The other qualities, gentleness, benevolence, purity, rectitude, courtesy and politeness, when accompanied by good sense and a well cultivated mind, constitute the great charm of domestic and social life. Indeed, they may well be called indispensable requisites, since there can be no happiness and very little comfort without them. There never was a greater, a more fatal mistake, than the too common one of supposing that the chief use of such qualities is in society at large; in other words, when we are acting a part before the world, in our ridiculous struggles for distinction and power. Selfishness is the mainspring of all such efforts, and it so sharpens our sagacity as to convince us that our bad qualities must be restrained in public, or they will frequently subject us to punishment if we attempt to disturb others by their indulgence. But in private life, and particularly in the family circle, there are few so insignificant or destitute of means to disturb others as not to possess the power of causing much annoyance, if not actual unhappiness. A single individual of a waspish, irritable, jealous, gossipping, envious and suspicious temper, in these situations, may destroy the peace and poison the domestic enjoyments of a large family. No incident is too trivial to excite some one or other of their bad passions; no person too unoffending to provoke them; no conduct so guarded as to escape malignant remark. Their approach, like the sirocco of the desert, produces an irresistible depression of spirits; constraint and embarrassment spread a gloom over every countenance, and the voice of joy and gladness dies away in their presence. On the other hand, the emanations of a gentle, benevolent disposition, produce the same impression on our hearts, that the balmy breezes and sweet smelling flowers of the vernal season do on our senses. It is a something that we feel deeply in the inmost recesses of our bosom, but cannot well describe. It is an atmosphere of delight in which we would gladly breathe during our whole life.
By purity of thought and rectitude of conduct, in which are comprehended the inestimable virtues of truth, candor and sincerity, we secure for ourselves the unutterable enjoyment of an approving conscience, at the same time that we obtain from others their esteem, their admiration, and their love. We may manifest these qualities in every part of our intercourse with others; for whether we speak or act, occasions continually present themselves to prove that we possess them. By conversation we show the purity of our sentiments; by conduct we manifest the rectitude of our principles—so that in all we either say or do, we supply others with the means of ascertaining what manner of persons we are. True we may deceive some by playing the hypocrite; but the persons whose good opinion is really worth gaining, are not so easily gulled, and our loss, if the game is once seen through, is irretrievable.
In regard to courtesy and politeness, they may justly be called the offspring of benevolence, since their chief object is to promote the ease, the comfort, the pleasure, and happiness of others. It must be admitted there are counterfeit qualities which sometimes pass undetected. But they are the base born children of art and selfishness, aiming solely to promote their own interests by deceiving other people into a belief that their gratification is the end of all their efforts to please. To say nothing of the continual labor and constraint necessary to enable these circulators of false coin to escape discovery and exposure, the superior ease and safety of genuine courtesy and politeness, should be a sufficient inducement with all young persons to study most assiduously to acquire them, even on the supposition that we had no better guide for all our actions in relation to others. That honesty in manner, as well as in conduct, will ever be found to be the best policy, amid all the varying forms, fashions and practices of the world, is I believe, as certain as that truth is better than falsehood—virtue preferable to vice. Another argument greatly in favor of genuine courtesy and politeness is, that they are the most current and easily procurable coin you can possibly use, being equally well adapted (if I may keep up the metaphor,) to make either large or small purchases. The articles procured too in exchange, always greatly exceed in real intrinsic value, all that you ever give for them. This is merely the manifestation of a sincere, an earnest desire to please; while the precious return is almost always the cordial expression of truly friendly feeling, the look of pleasurable emotion, and the affectionate regards of a grateful heart, particularly where the intercourse has been of sufficient duration to admit of some little development of character. Let it not be said that a cause apparently so slight is inadequate to produce such strong effects. There lives not a human being who has ever felt the influence of genuine courtesy and politeness, but can testify to the truth of what has been said in their praise. Nor is it easy to imagine the possibility of any individual's remaining insensible of their value, who like you my young friends, have always been accustomed to the society of ladies and gentlemen. Knowing this as I do, I should consider it somewhat like a work of supererogation to press upon you the absolute necessity of your constantly cultivating these invaluable qualities, if I were not thoroughly satisfied from painful experience, that almost all young persons require at least occasional admonition on this subject. In vain do some parents solicit, persuade—nay, beseech their daughters, never for a moment to forget what is due to the character of a lady, both in manners and deportment; in vain do they implore them with aching hearts to make a better return for all a mother's care and affection; to no purpose do they pray for that purity of heart and rectitude of principle in their offspring, which is the only true source of good manners: their unfortunate, wayward children continue to act, as if the chief purpose of their existence was to prove to the world how little influence their parents have over them. They seem utterly reckless of the parental tie—regardless of all the disparaging inferences which may be drawn from their own conduct in relation to the characters of their connexions—and continue hardened alike against advice or reproof, in whatever language or manner it may be offered to them. God forbid that such should be the moral portrait of any of my present auditors; but you have all sufficient experience to know that it is not a fancy picture, nor one wherein the features are so exaggerated and caricatured, as to be unlike any person who has ever lived. If none of your schoolmates have ever resembled it, you have either seen or heard of some others in the world whom it would fit. Should your own consciences acquit you, as I sincerely trust they do, of all liability to pursue so reckless a course, both in regard to parental and other admonition—let me beseech you, my young friends, not to tax your imaginations with laboring to conjecture whether I aim at any particular individuals, for I do not; but strive most assiduously to examine your own hearts thoroughly as to all these points, and study so to act on all occasions and towards every person with whom you may have any thing to do, that the praise not only of courtesy and politeness may ever be yours, but likewise the far more exalted merit of right minds and pure hearts.
