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a paroxysm of apoplexy, which soon yielded to proper medical treatment, and was afterwards assured by his physician that unless he strictly guarded against sudden ebullitions of immoderate anger, the construction of his neck, chest, and thorax, with general temperament, was such as to leave but little doubt it would cost him his life.

About six weeks after this advice the lawyer had occasion to issue a writ, in order to recover one hundred and fifty dollars on a promissory note left in his hands for collection; on the return term of the process the defendant desired to speak to the lawyer at the bar while the Court was in session, which request he granted by stepping to a remote corner of the court room, when the former accosted the latter with abusive language merely for a faithful* discharge of his official duties.

The lawyer, regardless of his physician's advice, and in opposition to his own better judgment when in a calm state of mind, suffered his anger to rise in such a degree as to fall senseless on the floor, and in less than ten minutes ceased further to breathe on the shores of time.

I have already stated that the first developments in the mind of a child require the watchful eye of the mother, at the same time do not dismiss the co-working of the father, and among many of the valuable counsels given by Judge Hale (England's proud jurist, Christian, and philanthropist), he holds the following advice in relation to anger:

"When a person is accused, or reported to have injured you, before you give yourself leave to be angry, think with yourself, why should I be angry before I am certain it is true, or, if it be true, how can I tell how much I should be angry until I know the whole cause?

"Though it may be he hath done me wrong, yet, possibly, it is misrepresented, or it was done by mistake, or it may be, he is sorry for it.

"I will not be angry until I know the cause, and if there - be cause, yet I will not be angry until I know the whole cause, for till then, if I must be angry at all, yet I know not how much to be angry. It may be it is not worth my anger, or if it be, it deserves but little.

This will keep your mind carried upon such occasions in a due temper and order, and will disappoint malicious and officious tale-bearers."

A poet has said, "Childhood, happiest stage of life, free from care and free from strife." This, to a certain extent, is true; yet children, even two or three years old, have their troubles and trials; and in their innocent sports not unfrequently evince vehement and angry passions, which instead of being corrected by their parents are made the subject of laughter.

Habit, though slow, strengthens with age, and when children manifest anger towards one another the heinousness of their offence should be pointed out as considered by their Creator, who had endowed them with a mind capable of understanding, to a certain extent (even in early life), the difference between right and wrong, and how worthy of imitation are the little unfledged birds, who never quarrel in their nests.

The growth of all improper disposition in a child is no doubt often the offspring of a mistaken judgment on the part of the mother, who frequently declares her child too young to understand correction and thereby withholds. it even in a degree; whereas a child only able to sit alone who will throw itself back, rolling and tumbling on the floor, should be gently raised by the rod. And if such passions in children are neglected, they will at last become incorrigible, and bring down the grey hairs of their parents with sorrow to the grave; while the thus uncontrolled offspring, advanced to maturity, is either an inmate of some prison cell, or solitary dungeon, or else at large in society, more to be dreaded than the midnight assassin, being incapable of self government, or exercising the philosophy of a Socrates, who on a certain occasion said to his servant, "I would beat thee if I was not angry.'

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But intending in subsequent pages of this little work to further treat on the "Infant Nursery," I, at present, forbear, and return to redeem my pledge, to instance one or two more of the many passages found in the Bible which require early explanations so as to enable a child to understand and rightly receive the spirit, where apparently the letter presents a contrary view on the subject; which I do in part by reciting the following dialogue said to have taken place between a little girl named Mary, and her mother, after the former had finished reading the 22d chapter of Matthew.

Mary." Mother have you not told me that which

Christ enjoined as a duty to be performed by the Jews was equally obligatory on us?"

Mother.- "Yes, my child, that which required the performance of the moral law by the Jews is equally obligatory on us Gentiles."

Mary." Well, mother, have you not also told me that I should love you, father, brothers, sisters, and all other fellow creatures on earth?"

Mother."Yes, my daughter."

Mary." Well, I find on reading this chapter (presenting the one just named), that Christ in the 37th verse commands, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and thy neighbor as thyself,' now, if this is binding on me and calls for all my love to be surrendered to God, where will I find any left for you, father, brother, sisters, &c.?"

