Household Education Part 5

Yet nearer will their hearts draw to his in veneration for goodness; for intrepid truthfulness, for humble fidelity, for cheerful humility, for gentle charity. And at the ultimate point, their hearts must become one with his; in the presence of the Unknown; for there we are all,--the oldest and the youngest--the wisest and the weakest,--but little children, waiting to learn, and desiring to obey.

CHAPTER XVI.

CARE OF THE POWERS.--TRUTHFULNESS.

We come now to consider a moral quality whose importance cannot be overrated, yet about which there is more unsettledness of view and perplexity of heart among parents than about, perhaps, any other. Every parent is anxious about the truthfulness of his child: but whether this virtue is to come by nature, or by gift, or by training, many an one is sorely perplexed to know. So few children are truthful in all respects and without variation, that we may well doubt whether the quality can be inborn. And the cases are so many of children otherwise good--even conscientious in other respects--who talk at random, and say things utterly untrue, that I do not wonder that those who hold low views of human nature consider this a const.i.tutional vice, and a hereditary curse. I am very far from believing this: and I will plainly say what I do believe.

I believe that the requisites of a habit of truthfulness lie in the brain of every child that is born; but that the truthfulness itself has to be taught, as the speech which is to convey it has to be taught; by helping the child to the use of his natural powers. The child has by nature the ear, the lungs, the tongue, the palate, and the various and busy mind,--the requisites for speech: but he does not speak unless incited by hearing it from others, and by being himself led on to attain the power. In a somewhat resembling manner, every child has more or less natural sense of what is just in feeling and action, and what is real in nature, and how to present his ideas to another mind. Here are the requisites to truthfulness of speech: but there is much to be learned, and much to overcome, before the practice of truthfulness can be completely formed, and firmly established. If the case is once understood, we shall know how to set about our work, and may await the event without dismay in the worst cases, though in all with the most careful vigilance.

Is it not true that different nations, even Christian nations, vary more in regard to truthfulness than perhaps any other moral quality? Is it not true that one or two continental nations fall below us in regard to this quality, while they far excel us in kindliness and cheerfulness of temper, and pleasantness of manners? And does not this difference arise from their thinking kindliness and cheerfulness more important than sincerity and accuracy of speech? And is not our national superiority in regard to the practice of truth chiefly owing to its being our national point of honour, and our fixed supposition as a social habit? Do not these facts tend to show that the practice of truthfulness is the result of training? and that we may look for it with confidence as the result of good training?

Now, what are the requisites, and what the difficulties that we have to deal with?

Has not every child a keen sense of right and justice, which he shows from the earliest time that he can manifest any moral judgment at all?

He may be injurious and unjust to another, from selfishness and pa.s.sion: but can he not feel injustice done to himself with the infallibility of an instinct, and claim his rights with the acuteness of a lawyer? Is there anything more surprising to us in the work of education than every child's sense of his rights, and need of unerring justice, till he is far enough advanced generously to dispense with it? Here we have the perception of moral truth for one requisite.

Another requisite is such good perceptive power as informs a child truly of outward facts. There is no natural power which varies more in different subjects than this. One child sees everything as it is, within its range. Another child sees but little, being taken up with what it thinks or imagines. A third sees wrongly, being easily deceived about colours and forms, and the order in which things happen, from its senses being dull, or its faculties of observation being indolent. I have known a child declare an object to be green when it was grey; or a man in a field to be a giant; or a thing to have happened in the morning which took place in the afternoon: and one need but observe how witnesses in a court of justice vary in their testimony about small matters regarding which they are quite disinterested, to see that the same imperfection in the perceptive faculties goes on into mature age. It is plain that these faculties must be exercised and trained very carefully, if the child is to be made accurate in its statements.

