Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners Part 2

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A Good Name.

1. THE LONGING FOR A GOOD NAME.--The longing for a good name is one of those laws of nature that were pa.s.sed for the soul and written down within to urge toward a life of action, and away from small or wicked action. So large is this pa.s.sion that it is set forth in poetic thought, as having a temple grand as that of Jupiter or Minerva, and up whose marble steps all n.o.ble minds struggle--the temple of Fame.

2. CIVILIZATION.--Civilization is the ocean of which the millions of individuals are the rivers and torrents. These rivers and torrents swell with those rains of money and home and fame and happiness, and then fall and run almost dry, but the ocean of civilization has gathered up all these waters, and holds them in sparkling beauty for all subsequent use.

Civilization is a fertile delta made by the drifting souls of men.

3. FAME.--The word "fame" never signifies simply notoriety. The meaning of the direct term may be seen from its negation or opposite, for only the meanest of men are called infamous. They are utterly without fame, utterly nameless; but if fame implied only notoriety then infamous would possess no marked significance. Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but who bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals and follows them to the grave.

4. LIFE-MOTIVE.--So in studying that life-motive which is called a "good name," we must ask the large human race to tell us the high merit of this spiritual longing. We must read the words of the sage, who said long centuries ago that "a good name was rather chosen than great riches." Other sages have said as much. Solon said that "He that will sell his good name will sell the State." Socrates said, "Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds."

Our Shakspeare said, "He lives in fame who died in virtue's cause."

5. INFLUENCES OF OUR AGE.--Our age is deeply influenced by the motives called property and home and pleasure, but it is a question whether the generation in action to-day and the generation on the threshold of this intense life are conscious fully of the worth of an honorable name.

6. BEAUTY OF CHARACTER.--We do not know whether with us all a good name is less sweet than it was with our fathers, but this is painfully evident, that our times do not sufficiently behold the beauty of character--their sense does not {19} detect quickly enough or love deeply enough this aroma of heroic deeds.

7. SELLING OUT THEIR REPUTATION.--It is amazing what mult.i.tudes there are who are willing to sell out their reputation, and amazing at what a low price they will make the painful exchange. Some king remarked that he would not tell a lie for any reward less than an empire. It is not uncommon in our world for a man to sell out all his honor and hopes for a score or a half score of dollars.

8. PRISONS OVERFLOWING.--Our prisons are all full to overflowing of those who took no thought of honor. They have not waited for an empire to be offered them before they would violate the sacred rights of man, but many of them have even murdered for a cause that would not have justified even an exchange of words.

9. INTEGRITY THE PRIDE OF THE GOVERNMENT.--If integrity were made the pride of the government, the love of it would soon spring up among the people. If all fraudulent men should go straight to jail, pitilessly, and if all the most rigid characters were sought out for all political and commercial offices, there would soon come a popular honesty just as there has come a love of reading or of art. It is with character as with any new article--the difficulty lies in its first introduction.

10. A NEW VIRTUE.--May a new virtue come into favor, all our high rewards, those from the ballot-box, those from employers, the rewards of society, the rewards of the press, should be offered only to the worthy. A few years of rewarding the worthy would result in a wonderful zeal in the young to build up, not physical property, but mental and spiritual worth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ARAB PRINCESS.]

11. BLESSING THE FAMILY GROUP.--No young man or young woman can by industry and care reach an eminence in study or art or character, without blessing the entire family group. We have all seen that the father and mother feel that all life's care and labor were at last perfectly rewarded in the success of their child. But had the child been reckless or indolent, all this domestic joy--the joy of a large group--would have been blighted forever.

12. AN HONORED CHILD.--There have been triumphs at old Rome, where victors marched along with many a chariot, many an elephant, and many spoils of the East; and in all times money has been lavished in the efforts of States to tell their pleasure in the name of some general; but more numerous and wide-spread and beyond expression, by chariot or cannon or drum, have been those triumphal {20} hours, when some son or daughter has returned to the parental hearth beautiful in the wreaths of some confessed excellence, bearing a good name.

13. RICH CRIMINALS.--We looked at the utter wretchedness of the men who threw away reputation, and would rather be rich criminals in exile than be loved friends and persons at home.

14. AN EMPTY, OR AN EVIL NAME.--Young and old cannot afford to bear the burden of an empty or an evil name. A good name is a motive of life. It is a reason for that great encampment we call an existence. While you are building the home of to-morrow, build up also that kind of soul that can sleep sweetly on home's pillow, and can feel that G.o.d is not near as an avenger of wrong, but as the Father not only of the verdure and the seasons, but of you. Live a pure life and bear a good name, and your reward will be sure and great.

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The Mother's Influence.

Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you, Many a Summer the gra.s.s has grown green, Blossomed and faded, our faces between; Yet with strong yearning and pa.s.sionate pain, Long I to-night for your presence again.--_Elizabeth Akers Allen._

A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive.--_Coleridge._

There is none, In all this cold and hollow world, no fount Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within A mother's heart.--_Mrs. Hemans._

And all my mother came into mine eyes, And gave me up to tears.--_Shakespeare._

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PRAYERFUL AND DEVOTED MOTHER.]

1. HER INFLUENCE.--It is true to nature, although it be expressed in a figurative form, that a mother is both the morning and the evening star of life. The light of her eye is always the first to rise, and often the last to set upon man's day of trial. She wields a power more decisive far than syllogisms in argument or courts of last appeal in authority.

2. HER LOVE.--Mother! ecstatic sound so twined round our hearts that they must cease to throb ere we forget it; 'tis our first love; 'tis part of religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost wors.h.i.+p it in old age.

3. HER TENDERNESS.--Alas! how little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness while living. How heedless are we in youth of all her anxieties and kindness! But when she is dead and gone, when the cares and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts, when we experience for ourselves how hard it is to find true sympathy, how few to love us, how few will befriend us in misfortune, then it is that we think of the mother we have lost.

4. HER CONTROLLING POWER.--The mother can take man's whole nature under her control. She becomes what she has been called, "The Divinity of Infancy."

Her smile is its suns.h.i.+ne, her word its mildest law, until sin and the world have steeled the heart.

{22} 5. THE LAST TIE.--The young man who has forsaken the advice and influence of his mother has broken the last cable and severed the last tie that binds him to an honorable and upright life. He has forsaken his best friend, and every hope for his future welfare may be abandoned, for he is lost forever. If he is faithless to mother, he will have but little respect for wife and children.

6. HOME TIES.--The young man or young woman who love their home and love their mother can be safely trusted under almost any and all circ.u.mstances, and their life will not be a blank, for they seek what is good. Their hearts will be enn.o.bled, and G.o.d will bless them.

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Home Power.

"The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise in solitary places."--HELPS.

"Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round!

Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws. They send us bound To rules of reason."--GEORGE HERBERT.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOME AMUs.e.m.e.nT.]

1. SCHOOL OF CHARACTER.--Home is the first and most important school of character. It is there that every human being receives his best moral training, or his worst, for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure through manhood, and cease only with life.

2. HOME MAKES THE MAN.--It is a common saying, "Manners make the man;" and there is a second, that "Mind makes the man;" but truer than either is a third, that "Home makes the man." For the home-training includes not only manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the home that the heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is awakened, and character moulded for good or for evil.

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3. GOVERN SOCIETY.--From that source, be it pure or impure, issue the principles and maxims that govern society. Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries, and they who hold the leading-strings of children may even exercise a greater power than those who wield the reins of government.

4. THE CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN.--The child's character is the nucleus of the man's; all after-education is but superposition; the form of the crystal remains the same. Thus the saying of the poet holds true in a large degree, "The child is father of the man;" or as Milton puts it, "The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day." Those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are rooted the deepest, always have their origin near our birth. It is then that the germs of virtues or vices, of feelings or sentiments, are first implanted which determine the character of life.

5. NURSERIES.--Thus homes, which are nurseries of children who grow up into men and women, will be good or bad according to the power that governs them. Where the spirit of love and duty pervades the home, where head and heart bear rule wisely there, where the daily life is honest and virtuous, where the government is sensible, kind, and loving, then may we expect from such a home an issue of healthy, useful, and happy beings, capable as they gain the requisite strength, of following the footsteps of their parents, of walking uprightly, governing themselves wisely, and contributing to the welfare of those about them.

6. IGNORANCE, COa.r.s.eNESS, AND SELFISHNESS.--On the other hand, if surrounded by ignorance, coa.r.s.eness, and selfishness, they will unconsciously a.s.sume the same character, and grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and all the more dangerous to society if placed amidst the manifold temptations of what is called civilized life. "Give your child to be educated by a slave," said an ancient Greek, "and, instead of one slave, you will then have two."

7. MATERNAL LOVE.--Maternal love is the visible providence of our race. Its influence is constant and universal. It begins with the education of the human being at the outstart of life, and is prolonged by virtue of the powerful influence which every good mother exercises over her children through life. When launched into the world, each to take part in its labors, anxieties, and trials, they still turn {25} to their mother for consolation, if not for counsel, in their time of trouble and difficulty.

The pure and good thoughts she has implanted in their minds when children continue to grow up into good acts long after she is dead; and when there is nothing but a memory of her left, her children rise up and call her blessed.