She was poor, but she
had the faculty of infusing her own energy into her boy, Matthew or
Tommy; and now he has grown to be one of the eminent men of the country.
Yes; and I recollect there was now and then to be seen with Tommy, when
he had occasionally a half hour of leisure--but that was not
often--there was one John Easy, whose mother always kept a servant to
wait upon him, to open and shut the gate for him, and almost to help him
breathe. Well, and where is John Easy? Why there he is, this moment, a
poor, shiftless, penniless being, who never loved to open the gate for
himself, and now nobody ever desires to open a gate to him.
And the reason for all this difference is the different manner in which
these boys were trained in their early days. "Train up a child," says
the good book, "in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not
depart from it." Analyze the direction, and see how it reads. Train up a
child--what? Why _train_ him--_i.e._, educate him, discipline him. Whom
did you say? A _child_. Take him early, in the morning of life, before
bad habits, indolent habits, vicious habits are formed. It is easy to
bend the sapling, but difficult to bend the grown tree. You said _train
a child_, did you? Yes. But how? Why, _in the way_ in which he _ought to
go_--_i.e._, in some useful employment--in the exercise of good moral
affections--pious duties towards God, and benevolent actions towards his
parents, brothers, companions.
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