Another and most important requisite is that the child should, from the beginning, believe that truthfulness is a duty. This belief must be given on authority: for the obligation to truth is not, as I have said, instinctive, but a matter of reasoning, such as a child is not capable of entering into. He will receive it, easily and permanently, from the a.s.surance and example of his parents; but he does not, in his earliest years, see it for himself. An affectionate child, thinking of a beloved person, will tell his parent that he has just seen and talked with that person, who is known to be a hundred miles off. The parent is shocked: and truly there is cause for distress; for it is plain that the child has as yet no notion of the duty of truthfulness; but the parent must not, in his fear, aggravate the case, and run into the conclusion that the child loves lying. The case probably is that he says what is pleasant to his affections, without being aware that there is a more serious matter to be attended to first: a thing which he may hereafter be shocked not to have known. I happen to remember at this moment, three persons, now conscientiously truthful, who in early childhood were in the habit of telling, not only wonderful dreams, but most wonderful things that they had seen in their walks, on the high-road or the heath; giants, castles, beautiful ladies riding in forests, and so on. In all these cases, the parents were deeply distressed, and applied themselves accordingly, first to check the practice of narration, and next to exercise the perceptive and reflective powers of the children, so as to enable them to distinguish clearly the facts they saw from the visions they called up before their mind's eye. The appeal to conscience they left for cases where their child had clearer notions of right and wrong.

Any one of these children would, I believe, at that very time, have suffered much rather than say what he knew to be false, from any motive of personal fear or hope. As I said, all these three are now eminently honourable and trustworthy persons.

The chief final requisite is, of course, conscientiousness. When the child becomes capable of self-knowledge and self-government, this alone can be relied on for such a confirmation of the habit of truth telling, or such a correction of any tendency to inaccuracy, as may carry the young probationer through all temptations from within and from without, steady in the practice of strict truth. When all these requisites are combined,--when the child feels truly, sees truly, and is aware of the duty of speaking truly, the practice of truthfulness becomes as natural and unfailing as if it originated in an instinct.

I remember an instance of the strange, unbalanced, unprincipled state of mind of a child, who was capable of telling a lie, and persisting in it, at the very time that she was conscientious to excess about some of her duties, and her sense of justice (in regard to her own rights) ran riot in her. It is an odd and a sad story; but instructive from its very strangeness. She was asked by her mother one day whether she had not played battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k before breakfast. From some levity or inattention at the moment, she said "No," and was immediately about to correct herself when her mother's severe countenance roused her pride and obstinacy, and she wickedly repeated her denial. Here it was temper that was the snare. There was nothing to be afraid of in saying the truth, no reason why she should not. But she had a temper of such pride and obstinacy that she was aware of even enjoying being punished, as giving her an opportunity of standing out; while the least word of appeal to her affections or her conscience, if uttered before her temper was roused, would melt her in a moment. The question was repeated in many forms; and still she, with a terrified and miserable conscience, persisted that she had not played battledore that morning; whereas her mother had heard it, and knew from her companion who it was that had played. The lying child was sent to her own room, where she was in consternation enough till a mistake of management was made which spoiled everything, and destroyed the lesson to her. She was sent for to read aloud, before the family, the story of Ananias and Sapphira. She was sobbing so that the reading was scarcely possible, till her thoughts took a turn which speedily dried her tears, and filled her with an insolent indignation which excluded all chance of repentance. She well knew the story of Ananias and Sapphira; and she happened to have a great admiration of the plan of the early Christians, of throwing all their goods into a common stock. She knew that the sin of Ananias and his wife lay chiefly in the selfish fraud which was the occasion of their lie, and that their case was therefore no parallel for hers: and in the indignation of having it supposed that she had sinned in their way,--she who longed above everything to have been an early Christian (a pretty subject truly!)--that she could be thought silly enough to suppose that they were struck dead for their fib, and not for their fraud,--in this insolent indignation she put her one sin out of sight, and felt herself an injured person. This adventure certainly did not strengthen her regard to truth. She dared not state her objection to the story in her own case: and perhaps she also disdained to do it: she remained sullen; and her mother had at last to let the matter drop.

This was a case to make any parent's heart sink: but the worse the case, the more instructive to us now. Here was sufficient moral sense and insight, in one direction, to hear an appeal, if any had been made.

Disgrace was the worst possible resort, and especially when untenable ground was taken for it. The best resort would have been a tender and solemn private conversation, in which the entanglement of pa.s.sionate feelings might have been unravelled, and the seat of moral disease have been explored. When a moral disease so fearful as this appears, parents should never rest till they have found the seat of it, and convinced the perilled child of the deadly nature of its malady. In this case, the child was certainly not half-convinced, and morally worse after the treatment, while the material for conviction, repentance and reformation, was in her.

The method of training must depend much on the organisation of the child in one respect; whether he is ingenuous and frank, or reserved and (I must say it)--sly. Some children are certainly p.r.o.ne to slyness by nature; but there is no reason why, under a wise training, they should not be as honourable as the most ingenuous soul that ever was born. And they may even, when thoroughly principled, be more reliable than some open-minded persons, from being more circ.u.mspect.

