LETTER VII.

CULTIVATION OF THE HEART, AND THE MORAL HABITS.

DEAR CHILDREN:--By the _heart_, I mean the moral feelings, dispositions, and affections. And by _cultivating_ the heart, I mean directing much attention to restraining, regulating, and purifying all its exercises. This may be said to lie at the foundation of all duty and all happiness. Were your intellectual powers cultivated with all possible care and success, and your moral faculties neglected, you might be polished and elegant demons; but would be miserable yourselves, and a curse to society. Whether, therefore, you regard your own present enjoyment, and everlasting welfare, or the happiness of those around you, you cannot too early remember the great purpose for which you were sent into the world, and the relations which you sustain as rational, social, and immortal creatures. You cannot too early or too diligently learn to restrain your passions; to deny yourselves; and to cultivate those benevolent, meek, humble, and amiable habits, which are indispensable to tranquillity and peace of mind, and which alone can prepare you to adorn and bless the social circles with which you may be connected. I draw your attention the more earnestly to this great subject because I see so many young people who appear never to think of the importance, or even utility of this part of their education.

If you have not learned, dear children, that you are by nature prone to be proud, vain, selfish, envious, irascible, sensual, malignant, and, in a word, to indulge the various appetites and passions which tend to destroy your own peace, and to invade the comfort of those around you; if you have not discovered that this is the tendency of your nature, and that resisting it will call for much self-denial, and continual, and sometimes for agonizing effort, you have attended less to your own feelings, and habits, and less to the character of your friends and associates than I am willing to suppose.

Perhaps you will ask--Does not _religion_ cover all this ground? Where the power of Christian principle reigns in the heart, will not every thing intended to be included in this letter follow as a matter of course? If the _plan of salvation_, treated in a former letter, be received and obeyed, will not all the objects contemplated in the present letter, be included and secured? Whence, then, the necessity, or even the propriety, of making it matter of separate consideration? I answer, the religion of Christ, in its spirit and power, does indeed embrace all moral excellence. It does, in fact, where it bears appropriate and entire sway, include every moral feeling, affection, and habit, which can adorn and elevate human nature. And yet it is to be lamented that many who cherish the Christian hope, are not as much aware of this fact as they ought to be; and are not so careful to exhibit all the _loveliness_, as well as the _purity_ of example which become them, as is desirable. And, besides, I have always found that there is a great advantage in pursuing rather more into detail the various branches of the Christian temper, than is commonly done even in the best treatises on religious character and duty. The French have a phrase which expresses more exactly than any English one which I can recollect, my meaning in the title of this letter. The phrase I refer to, is _Les petites morales_; by which they appear to understand those _moral delicacies_ of feeling, temper, and intercourse, which, though not always found actually shining in every professing, or even every real Christian, do really belong to the Christian code of ethics, and are indispensable to a complete and exemplary character.

The duties which grow out of our relations to God, are generally acknowledged by all professors of religion. However defective their obedience, their obligations are seldom disputed. But if it be the law of God, not only that we should "love Him with all our heart and soul and strength and mind," but also that we should "love our neighbours as ourselves," then the duties growing out of this great law are more multiplied, tender, delicate and important than most of those who are called religious people recognise in practice, or even in theory.

It is true, the root of all sound morality is religion. And it is equally true, that the deeper sense any one has of the constraining love of Christ, and of the holiness, majesty, omniscience, and omnipresence of God, the more faithful he will be in the discharge of all moral duties, both in private and in public. Labour then, day by day, to gain a deeper impression of the claims of your Creator and Redeemer upon you. Meditate much on the Divine glory. Cultivate a devout spirit. Study to walk with God in the exercise of faith, and love, and prayer. And endeavour to keep constantly before your minds his all seeing eye, his infinite holiness, his judgment seat, and those righteous retributions which he has in store for all his creatures, whether they be good, or whether they be evil? This is cultivating the heart in the most essential and radical sense. This is going to "the root of the matter." That morality, and that alone, which is grafted upon this sanctified stock, will be regarded with approbation by the Searcher of hearts, and stand the test of the great day.

