Personal Recollections | Page 7

to echo with increased earnestness that
emphatic declaration, "The Bible, the Bible alone, is the religion of
Protestants;" and not only to echo, but also to act upon it.
Religion, however, did at this early period of my life become a very
important concern in my eyes; our mother had taken infinite pains to
assure us of one great truth--the omniscience of an omnipresent
God--and this I never could for a moment shake off. It influenced us
both in a powerful manner, so that if either committed a fault, we never
rested until, through mutual exhortation on the ground that God
certainly knew it, and would be angry if we added deceit to another
error, we had encouraged each other to confession. We then went, hand
in hand, to our mother, and the one who stood clear of the offence
acknowledged it in the name of the transgressor, while both asked
pardon. Never did children more abhor a lie: we spurned its meanness,
while trembling at its guilt; and nothing bound us more closely and
exclusively together than, the discoveries we were always making of a
laxity among other children in this respect. On such occasions we
would shrink into a corner by ourselves and whisper, "Do they think
God does not hear that?" Self-righteousness, no doubt, existed in a high
degree; we were baby Pharisees, rejoicing in the external cleanliness of
cup and platter; but I look back with great thankfulness on the mercy
that so far restrained us: an habitual regard to truth has carried me
safely through many a trial, and, as a means, guarded me from many a
snare. It cannot be too early or too strongly inculcated; nor should any
effort be considered too great, any difficulty too discouraging, any
reprobation too strong, or, I will add, any punishment too severe, when
the object in view is to overcome this infamous vice in a child. Once I
remember having been led into a lie at the instigation, and through the
contrivance of a servant- girl, for whose benefit it was told. Suspicion
instantly arose, from my dreadful embarrassment of manner; a strict
investigation commenced; the girl told me to face it out, for that
nobody else knew of it, and she would not flinch. But my terrors of
conscience were insupportable; I could ill bear my father's steady eye
fixed on mine, still less the anxious, wondering, incredulous expression
of my brother's innocent face, who could not for a moment fancy me
guilty. I confessed at once; and with a heavy sigh my father sent to
borrow from a neighbor an instrument of chastisement never before

needed in his own house. He took me to another room, and said, "Child,
it will pain me more to punish you thus, than any blows I can inflict
will pain you; but I must do it; you have told a lie--a dreadful sin, and a
base, mean, cowardly action. If I let you grow up a liar, you will
reproach me for it one day; if I now spared the rod, I should hate the
child." I took the punishment in a most extraordinary spirit: I wished
every stroke had been a stab; I wept because the pain was not great
enough; and I loved my father at that moment better than even I, who
almost idolized him, had ever loved him before. I thanked him, and I
thank him still; for I never transgressed in that way again. The servant
was called, received her wages and a most awful lecture, and was
discharged the same hour. Yet, of all these things what sunk deepest
into my very soul were the sobs and cries of my fond little brother, and
the lamentable tones of his soft voice, pleading through the closed door,
"O, papa, don't whip Charlotte. O forgive poor Charlotte."
It is sweet to know we have a Brother indeed who always pleads, and
never pleads in vain for the offending child; a Father whose
chastisements are not withheld, but administered in tender love;
judgment being his strange work, and mercy that wherein he delights,
and the peaceable fruits of righteousness the end of his corrections. The
event to which I have referred may appear too trivial a thing to record;
but it is by neglecting trivial things that we ruin ourselves and our
children. The usual mode of training these immortal beings, the plan of
leaving them to servants and to themselves, the blind indulgence that
passes by, with a slight reprimand only, a wilful offence, and the
mischievous misapplication of doctrine that induces some to let nature
do her worst, because nothing but grace can effectually suppress her
evil workings; all these are faulty in the extreme, and no less
presumptuous than foolish: this has produced