I shall take it for granted that you care for your parents and home, or
at any rate that you would like to have a comfortable home. Well, then,
make it so yourself. You can do a great deal towards it. Honour and
obedience is your first duty towards your parents. There is nothing
manly in disobedience. Honour and obey, readily and cheerfully. Not
simply obedient to father because he might thrash you; and disobedient to
mother because she cannot compel you. No, the truest honour in a boy is
when mother can thoroughly trust him--trust him to obey her because she
is mother.
Brothers and sisters are often a trouble. "How those children do nag?"
"Never can leave those boys together." "He's sure to teaze her if I
leave them alone." Don't be a bully either to your brothers or sisters.
Don't be selfish and claim all you can for yourself. Share and share
alike should be the rule, and gentleness towards the girls and little
ones.
School will help to take the nonsense out of you; you cannot have it all
your own way there. Boys will be boys, is a very common expression, and
it would be very funny indeed if boys did not turn out to be boys, but
that is no reason that boys should be rude or cruel, and in fact "little
cubs." Quarrels there will be sometimes--very often for no real reason,
sometimes for a good cause. If you have one fight it out then and there,
and bear no malice afterwards. I would rather see a fair fight and have
done with it, than keeping up a nasty quarrel, and trying to spite one
another in little mean ways. There is too often a want of real honour
amongst boys. Telling tales of one another seems to be the fashion, and
the favourite way of paying off old scores. There are of course times
when a boy must speak out against wrong, even at the risk of being
counted a sneak, but, as a rule, boys who delight in telling tales, and
who have not the sense of honour to stick by one another are a very poor
lot.
Do your school work thoroughly. Idleness is not only wrong but foolish.
There is a time for work and a time for play. Learn as much as you can
and learn thoroughly if you want to be of any use in after life. A boy's
religion is not a thing that shows very much on the surface, or that he
is very likely to talk much about, but it must be in him if he is any
worth.
Boys and girls alike should learn from their mother to say their prayers
night and morning, and when they become too old, or mother too busy for
them to say them at her knee, they should never omit to say them by
themselves. I heard the other day of a rough labouring man, who on his
death bed sent for the priest of his parish. He said he had never been
inside a Church since he had been a man. He had done his work honestly,
and lived steadily, but had altogether got out of the way of going to
Church. There was one thing, however, that he had always done. Long
years ago, as a lad, he had promised his mother never to get up in the
morning or go to bed at night without saying his prayers. This promise
he had kept faithfully. Night and morning that rough strong man had
knelt and said the same prayers which he had first learnt at his mother's
knees. Those prayers had been heard and had brought their blessing to
him. Church going on Sunday is as important as daily prayers. A Sunday
morning should never be allowed to pass without seeing you at Church. Lie
a bed on Sunday morning is the devil's version of the fourth commandment.
There is plenty of time on Sunday for Church as well as for walks and
talks. Sunday is not to be a miserable day, or all Church and prayers,
but God first and then ourselves. Sunday school you will most likely be
sent to as long as you go to day school, and you will be wise not to give
it up as soon as you are what you would call your own master.
Both home and school ought to have their pleasures as well as their work.
Do your work thoroughly, and do your pleasures thoroughly also. Share
your pleasures with the others, and with father and mother. You can give
much pleasure to father and mother, as well as to yourselves, if you try.
Love God and love your home--be obedient, truthful, and plucky--standing
up for the right, and not ashamed to refuse to join in the wrong; and
your home and school days will train you well for your work in life.