‘First, You are required to view and treat your parents with respect. Your tender, inexperienced age requires that you think of yourselves with humility, and conduct yourselves with modesty; that you respect the superior age, and wisdom, and improvements of your parents, and observe towards them a submissive deportment. Nothing is more unbecoming you; nothing will render you more unpleasant in the eyes of others, than froward or contemptuous conduct towards your parents. There are children, and I wish I could say there are only a few, who speak to their parents with rudeness, grow sullen at their rebukes, behave in their presence as if they deserved no attention, hear them speak without noticing them, and rather ridicule than honour them. There are many children at the present day who think more highly of themselves than of their elders; who think that their own wishes are first to be gratified; who abuse the condescension and kindness of their parents, and treat them as servants rather than superiors. Beware, my young friends, lest you grow up with this assuming and selfish spirit. Regard your parents as kindly given you by God, to support, direct, and govern you in your present state of weakness and inexperience. Express your respect for them in your manner and conversation. Do not neglect those outward signs of dependence and inferiority which suit your age. You are young, and you should therefore take the lowest place, and rather retire than thrust yourselves forward into notice. You have much to learn, and you should therefore hear, instead of seeking to be heard. You are dependent, and you should therefore ask instead of demanding what you desire, and you should receive every thing from your parents as a favour, and not as a debt. I do not mean to urge upon you a slavish fear of your parents. Love them, and love them ardently; but mingle a sense of their superiority with your love. Feel a confidence in their kindness; but let not this confidence make you rude and presumptuous, and lead to indecent familiarity. Talk to them with openness and freedom; but never contradict with violence; never answer with passion or contempt.
‘Secondly, You should be grateful to your parents. Consider how much you owe them. The time has been, and it was not a long time past, when you depended wholly on their kindness,—when you had no strength to make a single effort for yourselves,—when you could neither speak nor walk, and knew not the use of any of your powers. Had not a parent’s arm supported you, you must have fallen to the earth, and perished. Observe with attention the infants which you often see, and consider that a little while ago you were as feeble as they are: you were only a burden and a care, and you had nothing with which you could repay your parents’ affection. But did they forsake you? How many sleepless nights have they been disturbed by your cries! When you were sick, how tenderly did they hang over you! With what pleasure have they seen you grow up in health to your present state; and what do you now possess which you have not received from their hands? God, indeed, is your great parent, your best friend, and from him every good gift descends; but God is pleased to bestow every thing upon you through the kindness of your parents. To your parents you owe every comfort: you owe to them the shelter you enjoy from the rain and cold, the raiment which covers, and the food which nourishes you. While you are seeking amusements, or are employed in gaining knowledge at school, your parents are toiling that you may be happy, that your wants may be supplied, that your minds may be improved, that you may grow up and be useful in the world. And when you consider how often you have forfeited all this kindness, and yet how ready they have been to forgive you, and to continue their favours, ought not you to look upon them with the tenderest gratitude? What greater monster can there be than an unthankful child, whose heart is never warmed by the daily expressions of parental solicitude; who, instead of requiting his best friend by his affectionate conduct, is sullen and passionate, and thinks his parents will do nothing for him, because they will not do all he desires? Consider how much better they can decide for you than you can for yourselves. You know but little of the world in which you live. You hastily catch at every thing which promises you pleasure; and unless the authority of a parent should restrain you, you would soon rush into ruin, without a thought or a fear. In pursuing your own inclinations, your health would be destroyed, your minds would run to waste, you would grow up slothful, selfish, a trouble to others, and burdensome to yourselves. Submit, then, cheerfully to your parents. Have you not experienced their goodness long enough to know, that they wish to make you happy, even when their commands are most severe? Prove, then, your sense of this goodness by doing cheerfully what they require. When they oppose your wishes, do not think that you have more knowledge than they. Do not receive their commands with a sour, angry, sullen look, which says, louder than words, that you obey only because you dare not rebel. If they deny your requests, do not persist in urging them, but consider how many requests they have already granted you. Do not expect that your parents are to give up every thing to you, but study to give up every thing to them. Do not wait for them to threaten, but when a look tells you what they want, fly to perform it. This is the way in which you can best reward them for all their pains and labours. In this way you will make their house pleasant and cheerful. But if you are disobedient, perverse, and stubborn, you will make home a place of contention, noise, and anger, and your best friends will have reason to wish that you had never been born. A disobedient child almost always grows up ill-natured and disobliging to all with whom he is connected. None love him, and he has no heart to love any but himself. If you would be amiable in your temper and manner, and desire to be beloved, let me advise you to begin your life with giving up your wills to your parents.
