This morning, as I awoke from my slumbers, these words came before me, "Take care what you sow!"The reflections they have awakened, amidst the wonderings such a salutation of the morning beam has excited; may not prove idle or merely speculative.
The husbandman, when he commits his seed to the earth, conscious of having done all within his power, rests in the goodness ofHimwho rules these lower elements, for the completion of the work. The white mantle of Nature is thrown over the germs of future sustenance, by the genial breath of Spring; "the early and the latter rains," and the vivifying heat of the sun, awaken those germs into beauty, clothe them with luxuriance, and ripen them for the sickle. But the husbandman well knows, that unless he be careful to select seed of the proper kind, and weight and purity, the product, he will reap, will deteriorate in its nature. However good the soil may be, his granary will receive a value proportioned only to his attention to the maxim—Take care what you sow.
But there areSEEDS, whose value is infinitely greater than wheat, or rye, or barley. Give me your ears, ye honest hearts of our rich farms, ye independent men of our beautiful vallies, and let me caution you totake care how you sow!
It is recorded, with great truth, that "books, men and things are lying constantly in wait to deceive souls, and bring them to perdition:" and books are here very correctly placed first on the list of deceivers. They are more dangerous, because less suspected; and theseeds, which are sown, by pernicious volumes, in the minds of the young and inexperienced, in the silence of solitude, take very deep root, and bring forth fruits of vice and corruption. O! how the spirit of genuine sensibility laments the widely spreading evils, which cast desolation overfields of beauty!Beware! ye noble-minded yeomen, how you admit into your little libraries, these insidious seducers, thesetares, which grow amidst the tender plants which theLordof the heritage has deposited in the soil he loves, and committed to your charge. It is in your power to aid the growth of the germs of goodness and piety, which may flourish under your fostering care, by the blessing of the great Husbandman, and make your children the glory of our country! Aim, therefore, at a judicious selection, that theseedsyou sow may not want either weight or purity; and then "the early and the latter rain," which descendfrom above, will mature them into strength and loveliness.
This caution is also peculiarly applicable to those who have the direction of the numerous village libraries, that have latterly arisen in our favoured land. On these men, an awful responsibility rests. They have, in their hands, the future characters of the people, who may live in their respective neighbourhoods. They have, under their care,the destinies of an unborn race! Theseeds, which are now sown in the hearts of the young, will, when they shall become parents, be transmitted to other soils. What an incalculable magnitude and importance invest this subject! Let them beware, therefore, as they shall answer at a high tribunal. "Takecare,"—said a monitor to the celebrated statuary,Bacon, as he tapped him on the shoulder,—"remember, you are working for posterity!"—and the caution was reciprocated to the divine.Take care, says the Plough-Boy, to the directors of village libraries,what you sow!
Many a lovely damsel, whose rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes once indicated the sweetness and the purity of innocence, has had her heart tarnished, corrupted, ruined, by the insidious poison of books,—books read in secret, remote from the vigilant eye of a tender parent or kind friend. Into the recesses of the solitude of these; yes, even at the hour when the remainder of the family is reposing in peace, and when the rays of the midnight lamp are thrown on the idle, the romantic, or vicious page, let the warning voice of the Plough-Boy enter. May his accents thunder in their ears,Take care how you sow!
The vast increase oftaverns, in our country and villages, calls us to beware ofmen, as well as of books. There is a great difference, my father tells me, between the simplicity of manners, which characterized the times when he was a boy, and the idleness and dissipation which have now spread over the country. Then it was considered adisgrace, to a young farmer, to be seen at a tavern, excepting when absolute necessity called him thither. Now, visit one of these seductive inns, in an afternoon, and we can see a band of hardy striplings, smoking their segars, drinking their cans of beer, or tossing off their glasses of "real Holland," and permitting their minds to be agitated by the evanescent politics of the day, while their families are either ignorant of their habits, or mourning over the tares, which the enemy is sowing in a fruitful field. Alas! even in his time, the Plough-Boy has witnessed the robust young husbandman, graced with an athletic form, adorned with vivid health and manly beauty, and blessed with a lovely wife and innocent prattlers, sink into an early grave, opened by Infamy and closed by Despair, solely in consequence,—first, of suffering his mind to be led aside from his business by the solicitations of idle men, and losing his precious time at the tavern; and then, of "just taking a social glass," which they have told him it would be unmanly to refuse.
Beware, my youthful companions, of thesefirst, and apparently insignificant steps in idleness. No man suddenly becomes wicked. The power of habit is enlisted on the side of virtue, until its barrier be broken down by repeatedsmallattacks; and he, who in former times could indignantly exclaim, "Is thy servant adog, that he would do this thing?" yet committed the very evils at which an exalted spirit had shuddered with terror.Take care, ye young noblemen of Nature!how you sow.
Various other incitements are widely spread through our country, to lead men to sow seeds of vice and ignominy in their fields. It becomes not the Plough-Boy to enter too much into detail. The evils are abroad, and walking their desolating course; and he who can, in the hour of solitude, yield his mind to the dominionof reflection, will be at no loss to discover the peculiar inducements to idleness or dissoluteness, in his own vicinity. To all, therefore, who value theseeds of immortal beauty, let the warning voice of the Plough-Boy of the valley, reach with effect; and the gentle salutation of the morning ray, which visited his own spirit, may not have been sent without an instructive purpose. To all, this lesson is deeply interesting; for the happiness of the long, long ages of eternity, depends upon it. "Whatsoever a man shall sow, that will he reap. If ye sow to the flesh, ye shall reap corruption; but if to the spirit, the life which is eternal."
Downington, January 29, 1820.