Such a character, involving a true and vigorous evolution of body, mind and
spirit, is an effectual safeguard against the evils of prodigality, the
disgrace of penuriousness, and the woes of vice and crime. Their property
may burn down, and they may he robbed of their gold; but neither the flame
nor the robber can deprive them of their character; their intellectual and
moral worth, is beyond the power of man to destroy; no enemy can rob them
of those virtues which a well-developed mind and heart afford; they will
be to them a standing capital to enrich them in all that is essential to
human happiness.
2. A good occupation is another patrimony which should descend to the
children of a Christian home. Bring up your children to some useful
employment by which they may be able to make a comfortable living; and you
thereby give them hundreds, and, perhaps, thousands of dollars per year;
you give them a boon which cannot he taken from them. Many parents, hoping
to secure for their children a large pecuniary patrimony, will not permit
them to learn either a trade or a profession; but let them grow up in
indolence and ignorance, unable as well as unwilling, to be useful either
to themselves or to others, living for no purpose, and unfit even to take
care of what they leave. And when their wealth descends to them, they soon
spend it all in a life of dissipation; so that in a few years they find
themselves poor, and friendless, and ignorant of all means of a livelihood,
without character, without home, without hope, a nuisance to society, a
disgrace to their parents, a curse to themselves! But as we have already
dwelt upon this subject in the chapter on the choice of pursuits, we shall
not enlarge upon it here.
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