TO HUMAN CULTURE. BY O. DEWEY. hearty, manly English reverence and love which | THE MINISTRY OF THE SENSES AND APPETITES the workingmen show towards those who love and serve them truly, and save them from themselves and from doing wrong. See how David's feelings gush forth (v. 33)—' Blessed But admitting that the appetites have their be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee uses-which is the first position I take-it is this day to meet me; and blessed be thy ad- said, nevertheless, that they have bad tendenvice, and blessed be thou which has kept me cies, tendencies to excess, to vice, to ruin. On this day from coming to shed blood, and from this point, there is, in the second place, a most avenging myself with mine own hand.' The rich important distinction to be made; and that is, and the great may have that love, if they will. between appetite in its simple, natural state, and To conclude. Doubtless, David was wrong; appetite in its artificial and unnatural state; a he had no right even to redress wrongs thus. state brought on by voluntary habit and cor. Patience was his divine appointed duty; and, rupting imagination and mental destitution; for doubtless, in such circumstances we should be which man's will is responsible, and not his very ready to preach submission, and to blame constitution. Look then at simple, unsophisti, David. Alas! we the clergy of the Church of cated, unperverted appetite. Is the draught of England, have been only too ready to do this: intemperance, or the surfeit of gluttony, nat for three long centuries we have taught sub-urally agreeable? Far otherwise. Moreover, mission to the powers that be, as if that were all those stimulant and narcotic substances and the only text in Scripture bearing on the rela- those rich condiments, of which excess makes tions between the ruler and the ruled. Rarely its principal use, are naturally distasteful and have we dared to demand of the powers that be, disgusting in the highest degree. I do not justice of the wealthy man, and of the titled, say that even they were created in vain, or must duties. We have produced folios of slavish necessarily be injurious; for everything is good flattery upon the Divine Right of Power. in its place and degree-even poison is so; but Shame on us! we have not denounced the I say that there is no natural demand for these wrongs done to weakness: and yet, for one text strong stimulants. On the contrary, fever in in the Bible which requires submission and pa- the veins, poison in the blood, sickness, nausea, tience from the poor, you will find a hundred are remonstrances of simple appetite, remon which denounce the vices of the rich;-in the strances of nature against them. And show writings of the noble old Jewish prophets, that, me what diseased and vicious passion you will, and almost that only ;-that in the Old Testa- and I will show you that it is the mind's guilt, ment, with a deep roll of words that sound like and not the body's defect; that it is not the Sinai thunders; and that in the New Testa- passion let alone, still less duly controlled by ment, in words less impassioned and more the higher nature. It is not nature, but bad calmly terrible from the apostles and their example or companionship, that leads to evil. Master-and woe to us, in the great day of It is imagination that nurses passion into crimiGod, if we have been the sycophants of the nal desire. There is a natural modesty which rich, instead of the Redressers of the poor unhallowed license always has to overcome. man's wrongs-woe to us if we have been tu- Let no man lay that flattering unction to his toring David into respect to his superior, Na-soul, that God has made him to love evil— bal, and forgotten that David's cause, not Na- made vice and baseness to be naturally agreebal's, is the cause of God!" able to him; for it is not true! EXTRACT. The ministry of Friends affected me greatly, and was often a means of comfort and strength. I never suffered myself to criticise it, but acted on the uniform principle of endeavoring to obtain from what I heard all the edification which it afforded. This is a principle which I would warmly recommend to my young friends in the present day; for nothing can be more mischievous than for learners to turn teachers, and young hearers critics. I am persuaded that it is often the means of drying up the waters of life in the soul; and sure I am that an exact method of weighing words and balancing doctrines in what we hear is a miserable exchange for tenderness of spirit and for the dews of heaven."-J. J. Gurney. But these appetites, besides their general uses, and besides their natural innocence, seem to me, in the third place, to bear a specific relation to the mind. They are urgent teachers. They teach, first, moderation. They teach the necessity of self-restraint, of self-denial. I have no doubt that a being not clothed with flesh, a pure spiritual essence, would feel the necessity of self-restraint. But if any physical organization, belonging to an intellectual nature, could be made to enforce this law, it appears to me that it would be that of our human senses and appetites. Because it is manifest that their unrestrained indulgence works the direst ruin to the whole nature. What! does this our sensitive frame teach lessons of evil, lessons of vice? God and nature forbid! Open, patent, and everlasting fact teaches the very contrary. The woes of intemperance, gluttony, licentiousness, excess, are the very horrors and calamities of the world in every age. They are so horrible that we dare not describe them. Here, then, is "elder Scripture writ by God's own hand," written before ever voice was heard on Sinai or by the shores of Galilee, written all over the human frame, and within every folded leaf of that wonderful system. Yes, upon the ghastly form it was written, and upon the burning cheek, and deep in the branching arteries, and along the secret and invisible nerves is it written. And sometimes you may read the writing by the literal, alcoholic fires, kindled in the veins; which, with visible flame, burn up the man; and sometimes