‘Again, You must express your respect for your parents, by placing unreserved confidence in them. This is a very important part of your duty. Children should learn to be honest, sincere, open-hearted to their parents. An artful, hypocritical child is one of the most unpromising characters in the world. You should have no secrets which you are unwilling to disclose to your parents. If you have done wrong, you should openly confess it, and ask that forgiveness which a parent’s heart is so ready to bestow. If you wish to undertake any thing, ask their consent. Never begin any thing in the hope you can conceal your design. If you once strive to impose on your parents, you will be led on, from one step to another, to invent falsehoods, to practise artifice, till you will become contemptible and hateful. You will soon be detected, and then none will trust you. Sincerity in a child will make up for many faults. Of children, he is the worst who watches the eyes of his parents, pretends to obey as long as they see him, but as soon as they have turned away, does what they have forbidden. Whatever else you do, never deceive. Let your parents learn your faults from your own lips, and be assured they will never love you the less for your openness and sincerity.’—(Sermons and Tracts, p. 233.)
The whole discourse is prettily turned, and made out with great simplicity and feeling. There is a want neither of heart nor head. Dr. Channing here does well, for he trusts to his own observations and convictions. We may also give what he says in answer to Fenelon, on the subject of self-annihilation, as another favourable specimen of free enquiry, and of a higher or more philosophical cast.
‘We have said that self-crucifixion and love to God are, in Fenelon’s system, the two chief constituents, or elements, of virtue and perfection. To these we will give separate attention, although in truth, they often coalesce, and always imply one another. We begin with self-crucifixion, or what is often called self-sacrifice, and on this we chiefly differ from the expositions of our author. Perhaps the word self occurs more frequently than any other in Fenelon’s writings, and he is particularly inclined to place it in contrast with, and in opposition to, God. According to his common teaching, God and self are hostile influences or attractions, having nothing in common; the one the concentration of all evil, the other of all good. Self is the principle and the seat of all guilt and misery. He is never weary of pouring reproach on self; and, generally speaking, sets no limits to the duty of putting it to a painful death. Now, language like this has led men to very injurious modes of regarding themselves and their own nature, and made them forgetful of what they owe to themselves. It has thrown a cloud over man’s condition and prospects. It has led to self-contempt, a vice as pernicious as pride. A man, when told perpetually to crucify himself, is apt to include under this word his whole nature; and we fear that, under this teaching, our nature is repressed, its growth stinted, its free movements chained, and, of course, its beauty, grace, and power impaired. We mean not to charge on Fenelon this error of which we have spoken, or to hold him responsible for its effects. But we do think that it finds shelter under his phraseology; and we deem it so great, so pernicious, as to need a faithful exposition. Men err in nothing more than in disparaging and wronging their own nature. None are just to themselves. The truth on this great subject is indeed so obscured, that it may startle as a paradox. A human being, justly viewed, instead of being bound to general self-crucifixion, cannot reverence and cherish himself too much. This position, we know, is strong; but strong language is needed to encounter strong delusion. We would teach that great limitations must be set to the duty of renouncing or denying ourselves, and that no self-crucifixion is virtuous but that which concurs with, and promotes self-respect. We will unfold our meaning, beginning with positions which we presume will be controverted by none.’
Dr. Channing, after showing that the mind, the body, and even self-love, are parts of our nature which cannot well be dispensed with, thus proceeds:—
‘Now, it is not true that self-love is our only principle, or that it constitutes ourselves any more than other principles; and the wrong done to our nature by such modes of speech, needs to be resisted. Our nature has other elements or constituents, and vastly higher ones, to which self-love was meant to minister, and which are at war with its excesses. For example, we have reason or intellectual energy given us for the pursuit and acquisition of truth; and this is essentially a disinterested principle, for truth, which is its object, is of a universal, impartial nature. The great province of the intellectual faculty is to acquaint the individual with the laws and order of the divine system; a system, which spreads infinitely beyond himself, and of which he forms a small part; which embraces innumerable beings equally favoured by God, and which proposes, as its sublime and beneficent end, the ever-growing good of the whole. Again, human nature has a variety of affections, corresponding to our domestic and most common relations; affections, which in multitudes overpower self-love, which make others the chief object of our care, which nerve the arm for ever-recurring toil by day, and strengthen the wearied frame to forego the slumbers of the night. Then there belongs to every man the general sentiment of humanity, which responds to all human sufferings—to a stranger’s tears and groans, and often prompts to great sacrifices for his relief. Above all, there is the moral principle, that which should especially be called a man’s self; for it is clothed with a kingly authority over his whole nature, and was plainly given to bear sway over every desire. This is evidently a disinterested principle. Its very essence is impartiality. It has no respect of persons. It is the principle of justice, taking the rights of all under its protection, and frowning on the least wrong, however largely it may serve ourselves. This moral nature especially delights in, and enjoins a universal charity, and makes the heart thrill with exulting joy, at the sight or hearing of magnanimous deeds, of perils fronted, or death endured in the cause of humanity. Now, these various principles, and especially the last, are as truly ourselves as self-love. When a man thinks of himself, these ought to occur to him as his chief attributes. He can hardly injure himself more than by excluding these from his conception of himself, and by making self-love the great constituent of his nature.
