CHAP. II.THE AFFECTIONS.
The cultivation of the affections comes next to the development of the bodily senses; or rather they may be said to begin together, so early does the infant heart receive impressions. The uniform gentleness, to which I have before alluded, and the calm state of the mother’s own feelings, have much to do with the affections of the child.
Kindness toward animals is of great importance. Children should be encouraged in pitying their distress;and if guilty of any violent treatment toward them, they should see that you are grieved and displeased at such conduct.
Before showing any disapprobation of his conduct, however, it should be explained to a very young child when he really does hurt an animal; for young children are often cruel from the mere thoughtlessness of frolic; they strike an animal as they would strike a log of wood, without knowing that they occasion pain.
I once saw a mother laugh very heartily at the distressed face of a kitten, which a child of two years old was pulling backward by the tail. At last, the kitten, in self-defence, turned and scratched the boy. He screamed, and his mother ran to him, kissed the wound, and beat the poor kitten, saying all the time, ‘Naughty kitten, to scratch John! I’ll beat her for scratching John! There, ugly puss!’
This little incident, trifling as it seems, no doubt had important effects on the character of the child; especially as a mother, who would do such a thing once, would be very likely to do it habitually.
In the first place, the child was encouraged in cruelty, by seeing that it gave his mother amusement. Had she explained to him that he was hurting the kitten, and expressed her pity by saying, ‘Oh, don’t hurt kitty—she is a good little puss—and she loves John’—what a different impression would have been made on his infant heart!
In the next place, the kitten was struck for defending herself; this was injustice to the injured animal, and a lesson of tyranny to the boy. In the third place, striking the kitten because she had scratched him, was teachinghim retaliation. For that reason, a chair or a foot-stool, against which he had accidentally hurt himself, should never be struck, or treated in an angry manner.Youknow, to be sure, that an inanimate object is not capable of feeling pain; but your infant does not know it; the influence uponhimis, that it is right to injure when we are injured.
It is a common opinion that a spirit of revenge isnaturalto children. No doubt bad temper, as well as other evils, moral and physical, are often hereditary—and here is a fresh reason for being good ourselves, if we would have our children good. But allowing that evil propensities are hereditary, and therefore born with children, how are they excited, and called into action?
First, by the influences of the nursery—those early influences, which, beginning as they do with life itself, are easily mistaken for the operations of nature; and in the second place, by the temptations of the world.
Now, if a child has ever so bad propensities, if the influences of the nursery be pure and holy, his evils will never be excited, or roused into action, until his understanding is enlightened, and his principles formed, so that he has power to resist them. The temptations of the world will then do him no harm; he will ‘overcome evil with good.’
But if, on the other hand, the influences of the nursery are bad, the weak passions of the child are strengthened before his understanding is made strong; he gets into habits of evil before he is capable of perceiving that they are evil. Consequently, when he comes out into the world, he brings no armor against its temptations. Evil is within and without. Andshould the Lord finally bring him out of Egypt, it must be after a dark, and weary bondage.
The mind of a child is not like that of a grown person, too full and too busy to observe everything; it is a vessel empty and pure—always ready to receive, and always receiving.
Every look, every movement, every expression, does something toward forming the character of the little heir to immortal life.
Do you regard it as too much trouble thus to keep watch over yourself? Surely the indulgence of evil is no privilege: the yoke of goodness is far lighter and easier to bear, than the bondage of evil. Is not the restraint you impose upon yourself for the good of your child, blessed, doubly blessed, to your own soul? Does not the little cherub in this way guide you to heaven, marking the pathway by the flowers he scatters as he goes.
The rule, then, for developing good affections in a child is, that he never be allowed to see or feel the influence of bad passions, even in the most trifling things; and in order to effect this, you must drive evil passions out of your own heart. Nothing can be real that has not its homewithinus. The only sure way, as well as the easiest, toappeargood, is tobegood.
It is not possible to indulge anger, or any other wrong feeling, and conceal it entirely. If not expressed in words, a childfeelsthe baneful influence. Evil enters into his soul, as the imperceptible atmosphere he breathes enters into his lungs: and the beautiful little image of God is removed farther and farther from his home in heaven.