The Rising Generation. The Deserted Children. 1841

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Jeffersonian Republican. April 14, 1841 || Sunbury American. May 8, 1841 || The Caledonian. August 17, 1841 || Daily Bulletin. December 1, 1841

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The Rising Generation

We once “visited” a country school in Pumpkinville, kept by a Mr. Obadiah Snooks, between a clump of alder bushes and a noted frog pond. The object of our visit was of course, to see what progress the “rising generation” was making in the walks of literature and science; and we can assure the reader that we came away highly gratified, and much [more] amused.

Having seated our dignified self in the master's arm-chair, we threw one leg over the other—looked as serious as a psalm book, and waited for the first exhibition.

“Fifth class take their places to read,” was the grand signal for an attack on our gravity; at which command out scampered into the middle of the floor an interesting looking lot of urchins, truly! unwashed, unshod, unshorn and uncombed was the general aspect. After they had writhed, twisted and squirmed through the reading of their monosyllables, came on the spelling! Tim Titmouse, whose tow frock and check apron ornamented the foot of the class, was a “buster” at spelling. Witness his efforts:

“Timothy, spell hoax.”

“H, o, e, ho—a, x, ax,—hoe-axe.

“The next,” &c.

“Toe the mark, Timothy, and spell goat.”

“G, o, go—i, t, it—go it.”

Next came a class in parsing.

[Master reads] “Boys are more studious than girls, Ichabod, parse boys.”

“Boys is an indefinite article—imperative mood, singular tense, objective case, and agrees with girls.”

“Give your rule.”

“Conjunctions always connect sexes and all kinds of genders.”

We sat as composedly as a keg of oysters all the while they were committing an assault and battery upon poor Lindley Murray and never uttered a word in his defence.

“Class in geography” was the next move.

“What are the chief productions of Connecticut?”

“Onions, red flannel sassengers and wooden clocks,” cried a furzy-faced goslin from a back seat.

We then began to think about making tracks; but Mr. Snooks said he should like to have us hear his first class read—and so we halted, a chapter in the New Testament was selected—and all went on smoothly and eloquently till some Johnny Raw came to a certain verse which he rendered thus: “He saw Abraham afar off and Leather-ears in Boston!”

We grabbed out hat, and shot out of the school-house like a streak; and have ever since kept clear of those places where they teach young ideas how to shoot so outrageously!—Sunday Mercury.

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The Deserted Children.

“I will record in this place,” says Mr. Flint, in his Travels of America, “a narrative that impresses me deeply. It was a fair example of the cases of extreme misery and desolation that are often witnessed on the Mississippi river.

“In the Sabbath School at New Madrid, we received three children, who were introduced to that place under the following circumstances. A man was descending the river with three children in his pirogue. He and his children had landed on a desert island on a bitter snowy evening in December. There were but two houses near, and these at Little Prairie opposite the island. He wanted more whiskey, although he had been drinking [it] too freely. Against the persuasions of the children, he left them, to cross over to these houses and renew his supply. The wind blew high, and the river was rough. Nothing could dissuade him from this dangerous attempt. He told them he should return that night. He left them in tears, and exposed to the pitiless pelting of the storm, and started for his carouse. The children saw the boat sink before he had half crossed the passage—the man was drowned.

“These forlorn beings were left without any other covering than their own scanty, ragged dress, for he had taken his blankets with him. They neither had fire nor shelter, and no other food than uncooked pork and corn. It snowed fast and the night closed over them in this situation. The oldest was a girl of six years, but remarkably shrewd and acute for her age. The next was a girl of four, and the youngest a boy of two.

“It was affecting to hear the oldest girl describe the desolation of heart, as she set herself to examine her resources. She made her brother and sister creep together and draw their feet under their clothes. She covered them with leaves and branches, and thus they passed the first night. In the morning, the younger children wept bitterly with cold and hunger. The pork she cut into small pieces [and made them chew corn with these pieces]. She then persuaded them to run about by setting them the example. Then she made them return to chewing corn and pork. It would seem as if Providence had a special eye to these [poor] children, for in the course of the day some Indians landed on the island and found them, and, as they were coming up to New Madrid, took them with them.”