There is something very discouraging in seeing little creatures who ought to be all fearlessness and confidence hiding things under their pinafores, or slipping out at the back-door for a walk which they might have honestly by asking for it; or putting round-about questions when plain ones would do; or keeping all their little concerns to themselves while spending their whole lives among brothers and sisters. If one looks forward to their maturity, one recoils from the image of what they will be. But they must not grow up with these tendencies. Their fault may turn to virtue, under wise and gentle treatment. Their confidence must be tenderly won, and their innocent desires gratified, while every slyness is quietly shown to be as unavailing as it is disagreeable, and every movement towards ingenuousness cheerfully and lovingly encouraged.

The child's imagination must be engaged on behalf of everything that is n.o.ble, heroic, and openly glorious before the eyes of men. His conscience and affections must be appealed to, not in words, but by a long course of love and trust, to return the trust he receives. Of course, the parental example must be that of perfect openness and simplicity; for the sight of mystery and concealment in the house is enough to make even the ingenuous child sly, through its faculty of imitation, and its ambition to be old and wise; and much more will it hinder the expansion of a reserved and cunning child. If these things be all attended to--if he sees only what is open, free, and simple, and receives treatment which is open, free, and encouraging, while it convinces him of a sagacity greater than his own, there is every hope that he will yield himself to the kindly influences dispensed to him, and find for himself the comfort and security of ingenuousness, and turn his secretive ingenuity to purposes of intellectual exercise, where it may do much good and no harm. That ingenuity and sagacity may be well employed among the secrets of history, the complexities of the law, or the mysteries of mechanical construction or chemical a.n.a.lysis, which may make a man vicious and untrustworthy, if allowed to work in his moral nature, and to shroud his daily conduct.

As for the training of the candid and ingenuous child, it is of course far easier and pleasanter; but it must not be supposed that no care is required to make him truthful. He must be trained to accuracy, or all his ingenuousness will not save him from saying many a thing which is not true. Dr. Johnson advised that if a child said he saw a thing out of one window, when in fact he saw it out of another, he should be set right. I think the Dr. was right; and that a child should consider no kind of misstatement a trifle, seeing always that the parents do not. An open-hearted and ingenuous child is likely to be a great talker; and is in that way more liable to inaccuracy of statement than a reserved child. Oh! let his parents guard him well, by making him early the guardian of the "unruly little member" which may, by neglect, deprive him of the security and peace which should naturally spread from his innocent heart through his open and honest life! Let them help him to add perfect truth of speech to his native truth of heart, and their promising child cannot but be a happy man.

It may seem wearisome to say so often over that the example of the parents is the chief influence in the training of the child; but how can I help saying it when the fact is so? Is it not true that when the father of a family comes home and talks before his children, every word sinks into their minds? If he talks banter--banter so broad that his elder children laugh and understand, how should the little one on its mother's lap fail to be perplexed and misled? It knows nothing about banter, and it looks up seriously in its father's face, and believes all he says, and carries away all manner of absurd ideas. Or, if told not to believe what he hears, how is he to know henceforth what to believe; and how can he put trust in his father's words? The turn for exaggeration which many people have is morally bad for the whole family. It is only the youngest perhaps who will believe that "it rains cats and dogs"

because somebody says so; but a whole family may be misled by habitual exaggeration of statement. The consequence is clear. Either they will take up the habit, from imitation of father or mother, or they will learn to distrust their fluent parent. But how safe is everything made by that established habit of truth in a household which acts like an instinct! If the parents are, as by a natural necessity, always accurate in what they say, or, if mistaken, thankful to be set right, and eager to rectify their mistake, the children thrive in an atmosphere of such sincerity and truth: and any one of them to whom truthfulness may be const.i.tutionally difficult, has the best chance for the strengthening of his weakness. Such an one must have sunk under the least aggravation of his infirmity by the sin of his parents: and the probability is, that the whole household would have gone down into moral ruin together; for it cannot be expected that any natural apt.i.tude for truth in children should improve, or even continue, if discouraged by the example of the parents who ought to hail it as a blessing upon their house.

