the nation; so with mankind. The human race started with no culture, no
religion, no morals, even no manners, having only desires and faculties
within, and the world without. Now we have attained much more. But it
has taken many centuries for mankind to pass from primeval barbarism to
the present stage of comfort, science, civilization, and refinement. It
has been the work of two hundred generations; perhaps of more. But each
new child is born at the foot of the ladder, as much as the first child;
with only desires and faculties. He may have a better physical
organization than the first child; he certainly has better teachers;
but he, in like manner, is born with no culture, no religion, no morals,
even with no manners; born into them, not with them; born bare of these
things and naked as the first child. He must himself toil up the ladder
which mankind have been so long in constructing and climbing up. To
attain the present civilization he must pass over every point which the
race passed through. The child of the civilized man, born with a good
organization and under favorable circumstances, can do this rapidly, and
in thirty or forty years attains the height of development which it took
the whole human race sixty centuries or more to arrive at. He has the
aid of past experience and the examples of noble men; he travels a road
already smooth and beaten. The world's cultivation, so slowly and
painfully achieved, helps civilize him. He may then go further on, and
cultivate himself; may transcend the development of mankind, adding new
rounds to the ladder. So doing he aids future children, who will one day
climb above his head, he possibly crying against them,--that they climb
only to fall, and thereby sweep off him and all below; that no new
rounds can be added to the old ladder.
Still, after all the helps which our fathers have provided, every future
child must go through the same points which we and our predecessors
passed through, only more swiftly. Every boy has his animal period,
when he can only eat and sleep, intelligence slowly dawning on his mind.
Then comes his savage period, when he knows nothing of rights, when all
thine is mine to him, if he can get it. Then comes his barbarous period,
when he is ignorant and dislikes to learn; study and restraint are
irksome. He hates the school, disobeys his mother; has reverence for
nobody. Nothing is sacred to him--no time, nor place, nor person. He
would grow up wild. The greater part of children travel beyond this
stage. The unbearable boy becomes a tolerable youth; then a powerful
man. He loves his duty; outstrips the men that once led him so unwilling
and reluctant, and will set hard lessons for his grandsire which that
grandsire, perhaps, will not learn. The young learns of the old, mounts
the ladder they mounted and the ladder they made. The reverse is seldom
true, that the old climbs the ladder which the young have made, and over
that storms new heights. Now and then you see it, but such are
extraordinary and marvellous men. In the old story Saturn did not take
pains to understand his children, nor learn thereof; he only devoured
them up, till some outgrew and overmastered him. Did the generation that
is passing from the stage ever comprehend and fairly judge the new
generation coming on? In the world, the barbarian passes on and becomes
the civilized, then the enlightened.
In the physical process of growth from the baby to the man, there is no
direct intervention of the will. Therefore the process goes on
regularly, and we do not see abortive men who have advanced in years,
but stopped growth in their babyhood, or boyhood. But as the will is the
soul of personality, so to say, the heart of intellect, morals and
religion, so the force thereof may promote, retard, disturb, and perhaps
for a time completely arrest the progress of intellectual, moral and
religious growth. Still more, this spiritual development of men is
hindered or promoted by subtle causes hitherto little appreciated.
Hence, by reason of these outward or internal hinderances, you find
persons and classes of men who do not attain the average culture of
mankind, but stop at some lower stage of this spiritual development, or
else loiter behind the rest. You even find whole nations whose progress
is so slow, that they need the continual aid of the more civilized to
quicken their growth. Outward circumstances have a powerful influence on
this development. If a single class in a nation lingers behind the rest,
the cause thereof will commonly be found in some outward hinderance.