by such haggard lines of deformity as nothing but the worst license of vice ever drew upon the human frame. I once saw in Paris a collection of wax figures taken from life, and designed to present such an illustration. I do not wish to speak of it, nor of the vice illustrated, nor of the nightmare horror felt by the beholder for hours after it is seen. But it seemed to me that no preaching on earth was ever like that silent gallery. all the regions of existence, and never was abused, till I came in contact with you. I have made a part of animal natures, that were innocent; I have lived in the beautiful forms of vegetable life; I have flowed in the streams and sported in the air, all purity and freshness and freedom; and never till I was subjected to your influence, was I breathed upon by any bad spirit; never till then, was I tainted by the diseases of vice, or made a loathsome mass of sinwrought corruption; never till then, was my nature perverted from its uses, and made the instrument of evil." But to speak most seriously: What a wonderful, moral structure is our physical frame ! If a command to be pure were written, imprinted in visible letters, upon every limb and muscle, it could not be a clearer mandate, and by no means so powerful. It was said to the mad and rebellious Saul, "It is hard for thee to kick against the thorns." Such a message comes indeed from no open vision, but from his inmost frame, to every raging voluptuary. Thorns and tortures does it shoot out against him from every part. If, every time he indulged in any excess, he was covered with nettles and stings, the intimation would not be a whit more monitory than it is now. You You must have patience with me, my friends, for I must overthrow entirely, and utterly demolish this plea of the senses for vice. My How different is it with the animal! argument for the ministry of the senses and ap- may feed him to repletion; you may fatten him petites, cannot stand at all, unless I do that. into a monster; and there is no disease, no sufThe truth is, the senses, fittest for virtue, hap-fering; there is only enjoyment; and so far as piest in innocence, are only capable of vice he is destined for food, he is the more fitted for that is all, but no conceivable organization his purpose. But if you do this to man, discould be surrounded with more tremendous ease and pain enter in at every pore. remonstrances against evil. So the mind is capable of evil, and so is the mind, too, guarded. And it might as well be said that the mind seduces to ill, as that the body does-nay, I think, better-with far more reason. But because sensual aberration is more apparent, and the effects are more visible, therefore the world, with little insight as yet into the truth of things, has agreed to charge this fact of temptation especially upon the body. It would be coming nearer to the truth to say, that the mind is the real culprit. What are the comparatively poor, puny, and innocent senses, but servants of the mind compelled to do its bidding? I know it is a doctrine of old time, that the body does all the mischief; that the body is the enemy of the mind, a clog, an encumbrance, a corrupter. The philosopher, Plotinus, affected to have forgotten his birthplace and parentage, because, says Porphyry," he was ashamed that his soul was in a body." He imagined that the mind had good cause to complain of the body. But I believe it would not be difficult, and scarcely fanciful, to set forth a counter plea. "I have wandered"-might the substance of the body say to the mind-"I have wandered through The ancient philosophers, in their theories, desecrated matter; the modern, and especially the sensual school in France, have deified it. They boldly proclaimed-I speak of the French infidel philosophers of the latter part of the eighteenth century-they boldly proclaimed matter to be the true divinity; the human frame, its altar; and the appetites, its priesthood. Selfishness with them was the only motive; sensation, the only good; and life a bowing down in worship to the appropriate divinity. But whoever tries that theory, will find that matter is indeed a god, too powerful for him; the fleshly altar will be burned up and destroyed by the strange fire that is laid upon it; and the priests, the appetites, will perish in that profane ministration. The Government builds prisons for culprits, and protects the honest house. All men pronounce that to be a moral administration. But what if, when wrong was perpetrated in the honest house, and it had become the habitation of the base and vile, it should, by some wonder-working intervention of the Government, grow dark and desolate, and should gradually turn into a prison-the windows narrowing year by year, and grated bars growing over them; the rooms, the ceilings, slowly the grave at last, from a life which has been one long sigh. And all might have been prevented by one brisk daily walk in the open air. darkening; the aspects of cheerful and com- | spoil it of its gladness, and send their victim to But there is something further to be observed concerning this teaching; there is one respect in which it is yet more urgent. For it demands not only moderation and self-denial, but activity: it forbids not only excess, but in dolence. It demands of those that do not labor, daily, out-of-door exercise-not a lounge in a carriage only, but a walk, or some bracing exercise in the open air-demands that, or says, "pay for your neglect." Some inuring, some hardness-hardship if they please to call itnature exacts even of the gentlest of its children. The world was not built to be a hothouse, but a gymnasium rather. Voluptuous repose, luxurious protection, enervating food and modes of life, are not the good condition, not the permitted resort, for our physical nature. Half of the physician's task with many, is to fight off the effects of such abuses. The laws of the human constitution are moral laws; they address the conscience, the moral nature; they exact penalties for neglect. And doubtless the penalties are severe. That is not nature's fault, but nature's excellence. Doubtless the penalties are severe. I am persuaded, indeed, that if they could be enumerated; if all the languid and heavy pulses could be numbered; if all the miseries of nervous and diseased sensation could be defined; if all that could be described which surrounds us with wasted forms, or sequesters them in silent chambers, an aggregate of ills could be found which would match the statistics of pauperism, or of intemperance itself. I believe there is less suf. fering among the idler and more luxurious classes, from violent disorders, than from those chronic and nervous ailments, which do not always inflict acute pain, which do not alarm us for the patient-well if they did!