Of all happy households, that is the happiest, where falsehood is never thought of. All peace is broken up when once it appears that there is a liar in the house. All comfort is gone, when suspicion has once entered; when there must be reserve in talk, and reservation in belief. Anxious parents, who are aware of the pains of suspicion, will place generous confidence in their children, and receive what they say freely, unless there is strong reason to distrust the truth of any one. If such an occasion should unhappily arise, they must keep the suspicion from spreading as long as possible; and avoid disgracing their poor child, while there is any chance of his cure by their confidential a.s.sistance.

He should have their pity and a.s.siduous help, as if he were suffering under some disgusting bodily disorder. If he can be cured, he will become duly grateful for the treatment. If the endeavour fails, means must of course be taken to prevent his example doing harm: and then, as I said, the family peace is broken up, because the family confidence is gone.

I fear that, from some cause or another, there are but few large families where every member is altogether truthful. Some who are not morally guilty, are intellectually incapable of accuracy. But where all are so organised and so trained as to be wholly reliable, in act and word, they are a light to all eyes, and a joy to all hearts. They are a public benefit; for they are a point of general reliance: and they are privately blessed, within and without. Without, their life is made easy by universal trust: and within their home and their hearts, they have the security of rect.i.tude, and the gladness of innocence. If we do but invoke wisdom, she will come, and multiply such homes in our land.

CHAPTER XVII.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.

We come now to the greatest and n.o.blest of the Moral Powers of Man; to that power which makes him quite a different order of being from any other that we know of, and which is the glory and crown of his existence:--his Conscientiousness. The universal endowment of men with this power is the true bond of brotherhood of the human race. Any race of beings who possess in common the highest quality of which any of them are capable, are brothers, however much they may differ in all other respects, and however little some of them may care about this brotherhood. For those who do care about it, how clear it is, and how very interesting to trace! How plain it is that while men in different parts and ages of the world differ widely as to what is right, they all have something in them which prompts them to do what they believe to be right! Here is a little boy, permitted to try what he can get by selling five s.h.i.+llings' worth of oranges:--he points out to the lady who is buying his last half dozen, that two of them are spotted.--There was Regulus, the Roman general, who was taken prisoner by the enemy, the Carthaginians. He was trusted to go to Rome, to treat for an exchange of prisoners, on his promise that he would return to Carthage,--which he knew was returning to death,--if the Roman senate would not grant an exchange of prisoners. He persuaded the Roman senate _not_ to agree to the exchange, which he believed would not be for the advantage of Rome: and then he went back to Carthage and to death. There is, at this day, the South Sea Islander,--the young wife who has been told that it is pious and right to give her first child to the G.o.ds. She has in her all a mother's feelings, all the love which women long to lavish on their first babe: but she desires that the infant should be strangled as soon as born, because she thinks it her duty. Now, this poor creature is truly the sister of the other two, though her superst.i.tion is horrible, and the infanticide it leads to is a great crime. She is shockingly ignorant, and her mind is not of that high order which would perceive that there must be something wrong in going against nature in this way: but, for all that, she is conscientious; and by her conscientiousness she is truly a sister in heart to the honourable Roman general, and the honest orange-seller. What she needs is knowledge: and what the whole human race wants is knowledge, to bring the workings of this great power into harmony all over the world. At present, we see men in one place feeding, and in another place burning one another,--because they think they ought. In one place, we see a man with seventy wives,--in another, a man with one wife,--and in another, a man remaining a bachelor all his life; and each one equally supposing that he is doing what is right. The evil everywhere is in the want of clear views of what is right. This is an evil which may and will be remedied, we may hope, in course of ages.

There is nothing that we may not hope while the power to desire and do what is right is common to all mankind,--is given to them as an essential part of the human frame.

It does not follow, of course, that this power is equal in all. All but idiots have it, more or less; but it varies, in different individuals, quite as much as any other power. No power is more dependant on care and cultivation for its vigour: but none varies more from the very beginning. Some of the worst cases of want of rect.i.tude that I have known have been in persons so placed as that everybody naturally supposed they _must_ be good, and trusted them accordingly. I have known a girl, brought up by highly principled relatives, in a house where nothing but good was seen or heard of, turn out so faulty as to compel one to see that her power of conscientiousness was the weakest she had.