They move in a resisting medium, and therefore with abated speed. No one
expects the same progress from a Russian serf and a free man of New
England. I do not deny that in the case of some men personal will is
doubtless the disturbing force. I am not now to go beyond that fact, and
inquire how the will became as it is. Here is a man who, from whatever
cause, is bodily ill-born, with defective organs. He stops in the animal
period; is incapable of any considerable degree of development,
intellectual, moral, or religious. The defect is in his body. Others
disturbed by more occult causes do not attain their proper growth. This
man wishes to stop in his savage period, he would be a freebooter, a
privateer against society, having universal letters-of-marque and
reprisal; a perpetual Arab, his rule is to get what he can, as he will
and where he pleases, to keep what he gets. Another stops at the
barbarous age. He is lazy and will not work, others must bear his share
of the general burden of mankind. He claims letters patent to make all
men serve him. He is not only indolent, constitutionally lazy, but lazy,
consciously and wilfully idle. He will not work, but in one form or
another will beg or steal. Yet a fourth stops in the half-civilized
period. He will work with his hands, but no more. He cannot discover; he
will not study to learn; he will not even be taught what has been
invented and taught before. None can teach him. The horse is led to the
water, or the water brought to the horse, but the beast will not drink.
"The idle fool is whipt at school," but to no purpose. He is always an
oaf. No college or tutor mends him. The wild ass will go out free, wild,
and an ass.
These four, the idiot, the pirate, the thief, and the clown are
exceptional men. They remain stationary. Meanwhile, mankind advances,
continually, but not with an even front. The human race moves not by
column or line, but by _echelon_ as it were. We go up by stairs, not by
slopes. Now comes a great man, of far-reaching and prospective sight, a
Moses, and he tells men that there is a land of promise, which they have
a right to who have skill to win it. Then lesser men, the Calebs and
Joshuas, go and search it out, bringing back therefrom new wine in the
cluster and alluring tales. Next troops of pioneers advance, yet lesser
men; then a few bold men who love adventure. Then comes the army, the
people with their flocks and herds, the priesthood with their ark of the
covenant and the tabernacle, the title-deeds of the new lands which they
have heard of but not seen. At last there comes the mixed multitude,
following in no order, but not without shouting and tumult, men treading
one another under foot, cowards looking back and refusing to march, old
men dying without seeing their consolation. If you will lie down on the
ground and take the profile of a great city, and see how hill, steeple,
dome, tower, the roof of the tall house, gain on the sky, and then come
whole streets of warehouses and shops, then common dwellings, then
cheap, low tenements, you will have a good profile of man's march to
gain new conquests in science, art, morals, religion, and general
development. It is so in the family, a bright boy shooting before all
the rest, and taking the thunder out of the adverse cloud for his
brothers and sisters, who follow and grow rich with unscathed forehead.
It is so in the nation, a few great men bearing the brunt of the storm,
and wading through the surges to set their weaker brothers, screaming
and struggling, with dry feet, in safety, on the firm land of science or
religion. It is so in the world, a tall nation achieving art, science,
law, morals, religion, and by the fact revealing their beauty to the
barbarian race.
In all departments of human concern there are such pioneers for the
family, the nation or mankind. It is instructive to study this law of
human progress, to see the De Gamas and Columbuses, aspiring men who
dream of worlds to come and lead the perilous van; to see the Vespuccis,
the Cortezes, the Pizarros, who get rank and fame by following in their
track; to see next the merchant adventurers, soldiers, sutlers and the
like, who make money out of the new conquest, while the great
discoverers had for meet reward the joy of their genius, the nobleness
of their work, a sight of the world's future welfare from the prophet's
mountain--a hard life, a bad name, and a grave unknown.
Now while there are those men in the van of society, who aspire at more,
chiding and taxing mankind with idleness, cowardice, and even sin, there
are yet those others who loiter on the way, from weakness or wilfulness,
refusing to advance--idlers, cowards, sinners. If born in the rear,
afar from civilization, they are left to die--the savages, the inferior
races, the perishing classes of the world. If born in the centre of
civilization, for a while they impede the march by actively hindering
others, by standing in their way, or by plundering the rest--the
dangerous classes of society. They too are slain and trodden under foot
of men, and likewise perish.
