Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/118

 rence, where they believe they see just cause for such feelings. What then is to be done with this propensity to hate, or to abhor? Is it possible that so powerful an impulse should have been given for the sole purpose of being subdued; or rendered utterly extinct? That it should so often be abused, and directed to the worst purposes, by aiming at individual character, and opposing itself to the kindly charities of life, is no proof of its being incapable of good; because there is no propensity of our nature, not even that of loving, which may not be converted into a means of producing misery rather than happiness — evil rather than good.

Let us think well on this subject, then, and try if we can not find some wholesome and beneficial exercise for the impetuous warmth of those feelings, which expend themselves in hating what is abhorrent to their nature, as well as in loving what is in harmony with it. Let us ask whether there may not be a righteous indignation — a contempt of what is mean — a hatred of what is bad, which may be lawfully indulged? I confess that to me it appears that there is - that without such feelings, little would be done in the world for the correction of abuse, or the rescue of the oppressed; and I believe if we would examine deeply the mo- tives of some of those noble and magnanimous efforts by which the helpless have been torn from the grasp of cruelty, the weak protected from the aggressions of the strong, the slave set free from bondage, and the doors of the dungeon thrown open, we should find that the active impulse most immediately in operation, was a well-directed hatred of injustice, oppression, and cruelty of every kind.

Let us begin, then, by endeavoring to make use of this impulse, by directing it against whatever is unkind, unfair, or untrue. Let us, in plain words, teach children to hate falsehood; and to hate it not only when spoken, but also when acted. It is a lamentable fact, that many a little child brought up under parental care, with a cordial hatred of falsehood, and as cordial a love of truth, sent early to school to be tried by new tests, and subjected to new temptations, is there, for want of moral courage, literally startled into falsehood, though loathing and hating it all the time. The loud authoritative demand made in the midst of tmmbers — "Who has one this?" or, "What naughty