When I look back on the years that have passed away since this school commenced; when I reflect on the many anxious hours which your teachers have spent in meditating on the most effectual means to render their instructions and admonitions conducive to your eternal as well as temporal welfare; and when I recollect the several instances wherein I am persuaded they had good cause to believe that an all bounteous Providence had favored their humble labors, my heart is filled with gratitude for the past; and I cherish the fond hope that you too, my young friends, will be added to the number of those, who by the exemplary character of your future lives, will cause your instructers to rejoice that you likewise have once been their pupils. Three or four of you have been so from the first to the last, and the rest have been long enough members of our family to be thoroughly acquainted with the whole course of our instruction. You cannot therefore be ignorant either of the chief objects at which you have always been taught to aim, or of the means recommended to be invariably pursued for their attainment. If you have failed to profit by them the fault must rest somewhere; the awful responsibility attaches to one or both parties; and let us all earnestly pray to God, that the purity and rectitude of our future lives, should it please him to spare us, may avert the punishment justly due to such offences. That none may plead forgetfulness, let me briefly recapitulate once more, and for the last time, what our course has been. The primary objects always most earnestly pressed upon your attention have been, first and above all, to prepare yourselves for another and a better world, by a life of usefulness in the present; by the love and fear of God; by cheerful obedience to his will; and by continually doing good to your fellow creatures whenever you had the means and the opportunity. Your secondary objects have been the study of sciences and languages, physical and intellectual improvement, with a view, not to foster pride and vanity, but solely to increase your power of being useful. Lastly, you have been taught to acquire certain arts usually ranked under the head of "accomplishments," but you have been invariably and perseveringly admonished to consider them merely as recreations, innocent if indulged in only occasionally, but sinful when made, as they too often are, the principal business of life. On all occasions too, you have been persuaded never so far to confide in the maxim that "youth is the season for enjoyment," as to forget that, like old age it may, and too often is, the season of suffering also. A preparation for such contingencies must be made by all, or the hour of misfortune, although every human being is destined to meet it, will overwhelm those who are unprepared for it with a degree of misery which admits of neither alleviation nor cure. Young as you all are, and little as you have yet seen of human life, you have already felt, if not in your own persons, at least in the case of others, something of the effect produced by sudden and unexpected calamity, bursting like a thunderclap on the heads of its devoted victims. But a few days have passed away since you were witnesses to such an event in the case of two of your school companions. The morning on which it happened shone upon them cheerful and happy as any among you, unconscious of any impending misfortune, undisturbed by any anticipations to mar their peace. Yet, in a very few hours from that time, they were both plunged into the deepest affliction; both by a single blow reduced perhaps to poverty; both suddenly called by the most awful death of a parent of one of them, to return to a wretched family bereft of its chief support, and crushed to the earth in all the helplessness of irremediable wo. Alas! my young friends, how few of you ever think of drawing from such occurrences the many salutary lessons they are so well calculated to impart! How many turn away from them as matters to be banished as speedily as possible from your remembrance; as events never likely to happen to yourselves! Yet every hour that we live—every moment that we breathe—not one among us, no not one single individual, can truly say, "I am free—I am exempt both from present and contingent calamity." Far, very far am I indeed, from wishing you to be so constantly absorbed in gloomy anticipations, as to prevent you in the slightest degree from enjoying every innocent gratification suitable to your respective ages and situations in life. But I would have you all to know and to feel in your inmost heart, that "sweet are the uses of adversity," and that none should think themselves fit to live until they feel prepared to die the death of the righteous before God and man. Hard as this requisition may seem, thousands upon thousands, and of your age too, have complied with it to the very letter. Thousands have furnished angelic examples, even to the aged and hoary headed, that the fresh, the blooming, the joyous period of youth may be dedicated to God, as well as that worn out remnant of life when all power of earthly enjoyment is supposed to be dead within us, and nothing remains to be offered to heaven but exhausted faculties and fast decaying intellects. Has not our blessed Saviour himself declared, when speaking of children, that "of such is the kingdom of heaven;" and in illustration of this truth, are not all the images of cherubim and seraphim presented to our senses, always represented with juvenile countenances, glowing with all the innocence and loveliness of youth? Shall the youth then of the present day—the youth of our own country—but especially the female portion of them, ever adopt the fatal delusion that theirs is an age too immature for the acquisition and exercise of the highest moral and religious attainments. Shall they fall into the ruinous error that it is yet time enough for them to attend to spiritual matters, and that the prime and vigor of their lives are to be wasted in merely temporal pursuits unworthy the characters and disgraceful to the rational creatures formed for a state of eternal happiness? Far better would it be that they never had been born; or that the hand of misfortune—the