In most large families there is a bad boy, a black sheep in the flock,
an Ishmael whom Abraham will drive out into the wilderness, to meet an
angel if he can find one. That story of Hagar and her son is very old,
but verified anew each year in families and nations. So in society there
are criminals who do not keep up with the moral advance of the mass,
stragglers from the march, whom society treats as Abraham his base-born
boy, but sending them off with no loaf or skin of water, not even a
blessing, but a curse; sending them off as Cain went, with a bad name
and a mark on their forehead! So in the world there are inferior
nations, savage, barbarous, half-civilized; some are inferior in nature,
some perhaps only behind us in development; on a lower form in the great
school of Providence--Negroes, Indians, Mexicans, Irish, and the like,
whom the world treats as Ishmael and the Gibeonites got treated: now
their land is stolen from them in war; their children, or their persons,
are annexed to the strong as slaves. The civilized continually preys on
the savage, reannexing their territory and stealing their
persons--owning them or claiming their work. Esau is rough and hungry,
Jacob smooth and well fed. The smooth man overreaches the rough; buys
his birthright for a mess of pottage; takes the ground from underneath
his feet, thereby supplanting his brother. So the elder serves the
younger, and the fresh civilization, strong, and sometimes it may be
wicked also, overmasters the ruder age that is contented to stop. The
young man now a barbarian will come up one day and take all our places,
making us seem ridiculous, nothing but timid conservatives!
All these three, the reputed pests of the family, society, and the
world, are but loiterers from the march, bad boys, or dull ones.
Criminals are a class of such; savages are nations thereof--classes or
nations that for some cause do not keep up with the movement of mankind.
The same human nature is in us all, only there it is not so highly
developed. Yet the bad boy, who to-day is a curse to the mother that
bore him, would perhaps have been accounted brave and good in the days
of the Conqueror; the dangerous class might have fought in the Crusades
and been reckoned soldiers of the Lord whose chance for heaven was most
auspicious. The savage nations would have been thought civilized in the
days when "there was no smith in Israel." David would make a sorry
figure among the present kings of Europe, and Abraham would be judged
of by a standard not known in his time. There have been many centuries
in which the pirate, the land-robber and the murderer were thought the
greatest of men.
Now it becomes a serious question, What shall be done for these
stragglers, or even with them? It is sometimes a terrible question to
the father and mother what they shall do for their reprobate son who is
an offence to the neighborhood, a shame, a reproach and a heart-burning
to them. It is a sad question to society, What shall be done with the
criminals--thieves, housebreakers, pirates, murderers? It is a serious
question to the world, What is to become of the humbler nations--Irish,
Mexicans, Malays, Indians, Negroes?
In the world and in society the question is answered in about the same
way. In a low civilization, the instinct of self-preservation is the
strongest of all. They are done with, not for; are done away with. It is
the Old Testament answer:--The inferior nation is hewn to pieces, the
strong possess their lands, their cities, their cattle, their persons,
also, if they will; the class of criminals gets the prophet's curse: the
two bears, the jail and the gallows, eat them up. In the family alone is
the Christian answer given; the good shepherd goes forth to seek the one
sheep that has strayed and gone, lost upon the mountains; the father
goes out after the poor prodigal, whom the swine's meat could not feed
nor fill.[31] The world, which is the society of nations, and society,
which is the family of classes, still belong mainly to the "old
dispensation," Heathen or Hebrew, the period of force. In the family
there is a certain instinctive love binding the parent to the child, and
therefore a certain unity of action, growing out of that love. So the
father feels his kinship to his boy, though a reprobate; looks for the
causes of his son's folly or sin, and strives to cure him; at least to
do something for him, not merely with him. The spirit of Christianity
comes into the family, but the recognition of human brotherhood stops
mainly there. It does not reach throughout society; it has little
influence on national politics or international law--on the affairs of
the world taken as a whole. I know the idea of human brotherhood has
more influence now than hitherto; I think in New England it has a wider
scope, a higher range, and works with more power than elsewhere. Our
hearts bleed for the starving thousands of Ireland, whom we only read
of; for the down-trodden slave, though of another race and dyed by
Heaven with another hue; yes, for the savage and the suffering
everywhere. The hand of our charity goes through every land. If there is
one quality for which the men of New England may be proud it is this,
their sympathy with suffering man. Still we are far from the Christian
ideal. We still drive out of society the Ishmaels and Esaus. This we do
not so much from ill-will as want of thought, but thereby we lose the
strength of these outcasts. So much water runs over the dam--wasted and
wasting!
