Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/87

Rh tion of the intellect; it is a grievous deficiency ; and it takes the hardest toil in after years to supply the void, if indeed it can ever be done. It is a misfortune to fail of finding an opportunity for the culture of conscience in childhood, and to acquire bad habits in youth, which at great cost you must revolutionize at a later day. But it is a yet greater loss to miss the opportunity of affectional growth; a sad thing to be born, and yet not into a happy home, — to lack the caresses, the fondness, the self-denying love, which the child's nature needs so much to take, and the mother's needs so much to give. The cheeks which affection does not pinch, which no mother kisses, have always a sad look that nothing can conceal, and in childhood get a scar which they will carry all their days. What sad faces one always sees in the asylums for orphans! It is more fatal to neglect the heart than the head.

In a world like this, not much advanced as yet in any high qualities of spirit, but still advancing, it is beautiful to see the examples of love which we sometimes meet, the exceptional cases that to me are prophecies of that good time which is so long in coming. I will not speak of the love of husband and wife, or of parent and child, for each of these is mainly controlled by a strong generic instinct, which deprives the feeling of its personal and voluntary character. I will speak of spontaneous love not connected with the connubial or parental instincts. You see it in the form of friendship, charity, patriotism, and philanthropy, where there is no tie of kindred blood, no impulsion of instincts to excite, but only a kindred heart and an attractive soul. Men tell us that the friendship of the ancients has passed away. But it is not so ; Damon and Pythias are perpetually reproduced in every walk of life, save that where luxury unnerves the man, or avarice coins him into a copper cent, or ambition degrades him to lust of fame and power. Every village has its tale of this character. The rude life of the borderers on the frontiers of civilization, the experience of men in navigation, in all the difficult emergencies of life, bring out this heroic affection of the heart.

What examples do we all know of friendship and of