A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge

by John Breckinridge; Samuel Miller

Guard with vigilance against a talebearing and tattling spirit. I will not suppose you capable of deliberate slander, or cruelly circulating reports to the injury of others without just evidence. This is so base and mean, that I trust you will ever abhor and despise it. But it is the infirmity of many, who intend thereby no injury, that they delight in circulating news concerning their neighbours, and have not a little of the true gossipping spirit. This is a bad habit. It degrades the individual who indulges it, in the view of all wise, reflecting people; often involves in painful explanations and difficulties; and is frequently followed by consequences of the most perplexing and disreputable kind. Never indulge the disposition to repeat idle stories about neighbours. If they are repeated in your presence, listen to them either in silence, or with a civil remark, which cannot possibly implicate you, or be construed into an approval of the scandal. It was an excellent appeal which was once made by a wise and benevolent man whom I knew in early life—"Why can you not talk more about things, than about persons?"

Let me farther exhort you, as a point of duty, to cultivate habitual cheerfulness. When I say this, you will not understand me as recommending a spirit of levity and frivolity. This is unworthy of rational, accountable creatures, and indicates as much of weakness as of sin. Those who spend their lives in gaiety and mirth, are "dead while they live." But by cultivating habitual cheerfulness, I mean cherishing a pleasant state of the animal spirits; as opposed to constitutional gloom, mental depression, and settled, clouded taciturnity, I mean habits, not of light, but of lively and affable conversation. Such a state of mind does good like a medicine. It contributes to our own enjoyment. It makes us more pleasant and useful to those with whom we converse. It may even operate to promote health and prolong life; and in various ways extend our power of doing good.

Guard with conscientious care against habits of indolence. A tendency to this sin is one of the radical symptoms of the great moral disease of our nature; and you cannot begin too early to labour and pray for effecting a cure. Fly from idleness as a habit connected with a legion of evils. Make a point of always having something useful to do—something to fill up every moment left vacant between the larger and more important tasks of life. I am aware that we all stand in need of recreation; but this is often best attained by a change of employment. When you have finished a sedentary task, which required intense application of mind, think, for a moment, whether there be not some other object to which you may attend for a short time, which will require no mental effort, but by attention to which, you may promote either your own health or comfort, or the advantage of others. Make it your daily study to "redeem the time." Try to turn every moment to some valuable account. For this purpose, form, as early as possible, a plan, a systematic order in your daily tasks. Without such a plan, more or less formally adopted, you will inevitably lose much time in passing from one engagement to another. But if you manage always to leave something useful with which to fill up every little interval; so as never to be idle, and never to waste time with frivolous, or worse than frivolous employments, you will be more happy, and live more to your own true honour, and the benefit of your generation.

I have only to add on the subject of this letter, a single word on the great importance of maintaining strict and habitual temperance in all your enjoyments. If you wish really to enjoy life, and to "live out all your days," you must exercise moderation and self-denial in eating and drinking, and in every department of indulgence. Temperance has been defined—the moderate use of things useful, and total abstinence from those which are pernicious. This is an excellent definition, which I trust you will ever keep in mind, and make your daily and hourly rule. To be thus temperate, is a divine command. It is eminently conducive to health. It is highly advantageous to the activity and strength of the powers of the mind. And it is an admirable defence against a thousand irregularities and mischiefs which cloud the faculties, destroy comfort, and lead to multiplied forms of disease, and to premature graves. If you habitually restrain appetite, deny yourselves, and "let your moderation be known" in all things, and to all men, you will avoid many evils which continually beset those who act on the system of self-indulgence. Never drink any thing but pure water, when in health; indulge in animal food but once in each day, and that in smaller quantities than most people consider as temperate. Labourers in the open air may, not only with impunity, but perhaps with profit, eat animal food more than once every day; but I am persuaded few other persons can do it without disadvantage to their health. My personal experience and observation in regard to this point are very decisive. Nay, I would advise you to go one step farther. Make the experiment of wholly abstaining from animal food at least one day in each week, for the purpose of "giving nature a holyday;" of clearing the body and the mind from crudities; and taking a new start in refined feeling and unclogged activity.

In fine, let it be the object of your unceasing study and prayer, to "keep under the body;" to "crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts;" to subdue and restrain all irregular tempers; "if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, to live peaceably with all men;" to avoid wounding the feelings of any one with whom you converse, unless required to do it by a pure sense of duty; to promote the happiness of all around you; and to be continually seeking and improving opportunities of doing good.

LETTER VIII.
MANNERS.

Dear Children:—I wish it were in my power to give you a perfect and vivid representation of the manners of your lamented Mother. There was in them a sweetness, a gracefulness, and an attraction truly rare. Wherever she went, they at once gained her friends. I am sure if you had been old enough at her decease to appreciate them; or, if I could now depict them to the life, you would have a deeper impression of the importance of happy manners; of their value to their possessor; of their benign influence on social intercourse, than I can now hope to impart. As it is, I hope you will be willing to take on trust my statement of the fact concerning her, and that you will be stimulated to seek a similar accomplishment.

If it be true, as has been often said, that a good face is an "open letter of recommendation," wherever its possessor appears; we may, with quite as much emphasis, say the same of pleasant engaging manners. Nay, we may go farther. The most beautiful face and form that ever existed, if unaccompanied by agreeable manners, will soon be contemplated with indifference, if not with disgust. While, on the contrary, where there is an entire absence of personal beauty, there may be, and often are found, such manners as captivate and win wherever they are seen, and with a power felt by all, however remote they may be from the possession of such manners themselves.