But while you labour with your hearts, that they may be habitually laid open, with all the softness and tenderness of spiritual sensibility, to the claims of your Creator and Redeemer; study with no less diligence to cherish a deep sense of all the duties which you owe to your beloved relatives, to your friends, to your neighbours, and to all with whom you have intercourse. To perceive the theory of these duties, is the province of the understanding; to enter into them, as a practical matter, and under a solemn sense of obligation, is an affair of the heart; and the more deeply your hearts are schooled both in the principles and practice of these duties, the more they may be said to partake of that culture which I am now recommending.

When I imagine to myself what an influence your precious Mother might have had in cultivating your moral feelings and habits, if it had pleased God to spare her to you; when I think of the happy power which her delicate, forming hand, might, by the divine blessing, have exerted over the heart of each of you;--the heart--as Mrs. Hannah More expresses it--that "seat of evil propensities--that little troublesome empire of the passions;"--I could sit down and weep afresh that you are never to enjoy that culture. But, happily, there is a source of infinitely better culture. Try to lay to heart your weakness and your wants, and implore without ceasing the enlightening, subduing, and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, and you will find "his grace sufficient for you."

There are special duties which you owe to your beloved surviving Parent, and to all your domestic relatives, of the most peculiar and tender kind; duties which it is equally your privilege and your honour to discharge. These are veneration, love, gratitude, and a dutiful respect to all their feelings, as well as their interests. Here children are extremely apt to fail. Affection is generally found to descend from parents to their offspring, and in general from elder to younger relatives, in great strength; but from children to parents, or from the young to the old, it seldom rises with equal vigour. Let not this be said of you. Constantly cherish toward your beloved Father, and all your elder relatives, not merely an outward respect, and dutifulness of deportment, but a cordial and ardent affection; a sincere and lively gratitude for all those anxious cares and labours on their part for your benefit, for which you have been indebted ever since you were born, and for which you can never make an adequate return. Try to please them by the constant manifestation of love, confidence, and grateful veneration; and let them see that you treasure up, to your profit, all their instruction, reproofs, and warnings. When the _heart_, as well as the outward conduct, is conformed to these sentiments, O, how endearing and happy is the intercourse between parents and children! What a charm is diffused over the whole aspect of domestic society!

Let me entreat you, also, early to learn the duty and the pleasure of _living in affectionate harmony among yourselves_. I can scarcely express to you the pain which I have sometimes felt when I have perceived any thing like a spirit of strife and acrimony rising between you, and leading to the exchange of angry looks and passionate language. Surely three motherless children ought to feel more closely bound together than to indulge in such a temper and conduct. If you do not love one another, who can you expect will love you? Be careful, then, continually to cultivate a spirit of brotherly and sisterly affection toward each other. Let nothing interrupt this. When any contest arises, let the only strife be, which shall be the first to yield, rather than contend. On no account allow yourselves to employ harsh, much less violent language toward each other. And if any contest arises which you cannot settle between yourselves without violence, let a united appeal to your Father, if he be present, or in his absence, to your grandparents, terminate the controversy. Seldom does a conflict of this kind arise without there being blame on both sides. And who so proper to make the proper award, and to adjust every difficulty, as those who love you all equally and dearly, and have age and experience on their side?

