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Untitled Article
played by what is called parental fondness , which decks itself in sanctity , and claims applause while it only seeks gratification ! Fondness , which will not teach the self-restraint and command , without which there is no solid worth of character ;—fondness which , instead of seconding , impedes the efforts of the professional instructor , in order to attract regard to self , as the dispenser of pleasure ;—fondness , which will place a child in moral peril for
the sake of wealth or high connexion ;—fondness , which debars from the society where enjoyment would be imparted and re ^ ceived , —mind stimulated , and character developed , all because it cannot spare the dear good creature . Out upon it ! And then , the dutiful daughter ; we fear we cannot sympathize with her either . A good commandment is the fifth commandment , but the promise to it is long life , and not a watery grave . If she could not stay away from her mother , and knew her mother could not do without her , it was not a wise affection that ran the
imminent and deadly risk of a final separation . It would have been far better to have inflicted four-and-twenty hours' anxiety . Was there no way round , by a day ' s journey , instead of crossing the broad river ? Commend us to the old Scotchwoman , who , when told that there was danger at Queensferry , but that she must trust to Providence , replied , 'Na , na , I'll na trust to
Providence , sae long as there is a brig at Stirling / It would have been a much more sensible , and , therefore , a certainly not less devout mode , of trusting to Providence for getting safely and speedily across the Humber , to have gone up the stream till it was bridged or ford able , than to have embarked on a blue peter' passage . Give us the affection which , in returning to us , does not ' make
more haste than good speed . ' But the Rev . Mr . Marvell is the most marvellously immoral of all ; we grieve to say it 5 but the fact cannqt be blinked . Why did he seduce the devoted daughter from her fond mother ' s side ? There we see the initia malorum , the * direful spring of all these watery woes , the opening scene of this Yorkshire Tragedy . ' He
wanted / her , forsooth , * to stand godmother to a child of his . ' Why could he not stand godmother himself ? Was there not something impious , was it not a sort of parody on St . Matthew , for him to wish a . child of his to have such a pure virgin mother ? The godmothership could be but an unmeaning and useless form , so long as that stormy Humber rolled between . What could the . spiritual relationship avail—what could it profit
the child , in its ignorance , its temptations , and its . sinful ness , to have an unconscious sponsor far away ' on that shore of the Humber opposite Kingston ? ' The Rev . Mr . M arvell should have studied theology better . In Christian antiquity there were no such things as godmothers on ^ either side of the Humber or of any . other river . , The best libraries wei ; e on the Kingston side , and he had every advantage for consulting the commentators , and ascertaining that godmothers were not scriptural . Besides ,
Untitled Article
7 ^ 4 . On theMorality >~ of Andrew JMaryett'r Father .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 764, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/44/
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