She had some of it. She was uneasy,--truly and not hypocritically,--if she did not read a portion of the bible every day at a certain hour. She was plain, even to prudery, in her dress: she truly honoured old age, and could humble herself before it: and she studiously, and from a sense of duty, administered to the wishes of the elder members of the family, in all matters of arrangement and manners. But that was all. She was tricky to a degree I could never estimate or comprehend. Her little plots and deceptions were without number and without end. Her temper was bad, and she took no pains whatever to mend it, but spent all her exertions in making people as miserable as possible by her vindictiveness. In love matters, she reached a point of malice beyond belief, torturing people's feelings, and getting them into sc.r.a.pes, with a gratification to her own bad mind which could not be concealed under her demure solemnity of manner. Enough of her! I will only observe that, though she was brought up by good people, it does not follow that she was judiciously managed. The result shows that she was not. A perfectly wise guardian would have seen that her faculty of conscientiousness wanted strengthening, and would have found safe and innocent employment for those powers of secretiveness and defiance, and that inordinate love of approbation, which, as it was, issued in mischief-making.--The opposite case to hers is that which touches one with a deeper pity than almost any spectacle which can be seen on this earth: that of the child whose strong power of conscientiousness is directed to wickedness, before it has ability to help itself. Think of the little child born in a cellar, among thieves! It is born full of human powers; and among these, it has a conscience, and perhaps a particularly strong one.

Suppose it is brought up to believe that its duty is to provide money for its parents by stealing. Suppose that, by five years old, it entirely believes that the most wrong thing it can do is to come home at dark without having stolen at least three pocket-handkerchiefs! Such cases have been known; and not a few of them.--And it is only an exaggerated instance of what we very commonly see in history and the world. The Chief Inquisitor in Spain or Italy really believed that he was doing his duty in burning the bodies of heretics for the good of their souls. Our ancestors thought they were acting benevolently in putting badge dresses on charity children. The Pharisees of old were sincere in their belief that it was wrong to heal a sick man on the Sabbath. And I have no doubt that in a future age it will appear that we ourselves are ignorant and mistaken about some points of our conduct in which we now sincerely believe that we are doing what we ought.

In every household, then, the first consideration is to cherish the faculty of conscientiousness; and the next is, to direct it wisely.

When I speak of cheris.h.i.+ng the faculty, I do not mean that it is always to be stimulated, whether it be naturally strong or weak. There are cases, and they are not few, where the power is stronger than perhaps any other. In such cases, no stimulating is required, but only guidance and enlightenment. There are few sadder spectacles than that of a suffering being whose conscience has become so tender as to be superst.i.tious; who lives a life of fear--of incessant fear of doing wrong. It is a healthy conscience that we want to produce; a conscience which shall act naturally, vigorously, and incessantly, like an instinct; so as to leave all the other faculties to act freely, without continual conflict and question whether their action be right or wrong.

A child who is perpetually driven to examine all he thinks and does will become full of himself, p.r.o.ne to discontent with himself, and to servile dependence on the opinion of those whom he thinks wiser than himself.

What is such a child to do when he comes out into the world, and must guide himself? At best, he will go trembling through life, without courage or self-respect: and something worse is to be apprehended. It is to be apprehended that if he makes any slip--and such an one will be sure to think that he does make slips--he will be unable to bear the pain and uncertainty, and will grow reckless. A clergyman, of wide and deep experience, who was the depository of much confidence, told me once (and I have never forgotten it), that some of the worst cases of desperate vice he had ever known were those of young men tenderly and piously reared, who came out from home anxious about the moral dangers of the world and the fears of their parents, and who, having fallen into the slightest fault, and being utterly wretched in consequence, lost all courage and hope, and drowned their misery in indulgence of the worst part of themselves. He felt this so strongly that he solemnly conjured me to use any influence I might ever have over parents in encouraging them to trust their children with their innocence, and to have faith in the best faculties of human nature. This entreaty still rings in my ears, and leads me so to use any influence I may now have over parents.

Is it not true that the strongest delight the human being ever has is in well-doing? Is it not true that this pleasure, like the pleasures of the eye and ear, the pleasures of benevolence, the pleasures of the understanding and the imagination, will seek its own continuance and gratification, if it have fair play? Is it not true that pain of conscience is the worst of human sufferings? and that this pain will be naturally avoided, like every other pain, if only the faculty have fair play?

The worst of it is, the faculty seldom has fair play. The fatal notion that human beings are more p.r.o.ne to evil than inclined to good, and the fatal practice of creating fact.i.tious sins, are dreadfully in the way of natural health of conscience. Teach a child that his nature is evil, and you will make it evil. Teach him to fear and despise himself, and you will make him timid and suspicious. Impose upon him a number of fact.i.tious considerations of duty, and you will perplex his moral sense, and make him tired of a self-government which has no certainty and no satisfaction in it. It is a far safer and higher way to trust to his natural moral sense, and cultivate his moral taste: to let him grow morally strong by leaving him morally free, and to make him, by sympathy and example, in love with whatever things are pure, honest, and lovely.