In the Name of Our Society! T. Jefferson. 1793, 1841

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New-York Tribune. August 17, 1841

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THE INDIANS.—We are often disgusted by articles in our journals moralizing over the stern necessity which is driving the Indians westward and sweeping them from the face of the Earth! 'Necessity—the tyrant's plea'—or say rather, the villain's. There is no such necessity, any more than there is necessity for Piracy, Murder or the Slave-Trade. We have wronged and robbed them because they were weak and we strong—because they had lands and we coveted them; nothing more. The history of the last ten years has been especially black with outrage and crime; and the cruel, perfidious exile of the Cherokees stands prominent among the National crimes which arrayed the moral sense of the country against the last Administration and ultimately ensured its downfall. Can the pretended admirers of THOMAS JEFFERSON read the following extract from his writings without shame and remorse:

“I considered our right of preemption of the Indian lands not as amounting to any dominion, or jurisdiction, or paramountship whatever, but merely in the nature of a remainder, after the extinguishment of a present right, which gave us no present right whatever, but of preventing other nations from taking possession, and so defeating our expectancy; that the Indians had the full, undivided, and independent sovereignty, as long as they chose to keep it, and that this might be forever; that as fast as we extend our rights by purchase from them, so fast we extend the limits of our society, and as soon as a new portion became encircled within our line, it became a fixed limit of our society.”

“Dow, Jr.” Short Patent Sermons. 1841. No.90. Old Maids and Matrimony

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NUMBER XC. ON OLD MAIDS AND MATRIMONY.

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TEXT.—There lives no goose so gray, but soon or late
Will meet some honest gander for its mate. —ANON.

MY HEARERS—It is my intention, in this present discourse, to pour the balm of consolation into those festering wounds of doubt and despondency, with which that unfortunate class of beings, called Old Maids, are so severely afflicted. If I, Dow, Jr., the high-pressure preacher, fail in affording them that consolation which they so earnestly desire, and so much stand in need of, their cases must be desperate indeed, and past medical, moral, or ministerial skill. We know very well, my friends, that women are not all geese, neither are men all ganders, however striking the analogy may be in particular instances; nevertheless, I can make an application of my text. It ought to be a source of great gratification for that portion of the female sex, whose hopes of matrimony are time-tattered and teasing, to know that every goose—no matter how old it may be—will, sooner or later, find some honest gander for its mate; and yet when I tell them that the reason why every goose finds its gander is solely because ganders are allowed a plurality of wives, I don't know but they will sink corset-deep into despair, and give up for lost. Yet it is so, my friends. Geese always outnumber the ganders; and were it not that the latter possess themselves of more than one wife each, thousands of the former would be destined to pick their grass in solitary pastures, and die mateless. Now, when we come to allow the necessary deduction for the havoc that war, intemperance and other contingencies make in the ranks of the male part of mankind, we shall always find that the petticoat tribe claims a vast majority throughout the world. How, then, are they to get married unless a plurality of wives is allowed? Now, I don't like to preach up any doctrine that is calculated to go against the popular grain; but my private opinion, publicly expressed, is, that the present artificial state of society is an outrageous encroachment upon the rights and privileges of the female sex, and that polygamy is in as perfect accordance with the laws of God and Nature as is the union between five gray geese and a white gander. It was practised in the good old primeval times, when nature ruled rather than fashion; and the women were all happy then, if they were not so wise and wicked as now.

