6. Be kind.—Every kind act that is performed increases the kind feelings of the heart. If you treat your brothers and sisters kindly, you will feel more kindly toward them; while, if you treat them with harshness and severity, or ill-treat them in any manner, it will seal up your affections toward them, and you will be more inclined to treat them with coolness and indifference. If you are habitually kind to every one, embracing every opportunity in your power to perform some office of kindness to others, you will find your good-will toward all increasing. You will be universally beloved, and every one will be kind to you. See that little girl! She has run back to assist her little brother, who has lost his shoe in the mud. How kindly she speaks to him, to soothe his feelings and wipe his tears! Some sisters that I have seen would have been impatient of the delay, and scolded him in a cross and angry manner for the trouble he made. But with a heart full of sympathy, she forgets herself, and is intent only on helping him out of trouble, and quieting his grief. But she has hardly got under way again, before she meets a little girl, who has just fallen down and spilled her berries, crying over her loss. Without once thinking of the trouble it would give her, she speaks kindly to the little girl, helps her pick up the lost fruit, and then assists her to pick enough more to make up her loss. Every where she is just so, always glad of an opportunity to show kindness to every one she meets. And she gets her pay as she goes along. The happiness she feels, in thus being able to contribute to the comfort of others, is far beyond any thing she could receive from mere selfish enjoyment. And, in addition to this, she gets the good-will of others, which makes them kind to her in return.
7. Keep self out of view, and show an interest in the affairs of others.—This will not only interest others in you, but it will tend to stifle selfishness in your own heart, and to cultivate disinterested feeling. Sympathize with others; enter into their feelings; and endeavor, in heart and feeling, to make their interest your own; so that there may be a soil for disinterested feeling to grow in. If you see others enjoying themselves, rejoice with them. Make the case your own, and be glad that they have occasion to rejoice. “Rejoice with them that do rejoice.” If you have truly benevolent feelings, it will certainly be an occasion of joy to you to see them prosperous and happy, whoever they are. On the other hand, sympathize with misery and distress. “Weep with them that weep.” Wherever you see misery, let it affect your heart. And never fail, if it is in your power, to offer relief. And, often, you can afford the best relief to those of your own age,—your companions, but especially your inferiors,—by showing that you are affected with their troubles, that you sympathize with them. Cultivate the habit of feeling for others. When you see or read of the sufferings of the poor, when you read of the condition of the heathen, who know not the way of salvation, let your sympathies flow forth toward them. Learn to feel for others’ woe, and it will improve your own heart. But, besides this, you will find yourself rewarded with the affections of others.
Thus I have given you a few brief hints, to show how the affections may be cultivated. I must leave you to apply them in practice to every-day life, and to carry out the principle, in its application to all the circumstances in which you may be placed; which principle is, as much as possible, to repress and refrain from exercising every bad feeling or affection, and to cherish and cultivate the good, bringing them into exercise on every fit occasion, that they may grow into habits.
You will see, by what I have said under the various heads of this chapter, that the idea of educating the heart is no mere figure of speech, but a reality, of great importance to your character and well-being through life. Your parents and teachers will, of course, pay attention to this matter; but they cannot succeed in it without your coöperation. And with you it must be an every-day work. You must carry it out in all your conduct and feelings, and seek the grace of God to aid you in so difficult a work. Without an educated heart, you will never make a GENTLEMAN. The fine feelings and good tempers which I have described are indispensable to good breeding. You cannot have polished manners with a rough heart. You may put on the gentleman; but it will appear out of place. You cannot change the nature of a pig. You may wash him over and over again, and make him ever so clean; you may even dress him up in white linen garments—but he will immediately return to his wallowing in the mire.
[CHAPTER XV.]
EDUCATION OF THE MIND.
The term Mind is often employed to signify all the faculties of the soul. But I shall use it in application to the intellectual faculties, in distinction from the moral; as I have employed heart to denote the moral, in distinction from the intellectual. I shall not undertake to give a strictly philosophical distinction of the mental faculties, but shall comprehend them in the following division, which is sufficient for my purpose, to wit: Perception, Reason or Understanding, Judgment, Memory, and Imagination. Perception is the faculty that receives ideas into the mind; as, when you look at a tree, immediately the idea of a tree is impressed on the mind through the sense of sight; or, when you touch an object, the idea of that object is impressed on your mind through the sense of touch; or, you may receive the idea of a spirit, from the explanations which you hear or read.
The Reason or Understanding, is the faculty that considers, analyzes, and compares ideas received into the mind, and forms conclusions concerning them. For example, suppose you had never seen a watch: one is presented to you, and, as soon as your eye rests upon it, you form an idea respecting it. Perhaps this idea is no more than that it is a very curious object. But, immediately, your understanding is employed in considering what it is, the perceptive faculty still being occupied in further discoveries. From the fact that there is motion, you conclude there must be some power within it; for motion is not produced without power. Here is consideration and conclusion, which is a regular operation of reason. But, to make further discoveries, you open the watch, to examine its parts. This is analyzing. You examine all the parts that you can see, on removing the case. You still see motion—all the wheels moving in regular order; but the cause of the motion, the power that moves, is yet unseen. You perceive a chain wound around a wheel, and attached to another wheel, around which it is slowly winding itself; and this chain appears to regulate the whole movement. You conclude that the power must be in this last-named wheel. Here is a conclusion from analyzing, or examining the parts separately.