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    she was . People called her cold , satirical , pragmatical ; but the rough glove , which she wore defensively , eovei'ed a skin that any weed or insect could sting and blister . They talked of her want of

    feeling , whose nerves were cart-ropes to her thrilling organization . And when once her emotion had way , what a burst , a gush , a torrent it was ! Her father never saw that . A quarter of a century after education had ceased , his presence would have instantly made all as still as the Neva in December . He believed she

    was tolerably good , very unafTectionate , and rather obstinate . The affections are involuntary ; and were they not , are yet too delicate to be made an agency of bribery and coercion . The father who says , I won ' t love you , " * if he does not tell a falsehood , at least affirms an uncertainty . There was a father who had a Prodigal Son . The parable does not record a declaration of not loving him as the means of restoration . Nature is the best

    rewarder and punisher . The natural consequences of actions , external and internal , are the most safe and wholesome discipline . The parent or pedagogue has only to act as their expositor . If he content Jiimself with explaining , and pretend not to legislate , he will do well . Imitation , sympathy , and affection , will establish all the power which any adult ought to exercise over the young , provided he begin with the beginning , as all moral education should . And more in this mode than , in any other way may be effected , even when the process does not commence till a late period . There is too little love in this child . Make him . feel , by the tone of unkindness , that he is not the object of love , but of anger , and so diminish what there is . Why what an egregious blunder is this !

    A mistake of the same family is produced by Mrs . Stock , when , (in her commentary on cruelty to animals , she says to Adam , ( p . 4 G , ) Learn to love ^ and be gentle to every creature , and you will have many happy hours when you think of your conduct . ' I Tow much better to have said , ' What delight it will be to see them all happy ! ' Love is objective , and impels with simplicity of aim to the production of good . A loving nature cannot be over laying schemes for self-gratulation . A man may wrap himself up

    in the warm cloak of his good works ; say to his soul , ' Thou art like virtue itself , which is ( c the most virtuous of all things ; ' and make himself very comfortable , thinking of his conduct ; yet all the while nature may be half destroyed in him , and love not generated . It is not one ' s own conduct , but the enjoyment of others that , being vividly realized in the imagination , is the food of benevolence . Mrs . Stock ' s lesson would only teach Adam to regard love and gentleness as part of a stock in trade , which might yield a balance when he cast up his accounts . Still worse is the ' true story' to which her remark ih appended ; the tendency of the story , that is , as here told . It is a

    disgusting anecdote of a man who roasted a game cock alive

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    Adam the Gardener . 149

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 149, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/65/