Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/108

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

conviction that their conduct must be regulated by duty, and not by impulse. Read to them books of instruction, selected with discrimination, or make use of them as texts for your own commentary. In your teachings of religion, avoid all points of sectarian difference, and found the morality which you inculcate, on the Scriptures of truth. Give one hour every morning, to the instruction of your children, one undivided hour to them alone. Ere they retire, secure, if possible, another portion of equal length. Review what has been learned throughout the day, recall its deeds, its faults, its sorrows, its blessings, to deepen the great lessons of God's goodness and forbearance, or to soothe the little heart into sweet peace with Him, and all the world, ere the eyes close in slumber. Let the simple music of some evening hymn, and their tender prayer of contrition and gratitude close the daily intercourse with your endeared pupils, and see if this system does not render them doubly dear.

Do not deprive them, of these stated seasons of instruction, without the most imperative necessity. Let your youngest share in them, as soon as it opens its bright eyes wider at the words, "shall mother tell a story?" Then the little flower of mind, is ready for a dew-drop. Let it be small, and so fragrant, that another will be desired a the morrow's dawn. Speak of the dove that