ENJOY, BUT NOT ABUSE. Harry! my little blue-eyed boy! Ah! gazing on thee do I sigh That these most happy hours will flee, And thy full share of misery Must fall in life to thee. There is no lasting grief below, My Harry, that flows not from guilt; Thou'lt read it when the churchyard clay They'll tell thee this terrestrial ball, To keep the soul from heaven. My Harry! the verdure-crownèd hills, The vales where flowers innumerous blow, The music of ten thousand rills, Will tell thee 'tis not so. God is no tyrant, who would spread No! all can do His creatures good He scatters round with broad profuse; The only precept understood— 'Enjoy, but not abuse.' 16 ON THE RIGHT CONDUCT OF THE SENSES. Our life begins in the senses. As the light glows, and the dew falls, and the flower expands, by feeding upon the air, so man's life begins in the material. The material world is the foundation, the grand workshop for our faculties. THE powers by which the mind perceives outward things and their qualities are called senses, and they are commonly reckoned as five-taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch. The impressions made upon us through the various organs of these senses are called sensations. By the action of the senses the various faculties of the mind are developed. The knowledge transferred to the mind through the senses enables us to exercise its faculties, and to expand, enlarge, and perfect those faculties as far as human life permits. Some sensations are found to be agreeable and others disagreeable to us—that is, some produce pleasure and others pain. Besides the sensations received through the medium of the five senses, we have sensations of pleasure or pain as a consequence of the general state of the health. Now the senses of a perfectly healthy man are so regulated as to afford him the greatest possible degree of pleasure, with the least possible amount of pain, consistent with his present earthly existence. Indeed, our pleasures are the voluntary and bountiful gift of nature. For our pains we have nobody to thank but ourselves. So good has the Creator been to us, that we could not, if we would, escape pleasure; but in almost every instance we can avoid pain if we will, for pain is only a warning voice intimating to us that we have got into a false position that we are doing something which we ought not to do, or leaving something undone which we ought to do. Man, if he would but be content to be what nature made him, need scarcely know what pain is. In early life we are for a while totally ignorant of the use of the senses with which we are endowed. Hence it is, although generally considered as a trifling matter-if considered at all -a matter of the greatest importance that all young persons should be trained and directed as to the improvement of their senses by a proper use of them. Everything calculated to produce a painful impression upon their senses. and to distract their faculties should be carefully avoided, such as loud noises and violent emotions. They should not be witnesses of anger or any other evil passion. The sense of sight, for example, is one of the most powerful in its effects, and therefore, their attention should be early excited by presenting to them such objects as are calculated to produce pleasurable sensations in their minds, and this should be done with pleasing looks, and in a cheerful manner. A mere child will grieve and sob at the expression of distress in the countenance. He cannot know what it means, but he feels that it is something painful. Young persons should be accustomed, occasionally, to the sight of uncommon things in nature, art, civil and military life, and government, that their curiosity may be awakened, and that their knowledge may be increased. The various objects of the animal world, ingenious mechanism, pictures, public spectacles, such as the coronation of a king, the review of an army, have a pleasing effect on their senses, and furnish their minds with useful ideas of the world and of life. But for the young to haunt every public show, to be accustomed to see every new piece at the theatre, to seize every opportunity of repeating these sights, suffering nothing to escape them that may please their senses, and this too, without any regard to their religion, their virtue, or their health, is a vanity which ought to be restrained by those to whom God and nature have committed the care of their instruction, and who have just and natural authority over them. As another means of improving their natures by cultivating their feelings through their senses, they should be taught to feel glad and rejoice in the happiness of others, and to pity and sympathise with their sorrows and distresses. In these various ways will their senses be cultivated in such a manner as will be conducive to their knowledge and happiness. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE EFFECTS OF PERVERTING THE SENSES. The senses may be weakened, nay sometimes totally extinguished and destroyed, by restraining their natural expression, by dissipation and acquired insensibility. I have seen a young creature possessed of the most delicate complexion, and exhibiting features that indicate sensibility, sit without the least emotion, and behold the most tender and pathetic scenes. Trained up in the belief that nothing was more vulgar than to appear joyous or to betray a sense of sympathy, she seemed to think that a show of feeling would impair the dignity of her character; but she did not consider that want of feeling is a very bad recommendation to the human heart. If so little regard is paid to nature when she knocks so powerfully at the breast, she must be altogether neglected and despised in her calmer mood of serene tranquillity, when nothing appears to recommend her but simplicity, propriety, and innocence. A clear blue sky, spangled with stars, will prove a homely and insipid object to the sense |