What the parent has to do with is the moral habits of the child, and not to meddle with his faculties. Give them fair scope to grow, and they will flourish: and, let it be remembered, man has no faculties which are, in themselves and altogether, evil. His faculties are all good, if they are well harmonised. Instead of talking to him, or leading him to talk in his infancy of his own feelings as something that he has to take charge of, fix his mind on the things from which his feelings will of themselves arise. By all means, lead him to be considerate: but not about his own state, but rather about the objects which cause that state. If he sees at home integrity entering into every act and thought, and trust and love naturally ensuing, he will enjoy integrity and live in it, as the native of a southern climate enjoys suns.h.i.+ne and lives in it. If, as must happen, failure of integrity comes under his notice in one direction or another, he will see the genuine disgust and pain which those about him feel at the spectacle, and dishonesty will be disgusting and painful to him. And so on, through all good and bad qualities of men. And this will keep him upright and pure far more certainly than any warnings from you that he will be dishonest and impure, unless he is constantly watching his feelings, and striving against the danger.

In the beginning of his course, he must be aided,--in the early days when the action of all his faculties is weak and uncertain: and this aid cannot be given too early; for we are not aware of any age at which a child has not some sense of moral right and wrong. Mrs. Wesley taught her infants in arms to "cry softly." Without admiring the discipline, we may profit by the hint as to the moral capability of the child. When no older than this, he may have satisfaction, without knowing why, from submitting quietly to be washed, and to go to bed. When he becomes capable of employing himself purposely, he may have satisfaction in doing his business before he goes to his play, and a sense of uneasiness in omitting the duty. I knew a little boy in petticoats who had no particular taste for the alphabet, but began to learn it as a matter of course, without any pretence of relish. One day his lesson was, for some reason, rather short. His conscience was not satisfied. When his elder brother was dismissed, Willie brought his letters again, but found he was not wanted, and might play. The little fellow sighed; and then a bright thought struck him. (I think I see him now, in his white frock, with his large thoughtful eyes lighting up!) He said joyfully--"Willie say his lesson to hisself." He carried his little stool into a corner, put his book on his knees, and finished by honestly covering up the large letters with both hands, and saying aloud two or three new ones.

Then he went to his play, all the merrier for the discharge of his conscience.

There is no reason why it should not be thus with all the duties of a child. The great point is that he should see that the peace and joy of the household depend on ease of conscience. His father takes no pleasure till his work is done, and tells the truth to his hurt. His mother seeks to be just to a slandered neighbour, or leaves her rest by the fireside to aid a sick one. Granny's eyes sparkle, or a flush comes over her withered cheek, when she tells the children what good men have endured rather than pretend what they did not believe, or betray a trust. The maid has taken twopence too much in change, and is uneasy till she has returned it, or she refuses to promise something, lest she should be unable to keep her word. His elder sister refuses something good at a neighbour's, because her mother would think it unwholesome while she is not quite well. His elder brother asks him to throw just a little cold water upon him in the mornings, because he is so terribly sleepy that he cannot get up without. And he sees what a welcome is given to a very poor acquaintance, and he feels his own heart beat with reverence for this very poor neighbour, because his father happens to know that the man refused five pounds for his vote at the last election. If the child is surrounded by a moral atmosphere like this, he will derive a strong moral life from it, and a satisfaction to his highest moral faculties which it is scarcely possible that he should forego for the pleasures of sin. The indolent child will, in such a home, lose all idea of pleasure in being idle, and soon find no pleasure till his work is done. The slovenly child will become uneasy under a dirty skin, and the thoughtless one in being behind his time. Common integrity we may suppose to be a matter of course in a household like this; and, as every virtuous faculty naturally advances "from strength to strength," we may hope that the abode will be blessed, as the children grow up, with a very uncommon integrity.

