The skilful cultivator discerns in the germination
of the bud the perfection, or the disease, that
a superficial observer would first perceive in the
ripening or the blighted fruit. And the moral
observer, if equally skilled, might predict the
manhood from the promise of the youth. Few
are so skilled, and we seldom turn over ten years
of life without surprise at the developement of
qualities we had not perceived. The happy accidents, —
they could not be called virtues, but
rather the result of circumstances,—have vanished
like the dews of morning. The good-natured,
light-hearted, generous youth, as his cares increased
and his health abated, has become petulant,
gloomy, and selfish; the gay, agreeable
girl, moping and censorious. There were many
who wondered, that persons who seemed nothing
extraordinary in their youth, should turn out as

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the Barclays had; and they wondered too, how
in the world it was that every thing went right
with the Barclays; and then the puzzle was
solved in the common way, — “It was their luck.”
They did not see that the Barclays had begun
right, that they had proposed to themselves rational
objects, and had pursued them with all the
power of conscience and of an unslacking energy.

That happy, if not happiest portion of married
life, when the thousand clustering joys of parents
are first felt, when toil is hope without weariness,
passed brightly away with them. Twelve years
had thus passed; their cares were multiplied,
and their enjoyments, a hundred fold. Mr. Barclay's
accumulating responsibilities sometimes
weighed heavily upon him. He was, like most
persons of great sensibility, of an apprehensive
temper. The little ailments of his children were
apt to disturb his serenity, and, for the time being,
it was destroyed by the moral diseases that
break out in the healthiest subjects. His wife
was of a happier temperament. Her equal, sunny
temper soon rectified the disturbed balance of
his. She knew that the constitution of weak and
susceptible childhood was liable to moral and
physical maladies, and that, if well got through, it
became the more robust and resisting for having
suffered them. Her husband knew this too, and
was consoled by it, — after the danger was past.

Our friends were now in a convenient house,
adapted to their very much improved fortune and
increased family. The family were assembled in a

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back parlour. Mrs. Barclay was at some domestic
employment, to facilitate which Martha had just
brought in a tub of scalding water. Charles, the
eldest boy, with a patience most unboyish, was
holding a skein of yarn for Grandmama to wind;
Alice, the eldest girl, was arranging the dinner-table
in the adjoining room; Mary, the second,
was amusing the baby at the window; Willie was
saying his letters to Aunt Betsey; — all were busy,
but the busiest was little Haddy, a sweet child of
four years, who was sitting in the middle of the
room on a low chair, and who, unobserved by
the rest, and herself unconscious of wrong, was
doing deadly mischief. She had taken a new,
unfinished, and very precious kite belonging to
her brother Wallace, cut a hole in the centre,
thrust into it the head of her pet Maltese kitten,
and was holding it by its fore paws and making
it dance on her lap; the little animal looking as
demure and as formal as one of Queen Elizabeth's
maids of honor in her ruff. At this critical
juncture Wallace entered in search of his
kite. One word of prefatory palliation for Wallace.
The kite was the finest he had ever possessed;
it had been given him by a friend, and
that friend was waiting at the door, to string and
fly it for him. At once the ruin of the kite, and
the indignity to which it was subjected, flashed
on him, and perhaps little Haddy's very satisfied
air exasperated him. In a breath he seized the
kitten, and dashed it into the tub of scalding water.
His father had come in to dinner, and
paused at the open door of the next room.

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Haddy shrieked, — the children all screamed, —
Charles dropped Grandmama's yarn, and, at the
risk of his own hand, rescued the kitten; but
seeing its agony, with most characteristic consideration,
he gently dropped it in again, and thus
put the speediest termination to its sufferings.

The children were all sobbing. Wallace stood
pale and trembling. His eye turned to his father,
then to his mother, then was riveted on the floor.
The children saw the frown on their father's face,
more dreaded by them than ever was flogging, or
dark closet with all its hobgoblins.

“I guess you did not mean to, did you, Wally?”
said little Haddy, whose tender heart was
so touched by the utter misery depicted on her
brother's face, that her pity for him overcame her
sense of her own and pussy's wrongs. Wallace
sighed deeply, but spoke no word of apology or
justification. The children looked at Wallace,
at their father, and their mother, and still the
portentous silence was unbroken. The dinner-bell
rung. “Go to your own room, Wallace,”
said his father. “You have forfeited your right
to a place among us. Creatures who are the
slaves of their passions, are, like beasts of prey,
fit only for solitude.”