My friends—I know full well that there are thousands of old maids, covered with the mildew of age and despondency, who would rather have a half, a quarter, a fifth, or even a decimal of a husband, than no husband at all; and it is a sin and a shame that such vast quantities of heaven's most precious material should be allowed to perish in celibacy, because the matrimonial market is monopolized by the miserable minions of a corrupt and venal custom. As the world is constituted, one man can better maintain three women than one woman can provide for herself; and posterity instead of suffering in consequence, would increase like grasshoppers in the middle of August. It was intended by the all-wise Maker of the universe that every woman should have her mate, as well as every goose its gander; and that she should accomplish before death the great end for which she was created. Therefore, if there be a superfluity of the feminine gender in the world, they ought to be divided off into parcels, great and small, and every man choose for himself according to the power of his physical strength—the length and breadth of his affections—and the depth of his desires. Every unmarried female has an indisputable claim upon the love of some man; and what, allow me to ask, my friends, is the use of that love unless it be boiled down and sugared off in the golden kettle of Hymen? None at all. You might as well undertake to suck honey from the contents of a barn-yard because bees do the same, as to suppose you can taste the true spice of love till it is partaken of in the cake of matrimony.

My dear females! The chances for all of you being made happy in the holy bonds of wedlock look rather scrumptious, I must confess. My heart is full of the soothing syrup of sympathy for you; but that can never alter the decrees of fate. If it is ordained by Providence that you are to die old maids, my preaching can no more avert the doom than it can abolish the everlasting established system of future punishment. When the summer of your lives is drawing to a close—when your rosy charms are beginning to fade like the sprigs upon your calicoes—and when, like leafless, vineless squashes, you have grown withered and yellow in the dole October of existence—you will find that Cupid will disdain to frequent your autumnal bowers; and the shrubs of hope that line your pathways to the tomb, may put forth buds in abundance; but, depend upon it, they never can blossom in the frosty atmosphere of age. Nevertheless, my dear feminines, if you do but attend well to the garden of the mind, in life's early spring—plant in it the seeds of virtue, modesty and wisdom, and ornament it with the flowers of learning, it will present greater attractions for gentlemen of worth, than all the silks, kids, ivory, paint, curls, gum, whalebone and hog's bristles, that ever a nymph of the pave lugged down the lane of sin to perdition. If you only behave yourselves, and keep letting out a hem at the bottom of your frocks as you grow tall amid the vices of the world, and don't flirt too much while the feathers upon the wings of vanity are beginning to start—you will, in all probability, be lucky enough to amalgamate according to your individual desires, and put forth sprouts that shall bear sprouts to sprout again from posterity to posterity. So mote it be!

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(...if wish a goose thou be!)

“Dow, Jr.” Short Patent Sermons. 1841. No.17. Nothingness and Uncertainty of Life

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NUMBER XVII. ON THE NOTHINGNESS AND UNCERTAINTY OF LIFE.

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TEXT.—Oh how uncertain and how brief is life,
And yet how full of sweetness!

MY HEARERS—The more I reflect upon the matter the more fully am I convinced of the evanescence and the nothingness of life. What is it but a bubble floating down the stream of time? Now it glides over a placid surface—now it dashes to and fro amid the rough breakers—and now it bursts up and disappears in the dark wave of eternity! What is it but a vapor that creeps for a while along earth's checkered vale, and then rises to its native heaven? What is it but an empty dream—an imaginary entity—as void and as vacant as the deserted shell of hope? It is any thing that's fleeting, brittle or unsubstantial. And what is man? Nothing but a mass of dirt scraped up from the fallow, and destined to dance and skip for a short time, under the influence of life's exhilarating gas, then to be carried back upon death's sable cart, and emptied upon the soil from whence it was gathered.

Oh, my dear friends! when we look about us and behold what multitudes are daily entering the dark portal of the tomb—and how even the mourners themselves are hourly casting off the black habiliments of sorrow, and donning the white robes of the grave, we cannot but be impressed with the solemncholy idea that our turns must all soon come to partake of the same cold supper—which means, as my friend Shakspeare says, not to eat, but to be eaten. The worms of the clod will soon hold a festival in the skull that is now peopled with a thriving generation of ideas; and every heart, now beating with the fullness of hope, must, ere long, forever cease to throb. The thin casement that encloses the immortal spirit of man is as brittle as glass; and a gentle rap of disease, if it do not entirely demolish it, may so shatter it that all the medicated putty in the universe can't hold it together. The gossamer threads that are woven in the web of man's mortal existence are so fine in texture and so feeble in strength that the slightest breeze of physical affliction will sometimes snap them asunder, and leave them dangling in the dusky sepulchre, like so many superannuated cobwebs in the corners of a miser's hovel.

