John S. C. Abbott

“ This little boy had for some time been endeavoring to do his duty as a Christian. His conduct showed that he loved the Savior. And when sickness came, and death was near, he was happy. But, oh, how sad must that child feel, who is dying in unrepented sin! We all must certainly soon die, and there is nothing to make us happy in death but piety.
But when the Christian child goes to heaven, how happy must he be! He rises above the clouds, and the blue sky, and the twinkling stars, till he enters the home of God and the angels. There he becomes an angel himself. ”

“ If you are ever tempted to deceive, O, remember, that your deception must soon be known. It is utterly impossible that it should long remain undetected. The moment the day of judgment arrives, your heart will be open to the view of the universe, and every thought will be publicly known. How much safer then is it to be sincere and honest! Strive to preserve your heart free from guile. Then you will have peace of conscience. You will fear no detection. You can lie down at night in peace. You can awake in the morning with joy. Trusting in the Saviour for acceptance, you can die happy. ”

“ Oh, if you knew but the hundredth part of what she has suffered and endured for your sake, you could not, could not be such a wretch as to requite her with ingratitude. A boy who has one particle of generosity glowing in his bosom, will cling to his mother with an affection which life alone can extinguish. He will never let her have a single want which he can prevent. And when he grows to be a man, he will give her the warmest seat by his fire-side, and the choicest food upon his table. ”

“ How much happier would she have been, when retiring to sleep at night, if she had the joy of an approving conscience, and could, with a grateful heart, ask the blessing of God! The only path of safety and happiness is implicit obedience. If you, in the slightest particular, yield to temptation, and do that which you know to be wrong, you will not know when or where to stop. To hide one crime, you will be guilty of another; and thus you will draw down upon yourself the frown of your Maker, and expose yourself to sorrow for time and eternity. ”

“ The feelings which will then oppress your heart, will remain with you for weeks and months. You will often, in the pensive hour of evening, sit down and weep, as you think of parents and home far away. Oh, how cold will seem the love of others, compared with a mother's love! How often will your thoughts fondly return to joys which have for ever fled! Again and again will you think over the years that are past. Every recollection of affection and obedience will awaken joy in your heart. Every remembrance of ingratitude will awaken repentance and remorse. ”

“ There is a magnanimity in a child who feels so grateful for his parents' love that he will repay them by all the affection and obedience in his power, which attracts the respect and affection of all who know him.
Suppose you see a little boy walking before his mother. The boy's father is dead; he has been killed in battle. You see the orphan boy carrying upon his shoulder his father's sword and cap. You look at his poor mother. She is weeping, for her husband is dead. She is returning in sorrow to her lonely house. She has no friend but her dear boy. How ardently does she love him! ”

“ Crime follows in the steps of crime, till the career is closed by irretrievable disgrace and eternal ruin. The consequences reach far, far beyond the grave. They affect our interests and our happiness in that eternal world to which we are all rapidly going. Yes; the child who utters one falsehood, or is guilty of one act of disobedience, may, in consequence of that one yielding to temptation, be hurried on from crime to crime, till his soul is ruined, and he is shut up, by the command of God, in those awful dungeons of endless despair prepared for the devil and his angels. ”

“ If God cared not for the happiness of his children, he would break these laws; he would tear down this prison; he would turn all its guilty inmates loose upon the universe, to rove and to desolate at their pleasure. But, blessed be God, he is love; and the brightness and glory of heaven never can be marred by the entrance of sin. In hell's dreary abyss, the wretched outcasts from heaven will find their secure and eternal abiding place. Where do you wish to have your home? with the virtuous and happy in heaven, or with the vicious and miserable in the world of wo? ”

“ She had just detected him in one lie, and feared that he was now telling her another. "I hope, my dear son," she said, "you are not again deceiving me." The boy was perfectly honest this time, and his parents had never before distrusted his word. It almost broke his heart to be thus suspected, but he felt that it was just, and went to his chamber and wept bitterly. These are the necessary consequences of falsehood. A liar can never be believed. It matters not whether he tells truth or falsehood, no one can trust his word. ”

