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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
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
Untitled Article
Adam the Gardener . 149
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Citation
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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/
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