--but which enfeeble the energies, destroy the elasticity of the frame, undermine the very constitution of the body; which depress the spirits, too, wear out the patience, sour the temper, cloud the vision of nature, disrobe society of its beauty and de This subject and I mean now this whole subject of the right training and care of the body-is one, I conceive, of unappreciated inportance. Our physical nature is more than the theatre, more than the stage, it is the very costume, the very drapery in which the mind acts its part; and if it hangs loosely or awkwardly upon the actor, if it weighs him down as a burden, or entangles his step at every turn, the action, the great action of life must be lame and deficient. What that burden, that entanglement is now; and what is the genuine vigor and health of a man; what is the true, spiritual ministry of the body to the soul, I am persuaded, we do not yet know. The Companionship of our fellow-beings is not confined to the living men and women around us, but comes to us through books, from all nations and ages. Wise teachers stand ever ready to instruct us, gentle moralists to console and strengthen us, poets to delight us. Scarce a country village is so poor that there may not be found beneath its roofs the printed words of more great men than ever lived at any one period of the earth's great history. We are too apt to use books, as well as society, merely for our amusement; to read the books that chance to fall into our hands, or to associate with the persons we happen to meet with, and not stop to ask ourselves if nothing better is within our reach. It may not be in our power to associate with great living minds, but the mental wealth of the past is within the reach of all. We boast much that we are a reading people, but it may be well to inquire how intelligently we read. The catalogues of books borrowed from our public libraries show, that, where the readers of works of amusement are counted by hun.. dreds, the readers of instructive books are numbered by units. In conversation it is not uncommon to hear persons expressing indifference or dislike to whole classes of books,-to hear Travels denounced as stupid, Biography as tame, and History as heavy and dull. It does not seem to occur to the mass of minds that any purpose beyond the amusement of the moment is to be thought of in reading, or that any plan should be laid, or any principle adopt-| ed in the choice of books to be read. It is undoubtedly a great good that nearly all our people are taught to read, but it is a small fraction of the community that reads to much good purpose. Children, so soon as they have acquired the use of the alphabet, are inundated with little juvenile stories, some of them good, but most of them silly, and many vulgar. As they grow older, successions of similar works of fiction await them, until they arrive at adolescence, when they are fully prepared for all the wealth of folly, vulgarity, falsehood, and wickedness that is bound up within the yellow covers of most of the cheap novels that infest every highway of the na tion. As you are jostled through the streets of our populous cities, or take your seat in a crowded railway-car, you are, perhaps, impressed with the general air of rudeness that pervades the scene, -a rudeness of a kind so new to the world, that, no old word sufficing to describe it, a new name has been coined, and the swaggering, careless, sensual looking beings, reeking with the fumes of tobacco, that make up the masses of our moving population, are adequately described only by the word rowdy. As yet no title has been found for the female of this class, bold, dashing, loud talking and loud-laughing, ignorant, vain, and so coarse that she supposes fine clothes and assuming manners are all that is necessary to elevate her to the rank of a lady. Perhaps you wonder how so numerous a race of these beings has come to exist; but that boy at your elbow, bending under the weight of his literary burden, is a colporteur for converting the men and women of this "enlightened nation" to rowdyism. Those books portray just such men and women as you see before you, and that is why they are welcomed so warmly. A few cents will buy from that boy enough folly and impurity to gorge a human mind for a week, and possibly few among this throng often taste more wholesome intellectual food. It is probable that some of these persons are the children of intelligent and well-bred parents; but their fathers were engrossed in business, and their mothers in family cares, and thought they had no time to form the moral and intellectual tastes of the immortal minds committed to their charge. They fancied that, if they sent their children to good schools, and provided liberally for all their external wants, they had done enough. Ignorant nurserymaids, perhaps, taught them morals and manners, while the father toiled to accumulate the means for supplying their external wants, and the mother hemmed ruffles and scalloped trimming, to make people say, "How sweetly those children are dressed!" as the maid paraded them through the streets, teaching them their first lessons in vulgar vanity. A child may be educated at the best schools without acquiring any taste for good literature. The way a parent treats a child in relation to its books has far more influence in this respect than a teacher can possibly possess. A mother, even if she is not an educated woman, can learn to read understandingly, and