* * * * *
In all these melancholy cases what is it best to do? what shall the
parents do to mend their dull boy, or their wicked one? There are two
methods which may be tried. One is the method of force, sometimes
referred to Solomon, and recommended by the maxim, "Spare not the rod
and spoil the child." That is the Old Testament way, "Stripes are
prepared for the fool's back." The mischief is, they leave it no wiser
than they found it. By the law of the Hebrews, a man brought his
stubborn and rebellious son before the magistrates and deposed: "This
our son is stubborn and rebellious: he will not obey our voice. He is a
glutton and a drunkard." Thereupon, the men of the city stoned him with
stones and so "put away the evil from amongst them!" That was the method
of force. It may bruise the body; it may fill men with fear; it may
kill. I think it never did any other good. It belonged to a rude and
bloody age. I may ask intelligent men who have tried it, and I think
they will confess it was a mistake. I think I may ask intelligent men
on whom it has been tried, and they will say, "It was a mistake on my
father's part, but a curse to me!" I know there are exceptions to that
reply; still I think it will be general. A man is seldom elevated by an
appeal to low motives; always by addressing what is high and manly
within him. Is fear of physical pain the highest element you can appeal
to in a child; the most effectual? I do not see how Satan can be cast
out by Satan. I think a Saviour never tries it. Yet this method of force
is brief and compact. It requires no patience, no thought, no wisdom for
its application, and but a moment's time. For this reason, I think, it
is still retained in some families and many schools, to the injury alike
of all concerned. Blows and violent words are not correction, often but
an adjournment of correction: sometimes only an actual confession of
inability to correct.
The other is the method of love, and of wisdom not the less. Force may
hide, and even silence effects for a time; it removes not the real
causes of evil. By the method of love and wisdom the parents remove the
causes; they do not kill the demoniac, they cast out the demon, not by
letting in Beelzebub, the chief devil, but by the finger of God. They
redress the child's folly and evil birth by their own wisdom and good
breeding. The day drives out and off the night.
Sometimes you see that worthy parents have a weak and sickly child,
feeble in body. No pains are too great for them to take in behalf of the
faint and feeble one. What self-denial of the father; what sacrifice on
the mother's part! The best of medical skill is procured; the tenderest
watching is not spared. No outlay of money, time, or sacrifice is
thought too much to save the child's life; to insure a firm constitution
and make that life a blessing. The able-bodied children can take care of
themselves, but not the weak. So the affection of father and mother
centres on this sickly child. By extraordinary attention the feeble
becomes strong; the deformed is transformed, and the grown man, strong
and active, blesses his mother for health not less than life.
Did you ever see a robin attend to her immature and callow child which
some heedless or wicked boy had stolen from the nest, wounded and left
on the ground, half living; left to perish? Patiently she brings food
and water, gives it kind nursing. Tenderly she broods over it all night
upon the ground, sheltering its tortured body from the cold air of night
and morning's penetrating dew. She perils herself; never leaves it--not
till life is gone. That is nature; the strong protecting the feeble.
Human nature may pause and consider the fowls of the air, whence the
Greatest once drew his lessons. Human history, spite of all its tears
and blood, is full of beauty and majestic worth. But it shows few things
so fair as the mother watching thus over her sickly and deformed child,
feeding him with her own life. What if she forewent her native instinct
and the mother said, "My boy is deformed, a cripple--let him die?" Where
would be the more hideous deformity?
