel, or have unfashionable furniture, or lack graceful manners, none the less are you solemnly bound to honor and comfort them.
There is one circumstance, especially, which leads some young ladies cruelly to neglect their parents, and yet with no reason whatever. The daughter has received a better education than they; she has spent a few months, perhaps, at a boarding school, and learnt music and French. But what are these, and all her accomplishments worth, if they have but taught her to despise or neglect her truest benefactors? Can she cast off, in their old age, those who toiled and bore unnumbered burdens, to procure for her these literary privileges? If she do this, then, woe to her; and woe to the unfortunate being, to whom she may be joined as a partner. For no sin does the curse of Heaven more surely descend on one, let it be delayed as it may, than for unkindness to parents.
Nor does their guilt dissolve the bonds of filial duty. Every offender deserves more our pity than our cruelty or wrath. Who then should be commiserated and watched over, whose evil should we seek to overcome with good, and whose heart to melt by love, if not an offending parent’s?
Another relation, happily suited to promote female virtue, is that of Brother and Sister. Here are those united, not only by nature, but by all those sacred and dear ties which belong to the associations of childhood. Theirs is not the conjunction for an evening of planets, whose orbits lie all apart; but it is a union that dates from the earliest moments of life. And it is one as pure as it is primitive, giving scope for unalterable attachment, and deep joys, for kind offices and sincere virtue.
But let it not be imagined that all these fruits spring from the soil spontaneously. Not of necessity is a sister happy in this relation; and the reason is apparent. She is not coerced into sympathy, and self-sacrifice, and devotedness to her brothers, and without these qualities no outward connection brings peace and pleasure to the heart. It must be her study to devise means, frame plans,—and to execute them faithfully,—of promoting their good. Far will it be from accomplishing this most desirable end, to make protestations of her love, when prompted by impulse. Her actions must be the still, small voice that conveys the rich tones of her heart. If she refuse to enter into the schemes and prospects of a brother, and to render him those minute services, which both indicate affection and prompt to it, she will regard this relation as a dull thing. It may be but a source of alienated feelings, of vexation and strife.
Especially must the sister guard well the avenues to moral danger, which beset her brothers. Let her strive to make home attractive in their sight. Is she competent in music, she has here a means of ever-new interest, and of affording that variety of recreation for which the young man thirsts. By pleasant conversation, and by reading occasionally a volume to a brother, she may bind him to the fireside. Does he desire to pass the evening abroad? Better join him, even at some cost of personal ease, or of taste, than leave him exposed to seek places of equivocal character. Be his confidant, his adviser, constant in demonstrations of kindness. Perhaps he is aiding your progress in the walks of intellect. How can you so well requite his care, as by a steady emanation of moral and spiritual light? A sister’s love is often an amulet to the subsequent character of a circle of brothers. She whispers to them, when on the brink of temptation. Her form is ever present. Their thoughts wander often to their childhood’s home, and in secret self-communion the sentiment re-visits the heart,
| “For I, methinks, till I grow old As fair before me shall behold, As I do now, the cottage small, The lake, the wood, the waterfall; And thee, the Spirit of them all.” |
The services of a sister are peculiarly to be appreciated by the other sisters. If they comprehend most fully the joys of one another, so do they those sorrows, with which no “stranger intermeddleth.” They, who have shared one mind and one heart, from their early days, can comprehend those sufferings which not even the parent, from her elder age, entirely participates. In sickness they may be true angels of mercy to each other. And in those trials, to which their condition through life subjects them, no sympathy is dearer than a sister’s.
How unnatural is a deficiency in these holy dispositions. Can it be that the one is ever an object of envy, or jealousy, or ever regarded with distrust, coldness, or still more with hostility, by the other? Let them beware of the first approach of a contentious spirit. Their manners,—as indeed those of all in a family circle,—should never be rude, or careless, but ordered with watchfulness, delicacy, and propriety. The manner between sisters may be such as of itself to enshrine and secure their mutual kindness. It may too, by negligence, become a provoker of dissension and enmity. The fairest of maidens, is not she whose cheek mantles in beauty; but she whose gentle, Christian, courteous, carriage with brother and sister, radiates a perpetual moral beauty.
The eldest of a band of sisters is by nature appointed to teach, intellectually and spiritually, those of her circle younger than herself. How can she so well fulfil all righteousness in the domestic sphere, as by cheerfully sharing with her mother this office? Her age and experience qualify her to instruct the mind and train the affections, and tempt forth the virtues, of pliant childhood. Neither sister nor brother can estimate, in this life, all they owe to such a teacher. Eternity will reveal the extent, and complete the reward, of these sacred services.