Let me enjoin on you to begin, as early as possible, to cherish a spirit of _habitual benevolence_--a desire, wherever you go, to promote the _happiness_ of all around you. Selfishness is the great master-sin of human nature. "All seek their own." The _young_, especially, are apt to be swallowed up in the excessive pursuit of their own enjoyment, and that enjoyment is rarely sought or found in ministering to the wants, and promoting the comfort of others. But rely upon it, dear children, this is a narrow and altogether deceptive view of the best means of happiness. Not only is it the divine command that we "love our neighbour as ourselves," but it is equally certain that obedience to this great law tends as directly to make ourselves happy, as it does to promote the comfort of the objects of our benevolent attention. If you wish to be happy yourselves, study continually to make all around you so too. The luxury of doing good is the richest luxury of which we are capable. It is the very spirit of Christ, who "went about doing good;" and the more closely we commune with him in the exercise of the same spirit, the more we secure true and rational enjoyment. Wherever you are, then, cultivate a spirit of sympathy with the afflicted, and the habit of flying spontaneously to the relief of suffering. You cannot begin too early to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to minister to the wants of the sick and dying, to relieve distress of every kind, and to "please every one for his good to edification:"--not by flattery, which is too commonly the method of pleasing adopted; but by letting it be seen that you seek, as much as in you lies, to make all around you truly happy. Never promote mirth at the expense of others. Never allow yourselves to "set others by the ears" as it is sometimes expressed, for the sake of derision. Carefully avoid all those "tricks," which so many of the young delight in, and by which so much suffering, and sometimes even ultimately the loss of life, have been incurred. In a word, conscientiously cherish the principle and the habit of never giving a moment's pain to a human being, or even to a brute beast, unless it be necessary for their real good; and wherever you see pain, by whomsoever inflicted, do all in your power, consistent with other obligations, to relieve it, and to give rational pleasure. There is nothing, be assured, dear children, in all the splendour of fashionable display, in all the gratifications of sense, in all the delirious joys of giddy dissipation, once to be compared with the hallowed pleasure of habitually doing good to all within your reach. Yes, make doing good your "ruling passion," and you will be among the happiest of mortals.

Let me beseech you to watch over your _temper_ with studious care. Few things are more unhappy in a young person of either sex, than an irritable, irascible temper. It betrays into a thousand indiscretions. It poisons social intercourse. It alienates friends. It destroys the comfort of the individual who indulges it; and it interferes with the comfort of all with whom he converses. I have known this infirmity to cast a cloud over the whole course of many persons who were otherwise fitted to adorn and bless society. Watch and pray against it with the utmost diligence. "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." "Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." Learn "by soft answers to turn away wrath," both in yourselves and others. Be not ready to take offence, or to consider any one as "an offender for a word." Never regard an honest difference of opinion from yourself as a personal affront. Surely the indulgence of such a spirit is as unreasonable as it is unhappy. Guard with the utmost vigilance against a jealous, suspicious temper. Ill nature, peevishness, and a disposition to take every thing by an unfavourable handle, and to indulge in satire and sarcasm, are revolting in every human being, but especially in the female sex. I have never known such a temper to be indulged without diminishing both the respectability and happiness of its possessor. Let a mild, amiable, conciliatory spirit reign in all your intercourse. Be ever kind, tender hearted, and forgiving, even as you hope to obtain forgiveness from the God of all grace. Let the spirit of benevolence, and a desire to please, shine in your countenances, and be manifest in your deportment in all companies; at home and on journies; in the public hotel, and in the parlour of a friend; towards servants, as well as towards your equals or superiors. In a word, in temper as well as in conduct, "Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets."

In forming your moral character and habits, I entreat you to lay great stress upon cultivating a sacred and delicate regard to _truth_, in all your social intercourse. Rely upon it, you cannot pay too conscientious a regard to this point. A fault here is as dishonourable as it is criminal. I do not allow myself to fear that my beloved grandchildren, after the training they have received, will ever indulge in deliberate falsehood. In this there is a meanness as well as a sin, which I hope they will equally despise and abhor. But it is to be lamented that there is much in social conversation, in which many people deemed respectable are apt to indulge themselves, and which I hope you will make conscience of sacredly avoiding. I mean all exaggeration in your descriptions; all high-colouring in your statements; all indulgence in fabulous narratives, even in jest, for the amusement of company. Aside from the dictates of religion in this matter, which are sacred and conclusive, there is something in these habits adapted to lower the character, and to diminish the influence of those who indulge them, with all sober-minded people. Whatever may be the consequence, let a regard to the strictest verity, as if you were on oath, reign in all you say and do. Avoid the meanness, as well as the sin of the slightest departure from absolute truth. Let all underhand deceptive contrivances, all low cunning, all habits of carrying your plans by disingenuous arts, be abhorred and avoided. How gratifying would it be to those who love you, to know that it had passed into something like a proverb among your acquaintance--"The statement is from a Breckinridge--and therefore may be depended on!"