My friends—the uncertainty of life is as certain as quarter-day. I have seen new-born babes imbibe the poison of death with the very gasp that gave them existence. I have seen infancy creep into the grave, and give back its life into the hands of its Maker, unused and undamaged. I have seen childhood and youth kicked out of the world as though they were committing depredations in its flowery garden, and had no business to occupy even a niche in the broad empire of animated nature. I have seen manhood fall from the topmost cliff of ambition ker-swash into the depths of nonentity, and lie forever buried in the turbid wave of oblivion. I can now see old age knocking at the door of the tomb, and begging to rest his weary frame within its sacred walls, where no earthly jars can disturb its slumbers. Yes, my friends, old Time, in his mowing, takes a sweep from one side of creation to the other, and all that comes within the reach of his scythe must fall to fade and wither. Before it, life's fragrant posies yield up their sweetness like new-mown clover, and the incense is borne to the realms of that Almighty Power which gave it. How unwelcome the thought that life, so full of the highly concentrated compound extract of sweetness, should be so brief!—that the candle of existence should so frequently cease to burn before the tip end of the tallow is fairly consumed!—that it should so soon, at best, flicker in its socket, and the melted grease of mortality run down upon the cold clay of the grave!

My dear friends! on this occasion, all the lighter feelings that pertain to human nature have deserted the domain of my heart, and have left nothing instead but a vacuum of solemnity. A man is dead! he was nothing more than a man—but it is something to be a man in these degenerate days of hypocrisy, conceit and selfishness. Yes, the man whom we had but lately chosen from a body of seventeen millions to preside over, govern and direct the political affairs of this free and independent nation, is now no more! His immortal spirit has flown to join companionship with those of his five illustrious predecessors, whose souls, I have reason to believe, are in heaven—whose bodies have returned to dust—whose noble virtues are embalmed with the incense of memory—and whose names are written high upon the obelisk of fame, to be read and remembered by the children of posterity. Yes, my friends, he who but yesterday, as it were, was crowned with the costliest coronet of honor, has now gone to furnish no better food for the worm of the valley than the beggar who dies for the want of a crust. Those eyes that so lately surveyed the thronging multitude, and witnessed the sincere manifestations of a nation's respect, are now fastened together with the adhesive glue of death, to gaze no more upon the world's busy scene. Those hands, which formerly received the congratulations of thousands, are crumbling to ashes in the mouldering sepulchre; and that generous bosom, once warmed with the fires of patriotism that blazed upon the heart's living altar, is now as cold and inanimate as the marble that covers it. I hear a funeral dirge in every breeze: the sun, to me, is clothed in sackcloth: the eagle perches upon the cypress, and droops its wings in sorrow: the stars that spangled upon liberty's banner are darkened with the emblems of grief: mourners fill the streets: and a wail is heard throughout the land for the loss of one, who, through the all-wise dispensations of Providence, yielded up the trust confided to him by his fellow countrymen while the blossoms of hope were in their fullest bloom.

Such, my friends, is the frailty of life—such the insignificance of human greatness—and such the vanity of all earthly expectations. Death shows no preference for the humble tiller of the soil over the king on his throne. The high, the low, the rich, the poor, the beautiful, the ugly, the fat and the lean, are all slaughtered indiscriminately, and packed away in that turf-covered house appointed for all living. Man surely is but a shadow and life a dream!

Reflect, my friends, upon what feeble, dying insects you are, that crawl for a day along the sunny path of existence, and then are crushed into the dust to inhabit the earth no more. Oh, think of this, and live, while you live, in the daily expectation of dying, so that when you die, you may die in the expectation of living. So mote it be!

IF I WERE... and THE DRUNKARD'S WILL. 1841

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Vermont Watchman and State Journal. August 2, 1841

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From the Boston Transcript.
IF I WERE.

