Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/454

 NO INFLUENCE. BY

M38. A.

DENISON.

“I Have no inﬂuence!"

The words were spoken in a sort of passionate v surprise. The speaker was poor, plain, and (in her own eyes) insignificant.

It put us in a moralizing mood—thus. You have influence—you, everybody. You can’t get away from it. And it matters not what is your sphere, your duty, your sex, there is a moral s obligation always pressing upon you. You can- not put it off with excuses; you cannot hide it under careless gayety; you cannot resist it by J moroseness and negligence. It follows you to i; your grave.

No influence!

My friend, you are ever impressing somebody with good or evil—child or neighbor, mistress i or maid, clerk or employer. 'Willi the laughing s debauchee you may sing,

“I care for nobody, Nobody cares for me,”

and to a certain extent this may be true; but you are at the same time receiving and making impressions.

No influence!

Oh! not so. One would think that the miser, drawn within himself, loving nothing but his musty deeds and bonds and hoarded gold, was the last man to exercise any obligation of morality toward mankind. Yet there is not a  moment he draws his shriveled lungs full of   heaven’s bounteous air, but he is making an  impression for evil on somebody.

No influence!

We cannot live for ourselves alone The most ( selfish being in existence is like a pen perpetu-  ally moving, blotting foully whero lie does not  make fair marks.

“What am I doing?”

A question every one should pause to ask in the midst of life’s cares or reckless pleasures. You, madam, are heedlessly teaching your child lessons of vanity, by your perpetual re- currence to dress, dress, dress.

You, madam, are making your children fretful by your own gloomy brow, and hurried, restless answers. To be sure you have cares and trials: please tell us who has not?

The moral character is only ennobled when we do right under adverse circumstances—in other words, when we make sacrifices.

We knew a poor, old man—most likely out of the body now—who, when an indigent college youth came to him for help, gave him the two best shirts ho had. A banker, who was applied to on the youth’s account, whistled a little, then saying to himself, “I shall never feel it,” put fifty dollars into the applicant’s hand.

But—we believe God looked with most favor on the man who felt it—the poor, old man with scarcely a dollar in his pocket. }Ie had proved that lie did his charity for charity’s sake. It cost him something. He had made a sacrifice in the name of Him who said, “Verily they shall have their reward.” So, my friend, consider the character, the moulding of your child’s whole future being of sufficient importance to make some sacrifice of your feelings when circum¬ stances are adverse.

No influence!

You, sir, are injuring more than one young man by the glass you take in public; you, sir, by the petty tricks of deception in trade, which none understand so well as your clerks; you, sir, by your passionate temper and vehement blasphemies; you, sir, by your meanness at home, exercised toward wife and children.

“I’m sure I have no influence,” sighed a poor shop girl, pausing in the midst of her work.

She had but that moment 'made an honest statement, which, had she avoided, would have saved her fifty cents. The other girls, who had forgotten their consciences, were rebuked. Their flushed faces and downcast eyes told that the good seed had not fallen in vain.

“I’m sure I have no influence,” murmured a poor old woman, as she was going from church on the Sabbath.

But mark you—out of the great congregation none but she had said, “Oh! sir, (to the pastor) your sermon did me so much good! It was like rest to the weary, or refreshment to the hungry.”

She little dreamed how those words blessed that good roan's heart, warming, comforting, consoling. They imparted a new strength to