We have seen very young children bear pain without a single complaint. In sickness, some are so calm and patient, that you would not know, except by their countenance, that they were sick. It is essential to form the habit of keeping our little bodily afflictions to ourselves. It is our duty to do it, for we only make others unhappy by continually talking of our own troubles. And we make the suffering appear the greater to ourselves, also, the more we dwell upon and converse about it. So of extreme cold and heat—we should begin in childhood to bear them without tears and complaints. It will give us no relief to think of them, and magnify our sufferings by relating them to others.
Troubles of mind should be borne habitually with fortitude. James has broken one of his skates, but no one would know it from his appearance; he does not cry, or fret, or complain to his companions, or at home. His tears he knows will not mend it; he only determines to be more careful in future, and, as soon as he is able, to purchase a new pair of skates.
We should always consider, too, that our Father in Heaven intends to teach us wisdom and submission to his will, by our smaller, as well as greater troubles.
Anecdotes of Haydn.
The great musician, Haydn, was the son of a wheelwright. His father used to play on the harp, and on holidays, his mother would sing while he played; and whenever the little boy heard this music, he would get two pieces of wood, like a violin and the bow that plays on it, and he would seem to be playing to his mother’s singing; and as long as he lived, Haydn loved to play the airs his mother then sung.
It happened that a relation of his parents, who was a schoolmaster, came to see them, and, thinking the child clever, he offered to bring him up, and his parents accepted the offer. When Haydn was at school, he found a tambourine, and played on it a tune so surprising, that everybody in the house came to listen to it.
He was afterwards taught to sing; and a person who understood good music well, coming to hear him, was so pleased with him, that he emptied a plate of cherries into his pocket.
Such was the beginning of this famous man, who composed many of the beautiful tunes with which we are all familiar.