“How long must Wallace stay up stairs?”
asked Haddy, affectionately holding back her
brother who was hastening away.

“Till he feels assured,” replied Mr. Barclay,
fixing his eye sternly on Wallace, “that he can
control his hasty temper; at least so far as not to
be guilty of violence towards such a dear good

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little girl as you are, and murderous cruelty to an
innocent animal; — till, sir, you can give me some
proof that you dread the sin and danger of yielding
to your passions so much that you can govern
them. The boy is hopeless,” he added in a low
voice to his wife, as Wallace left the room.

“My dear husband! hopeless at ten years old,
and with such a good, affectionate heart as his?
We must have patience.”

A happy combination for children is there in
an uncompromising father and an all-hoping
mother. The family sat down to table. The
parents were silent, serious, unhappy. The children
caught the infection, and scarcely a word
was said above a whisper. There was a favorite
dish on the table, followed by a nice pudding.
They were eaten, not enjoyed. The children realized
that it was not the good things they had to
eat, but the kind looks, the innocent laugh, and
cheerful voice, that made the pleasure of the social
meal.

“My dear children,” said their father, as he
took his hat to leave them, “we have lost all our
comfort to day, have not we?”

“Yes, sir, — yes, sir,” they answered in a
breath.

“Then learn one lesson from your poor
brother. Learn to dread doing wrong. If you
commit sin, you must suffer, and all that love you
must suffer with you; for every sin is a violation
of the laws of your heavenly Father, and he will
not suffer it to go unpunished.”

If Mr. and Mrs. Barclay had affected their

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concern, to overawe and impose on their children,
they would not have been long deceived; for
children, being themselves sincere, are clearsighted.
But they knew that the sadness was real;
they felt that it was in accordance with their parents'
characters and general conduct. They
never saw them ruffled by trifles. Many a glass
had been broken, many a greasy knife dropped,
many a disappointment and inconvenience incurred,
without calling forth more than a gentle
rebuke. These were not the things that moved
them, or disturbed the domestic tranquillity; but
the ill temper, selfishness, unkindness, or any
moral fault of the children, was received as an
affliction.

The days passed on. Wallace went to school
as usual, and returned to his solitude, without
speaking or being spoken to. His meals were
sent to his room, and whatever the family ate, he
ate. For the Barclays took care not to make rewards
and punishments out of eating and drinking,
and thus associate the duties and pleasures
of a moral being with a mere animal gratification.
“But ah!” he thought, as he walked up and down
his apartment, while eating his pie or pudding,
“how different it tastes from what it does at table!”
and though he did not put it precisely in
that form, he felt what it was that “sanctified the
food.” The children began to venture to say to
their father, whose justice they dared not question,
“How long Wally has stayed up stairs!”
and Charles, each day, eagerly told how well
Wallace behaved at school. His grandmother

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could not resist her desire to comfort him; she
would look into his room to see “if he were well,”
“if he were warm enough,” or “if he did not want
something.” The little fellow's moistening eye
and tremulous voice evinced his sensibility to her
kindness, but he resolutely abstained from asking
any mitigation of his punishment. He overheard
his Aunt Betsey (Mrs. Barclay's maiden sister)
say, “It is a sin, and ridiculous besides, to keep
Wallace mewed up so, just for a little flash of
temper. I am sure he had enough to provoke a
saint.”

“We do not keep him mewed up, Betsey,” replied
Mrs. Barclay, “nor does he continue mewed
up, for a single flash of temper; but because, with
all his good resolutions, his passionate temper is
constantly getting the better of him. There is
no easy cure for such a fault. If Wallace had
the seeds of a consumption, you would think it
the extreme of folly not to submit to a few weeks'
confinement, if it afforded a means of ridding him
of them; and how much worse than a consumption
is a moral disease!”

“Well,” answered the sister, “you must do as
you like, but I am sure we never had any such
fuss at home; — we grew up, and there was an
end on't.”

“But may be,” thought Wallace, “if there had
been a little more fuss when you were younger, it
would have been pleasanter living with you now,
Aunt Betsey.”

Poor Aunt Betsey, with many virtues, had a temper
that made her a nuisance wherever she was.

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The Barclays alone got on tolerably with her.
There was a disinfecting principle in the moral
atmosphere of their house.

Two weeks had passed when Mr. Barclay
heard Wallace's door open, and heard him say,
“Can I speak with you one minute before dinner,
sir.”

“Certainly, my son.” His father entered and
closed the door.

“Father,” said Wallace, with a tremulous voice
but an open, cheerful face, “I feel as if I had a
right now to ask you to forgive me, and take me
back into the family.”