Mother." The declaration you speak of, my child, was drawn from our Savior in answer, as you will perceive, to a taunting question put to him by a lawyer of the sect of Pharisees, viz.:

"Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?' and, in order better to capacitate you to understand the answer in all its breadth, height, and depth, and to show that the requirements on my part from you to discharge filial duties towards your earthly parents, observing in connexion therewith a proper regard for the ties of consanguinity, with a general love to all mankind, is not at variance with God's Word, I will read to you a note or comment, by an able Gospel Minister, of the present day, -He says the meaning of thou shalt love the Lord thy God, &c.' is, thou shalt love him supremely, more than all other beings and things, and with all ardor possible, to love him with all thy heart is to fix the affection supremely on him more strongly than on anything else, and to be willing to give up all that we hold dear at his command.

"With all thy soul or with all thy life, this means to be willing to give up the life to him and to devote it to his service, to live to him, and be willing to die at his command.

"With all thy mind, is to submit all our intellect to his will to love his law and glory more than we do the decisions of our own mind.

"To be willing to submit all our faculties to his teaching and guidance, and to devote to him all our intellectual attainments and all the results of our intellectual efforts.

"With all thy strength, with all thy faculties of soul and body. To labor and toil for his glory and to make that the great object of all our efforts."

Parents are too apt to repulse their children when interrogating or seeking information, excusing themselves that time will not permit the hindrance, or the solution of the information sought is either so simple or nonsensical as to require no reply.

This I consider an error in judgment as filial, conjugal, or those emotions arising from the heart of the genuine philanthropist, may all spring in a less or greater degree from sinister or selfish motives of affection.

But parental love alone exists without alloy, Dr. Franklin's opinion as to natural affections to the contrary notwithstanding; and there is nothing so insignificant in creation that cannot be made to improve the meanest intellect of a child, where its infant prattle (under proper subjection as to time and place), even as to the growth of a blade of maize, or spear of grass, the creation of an insect, the formation of a ball, the construction of a doll, may all be so explained by the parent as to prove beneficial to its offspring in after life, and the course pursued by the mother with her daughter Mary, as just mentioned, is worthy of every parent's or instructor's imitation; still it is to be feared that explanations are often left in obscurity for the want of certain words not being defined so as to reach the infant capacity. In expressing this fear, I do not advise the surrender of dignified language which can at all times be employed without descending to technicali

ties.

The note of the able commentary as far as it goes is all very well, and wisely employed by the mother; still, Mary is left ignorant as to the true meaning of "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," which could have been happily explained by reference to our Savior's narrative of the good Samaritan's conduct towards a Jew journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho, who fell among thieves, and was left by those who had robbed him, weltering in his blood, nearly dead, and passed by unaided by those of his countrymen in high stations. Still the Samaritan who was

also travelling the same way, and actuated by true principles of benevolence, on seeing a fellow creature thus situated, bumanely stepped forth and administered unto his necessitous situation, doing as he would like to be done by under similar circumstances, although the object assisted sprang from a tribe which the Samaritan had been taught on his mother's lap to hate, despise, and neglect.

CHAPTER IV.

THE peruser of this little work may perhaps consider me as too frequently introducing the name of my father, but as I only beheld my mother with the eyes of an infant, it was to him alone that I principally looked up for sincere council and advice, which he never failed to grant in tenderness and love, though so stern and inflexible in all his Scotch parental demands, that never would he permit ⚫ me to appear before him without my hat off, or leave his presence when under reproof; and should many of the oriental disciplines of parents towards their children be practised at the present day in this country, such parents would be branded with the epithet of tyrants, and the child be encouraged by not a few low-bred and illiterate serfs to flee its home for some distant land, and that too at a tender and dangerous stage of life.

But in all his stern requirements for reverence and respect, still his soul delighted at all times to descend to my infant capacity, whereby I might not only profitably be instructed but amused. One instance in particular I beg leave to mention. When a child about six years old residing in my native town, Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey, about sixty miles from the sea-board, to which there was no regular communication but once a week, on horseback by the mail carrier, though now there is a connected line of steam cars and stages running daily from Jersey City to Milford, Pa., embracing a distance of eighty miles, consequently fifty years ago Newton was rarely privileged (if so in truth it could be styled), to those of

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