Though the parent will avoid making the child unnecessarily conscious of its own conscience, she (for this is chiefly the mother's business) will remember that her child has his difficulties and perplexities about the working of this, as of all his other imperfectly trained powers; and she will lay herself open to his confidence. Sometimes he is not clear what he ought to do: sometimes he feels himself too weak to do it: sometimes he is miserable because he has done wrong: and then again, he and some one else may differ as to whether he has done wrong or right. And again, he may have seen something in other people's conduct which shocks, or puzzles, or delights him. Oh! let the mother throw open her heart to confidences like these! Let her be sure that the moments of such confidence are golden moments, for which a mother may be more thankful than for anything else she can ever receive from her child. Let it be her care that every child has opportunity to speak freely and privately to her of such things. Some mothers make it a practice to go themselves to fetch the candle when the children are in bed; and then, if wanted, they stay a few minutes, and hear any confessions, or difficulties, and receive any disclosures, of which the little mind may wish to disburden itself before the hour of sleep. Whether then or at another time, it is well worth pondering what a few minutes of serious consultation may do in enlightening and rousing or calming the conscience,--in rectifying and cheris.h.i.+ng the moral life. It may be owing to such moments as these that humiliation is raised into humility, apathy into moral enterprise, pride into awe, and scornful blame into Christian pity. Happy is the mother who can use such moments as she ought!

There remains, after all, the dread and wonder what such children are to think and do when they must come to know what is the average conscientiousness of the world. This is a subject of fear and pain to most good parents. But they must consider that their children will not see the world as they do all at once:--not till they have learned, like their parents, to allow for, and account for, what happens in the world.

The innocent and the upright put a good construction on as much as possible of what they see; and are often more right in this than their clearer-sighted elders who know more of the tendencies of things. The shock will not come all at once. They hear now of broken contracts, dishonest bargains, venal elections, mercenary marriages, and, perhaps, profligate seductions. They know that there are drunkards, and cheats, and hypocrites, and cruel brutes, in society: and these things hardly affect them, are hardly received by them, because they are surrounded by honest people, and cannot feel what is beyond. And when they must become more truly aware of these things, they will still trust in and admire some whom they look up to, with more or less reason. The knowledge of iniquity will come to them gradually, and all the more safely the less sympathy they have with it.

If it be the pain, and not the danger, of this knowledge that the parents dread, they must make up their minds to it for their children.

Surely they do not expect them to go through life without pain: and a bitter suffering it will be to them to see what wretchedness is in the world through the vices and ignorance of men; through their want of conscientiousness, or their errors of conscience. Such pain must be met and endured; and who is likely to meet it so bravely, and endure it so hopefully, as those who are fully aware that every man's heaven or h.e.l.l is within him--giving a hope that heaven will expand as wisdom grows--and who carry within themselves that peace which the world "can neither give nor take away?"

CHAPTER XVIII.

INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.--ITS REQUISITES.

We are all accustomed to speak of the Intellect and moral powers of man as if they were so distinct from one another that we can deal with each set of powers without touching the other.

It is true that there is a division between the intellectual and moral powers of man, as there is between one moral power and another. It is true that we can think of them separately, and treat them separately: but it does not follow that they will work separately. No part of the brain will act alone, no part begins its own action. It is always put in action by another part previously at work, and it excites in its turn some other portion. While we sleep, that part of the brain is at work on which depend those animal functions which are always going on: and, as we know by our dreams, other portions work with this, giving us ideas and feelings during sleep--perhaps as many as by day, if we could only recollect them. The animal portions of the brain set the intellectual and moral organs to work, and these act upon each other, so that there is no separating their action,--no possibility of employing one faculty at a time without help from any other. As memory cannot act till attention has been awakened,--in other words, as people cannot remember what they have never observed and received, so the timid cannot understand, unless it is in a docile and calm state; nor meditate well without the exercise of candour and truthfulness; nor imagine n.o.bly without the help of veneration and hope. If we take any great intellectual work and examine it, we shall see what a variety of faculties, moral as well as intellectual, have gone to the making of it.

Take "Paradise Lost," a work so glorious for the loftiness of its imagination, and the extent of its learning, and the beauty of its ill.u.s.trations, and the harmony of its versification! These are its intellectual beauties: but look what moral beauties are inseparable from these. Look at the veneration,--not only towards G.o.d, but towards all holiness, and power, and beauty! Look at the purity, the love, the hopefulness, the strain of high honour throughout! And this intellectual and moral beauty are so blended, that we see how impossible it would be for the one to exist without the other. It is just so in the human character--the intellect of a human being cannot be of a high order, (though some particular faculties may be very strong) if the moral nature is low and feeble: and the moral state cannot be a lofty one where the intellect is torpid.