With these suggestions, gently insinuated from time to time, and containing as I verily believe the pure milk of the word, the best aliment for youthful minds, I should content myself, and leave him to seek the confirmation of these ideas in the Bible; nor would I suffer him, until on the verge of manhood, to puzzle his understanding and afflict his spirit with the perusal of works of theology.
In confirmation of the ideas I have suggested, let me beg the reader to observe how much more readily, and more frequently, the principles of religion take root in female minds, than in those of men. How many examples do we see among them of the most tender and fervent piety, and how seldom do we find it incumbered with the heavy lumber of theological learning, or frittered down into nice and shadowy distinctions. Yet are they wise unto salvation, possessing that faith by which the heart believeth unto righteousness, though perhaps unable to give any other reason for their faith, than that God is love, and in proof of his love gave himself to die for the sins of the world. Whence comes this tendency among them to imbibe this simple and saving faith, unless it be from the peculiarities of their education? The discipline of infancy is prolonged with them. They are kept under the eye of the mother, whose unsuspected vigilance supplies the place of commands, imposes an unperceived restraint, and renders the habits of decorum, propriety, meekness and obedience, a sort of second nature. Restrained only by the silken cord of love, whose weight they feel not, they never strain against it, nor try to throw it off. Their minds and tempers are formed rather by habit than precept, and their obedience is secured, not by punishment or the fear of it, but by prevention. They are accustomed to do right, because they have no opportunities of doing wrong, without violating that instinct of propriety, which makes it painful to do what we feel to be wrong in the presence of those we love. When left to themselves, they do what is right, because they have been long accustomed to do it; and they know it to be right, because thus acting, they have always lived in the enjoyment of those peaceable fruits which an upright conduct can alone produce.
It will be seen that many of my remarks on the subject of instruction, apply also to that of discipline. I have already shown that the discipline, whose purpose is to prepare the child for his duties to his parents, should be modified by a proper regard to his duties to God. In like manner, that which may be called religious discipline, should be so regulated as not to counteract what has been already done. Parental training, if I may so distinguish it, should be so managed as to cultivate the love of the child for his parents; religious training, so as to cultivate his love for God. It would be strangely inconsistent, that we should be careful not to offend and estrange a child by imposing on him, of our own authority, any harsh, unexplained and inexplicable commands, and at the same time load him, by the alleged command of God, with burthens grievous to be borne. Duties which he is not old enough to understand the nature of, are not his duties. There is no more violation of God's law in a child of a certain age playing on the Sabbath, than in the sports of a puppy. Yet long before he is old enough to be capable of a violation of this law, it is a matter of great importance that he should be gradually and carefully trained, and prepared to obey it. In this training, I would carefully avoid any thing like austerity. I would familiarize his infant ear to the name of Sunday, and accustom him to regard it as a day of privileges. Put on his best clothes, caress him, praise him, warn him to keep himself sweet and clean, make him take notice that every body else is so, and that nobody is made to do any work, and all because it is Sunday; make him observe the staid and quiet behavior of every body about the house, and see how soon he will get his little stool, and set up with his hands before him, and try to behave pretty too. When this is done, enough is done for the beginning. When he is tired of imitating the grave demeanor of others, let him go. The spirit of imitation will return again and again; the habits it induces will make a deeper and deeper impression, and if he is carefully imbued with a love for his parents, and a love for God, without being taught to dread and hate the Sabbath, he will be thus well prepared to submit cheerfully to its restraints, by the time he is old enough to know the reason of them. Let him see that you too, submit to them cheerfully. Let him miss nothing of your accustomed kindness or amenity of manner on that day. Do not let him learn to think of it as "a day for a man to afflict his soul, and hang down his head like a bull-rush," a day of fault-finding, and formal observance, and Judaical austerity. In short, let him see that you esteem the Sabbath as a day of privilege, and leave the rest as much as possible to the spirit of affectionate imitation.
I would say the same of other religious duties. Do not force the little drowsy urchin to sit up to family prayers. When he happens to do so, let him hear you thank God in simple terms for the privilege of being permitted to pray to him, and implore of him blessings whose value he feels and knows. If you find occasion to preach in your prayers, (a bad practice by the way,) do not preach about matters which none but a Doctor of Divinity can be expected to understand.
On the interesting subject of fashionable amusements, as they are called, I own I feel more difficulty. It chiefly arises from the consideration that the youth who is old enough to take an interest in such amusements, is at a more unmanageable age than formerly. It is not so easy to restrain him, without letting him be conscious of the restraint. It is not so easy to draw him off from a pernicious pursuit, to one less dangerous. He is no longer to be satisfied with those cheap equivalents for forbidden gratifications, which made it easy to command his obedience, without estranging his affections. The whole business of education at this stage, is a difficult and delicate operation. I cannot imagine any general rule for a class of cases as various as all the infinite varieties of the human character. Let us suppose some of them.
If, in spite of all the care that had been taken to soften and subdue his heart, and beguile him from self-love to the love of his friends, and of God his best friend, if in spite of all this he continued obdurate, wilful and rebellious, I am conscious that I should be at my wit's end. I do not know but that in such a case, it would be the part of wisdom to yield to those feelings which a parent would naturally experience, and, acting as in obedience to the unerring instincts of nature, to resort to severity instead of tenderness, and endeavor to bring down his heart with sorrow. As a part of such a system, it would be a matter of course, to deny him this indulgence.
A different case would be that of a youth of mercurial temper, and warm feelings, who had grown up in habitual love and reverence for his parents and his Maker, and whose buoyant spirit and restless temper, and keen appetite for enjoyment, might render him impatient of such restraint. Even in this case I should not too readily relax it. I should endeavor if possible to ascertain whether it might be enforced without impairing those tender and reverential sentiments. If so, I should enforce it. If not, I would yield with undissembled reluctance, but without reproach. I should endeavor to draw him into a contest of generosity, with a hope that he would not long consent to be outdone. But in no case would I surrender the end for the means, and do violence to the best, and kindliest, and holiest affections of the human heart, and run the risk of destroying them, by restraining a youth from things not evil in themselves, but only evil in their tendencies. The only antidote to the love of pleasure, is the love of God. In truth the great evil of the love of pleasure, is that it is an antidote to the love of God, and when the authority of God is used to force one away from a much coveted enjoyment, there is danger that it may but make him love God less, and pleasure more. But it is the saying of a wise man, that where an appetite for any thing actually exists, the best security against excess, is in a regulated indulgence; and to this indulgence I would resort with an humble hope that my pupil might find wisdom to add this too to the list of blessings experienced at the hands of his Maker, until the victory should at last result to him to whom it belongs.
For the remaining case of a young man having no taste for such pleasures, and content to spend his time in reading and meditation, I would prescribe nothing more than this; that he should not be encouraged to bless God that he was not as other men, but be kept on the alert by a warning that sin enters into the heart by more avenues than one.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.