Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

the fund, which had been hoarded to educate a family, would not buy them a breakfast. At this moment the father died.

I will not trace the history of this family through its days of destitution and poverty. It is sufficient to state that the children were scattered in various directions, and engaged in various employments, till at length all were gone, and the mother left alone, dependent on friends for a bedroom, and on the labor of her hands for her own subsistence; a precarious dependence, for to other misfortunes had succeeded the loss of health. In process of time, one of the sons, having completed his apprenticeship, hired a house for his mother, and lived with her, while he followed the occupation of a shoemaker. Thanksgiving Day came; and with it, returned an opportunity to indulge in its peculiar rites, which they had not enjoyed for ten years. The two younger boys, who lived at a distance from each other and from the parent, came HOME to keep Thanksgiving.

The festive preparations were completed. The table was spread. Around it stood a mother and three sons, who had not been assembled together before within the remembrance of the youngest of the group. The grateful and pious mother lifted her heart and her voice to the widow's God, and uttered a blessing on that kindness which had not broken the bruised reed, and that goodness which had remembered all her sorrows, and permitted her once more to see so many of her orphan children assembled around her. Her expressions of gratitude were not finished, when the tide of affection and thanksgiving, which swelled the heart, overpowered the physical faculties. Her bosom heaved with strong convulsions, her utterance was choked, the lips could not relieve by words the emotions which filled the soul: she faltered, and would have fallen, had not the elder son caught and sustained her in his arms. Tears, at length, came to her relief, and the earthquake of the soul was succeeded by those grateful and affectionate sensations, which can find no parallel but in a mother's heart.

It is more than forty years since this incident took place. The scene is now as fresh and bright to my imagination, as it was at the moment of its occurrence. Eternity cannot obliterate its impression from my memory; for that widow was my

MOTHER.

J. T. BUCKINGHAM.

LESSON CL.

DUTIES OF AMERICAN MOTHERS.

Ir is by the promulgation of sound morals in the community, and, more especially, by the training and instruction of the young, that woman performs her part towards the preservation of a free government. It is now generally admitted, that public liberty, the perpetuity of a free constitution, rests on the virtue and intelligence of the community which enjoys it. How is that virtue to be inspired, and how is that intelligence to be communicated? Bonaparte once asked Madam De Stael in what manner he could most promote the happiness of France. Her reply is full of political wisdom. She said; “Instruct the mothers of the French people." Because the mothers are the affectionate and effective teachers of the human race. The mother begins this process of training with the infant in her arms. It is she who directs, so to speak, its first mental and spiritual pulsations. She conducts it along the impressible years of childhood and youth; and hopes to deliver it to the rough contest, and tumultuous scenes of life, armed by those good principles which her child has first received from maternal care and love.

If we draw within the circle of our contemplation the mothers of a civilized nation, what do we see? We behold so many artificers, working, not on frail and perishable matter, but on the immortal mind, molding and fashioning beings who are to exist forever. We applaud the artist whose skill and genius present the mimic man upon the canvas; we admire and celebrate the sculptor who works out that same image in enduring marble; but how insignificant are these achievements, though the highest and the fairest in all the departments of art, in comparison with the great vocation of human mothers! They work not upon the canvas that shall fail, or the marble that shall crumble into dust, but upon mind, upon spirit, which is to last forever, and which is to bear, throughout its duration, the impress of a mother's plastic hand.

I have already expressed the opinion, which all allow to be correct, that our security for the duration of the free institutions which bless our country, depends upon the habits of virtue, and the prevalence of knowledge and education. Know

ledge does not comprise all which is contained in the larger term of education. The feelings are to be disciplined; the passions are to be restrained; true and worthy motives are to be inspired; a profound religious feeling is to be instilled, and pure morality inculcated under all circumstances.

All this is comprised in education. Mothers who are faithful to this great duty, will tell their children that neither in political nor in any other concerns of life, can man ever withdraw himself from the perpetual obligations of conscience and duty; that in every act, whether public or private, he incurs a just responsibility; and that in no condition is he warranted in trifling with important rights and obligations. They will impress upon their children the truth, that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty, of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every free elector is a trustee as well for others as himself; and that every man and every measure he supports, has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own. It is in the inculcation of pure and high morals such as these, that, in a free Republic, woman performs her sacred duty, and fulfils her high destiny.