can teach her child to read in the same way. She can talk to it about its books, and awaken a desire in its mind to understand what it reads. Children are always curious in regard to the phenomena of nature, and whether this curiosity lives or dies. depends very much on the answers it receives to its first questions. If the mother cannot answer them herself, she can help the child to find an answer somewhere else, and she should beware how she deceives herself with the idea that she has not time to attend to the moral and intellectual wants of her child. She has no right to so immerse all her own mind in the cares of life that she cannot, while attending to them, talk rationally with her children. The mothers who best fulfil their higher duties towards their children are quite as often found among those who are compelled to almost constant industry of the hands, as among those of abundant leisure. There is nothing in the handiwork of the house-keeper or the seamstress that need absorb all the mental attention; and hers must be an ill-regulated mind that cannot ply the needle, or perform the more active duties of the household, and yet listen to the child as it reads its little books, and converse with it about the moral lessons or the intellectual instruction they contain. The mother has it in her power to influence the mode in which the child makes companions of its books, more than any other person; and the character of its Companionship with them through life will generally depend in a great degree on the tastes and habits acquired in childhood. Many parents who guard their children with jealous care from the contamination of rude and vicious society among other children, allow them to associate with ideal companions of a very degraded kind. The parent should check the propensity, not only to read bad books, but also to read idle or foolish books, by exciting the action of the mind towards something better. Merely to deny improper books is not enough. Something must be given in place of them, or the craving must continue, and the child will be very apt to gratify its appetite in secret. Children are easily led to observe nature, animate or inanimate, with interest, and there are many simple books illustrating the departments of natural science which mothers could make interesting to their children at the same time that they instructed themselves. Juvenile works on history abound, and through them the FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER. the art of the beaver, the antics of the monkey, PHILADELPHIA, SIXTH MONTH 29, 1867. EARLY HOME-CULTURE.-The proper training of the youthful mind is a subject which must continue to claim the serious attention of those impressed with the responsibility connected with the care of children. None who have observed the eagerness often manifested for knowledge even in very early life, by the never wearying questioner, can, we think, regard with indifference the manner in which this want is to be met. That it has not at all times been recognized or fully appreciated, must have been because it has not received the consideration its importance demands. We believe that not unfrequently the proper moulding of the character is too long deferred. A mother oppressed with household cares, or with her attention otherwise engrossed, may seek to amuse her infant prattler with the highly colored cuts which abound for the purpose, without sufficiently regarding the reading matter of the little book, whereby a false idea or a taste for the unreal may be early and unintentionally fostered. With a little more effort perhaps, but with much happier results, instruction might be combined with amusement, as has been amply proven by "Object Teaching." In every branch of knowledge this system may be made available; and much that is not only interesting, but wonderful, both in the animal and vegetable kingdom, may be introduced in a manner to be comprehended by very little children. With the mind turned toward this kind of instruction, the means of imparting it will be abundantly unfolded. If there be a hesitation in adopting it lest the tender and sensitive organization of the child should be in jured by premature thought or reflection, we have need only to exercise a care in this as in and the habits of many of the plants familiar to most, will be as entertaining in their development to the mind of the uninitiated, as the work of the Fairies drawn out in its wild fancies. The one will have furnished material for future use, while the other would sow pernicious weeds to be sooner or later eradicated. The importance of a right cultivation of the literary tastes of children cannot be over-estimated. At schools knowledge is acquired which is deemed essential, but if a judicious care is not extended by parents, there may be the luxuriant vine without nutritious fruit. Many Friends are aware that the Association of Friends of Philadelphia, within the past few years, has published several little books for the Some evipurpose of aiding the good cause. dences have been furnished that the labor has not been in vain, but we could wish that there was a more general appreciation of the works to which allusion has been made. "The Scriptural Watchword" is a valuable book when viewed in connection with the need we have of mind to the unfailing Fountain of strength. help amid the pressing cares of life, to turn the «Thoughts for Children" contains much that is suggestive for a wider range in the same direc tion. The two little books of "Devotional Poetry" have been compiled with care, and breathe the spirit of love and purity in an eminent degree. If children were encouraged to commit some of these selections to memory, we doubt not that in after years they would arise with the brance of youthful days, when by kind parents odor of a grateful heart to refresh the rememthese children were taught to remember their Creator. Other valuable books will be found in the catalogue of the Association. Among them South Sixth Street, and Emmor Comly, at the office of Friends' Intelligencer. * As furnished by T. Ellwood Zell, Nos. 17 and 19 |