‘We have urged these remarks on the narrow sense often given to the word self, because we are persuaded that it leads to degrading ideas of human nature, and to the pernicious notion that we practise a virtuous self-sacrifice in holding it in contempt. We would have it understood, that high faculties form this despised self, as truly as low desires; and we would add, that when these are faithfully unfolded, this self takes rank among the noblest beings in the universe. To illustrate this thought, we ask the reader’s attention to an important, but much-neglected, view of virtue and religion. These are commonly spoken of in an abstract manner, as if they were distinct from ourselves—as if they were foreign existences, which enter the human mind, and dwell there in a kind of separation from itself. Now, religion and virtue, wherever they exist, are the mind itself, and nothing else. A good man’s piety and virtue are not distinct possessions; they are himself, and all the glory which belongs to them, belongs to himself. What is religion? Not a foreign inhabitant—not something alien to our nature, which comes and takes up its abode in the soul. It is the soul itself, lifting itself up to its Maker. What is virtue? It is the soul listening to, and revering and obeying a law which belongs to its very essence—the law of duty. We sometimes smile when we hear men decrying human nature, and in the same breath extolling religion to the skies, as if religion were any thing more than human nature acting in obedience to its chief law. Religion and virtue, as far as we possess them, are ourselves; and the homage which is paid to these attributes, is in truth a tribute to the soul of man. Self-crucifixion, then, should it exclude self-reverence, would be any thing but virtue.
‘We would briefly suggest another train of thought leading to the same result. Self-crucifixion, or self-renunciation, is a work, and work requires an agent. By whom, then, is it accomplished? We answer, by the man himself, who is the subject of it. It is he who is summoned to the effort. He is called by a voice within, and by the law of God, to put forth power over himself, to rule his own spirit, to subdue every passion. Now, this inward power, which self-crucifixion supposes and demands, is the most signal proof of a high nature which can be given. It is the most illustrious power which God confers. It is a sovereignty worth more than that over outward nature. It is the chief constituent of the noblest order of virtues; and its greatness, of course, demonstrates the greatness of the human mind, which is perpetually bound and summoned to put it forth. But this is not all; self-crucifixion has an object, an end. And what is it? Its great end is to give liberty and energy to our nature. Its aim is not to break down the soul, but to curb those lusts and passions which “war against the soul,” that the moral and intellectual faculties may rise into new life, and may manifest their divine original. Self-crucifixion, justly viewed, is the suppression of the passions, that the power and progress of thought, and conscience, and pure love, may be unrestrained. It is the destruction of the brute, that the angel may unfold itself within. It is founded on our godlike capacities, and the expansion and glory of these is the end. Thus the very duty, which by some is identified with self-contempt, implies and imposes self-reverence. It is the belief and the choice of perfection, as our inheritance and our end.’
This is extremely well meant, and very ably executed. There is a primâ philosophiâ view of the subject, which is, we think, above the ordinary level of polemical reasoning in our own country. In the line of argument adopted by our author, there is a strong reflection of the original and masterly views of the innate capacity of the soul for piety and goodness, insisted on in Bishop Butler’s Sermons—a work which has fallen into neglect, partly because of the harshness and obscurity of its style, but more because it contains neither a libel on human nature, nor a burlesque upon religion. There is much in the above train of thought silently borrowed from this profound work. Dr. Channing’s argument is, we think, good and sound against the misanthropes in philosophy, and the cynics in religion, who alike maintain the absolute falsity of all human virtue; but the Bishop of Cambray might say, that, with respect to him, it was not a practical answer, so much as a verbal evasion; neither meeting his views nor removing the source of his complaints. Fenelon assuredly, in wishing to annihilate self, did not wish to extirpate charity and faith, but to crush the old serpent, the great enemy of these. There is no doubt of the capacity of the soul for good and evil; the only question is, which principle prevails and triumphs. The satirist and the man of the world laugh at the pretension to superior sanctity and disinterestedness; the pious enthusiast may then be excused if he weeps at the want of them.