Let me farther entreat you to guard against all indulgence of the spirit of _pride_, or _vanity_. By _pride_, I mean such an inordinate and unreasonable conceit of our own superiority in any respect, as leads us to look down on others as beneath us, and to treat them with haughtiness, or contempt. And by _vanity_, I understand that excessive desire for the applause of others which leads to egotism, and such a weak anxiety to attract the notice, and gain the approbation of those around us, as are apt to betray into little and unworthy arts for gaining the object. That both ought to be repudiated, as at once folly and sin, I hope no formal argument will be necessary to convince you. But still, they are both besetting sins, which cleave with deplorable obstinacy to multitudes whose judgment is against them. Be assured, dear children, pride is as foolish as it is criminal. Who made you to differ from others? And what have you that you have not received? If you have minds, or an education, or outward circumstances more favourable than those of many others, who conferred them upon you? If, therefore, you have received all, why should you glory as if you had not received them? I know that we sometimes hear people talk of a "laudable pride," an "honest pride," "a noble pride," &c. But such language is a grievous abuse of terms, and ought to be forever banished from the vocabulary of Christians. _Pride_ was "the condemnation and snare of the devil," and is in all cases a weakness and a sin. To call a proper personal dignity and self-respect by this odious name, is altogether incorrect and deceptive. To speak of a disposition to avoid a mean action as "a noble pride," is a perversion of language, as well as of moral principle. "Be clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall; for when pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom." _Vanity_ is a passion still more childish and degrading. It exhibits a rational creature hanging on the smiles and the praise of his fellow worms for his importance and happiness. O, what infatuation for miserable sinners, who deserve nothing at the hand of God but wrath, and the overflowing of wrath, and who are dependant on his bounty for every breath, to be puffed up with high thoughts of themselves, and arrogantly to claim the incense of praise! Fly, then, from pride and vanity with the utmost vigilance. Study to be "meek and lowly in heart." "Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate." "In lowliness of mind esteem others better than yourselves." "Be not wise or great in your own conceits." Be not greedy of praise. Despise all the unworthy arts of seeking and fishing for it. Rely upon it, the lower you lie in the dust of abasement, the happier you will be. The more you are disposed to love and honour all around you according to their real character, the more infallibly you will secure their love and confidence in return. And the less anxious you are to gain the applause of men, the more likely you will be to attain it, if you are found humbly and diligently performing your duty. In short, if I wished you to gain the highest degree of esteem and honour among men, I would say--Do not seek this object anxiously, or even directly at all. Never inquire what others say or think of you. Speak of yourselves, in conversation, as little as possible. Treat your superiors with uniform respect, but not with fawning or flattery; and your inferiors, down to the lowest servant or beggar, with undeviating condescension and kindness; trying to benefit every one, and promote the happiness of every one; and you will have as much of the love and respect of all as you really deserve, and probably more. If you sincerely try to promote the happiness of all around you, and do it with a kind and amiable manner, I believe it is one of the cases in which our Lord's declaration never fails to be fulfilled--"Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure pressed down and running over shall men give into your bosom."

Strive with sacred care against every feeling approaching to the passion of _envy_. As you are now at an age when you are called daily to compete with school and play-mates, you may be sometimes strongly tempted to indulge in this passion. But it is a base passion. Beware of it. How fiend-like, to sicken and repine at excellence! How base, to be displeased and mortified when we contemplate the superior prosperity, happiness, or accomplishments of others! When you witness such superior attainments or excellence, let the only effort be to excite gratitude to God for its existence, and a generous emulation of it in yourselves.