“ Who would not despise so ungrateful a boy?
And do you think that that child who will grieve the Savior with continued sin, who will not love him, who will not try to obey him, can have one spark of noble, of generous feeling in his bosom? Would any person, of real magnanimity, disregard a friend who had done so much as the Savior has done for us? God requires of us, that while we feel penitent for our sins, we should feel grateful to that Savior who has redeemed us by his blood. ”

“ The most trifling act of disobedience, and the least unkindness of which she had ever been guilty, then came fresh into her mind, and she could not die in peace, till she had called her father and her mother to her bedside, and implored their forgiveness. If so obliging and affectionate a little girl as this felt so deeply in view of the past, when called upon to die, how agonizing must be the feelings which will crowd upon the heart of the wicked and disobedient child who has filled her parents' heart with sorrow! ”

“ And when your mother dies, do you not think that you will feel remorse for every unkind word you have uttered, and for every act of ingratitude? Your beloved parents must soon die. You will probably be led into their darkened chamber, to see them pale and helpless on their dying bed. Oh, how will you feel in that solemn hour! All your past life will come to your mind, and you will think that you would give worlds, if you could blot out the remembrance of past ingratitude. You will think that, if your father or mother should only get well, you would never do any thing to grieve them again. ”

“ If, when the power of temptation is strong, you will look to him for aid, he will give you strength to resist. Thus is duty made easy, God loves you. Angels desire that you should come to heaven. Jesus has died to save you. The Holy Spirit is ready to aid you in every Christian effort, and to lead you on, victorious over sin. How unreasonable, then, and how ungrateful it is, for any child to refuse to love God, and to prepare to enter the angels' home! There you can be happy. No night is there. No sickness or sorrow can ever reach you there. Glory will fill your eye. Joy will fill your heart. ”

“ But the hour for them to die must come. You may weep as though your heart would break, but it will not recall the past, and it will not delay their death. They must die; and you will probably gaze upon their cold and lifeless countenances in the coffin. You will follow them to the grave, and see them buried for ever from your sight. Oh, how unhappy you will feel, if you then have to reflect upon your misconduct! The tears you will shed over their graves will be the more bitter, because you will feel that, perhaps, your own misconduct hastened their death. ”

“ Her own daughter was the viper which had stung her bosom. Her own child was the wretch who was filling her heart with sorrow.
And while I now write, this guilty daughter is occupying the gloomy cell of the prison, and this widowed mother is in her silent dwelling, in loneliness and grief! Oh, could the child who reads these pages, see that mother and that daughter now, you might form some feeble idea of the consequences of disobedience; you might see how unutterable the sorrow a wicked child may bring upon herself and upon her parents. ”

“ God is his approving Father. Angels are his beloved friends. You often, in a clear evening, look up upon the distant stars, and wonder who inhabits them. You think, if you had the wings of an eagle, you would love to fly up there, and make a visit. Now, it is not improbable that the Christian, in heaven, can pass from star to star, as you can go from house to house in your own neighborhood. The very thought is enrapturing. If every hour of our lives were spent in sorrow, it would be nothing, compared with the joys which God has promised his friends at his right hand. ”

“ If little George Washington had told a lie then, it is by no means improbable that he would have gone on from falsehood to falsehood, till every body would have despised him. And he would thus have become a disgrace to his parents and friends, instead of a blessing to his country and the world. No boy, who has one particle of that noble spirit which George Washington had, will tell a lie. It is one of the most degrading of sins. There is no one who does not regard a liar with contempt. Almost always, when a lie is told, two sins are committed. ”

“ And indeed you can do nothing to make yourself so unhappy as to indulge in disobedience, and to cherish a spirit of ingratitude. You never see such a child happy. Look at him at home, and, instead of being light-hearted and cheerful, he is sullen and morose. He sits down by the fireside in a winter evening, but the evening fireside affords no joy to him. He knows that his parents are grieved at his conduct. He loves nobody, and feels that nobody loves him. ”