Mr. Barclay felt so too, and kissing him, he
said, “I have only been waiting for you, Wallace;
and, from the time you have taken to consider
your besetting sin, I trust you have gained
strength to resist it.”

“It is not consideration only, sir, that I depend
on; for you told me I must wait till I could give
you proof; so I had to wait till something happened
to try me. I could not possibly tell else,
for I always do resolve, when I get over my passion,
that I never will get angry again. Luckily
for me, — for I began to be horribly tired of staying
alone, — Tom Allen snatched off my new
cap and threw it in the gutter. I had a book in
my hand, and I raised it to send at him; but I
thought just in time, and I was so glad I had
governed my passion, that I did not care about my
cap, or Tom, or any thing else. `But one swallow
doesn't make a summer,' as Aunt Betsey
says; so I waited till I should get angry again. It

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

seemed as if I never should; there were provoking
things happened, but somehow or other they
did not provoke me, — why do you smile,
father?”

“I smile with pleasure, my dear boy, to find
that one fortnight's resolute watchfulness has enabled
you so to curb your temper that you are not
easily provoked.”

“But stay, father, you have not yet heard all;
yesterday, just as I was putting up my Arithmetic,
which I had written almost to the end without a
single blot, Tom Allen came along and gave my
inkstand a jostle, and over it went on my open
book; I thought he did it purposely, — I think so
still, but I don't feel so sure. I did not reflect
then, — I doubled my fist to strike him.”

“O, Wallace!”

“But I did not, father, I did not, — I thought
just in time. There was a horrid choking feeling
in my throat, and angry words seemed crowding
out; but I did not even say, `Blame you.' I
had to bite my lips, though, so that the blood ran.”

“God bless you, my son.”

“And the best of it all was, father, that Tom
Allen, who never before seemed to care how
much harm he did you, or how much he hurt your
feelings, was really sorry; and this morning he
brought me a new blank book nicely ruled, and
offered to help me copy my sums into it; so I
hope I did him some good as well as myself, by
governing my temper.”

“There is no telling, Wallace, how much good
may be done by a single right action, nor how
much harm by a single wrong one.”

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

“I know it, sir; I have been thinking a great
deal since I have been up stairs, and I do wonder
why God did not make Adam and Eve so that
they could not do wrong.”

“This subject has puzzled older and wiser
heads than yours, my son, and puzzled them
more than I think it should. If we had been
created incapable of sin, there could have been no
virtue. Did you not feel happier yesterday after
your trial, than if it had not happened?”

“O yes, father; and the strangest of all was,
that after the first flash, I had not any bad feelings
towards Tom.”

“Then you can see, in your own case, good
resulting from being free to do good or evil. You
certainly were the better for your victory, and,
you say, happier. It is far better to be virtuous
than sinless, — I mean, incapable of sin. If you
subdue your temper, the exercise of the power to
do this will give you a pleasure that you could not
have had without it.”

“But if I fail, father?” Wallace looked in
his father's face with an expression which showed
he felt that he had more than a kingdom to gain
or lose.

“You cannot fail, my dear son, while you continue
to feel the worth of the object for which you
are striving; while you feel that the eye of God
is upon you; and that, not only your own happiness,
but the happiness of your father, and mother,
and brothers, and sisters, — of our home, depends
on your success.”

“But, father, did you ever know any body that

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

had such a passionate temper, that learned to
govern it always?”

“Yes, my child, but not all at once. You are
placed in the happiest circumstances to obtain
this rule over your own spirit. The Americans are
said to be distinguished for their good temper. I
believe this is true, not from any natural superiority
in them to French, English, or Irish, but because
they are brought up among their equals, and
compelled from childhood to govern their tempers;
one cannot encroach on the rights of another.”

“But it is not so with all Americans, father.”

“No; those in the Southern States unfortunately
have not these restraints, — this equal pressure
on all sides, and they are esteemed more
irascible and passionate than the people of the
North. This is one of the thousand misfortunes
that result from slavery. But we must always remember,
my son, that the virtue or vice produced
by circumstances is not to be counted to the individual.
It is the noble struggle and resistance
against them, that makes virtue. It was this that
constituted the merit of Washington's subjugation
of his temper.”

“Was he, — was General Washington passionate,
father?”

“Yes; quite as irascible and passionate naturally,
as you are; and yet you know it was his
equanimity, his calmness, in the most irritating
circumstances, that made him so superior to other
men.”

“Was he pious, sir?”

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