An eye quick to see, and an ear quick to hear may belong to a wide-awake, successful business man; but in order to become a philanthropist, a wise, energetic, live Christian, he must have a heart to feel. A father may see that his children are poorly clad, may hear their cries of distress, but if he has no heart to feel their needs, he will go off and leave them to the care of charity, as so many fathers, and mothers too, have been known to do.
This inclination to avoid cares, to shirk responsibilities, and to live a purely selfish life, is the result of a defect in the cardiac region, which might have been corrected in early youth.
The training of the heart begins at so early an age that it can not be known with certainty just when the child is first acted upon by the influences around it, and it is more easily misdirected than guided aright.
An accomplished lady, of considerable literary fame, spent a great deal of time in preparing a lecture on “Individual Sovereignty,” which was to prove that children had rights that parents and guardians ought to respect. The lecture was delivered but once, to a very small number of people who, while full of admiration and respect for the lecturer, were not in favor of putting her theories into practice, believing that a monarchy such as she proposed would make the Land of Liberty a place that grown people would want to get away from.
The great bond of brotherhood is sympathy. “Pity and need make all flesh kin,” and “sympathy is especially a Christian’s duty.” But there is an active sympathy and there is a passive sympathy; the one sits down and broods over the calamities of life, wrings its hands, sheds tears, and sighs over its own incapacity; while the other is up and doing all it can to relieve the necessities of those perhaps less heavily burdened than itself.
“It is not all of life to live,” nor all of life to love either; for some in their excessive fondness will allow those whom they might control, to walk in evil ways and indulge in unlawful passions without putting forth a restraining hand.
“I want John to have a good time,” says the indulgent mother. “I don’t want Jennie to tire herself, or to soil her hands doing housework. What else am I good for?” So John grows to be a selfish, disagreeable man, and Jennie an ease-loving, self-satisfied woman, both with hearts incapable of feeling any interest in anything that does not immediately affect their physical comfort and well-being. Mothers, do not spoil your children and destroy the foundations of character. Let them wait upon you and do your errands; teach them to cultivate a self-sacrificing spirit, to feel that it is no hardship to give up their own personal comfort in order to secure the happiness of others. The sacrifices should not be all on one side; and yet we have known mothers to give up their lives rather than disappoint the children, who must have their wishes gratified at any expense.
Exacting children should be made to wait upon themselves, and to practice patience and self-denial; for the tyrannical spirit is fostered by unwise timidity and forbearance, and many a passionate man and woman lives to regret the lack of proper discipline in youth. But it lies within ourselves to correct mistakes that may have been made in our training; and it has been truthfully said, “Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.”
It is astonishing how much may be accomplished by one who is energetic and persevering, careful to avail himself of all opportunities, and to use all the spare time at his disposal. Ancient and modern histories and biographies are full of illustrations showing the benefits conferred upon mankind by certain individuals whose hearts were busy with the things about them. It is interesting to read this record of General Gordon—or “Chinese Gordon,” as he is familiarly called—whose valiant deeds have won him undying fame:
From 1865 to 1875 Gordon lived at Gravesend, employed in the duty of improving the defenses of the Thames. These were his six years of quiet peace and beneficent happiness. “He lived wholly for others,” writes his friend. “His house was school and hospital and almshouse, in turn; was more like the abode of a missionary than of a commanding officer of engineers. The troubles of all interested him alike. The poor, the sick, the unfortunate, were ever welcome, and never did suppliant knock vainly at his door. He always took great delight in children, but especially in boys employed on the river or the sea. Many he rescued from the gutter, cleansed them and clothed them, and kept them for weeks in his house. For their benefit he established reading-classes, over which he himself presided, reading to and teaching the lads with as much ardor as if he were leading them to victory. He called them his ‘kings,’ and for many of them he got berths on board ships. One day a friend asked him why there were so many pins stuck into the map of the world over his mantlepiece; he was told that they marked and followed the course of the boys on their voyages; that they were moved from point to point as his youngsters advanced, and that he prayed for them as they went, night and day. The light in which he was held by those lads was shown by inscriptions in chalk on the fences. A favorite legend was ‘God bless the Kernel!’ So full did his classes at length become that the house would no longer hold them, and they had to be given up. Then it was that he attended and taught at the Ragged Schools, and it was a pleasant thing to watch the attention with which his wild scholars listened to his words.”