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FEARFULNESS AND FORTITUDE.

IN various characters fear assumes various forms. Some children who can brave an external danger, will sink depressed at a reproof or sneer. It is our business to guard against the inroads of fear under every shape; for it is an infirmity, if suffered to gain the ascendancy, most enslaving to the mind, and destructive of its strength and capability of enjoyment. At the same time, it is an infirmity so difficult to be overcome, and to which children are so excessively prone, that it may be doubted whether, in any branch of education, more discretion or more skill is required.

We have two objects to keep in view; the one, to secure our children from all unnecessary and imaginary fears-the

other, to inspire them with that strength of mind, which may enable them to meet, with patience and courage, the real and unavoidable evils of life.

For the first, there is no one who has contemplated the suffering occasioned, through life, by the prevalence of needless fears, imaginary terrors, and diseased nerves, but would most earnestly desire to preserve their children from these evils. To this end, they should be, as far as possible, guarded from every thing likely to excite sudden alarm, or to terrify the imagination. In very early childhood they ought not to be startled, even at play, by sudden noises or strange appearances. Ghost stories, extraordinary dreams, and all other gloomy and mysterious tales, must, on no account, be named in their presence: nor must they hear histories of murders, robberies, sudden deaths, mad dogs, or terrible diseases. If any such occurrences are the subjects

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of general conversation, let them at least be prohibited in the nursery. Nor is it of less importance that we should be cautious ourselves of betraying alarm at storms, a dread of the dark, or a fear and disgust at animals. The stricter vigilance, in these respects, is required, because, by a casual indiscretion on our part; by leaving about an injudicious book; by one alarming story; by once yielding ourselves to an emotion of groundless terror, an impression may be made on the mind of a child that will continue for years, and materially counteract the effect of habitual watchfulness. How cruel then, purposely to excite false terrors in those under our care: as by threatening them with "the black man who comes for naughty children," with "gipsies," "the snake in the well," &c.! Not that children will be long deceived; but when the black man and dreadful monster shall have lost their

power, the effect on the imagination-a liability to nervous and undefined terrors will continue, and thus, for the trifling consideration of sparing ourselves a little present trouble, we entail upon those entrusted to us, suffering, and an imbecility of mind, which no subsequent efforts of their own may be able wholly to overcome, We have reason to hope,

that the particular expedients here referred to, are, in the present day, excluded from most nurseries; but we may, perhaps, fall into similar errors, under a more refined form-by exciting, for instance, an apprehension of immediate judgments from heaven, as the consequences of ill conduct. But it is to be remembered, that the attempt to touch the conscience, or to enforce obedience by terrifying the imagination, is, under every form, to be reprobated, as altogether erroneous and highly injurious,

This mode of proceeding is, commonly, the resort of weakness and inexperience; for authority, established on right principles, needs no such supports.

Great care is required that children do not imbibe terrific and gloomy ideas of death; nor should they incautiously be taken to funerals, or allowed to see a corpse. It is desirable to dwell on the joys of the righteous in the presence of their heavenly Father, freed from every pain and sorrow, rather than on the state and burial of the body; a subject, very likely, painfully to affect the imagination. On this point, books are often injudicious. It may be well to mention, as an instance, the Lines on a Snow-drop in that useful and pleasing little work, entitled, "Original Poems." Here the poor little babe, doomed, for ever, to the pit-hole, would leave a gloomy impression on the mind of any child of quick