"I cannot help it, mother—I cannot help it," replied the excited boy, "he ought not to treat me so, and I will not—" "Charles, Charles, you are wrong, you are very wrong, and I pray you may be sorry for it," interrupted his mother, in a tone of the deepest sorrow. "Do not speak again till you can conquer such a spirit," and they were both silent for a few moments. The mother's heart went up in fervent prayer that this might be a salutary trial, and that she might be enabled to guide his young and hasty spirit aright.
At length he spoke slowly, and his voice trembled with the strong feelings which had shaken him. "Mother, you are the dearest and best mother that ever lived. I wish I could be a good boy, for your sake; but when father speaks so harsh, I am angry all the time, and I cannot help being cross and ugly too. I know I am more and more so; I feel it, and the boys tell me so sometimes. John Gray said, yesterday, I was not half as pleasant in school as I used to be. I feel unhappy, and I am sure if I grow wicked, I grow wretched too." And again he burst into a passion of tears.
"Does not sin always bring misery, my dear boy?" asked his mother, after a little pause, "and will you not daily meet with circumstances to make you angry and unhappy, if you give way to your first impulse of impatience,—and is it not our first duty to resist every temptation to feel or act wrong? God has not promised us happiness here, but He has promised that if we resist evil it will flee from us. He has promised that if we strive to conquer our wicked feelings and do right when we are tempted to do wrong He will aid us, and give us sweet peace in so doing. To-day you have given way to anger, and you are wretched. You are blaming your father and think he is the cause of your trouble; but think a moment. If you had borne the punishment he gave you meekly and patiently, would not a feeling of peace be in your bosom, to which you are now a stranger? You know that when we suffer patiently for doing well, God is well pleased; and would not the consciousness that you had struggled against and overcome a wicked feeling, and that God looked upon you with approbation, make you more really happy than anything else can? My dear, dear boy, your happiness does not consist in what others say or do to you, but in the feelings you cherish in your own heart. There you must look for happiness, and there, if you do right, you will find it."
"I know you always say right, mother, and I will try, I will try, if I can, to bear patiently; but oh, if father only was like you"—and again tears stopped his utterance.
"My dear child," said his mother, "your father has many troubles. It is a great care to provide for his family, and you know he suffers us to want for nothing. He often has most perplexing cases, and his poor brains are almost distracted. You are a happy boy, with no care but to get your lessons, and obey your parents, and try to help them. You know nothing yet of the anxieties which will crowd upon you when you are a man. Try now to learn to bear manfully and patiently all vexations—looking for help to that blessed One, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. How much happier and better man you will be, how you will comfort your mother, and still more, you will please that blessed Savior, who has left such an example of meekness—suffering for sinners, and even dying for his cruel enemies. Oh, my son, my son, ask that blessed Savior to make you like himself, and you will be happy, and His own Spirit will make you holy. Let us ask Him to do it," and she knelt by her bedside, and her son placed himself beside her. It was no new thing for him to pray with this devoted mother. Often had she been with him to the throne of grace, when his youthful troubles or faults had made him feel the need of an Almighty helper and friend, but never had he come before with such an earnest desire to obtain the gift of that blessed Spirit, to subdue and change his heart and make him like his Savior. When they rose from prayer he sought his own room. He felt unable to go to school, and his mother hoped the impression would be more lasting, if he thought it over in the solitude of his own chamber, and she had much reason afterward to hope that this solemn afternoon was the beginning of good days to the soul of her child. As she looked anxiously at the expression of his countenance when the family assembled at the tea-table, she was pleased to notice, though an air of sadness hung around him, he was subdued, gentle, and affectionate, and she hoped much from this severe contest with his besetting sin. His father said little, and soon hurried away to a business engagement for the evening. Mr. Arnold was a lawyer, a gentleman and a professing Christian, and though never very strongly beloved, yet few of his neighbors could tell why, or say aught against his respectability and general excellence of character. He was immersed in the cares of an extensive business, and spent little time at home, and when there he seemed to have no room in his busy heart for the prattle of his children, no time to delight and improve them, with the stores of knowledge he might have brought forth from his