saddest hours of unmitigated suffering, should continue to press on them with all their weight, until they could be brought to know their duty to God, to their fellow beings, and to themselves. Heaven forbid, my young friends, that such awful discipline should be necessary to bring you also to a proper sense of all you owe to the Divine Author of your existence, and to that society of which you may become either the blessing or the curse. Heaven forbid that any of you should so far forget the high destinies for which you were formed—the glorious purposes to which your lives should be devoted—and the everlasting happiness promised in another world to all who fulfil their duties in this, as to neglect for a moment any of the means essential to improve your hearts and minds to the utmost attainable degree. Nothing—no nothing within the range of possibility can enable you to do this, but continual, earnest, heartfelt prayer to God for the aid of his holy spirit in all your undertakings; frequent and deep meditation on all the vicissitudes of life; frequent and serious forethought in regard not only to what you may probably enjoy in the present world, but to what you may possibly be devoted to suffer. Gay and happy as you all now are in the joyous anticipations so natural to youth and health, it may be your fate (but God forbid it ever should,) to see one by one of your nearest and dearest connexions drop into the grave—some in the very blossom and promise of juvenile years—others worn down by care, disease and old age. It may be your fate to be the very last of your race, reserved to mourn over all who have gone before to another world. All this, my children, and yet deeper affliction may possibly be your lot—for it has been that of thousands, aye of millions before you. Can it be of no importance then; nay, is it not of the last, the highest, the most vital importance, that you should make at least some small preparation for such appalling contingencies, lest they befal you utterly unawares? Will you ask me what is that preparation? It is simply so to use all your good gifts as not to abuse them; so to cherish all the powers both of your bodies and minds that they may last as long as nature intended they should, and fulfil all the purposes for which they were designed; so to divide your time between useful occupation and necessary recreation, that none may be said to be wasted or lost; in a word, so to live that you may never be found unprepared to die. The joys of heaven should ever be the beacon to guide your course; and the road by which you should travel through the present life to reach them, should be that and that only which your heavenly Father, through his blessed Son, has commanded and besought you to take. Thousands who have steadily pursued this course have testified that it is "a way of pleasantness and a path of peace" to all who have once attained the dispositions, feelings and principles enjoined upon those who have made it their choice, in preference to all other reputed roads to happiness; while not a solitary human being who has ever tried these other roads, has ever yet been heard to bear witness in their favor, after the experiment has been fully made. Woful then must be your mistake, most fatal your error, in choosing "the way in which you should go," should you rather be led by the sinful allurements of illicit pleasure, than the universally concurring testimony of the good, the wise, and the just throughout the world.
In a few fleeting hours more this school will cease to exist, and your present monitor will have uttered the last words of admonition which he will ever address to you as pupils. Anxiously, most anxiously do I desire to fix them indelibly on your minds. But alas! I feel too sensibly my own inability, as well as the evanescent nature of all language in the form of advice, to hope for more than a temporary impression. If I make even that, I shall in part at least have attained the sole object of all that I ever said to you, which has been your own intellectual improvement, your own happiness. Let me entreat you, my dear young friends; let me implore you for the last time, never to forget (whatever other things you may suffer to escape your memories,) any of the various moral and religious instructions which you have received under our care. I feel well assured that they will not fail to come home to your bosoms—probably too with greatly augmented force, should the withering blasts of misfortune ever spread desolation and wo among you. But I pray for something more for you. I would have you bear them continually in remembrance, even in your happiest hours of prosperous fortune. I would have each of you individually meditate on them "when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Then, but not until then, will you be fully prepared both for adversity and prosperity; and then indeed may you confidently trust that the God of all mercy and goodness will vouchsafe to impart to you the true christian's last, best hope, both for time and eternity.
Separated from us all as you will soon be, perhaps forever, and about to enjoy, as I earnestly desire, a happy meeting with the beloved friends and relatives from whom you have been so long withdrawn, accept for the last time our heartfelt assurances that our best wishes, our anxious prayers for your happiness, will accompany you through all the vicissitudes of life; that we shall always sympathise both in your joys and your sorrows; and that our own enjoyments will ever be greatly augmented by hearing that you are all leading exemplary and happy lives. For power to do this, forget not—oh! never for a moment forget, that your sole reliance must be on your heavenly Father and his holy spirit, which hath been promised abundantly to all who ask it in truth and sincerity.
"May the blessing of an all merciful God be ever on you and around you. May his grace be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. May it guide, strengthen and support you in all the troubles and adversities of this life, and bring you, through faith in our Redeemer, to eternal blessedness in that which is to come."—AMEN.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.