The Child at Home | Page 4

just read that it is in your power to make your parents very unhappy; and you
have seen how unhappy one wicked girl made her poor mother. I might tell you many
such melancholy stories, all of which would be true. A few years ago there was a boy
who began to be disobedient to his parents in little things. But every day he grew worse,
more disobedient and wilful, and troublesome. He would run away from school, and thus
grew up in ignorance. He associated with bad boys, and learned to swear and to lie, and
to steal. He became so bad that his parents could do nothing with him. Every body who
knew him, said, "That boy is preparing for the gallows." He was the pest of the
neighborhood. At last he ran away from home, without letting his parents know that he
was going. He had heard of the sea, and thought it would be a very pleasant thing to be a
sailor. But nothing is pleasant to the wicked. When he came to the sea-shore, where there
were a large number of ships, it was some time before any one would hire him, because
he knew nothing about a ship or the sea. There was no one there who was his friend, or
who pitied him, and he sat down and cried bitterly, wishing he was at home again, but
ashamed to go back. At last a sea captain came along, and hired him to go on a distant
voyage; and as he knew nothing about the rigging of a vessel, he was ordered to do the
most servile work on board. He swept the decks and the cabin, and helped the cook, and
was the servant of all. He had the poorest food to eat he ever ate in his life. And when
night came, and he was so tired that he could hardly stand, he had no soft bed upon which
to lie, but could only wrap a blanket around him, and throw himself down any where to
get a little sleep. This unhappy boy had acquired so sour a disposition, and was so
disobliging, that all the sailors disliked him, and would do every thing they could to teaze
him. When there was a storm, and he was pale with fear, and the vessel was rocking in
the wind, and pitching over the waves, they would make him climb the mast, and laugh to
see how terrified he was, as the mast reeled to and fro, and the wind almost blew him into
the raging ocean. Often did this poor boy get into some obscure part of the ship, and
weep as he thought of the home he had forsaken. He thought of his father and mother,
how kind they had been to him, and how unkind and ungrateful he had been to them, and
how unhappy he had made them by his misconduct. But these feelings soon wore away.
Familiarity with sea life gave him courage, and he became inured to its hardships.
Constant intercourse with the most profligate and abandoned, gave strength and
inveteracy to his sinful habits; and before the voyage had terminated, he was reckless of
danger, and as hardened and unfeeling as the most depraved on board the ship. This boy
commenced with disobedience in little things, and grew worse and worse, till he forsook
his father and his mother, and was prepared for the abandonment of every virtue, and the
commission of any crime. But the eye of God was upon him, following him wherever he
went, and marking all his iniquities. An hour of retribution was approaching. It is not
necessary for me to trace out to you his continued steps of progress in sin. When on shore,
he passed his time in haunts of dissipation. And several years rolled on in this way, he
growing more hardened, and his aged parents, in their loneliness, weeping over the ruin
of their guilty and wandering son.

One day an armed vessel sailed into one of the principal ports of the United States,
accompanied by another, which had been captured. When they arrived at the wharf, it
was found that the vessel taken was a pirate. Multitudes flocked down upon the wharf to
see the pirates as they should be led off to the prison, there to await their trial. Soon they
were brought out of the ship, with their hands fastened with chains, and led through the
streets. Ashamed to meet the looks of honest men, and terrified with the certainty of
condemnation and execution, they walked along with downcast eyes and trembling limbs.
Among the number was seen the unhappy and guilty boy, now grown to be a young man,
whose history we are relating. He was