It is very apt to be the case that a man would do a great many good things if he were so and so situated, but that troublesome word “if” is apt to interfere with his good intentions. His professions are of the most patriotic and praiseworthy kind, and he would be the most kind-hearted, the most generous, the most benevolent man in the world, if it were not for certain things which intervene to prevent the fulfillment of his noble designs.

If I were a merchant, says one, I would always transact my business in the most honorable way, I would never take advantage of another, I would deal honestly with all, I would gain the respect of all, I would accumulate a fortune, and I would leave my children independent of the world.

If I were a farmer, I would devote my whole attention to the cultivation of the soil. I would raise the largest crops of wheat, the greatest number of bushels of potatoes to the acre, the largest cabbage heads, and I would have the neatest and best managed farm in the town.

If I were a rich man, I would appropriate all my surplus income to charitable purposes.

If I were a lawyer, I would always plead the cause of the poor and oppressed, and would deduct a large amount of the fees for my services. I would go against oppression in all cases whether it would subserve my interest or not. I would act for the general good of mankind, regardless of self-interest; I would make my own emolument secondary to that of all others.

If I were a tailor, I would not take more than a reasonable quantity of cabbage, and I would always have a garment done and sent home at the time I promised it.

If I were a physician, I would always attend upon the poor gratis, and I would not charge half so much for feeling the pulse or extracting a tooth as the regular practitioners do. I would devote my time and services for the benefit of the public generally.

If I were a mechanic, I would devote all my time to my profession, and I would always punctually execute all the orders sent to me.

If I were a soaplock, I would have the scissors applied to my hair at once, and not suffer myself to appear like a hermit or a shaggy bear, or a thief who has lost his ears, and strives to cover the parts where they should be, with a superincumbent quantity of capillary ornaments.

If I were a lady, I would be attending to the domestic concerns of the household, and not walking the streets, endeavoring to attract the attention of the beaux, and spinning street yarn when I ought to be spinning stocking yarn at home.

If I were an editor, I would write to please myself as well as my customers, so far as I was able, without the expectation of always doing the one or the other.

If I were a subscriber to a newspaper, I would always pay for it punctually, and never find fault because it sometimes happened that there was nothing in it which particularly interested me—especially, when there was nothing to put in it.

If I were born with a gold spoon in my month, I would hold on upon it, and not exchange it for a pewter or an iron one.

But that little word IF is apt to be in the way, and to disconcert all one's good intentions and charitable actions, and if it were not so frequently made a proviso and a base to good actions, many more deeds of charity might be accomplished. It is often an excuse for not performing what charity would demand, what common sense would dictate, what a sense of duty would require. If I were situated so and so, I would do a vast deal of good; but it is often the case that a man can do good deeds and acts of charity, which he pretends he would if he were differently situated.

But without any more ifs or ands, it is certain we can often do a good deed when we don't, and if is a kind of general excuse for not doing as we ought.

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The Drunkard's Will.—I leave to society a ruined character, a wretched example, and a memory that will soon rot.

I leave to my parents, during the rest of their lives, as much sorrow as humanity, in a decrepit and feeble state, can sustain.

I leave to my brothers and sisters as much mortification and injury as I could well bring on them.

I leave to my wife a broken heart, a life of wretchedness, a shame to weep over me, and premature death.

I give and bequeath to each of my children, poverty, ignorance, a low character, and the remembrance that their father was a monster.

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Another versions of
“IF I WERE...”:
Supplement to the Courant. August 21, 1841
Daily Bulletin. January 11, 1842

“The Drunkard's Will”:
Western Temperance Journal. October 15, 1841

I CAN'T DO IT. -- I WILL DO IT! by B. J. L. 1840

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The Family Magazine. Volume 7. 1840 || +1 || +2

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“I CAN'T DO IT.”

