A LITTLE SERMON TO SCHOOL-GIRLS.
Be kindly affectioned one toward another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another.
—Rom. xii. 10.
Whose adorning ... let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price.
—1 Peter, iii. 4.
Wherever people are associated together it will always be found that some are more popular and beloved than others. Taking it for granted that all my young readers would wish to be lovely and beloved by those with whom they are associated, I wish to make a short study of some of those characteristics which always distinguish a lovely or loveable person, and also of some characteristics which tend to make people unlovely and disagreeable.
But if anyone should at the outset say, "I do not care whether people like me or not, I have no particular wish to be lovely or beloved," what could I answer? Nothing. I could only express my sorrow that the better and higher nature of such an one was so undeveloped, and that the greatest source of true happiness was so unknown and unappreciated. I could only hope that the conscience and the moral nature of such an one might be aroused and quickened by some good and faithful admonition or word of instruction. And right here I wish to call the special attention of my young friends to this fact: Youth is a period given up largely to the work of obtaining an education; but education is of a two-fold nature. We have an intellectual nature and we have a spiritual or moral nature. The intellectual powers and faculties it is possible to educate almost in spite of even the distaste or aversion of the pupil to receiving that education. We can, in a measure, force a knowledge of the sciences upon even reluctant pupils. We can prove to them that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or that an acid and an alkali will combine to form a salt; but we can never force an antagonistic nature to receive a spiritual truth. Your parents or teacher may instruct you that it is wrong to be untruthful or unkind or deceitful, but your own inner natures alone can receive such truths and assimilate them. No human being can compel another human being to be good. Here is where one of the chief anxieties and chief sorrows of parents and teachers arises. There is no anxiety so deep as the anxiety of the good that those they love may be good also; no sorrow so poignant as the sorrow of the heart over the willful wrong-doing of those near and dear. If at the close of your prescribed school course you should return to your homes, skilled in all the sciences, possessed of extensive knowledge of literature, fine musicians, fine artists, and yet selfish, ungentle, proud or haughty in demeanor, wanting in thoughtfulness for the rights and feelings of others, careless of being unkind, the time spent in your education would largely have been spent in vain.
Among the first characteristics of a person who is lovely and beloved, we must place a kind and gentle manner toward all, kind words and kind deeds, and a restraint of hasty speech or action. In order to possess these qualities, it is not necessary ever to be obtrusive with our attentions. Sometimes people pain us by thrusting upon us attentions which we do not want. There is a kind of officious attentiveness which is really the expression of a species of vanity. It is true we ought to be observant, and if we see where we can really help others by offering kind acts or services, we ought to be willing to do it. But to young people associated together as schoolmates, the opportunity for exercising gentleness and kindness towards one another comes mostly in the line of daily work. Some pupils are more advanced in their studies than others: some have had greater advantages in their homes than others: and these differences afford an opportunity for exercising toward each other a spirit of kindness and gentleness. It is one of the most common occurrences in schools for pupils to come in who have not had the advantages which enable them to know how to conduct themselves gracefully in society; how to dress themselves; how to use knife, fork, napkin, etc., properly at the table; and while it is of course the duty of teachers to instruct them in all these things, it is also the imperative duty of their companions to refrain from unkind criticism or laughing at and making sport of blunders which may arise only from lack of information. Very often these students are "jewels in the rough," of the rarest and finest quality. You may have heard the story of Daniel Webster, when he came in from his father's farm to enter upon his collegiate course, and went to board with one of the professors who had several students boarding in his family. Daniel had certainly never been taught good manners at the table, however many other good things he had been taught in his home, for he immediately attracted the attention of all the other boarders by sitting with his knife and fork held upright in each hand and resting on the table while he masticated his food. The professor quelled the rising laughter among his fellow-students by a firm glance of reproof, but said nothing to Daniel. He had observed that the boy was sensitive, and he now had the problem before him how he should correct this awkwardness in Daniel without wounding his feelings; and he took the following method: Calling one of the senior boarders to him before the next meal, he said: "We want to break our young friend of his awkward way of holding his knife and fork, and we don't want to hurt his feelings. Now I want you, at supper to-night, to hold your knife and fork the same way, and then I will call your attention to it and tell you it is not the right and proper way to do." The student agreed, and so between the kind intention of the professor and the kind willingness of the student the embryo statesman was taught an important lesson without being pained and abashed by his ignorance.
In marked contrast with this incident is one which personally I knew to happen in a school. A little country girl who had recently become an inmate of the school knocked at the room of her neighbor, a young lady who had been brought up amid all the refinements of life, and asked her if she would lend her her hair-brush. Two or three other girls happened to be in the room, and this young lady replied, "Hadn't you better ask me for my tooth-brush? In this school, hair-brushes are private property." Never did the little country girl forget this rude rebuke, although she very shortly learned that among cultivated and refined people hair-brushes are considered private property. But however cultivated externally the young lady was who thus rudely rebuffed even the ignorance of her companion, her conduct showed a spirit uncultivated in gentleness and kindness.
It often happens in schools that some become general favorites because perhaps they are blessed with good looks, or are able to dress with good taste and becomingly, or are possessed of a certain piquancy of manner and conversational powers which attract and entertain. There are others equally good and talented who are not blessed with comeliness, who are not bright and winning in conversation, who are awkward in dress and manner. What kindness and considerateness is due from the more favored to the less favored! How careful should school-girls, and not school-girls only, but everybody be to extend courtesy and kindness to those of their number who are apt to be neglected, to be left lonely and forgotten while more favored ones enjoy special pleasures! I do not mean by this that we are to be equally intimate and equally fond of all our daily associates, but we ought to be equally kind. Our especial endearments and kindnesses and attentions to our particular friends ought to be in a measure kept for private expression, so that we may not wound the feelings of those less attractive, or less endowed with bodily and mental graces, by contrast or comparison.
To aid us in cultivating this spirit of kindness, no maxim is more useful than that laid down by Christ: "Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." One of the best tests we can apply to ourselves is to imagine ourselves in the place of others. Suppose we were conscious of homely features, ungainly forms and awkward manners, or of lack of information or knowledge; suppose we were in such straitened circumstances that we were obliged to wear coarse, cheap, unsuitable or unbecoming garments how would we feel and how would we wish to be treated? And if we find within ourselves an unwillingness to be judged by this standard, or to conform our conduct to it, then we should realize that we do wrong, that we are wrong in spirit. Then should come the conscious effort to do right, to change our spirit from selfishness to unselfishness, from unkindness to kindness. This is the work that no human being can do for us. Every individual soul must pass through that struggle alone. Whenever we are conscious of the necessity of a decision between doing right and doing wrong, even though we may feel indisposed to do the right and disposed to do the wrong, yet if we can will to do the right we have taken a step toward God and heaven; we have begun the unfolding of the moral and spiritual nature.
Now I have before said that an intellectual culture may be, so to speak, veneered upon us, but a spiritual culture must come from within outward. In botany you learn of two kinds of plants—those which grow by external accretions, as bulbs, which, are called exogenous? and plants which grow within outward, which are called endogenous A great philosopher has said that "man is that noble endogenous plant which grows, like the palm, from within outward." The culture of the heart and the growth of the spiritual nature is wholly individual; it depends on ourselves alone. Parents and teachers can furnish the surroundings and the accessories which they hope will most help to nourish this spiritual growth, but they can do no more. And often how bitterly are they disappointed when they see that, in spite of admonition and instruction and entreaty and example, and every external help and incentive, the inner nature, the heart, the soul of child or pupil is not assimilating spiritual truth, is not growing "in grace and in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."