“ But if it is seen that you have a noble spirit; that you are above selfishness; that you are willing to make sacrifices of your own personal convenience to promote the happiness of your associates, you will never be in want of friends. You must not regard it as your misfortune that others do not love you, but your fault. It is not beauty, it is not wealth, that will give you friends. Your heart must glow with kindness if you would attract to yourself the esteem and affection of those by whom you are surrounded. ”

“ As he was preparing the nauseous emetic, the conscience-smitten girl trembled for fear that her disobedience and her falsehood should both be brought to light. As soon as the emetic operated, her mother saw, in the half-chewed fragments of green apples, the cause of her sickness. What could the unhappy and guilty girl say? Denial was now, of course, out of the question. She could only cover her face with her hands, in the vain attempt to hide her shame. We hope that this detection and mortification will teach that little girl a lesson which she will never forget. ”

“ But our indulgent Father in heaven is looking upon us in loving kindness and in tender mercy. He pities us, and he has given his own Son to bear the punishment which we deserve. Oh, was there ever proof of greater love?
And how ardently should we love that Savior, who is nearer and dearer than a brother, who has left heaven and all its joys, and come to the world, and suffered and died, that we might be happy! God expects that we shall love him; that we shall receive him as our Savior, and whenever we do wrong, that we shall ask forgiveness for his sake. ”

“ And how ungrateful is disobedience! A noble-hearted boy would deny himself almost any pleasure; he would meet almost any danger; he would endure almost any suffering, before he would, in the most trifling particular, disobey parents who had been so kind, and had endured so much to make him happy. How different is such a child from one who is so ungrateful that he will disobey his parents merely that he may play a few moments longer, or that he may avoid some trifling work, that he does not wish to perform! ”

“ This boy was all the time suffering the consequences of his sin. For many days he was enduring the reproaches of conscience, when the knowledge of his crime was confined to his own bosom. How bitterly did he suffer for the few moments of forbidden pleasure he had enjoyed! The way of the transgressor is always hard. Every child who does wrong must, to a greater or less degree, feel the same sorrows. This guilty child, overwhelmed with confusion and disgrace, burst into tears, and implored his parents' forgiveness. ”

“ He will prove, by actions which cannot be misunderstood, that he feels a gratitude for a mother's love, which shall never, never leave him. And when she goes down to the grave in death, he will bedew her grave with the honorable tears of manly feeling. The son who does not feel thus, is unworthy of a mother's love; the frown of his offended Maker must be upon him, and he must render to Him an awful account for his ungrateful conduct.
It is, if possible, stranger still, that any daughter can forget a mother's care. You are always at home. ”

“ Sometimes you will see a son who will not be obedient to his mother. He will have his own way, regardless of his mother's feelings. He has grown up to be a stout and stubborn boy, and now the ungrateful wretch will, by his misconduct, break the heart of that very mother, who, for months and years, watched over him with a care which knew no weariness. I call him a wretch, for I can hardly conceive of more enormous iniquity. That boy, or that young man, who does not treat his affectionate mother with kindness and respect, is worse than I can find language to describe. ”

“ But perhaps you will die before your parents do. If you go into the grave-yard, you will see the graves of many children. You know that the young are liable to die, as well as the old. And what must be the feelings of the dying child, who knows that he is going to appear before God in judgment, and yet feels conscious that he has been unkind to his parents! Oh, such a child must fear to go into the presence of his Maker. He must know that God will never receive into heaven children who have been so wicked. I have seen many children die. ”

“ If you do not wish to be the laughing-stock of all your acquaintance, do not let them detect in you consequential airs. If you would not be an object of hatred and disgust, beware how you indulge feelings of fancied superiority. Be plain, and sincere, and honest-hearted. Disgrace not yourself by affectation and pride. Let all your words and all your actions show that you think no more highly of yourself than you ought to think. Then will others love you. They will rejoice at your prosperity. And they will be glad to see you rising in the world, in usefulness and esteem. ”