RETURN FROM AMERICA-WORK AT EVERSLEY-ILLness at WESTMINSTER -NEW ANXIETY-LAST SERMONS IN THE ABBEY-LEAVES THE CLOISTERS FOR EVER-LAST RETURN TO EVERSLEY-THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH-LAST ILLNESS AND DEPARTURE-HIS BURIAL SERMONS AT CHESTER, EVERSLEY, AND WESTMINSTER-ME- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. CHAPTER XVI. THE FATHER IN HIS HOME-AN ATMOSPHERE OF JOY-THE OUT-DOOR NURSERY LIFE ON THE MOUNT-FEAR AND FALSEHOOD-THE TRAINING OF LOVE-FAVOURITES AND FRIENDS IN THE HOUSE, IN THE STABLE, AND ON THE LAWN. VOL. II. B "COME to me, O ye children! For I hear you at your play, And the questions which have vexed me Ye open the Eastern windows, In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, But in mine is the wind of autumn, Ah! what would the world be to us, Come to me, O ye children! And whisper in my ear, What the birds and the wind are singing For what are all our contrivings, Ye are better than all the ballads And all the rest are dead!" LONGFELLOW. CHARLES KINGSLEY: HIS LETTERS AND MEMORIES OF HIS LIFE. CHAPTER XVI. "CHEERFULNESS or joyousness," said Jean Paul, in his 'Levana, or the Doctrine of Education,' "is the heaven under which everything but poison thrives. All new-born creatures require warmth, and what then is warmth to the human chicken but happiness? One has but to give them play-room by taking away what may be painful, and their powers shoot up of themselves. The joyousness of children! Should they have anything else? I can endure a melancholy man, but not a melancholy child!". AND with this atmosphere of joyousness the parents tried to surround the children at the Rectory, and that not only as a means of present enjoyment, but as a tonic to strengthen the young creatures to meet the inevitable trials of the future. We must pause a moment in the midst of the father's work and letters; we have seen him in his church and parish, and now must see him in his home, where his children had the best of everything; the sunniest and largest rooms indoors, and because the Rectory was on low ground,-the churchyard six feet above the living rooms, and the ground sloping upwards on three sides, he built them a hut for an outdoor nursery, on the "Mount," where they kept books, toys, and teathings, spending long happy days on the highest and loveliest point of moorland in the glebe, a real bit of primæval forest ; and there he would join them when his parish work was done, bringing them some fresh treasure picked up in his walk, a "Levana, or the Doctrine of Education," chap. 2. # choice wild flower or fern, or rare beetle, sometimes a lizard or a field-mouse; ever waking up their sense of wonder, calling out their powers of observation, and teaching them lessons out of God's great green book, without their knowing they were learning. And then the Sundays, the hardest day of the week to him, were bright to the children, who began the day with decking the graves in the dear churchyard, an example which the poor people learnt to follow, so that before Morning Service it looked like a flower garden; and when his day's work was done, however weary he might be, there was always the Sunday walk, a stroll on the moor, and some fresh object of natural beauty pointed out at every step. Indoors, the Sunday picture books were brought out. Each child had its own, and chose its subject for the father to draw, either some Bible story, or bird, beast, or flower mentioned in Scripture. Happy Sundays! never associated with gloom or restrictions, but with God's works as well as His word, and with sermons that never wearied. Punishment was a word little known in his house. Corporal punishment was never allowed. His own childish experience of the sense of degradation and unhealthy fear it produced, of the antagonism it called out between a child and its parents, a pupil and its teachers, gave him a horror of it. It had other evils, too, he considered, besides degrading both parties concerned. "More than half the lying of children,” he said, “is, I believe, the result of fear, and the fear of punishment." On these grounds he made it a rule (from which he never departed,) not to take a child, suspected of a fault, at unawares, by sudden question or hasty accusation, the stronger thus taking an unfair advantage of the weaker and defenceless creature, who, in the mere confusion of the moment, might be tempted to deny or equivocate. "Do we not pray daily, 'Lord, confound me not,' and shall we dare to confound our own children by sudden accusation, or angry suspicion, making them give evidence against themselves, when we don't allow a criminal to do that in a court of law? The finer the nature the more easily is it confounded, whether it be of child, dog, or horse. It breaks all confidence between parent and child." |