treasury. If company were present, he was polite and agreeable. If only his wife and children, he said little, and that little was chiefly confined to matters of domestic interest—what they should have for dinner—what schools the children should attend—or the casual mention of the most common news of the day. He provided liberally for his family, what they should eat and drink, and wherewithal they should be clothed and instructed—but he took no pains to gain their affections or their confidence, to enlarge their ideas and awaken within them the thirst for knowledge, and plant within them the deathless principles of right and wrong—or even to inspire their young minds with love and reverence for their Divine Creator and Preserver. All this most important duty of a father was left to his wife, and blessed is the man who has such a wife and mother, to whom to intrust the precious charge he neglects. Most amiable and affectionate, intelligent and judicious, and of ardent and cheerful piety, this excellent woman devoted herself with untiring zeal to the training of her cherished flock, and as she saw and felt with poignant grief that she would have no help in this greatest and first earthly duty, from him who had solemnly promised to sustain and comfort, and assist, and cherish her, to bear and share with her the trials and cares of life (and what care is greater than the right training of our offspring), she again and again strove with earnest faith and humble prayer, to cast all her care upon Him, who she was assured cared for her, and go forward in every duty with the determination to fulfill it to the utmost of her power. Many times did the cold and stern manner of her husband, his anger at trifles, and his thoughtless punishment for accidental offenses, cause her heart to bleed for the effects of such government, or want of government, upon her children's hearts and minds. But she uttered no word of blame in their presence, she ever showed them that any want of love or respect for their father grieved her, and was, moreover, a heinous sin, and by patient continuance in well doing, she yet hoped to reap the full reward. Her eldest, Charles, felt most keenly his father's utter want of sympathy, and to him she gave her most constant tender care. Affectionate, but hasty, he was illy constituted to bear the harsh command, or the frequent fault finding of his father, and often she trembled lest he should throw off all parental control, and goaded by his irritated feelings, rush into sin without restraint. And so, probably, he would have done but for the unbounded love and reverence with which he regarded his "blessed mother." Her gentle influence he could not withstand, and it grew more and more powerful with him for good, till the glance of her loving eye would check his wayward spirit, and calm him often, when passion struggled for the mastery. Often did she venture to hope he had indeed given himself to his Savior, and her conversations with him from time to time, showed so much desire to conquer every evil passion, and to shun every false way with so much affectionate reverence for his God and Redeemer, that the mother's heart was sweetly comforted in her first-born.
Original.
THE TREASURY OF THOUGHTS.
The days of primer, and catechism, and tasks for the memory are gone. The schoolmaster is no longer to us as he was to our mothers, associated with all that is puzzling and disagreeable in hard unmeaning rules, with all that is dull and uninteresting in grave thoughts beyond the reach of the young idea. He is to us now rather the interpreter of mysteries, the pleasant companion who shows us the way to science, and beguiles its tediousness. If there is now no "royal road," certainly its opening defiles are made easier for the ascent of the little feet of the youthful scholar. The memory is not the chief faculty which receives a discipline in the present system of things. The "how," the "why," are the subjects of interest and attention. This is well; but it may be that in our anxiety to reach the height of the hill, and to keep up with the progress of the age, we are neglecting too much the training of the memory, which should be to us a treasury of beautiful thoughts, to cheer us in the prose of every-day life, to refine and elevate taste and feeling. We do not think it was a waste of time to learn, as our mothers did, long extracts from Milton, the sweet lyrics of Watts, the Psalms of David. Have we not often been soothed by their recitation of them in the time of sickness, at the hour of twilight, when even the mind of the child seems to reach out after the spiritual, and to need the aliment of high and holy thought? The low, sweet voice, the harmony of the verse, were conveyancers of ideas which entered the soul to become a part of it forever.
If we would be rich in thought, we must gather up the treasures of the past, and make them our own. It is not enough, certainly, for ordinary minds, simply to read the English classics; they must be studied, learned, to get from them their worth. And the mother who would cultivate the taste, the imagination of the child, must give him, with the exercise of his own inventive powers, the rich food of the past.