be at the cost of a little pains, a little
sacrifice of the quiet and seclusion of home,--provide for his youth its
fitting and innocent delights, that sinful pleasures may not seize him
and hold him in their destructive clutch. The good which the merchant
does to his clerks will redound to the good of his own children. There
is probably as much intelligence and virtue and youthful promise among
his clerks as among his sons and daughters; and what the former receive
of home the latter receive in variety and relish. The influence of man
upon woman, also, is just as healthful as that of woman upon man; for
both are in the order of Nature. The brothers and sisters will dance to
their mother's playing all the more gleefully for a stranger or two in
the set; and Mary will enter with fresher zest into the game of cards,
because Mr. Gordon is her partner instead of that provoking Harry. And
it is not whist nor dancing that harms young people. It is outlawry.
Whist does not lead to gambling. Dancing does not lead to dissipation.
It is playing cards "on the sly" that leads to gambling. It is having
to get out of the way of ministers, and church-members, and all
religious people, when dancing is to be done, that leads to dissipation.
It is loneliness, want of interest and amusement, any unjust and
unnatural restriction, that leads to all manner of wild and boisterous
and vicious amusements, which prey upon the soul. If to a young man, on
his first coming to the city, there open only so many as two or three
houses, where he can now and then find welcome admittance,--where are
two or three excellent women who exercise a gentle jurisdiction over
him, who will notice if his eye be heavy or his cheek pale, who will
administer, upon occasion, a little sweet motherly chiding, mend a rent
in his gloves, advise in the choice of a neck-tie, and call upon him
occasionally for trifling service or attendance,--where he can find a
few hot-headed, perhaps; but well-fathered and well-mothered boys, who
have the same headstrong will, the same fierce likes and dislikes, the
same temptations and weaknesses as himself, but who are saved from
disaster by gentle, but firm authority, and constant, yet scarcely
perceptible influence,--a few bright girls, who will sing and dance and
talk with him, and pique and tease and tantalize him,--how infinitely
are the chances multiplied against his ever turning aside into the
debasing saloon! He naturally likes pur