If his child be dull, slow-witted, what pains will a good father take to
instruct him; still more if he is vicious, born with a low organization,
with bad propensities--what admonitions will he administer; what
teachers will he consult; what expedients will he try; what prayers will
he not pray for his stubborn and rebellious son! Though one experiment
fail, he tries another, and then again, reluctant to give over. Did it
never happen to one of you to be such a child, to have outgrown that
rebellion and wickedness? Remember the pains taken with you; remember
the agony your mother felt; the shame that bowed your father's head so
oft, and brought such bitter tears adown those venerable cheeks. You
cannot pay for that agony, that shame, not pay the hearts which burst
with both--yet uttering only a prayer for you. Pay it back then, if you
can, to others like yourself, stubborn and rebellious sons.
Has none of you ever been such a father or mother? You know then the sad
yearnings of heart which tried you. The world condemned you and your
wicked child, and said, "Let the elders stone him with stones. The
gallows waiteth for its own!" Not so you! You said: "Nay, now, wait a
little. Perchance the boy will mend. Come, I will try again. Crush him
not utterly and a father's heart besides!" The more he was wicked, the
more assiduous were you for his recovery, for his elevation. You saw
that he would not keep up with the moral march of men; that he was a
barbarian, a savage, yes, almost a beast amongst men. You saw this; yes,
felt it too as none others felt. Yet you could not condemn him wholly
and without hope. You saw some good mixed with his evil; some causes for
the evil and excuses for it which others were blind to. Because you
mourned most you pitied most--all from the abundance of your love.
Though even in your highest hour of prayer, the sad conviction came that
work or prayer was all in vain--you never gave him over to the world's
reproach, but interposed your fortune, character, yes, your own person,
to take the blows which the severe and tyrannous world kept laying on.
At last if he would not repent, you hid him away, the best you could,
from the mocking sight of other men, but never shut him from your heart;
never from remembrance in your deepest prayers. How the whole family
suffers for the prodigal till he returns. When he comes back, you
rejoice over one recovered olive-plant more than over all the trees of
your field which no storm has ever broke or bowed. How you went forth to
meet him; with what joy rejoiced! "For this my son was lost and is
found," says the old man; "he was dead and is alive once more. Let us
pray and be glad!" With what a serene and hallowed countenance you met
your friends and neighbors, as their glad hearts smiled up in their
faces when the prodigal came home from riot and swine's-bread, a new man
safe and sound! Many such things have I seen, and hearts long cold grew
bright and warm again. Towards evening the clouds broke asunder; Simeon
saw his consolation and went home in sunlight and in peace.
The general result of this treatment in the family is, that the dull boy
learns by degrees, learns what he is fit for: the straggler joins the
troop, and keeps step with the rest, nay, sometimes becomes the leader
of the march: the vicious boy is corrected; even the faults of his
organization get overcome, not suddenly, but at length. The rejected
stone finds its place on the wall, and its use. Such is not always the
result. Some will not be mended. I stop not now to ask the cause. Some
will not return, though you go out to meet them a great way off. What
then? Will you refuse to go? Can you wholly abandon a friend or a child
who thus deserts himself? Is he so bad that he cannot be made better?
Perhaps it is so. Can you not hinder him from being worse? Are you so
good that you must forsake him? Did not God send his greatest, noblest,
purest Son to seek and save the lost? send him to call sinners to
repent? When sinners slew him, did God forsake mankind? Not one of
those sinners did his love forget.
Does the good physician spend the night in feasting with the sound, or
in watching with the sick? Nay, though the sick man be past all hope, he
will look in to soothe affliction which he cannot cure; at least to
speak a word of friendly cheer. The wise teacher spends most pains with
backward boys, and is most bountiful himself where Nature seems most
niggard in her gifts. What would you say if a teacher refused to help a
boy because the boy was slow to learn; because he now and then broke
through the rules? What if the mother said: "My boy is a sickly dunce,
not worth the pains of rearing. Let him die!" What if the father said:
"He is a born villain, to be bred only for the gallows; what use to toil
or pray for him! Let the hangman take my son!"
* * * * *