D. WEBSTER.

LESSON CLI.

(Elliptical.)

LADY ARABELLA JOHNSON.

THE lady Arabella Johnson, a daughter of the earl of Lincoln, accompanied her husband in the embarkation under Winthrop; and, in honor of her, the admiral ship, on that occasion, was called by her ( . . ). She died in a very short time after her ( ), and lies buried near the neighboring shore. No stone, or other memorial, indicates the exact (. ); but tradition has (

reverence.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

The remembrance of her (

) it with a holy

) is yet fresh in all our thoughts; and many a heart still kindles with ( . . ) of her virtues; and many a bosom heaves with sighs at her untimely end.

[ocr errors]

What, indeed, could be more touching than the fate of such a woman? What example more striking than hers, of uncompromising affection and piety? Born in the lap of ease, and (...) by affluence; with every prospect which could make hope gay, and fortune desirable; accustomed to the (. . . ) of a court, and the scarcely less splendid hospitalities of her ancestral home; she was yet (.. quit, what has, not inaptly, been termed "this paradise of plenty and pleasure," for "a wilderness of wants,” and, with a fortitude(.. ) to the delicacies of her rank and sex, to

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

) to

),

trust herself to an unknown ocean and a distant ( that she might partake, with her husband, the pure and spiritual worship of God.

To the honor, to the eternal honor of her sex, be it said, that, in the path of duty, no (

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

) is with them too

[ocr errors]

high or too dear. Nothing is with them ( ), but to shrink from what love, honor, innocence, religion, require. The voice of pleasure or of power may pass by unheeded; but the voice of affliction, never. The chamber of the sick, the pillow of the dying, the vigils of the dead, the altars of religion, never missed the presence or the sympathies of ( ..). Timid though she be, and so delicate that the winds of heaven may not too ( ) visit her, on such occasions she loses all sense of danger, and assumes a preternatural courage, which knows not, and fears not ( Then she displays that undaunted spirit, which neither courts difficulties, nor evades them; that resignation, which utters neither murmur nor regret; and that patience in suffering, which seems ( ) even over death itself.

The lady Arabella (

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

).

[ocr errors]

) in this noble undertaking,

of which she seemed the ministering angel; and her death spread (. ) gloom throughout the colony. Her husband was overwhelmed with ( ) at the unexpected event, and survived her but a single month. Governor Winthrop has pronounced his eulogy in one short sentence: “He was a holy man, and wise, and died in sweet peace.'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

He was truly the idol of the people; and the spot selected by himself for his own ( ) became consecrated in their eyes; so that many left it as a dying request, that they might be buried by his side. Their request prevailed; and

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

the Chapel burying-ground in Boston, which ( his remains, became, from that time, appropriated to the ( ) of the dead. Perhaps the best tribute to this excellent pair is, that time, which, with so unsparing a hand, consigns statesmen, and heroes, and even sages, to oblivion, has embalmed the memory of their worth, and preserved it among the choicest of New England relics. It can scarcely be forgotten, but with the annals of our country.

STORY.

LESSON CLII.

TRIALS OF THE PILGRIMS.

FROM the dark portals of the Star Chamber, and in the stern text of the acts of uniformity, the Pilgrims received a commission more efficient than any that ever bore the royal seal. Their banishment to Holland was fortunate; the decline of their little company in a strange land was fortunate; the difficulties which they experienced in getting the royal consent to banish themselves to this wilderness were fortunate; all the tears and heart-breakings of that ever memorable parting at Delfthaven, had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New England. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and required of those, who engaged in it, to be so too. They cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness over the cause; and if this sometimes deepened into melancholy and bitterness, can we find no apology for such a human weakness?

It is sad, indeed, to reflect on the disasters which the little band of pilgrims encountered; sad to see a portion of them the prey of unrelenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they are soon obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves into one vessel; one hundred persons, besides the ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and eighty tons! One is touched at the story of the long, cold, and weary autumnal passage; of the landing on the

« AnteriorContinuar »