WHAT a volume of human misery is unfolded in that short sentence! What mighty efforts of undeveloped genius are chained by this conclusion of despondency when a barrier chances to interpose the onward progress of the will and sometimes of mere volition! What domestic unhappiness—what downward marches of the otherwise worthy, toward the gloomy and solitary abodes of poverty—what anxious solicitude that fills the breast of the dependent wife—what arduous wrestlings with the demon of despair—what social wretchedness—what national evils are all depicted in the spirit of that expression! It is the language only of the self-made wretched—the determination of the weak and imbecile. It is the voice of the moral coward, who, standing upon the shore of some desolate island in the stormy ocean of life, and looking out upon the billows strewn with the wrecks of earthly grandeur and human happiness, is so blinded by fear that he cannot see the gleam of hope that flickers amid the surrounding gloom. It is the articulated feelings of the traveller of the desert, who, having gained an eminence, sees nothing but a barren plain before him, thirst parching his tongue and weariness subduing his strength. But shall he lie down without hope? Nay, let him press forward, make but one more effort, and a green oasis will meet his anxious vision—a cool stream will bubble up from some unseen fountain, and he will reach his journey's end crowned with the rich reward of perseverance.

How often do we hear “I can't do it” drop from the lips of a man possessed of bodily vigor and perfect health, when he sees uplifted before him a towering mountain of sudden misfortune. Let him reverse the expression, arm himself with the sword and buckler of firm resolve, and with the eye of encouragement look beyond the mighty mass, and he will see it begin to sink, and ere he believes his task begun he will find that he has bestridden the monster, leapt over the looming barrier, and the incident forms but a brief paragraph in the history of his life.

When the Boston printer (Franklin) entered Philadelphia, carrying all his worldly possessions upon his person, and a penny loaf under his arm, had he sat down upon the cold pavement, and shrinking from the task which the finger of genius pointed out for him to perform, exclaimed, “I can't do it,” a bright star would now be absent from the constellation of American renown, and humanity might mourn the want of a shield, against the lightning's wrath. Had the young warrior of colonial America surrendered his sword to the enemies of freedom when patriot hearts were chilled upon the frozen shores of the Delaware or the snowy desert of Valley Forge, and with desponding heart cried out, “I can't do it,” the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi might yet have been howling wilderness, ourselves humble petitioners at the feet of a potentate of a far-off island, and this noble structure of civil liberty in the west—among the mysteries yet to be revealed. But such an expression was never written in their vocabularies—it is never written in any man's vocabulary who achieves mighty things. Its spirit should be avoided by youth as a luring syren whose song will lead them from duty and teach them dalliance. They should avoid practising its precepts, for they enervate the vigorous and crush the already weak. On the other hand, let your motto be, “I will do it,” and the mountain will become a mole-hill—the torrent will dwindle into a rill—the lions that beset your path will lose their fierceness and become metamorphosed into lambs—the vultures that prey upon your vitals will become doves—your feet will find but few stumbling-blocks, and the bright star of hope will never sink below the horizon.

Are you poor, remember, the temple of fortune is open as well to the child of poverty with his mantle and girdle, as to the pampered progeny of wealth who wears upon his breast a golden star. Are you friendless, remember, moral rectitude, modest excellence, persevering industry are sure to gather around you a shining circle of kindred spirits who will accompany you with offices of kindness to the threshold of the grave, and will embalm your memory in their hearts. These are the rewards of perseverance—these are the comforts of the energetic child of misfortune. When his motto is, “I will do it,” nothing is so extensive or mysterious in science that he cannot grasp and comprehend it, nothing so great or wise in jurisprudence that he cannot participate in its honors, nothing so holy in pious duty that he may not share the plaudit, “well done thou good and faithful servant,” and nothing so noble in human nature that he may not possess it and claim the brightest “legion of honor.” We would therefore say to youth, when you feel the impulse of genius urging you to the performance of some great task, at once obey its mandates; and although the timidity of your nature may curb your steps, obey but the voice of prudence, shut your ears against the evil councils of imbecility, and whatever may be the prize, whether in the forum, the camp or the pulpit, be assured that you may count it as your own if you listen not to the song of the idle sojourner, ever upon his lips, “I can't do it.”

B. J. L.