Guard with vigilance against a _talebearing_ and _tattling_ spirit. I will not suppose you capable of deliberate _slander_, or cruelly circulating reports to the injury of others without just evidence. This is so base and mean, that I trust you will ever abhor and despise it. But it is the infirmity of many, who intend thereby no injury, that they delight in circulating news concerning their neighbours, and have not a little of the true gossipping spirit. This is a bad habit. It degrades the individual who indulges it, in the view of all wise, reflecting people; often involves in painful explanations and difficulties; and is frequently followed by consequences of the most perplexing and disreputable kind. Never indulge the disposition to repeat idle stories about neighbours. If they are repeated in your presence, listen to them either in silence, or with a civil remark, which cannot possibly implicate you, or be construed into an approval of the scandal. It was an excellent appeal which was once made by a wise and benevolent man whom I knew in early life--"Why can you not talk more about _things_, than about _persons_?"

Let me farther exhort you, as a point of duty, to cultivate habitual _cheerfulness_. When I say this, you will not understand me as recommending a spirit of levity and frivolity. This is unworthy of rational, accountable creatures, and indicates as much of weakness as of sin. Those who spend their lives in gaiety and mirth, are "dead while they live." But by cultivating habitual cheerfulness, I mean cherishing a pleasant state of the animal spirits; as opposed to constitutional gloom, mental depression, and settled, clouded taciturnity, I mean habits, not of light, but of lively and affable conversation. Such a state of mind does good like a medicine. It contributes to our own enjoyment. It makes us more pleasant and useful to those with whom we converse. It may even operate to promote health and prolong life; and in various ways extend our power of doing good.

Guard with conscientious care against habits of _indolence_. A tendency to this sin is one of the radical symptoms of the great moral disease of our nature; and you cannot begin too early to labour and pray for effecting a cure. Fly from idleness as a habit connected with a legion of evils. Make a point of always having something useful to do--something to fill up every moment left vacant between the larger and more important tasks of life. I am aware that we all stand in need of _recreation_; but this is often best attained by _a change of employment_. When you have finished a sedentary task, which required intense application of mind, think, for a moment, whether there be not some other object to which you may attend for a short time, which will require no mental effort, but by attention to which, you may promote either your own health or comfort, or the advantage of others. Make it your daily study to "redeem the time." Try to turn every moment to some valuable account. For this purpose, form, as early as possible, a plan, a systematic order in your daily tasks. Without such a plan, more or less formally adopted, you will inevitably lose much time in passing from one engagement to another. But if you manage always to leave something useful with which to fill up every little interval; so as never to be idle, and never to waste time with frivolous, or worse than frivolous employments, you will be more happy, and live more to your own true honour, and the benefit of your generation.

I have only to add on the subject of this letter, a single word on the great importance of maintaining strict and habitual _temperance_ in all your enjoyments. If you wish really to enjoy life, and to "live out all your days," you must exercise moderation and self-denial in eating and drinking, and in every department of indulgence. Temperance has been defined--the moderate use of things useful, and total abstinence from those which are pernicious. This is an excellent definition, which I trust you will ever keep in mind, and make your daily and hourly rule. To be thus temperate, is a divine command. It is eminently conducive to health. It is highly advantageous to the activity and strength of the powers of the mind. And it is an admirable defence against a thousand irregularities and mischiefs which cloud the faculties, destroy comfort, and lead to multiplied forms of disease, and to premature graves. If you habitually restrain appetite, deny yourselves, and "let your moderation be known" in all things, and to all men, you will avoid many evils which continually beset those who act on the system of self-indulgence. Never drink any thing but pure water, when in health; indulge in animal food but _once_ in each day, and that in smaller quantities than most people consider as temperate. Labourers in the open air may, not only with impunity, but perhaps with profit, eat animal food more than once every day; but I am persuaded few other persons can do it without disadvantage to their health. My personal experience and observation in regard to this point are very decisive. Nay, I would advise you to go one step farther. Make the experiment of wholly abstaining from animal food at least one day in each week, for the purpose of "giving nature a holyday;" of clearing the body and the mind from crudities; and taking a new start in refined feeling and unclogged activity.

In fine, let it be the object of your unceasing study and prayer, to "keep under the body;" to "crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts;" to subdue and restrain all irregular tempers; "if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, to live peaceably with all men;" to avoid wounding the feelings of any one with whom you converse, unless required to do it by a pure sense of duty; to promote the happiness of all around you; and to be continually seeking and improving opportunities of doing good.