Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/102

Rh is withdrawn, perfect monsters of rudeness, turbulence, and disorder.

It is not difficult to foresee that such children will grow up with a constant liability to commit themselves in after life, which, under the most favorable circumstances, will mark their habits with a want of ease and of true refinement; while, under unfavorable circumstances, it will not improbably be the means of leading them into egregious folly, gross excess, or fatal error.

I would not willingly be supposed to forget that religious principle alone is sufficient to preserve even such persons as are here described from the extremes alluded to; but I am also aware, that even in religious characters, there are sometimes strange anomalies, deviations from true taste, and even unconscious offences against good feeling, which do incalculable harm to the interests of religion; and I am therefore the more earnest in writing on this subject, that mothers should begin in time by laying the foundation of lovely, good, and happy characters, at once.

We sometimes find among truly excellent persons, a painful and unnatural kind of dread of being too cheerful; and where the pleasures of childhood have been wholly neglected, where buoyant spirits have been allowed to run and riot without a mother's care, there is unquestionably great danger of the barrier of propriety being broken through in after life by the indulgence of cheerfulness. But how deeply it is to be regretted, that that particular state of mind which is in reality the most truly happy, should be deterred by fear, from exhibiting itself before the world in its natural character of healthy cheerfulness, and thus give cause for an opinion, too frequently entertained, that religion is a gloomy thing! If by no other reason the pious mother can be convinced of the importance of her influence in this particular sphere of duty, surely it is sufficient, if by sharing with her children in their harmless mirth, and teaching them how to be happy without offence to God or man, she can beautify their characters in after life with more of those graces of mind and manners, which are at once attractive to the world, and honorable to the cause of religion.

As the first and surest means of promoting individual,