The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons Part 6

Of course I should do a wrong to your womanly instincts if I were to think it necessary to say that the inculcation of purity must be always in a mother's heart, but only on her lips on some marked occasions, such as the first going to school, the last day of the holidays, or when your boy himself gives the occasion by some question he may ask you, but above all when he reaches a critical age, when a few words from your own lips will be worth all the printed pages in the world. Only ever and always make it an essential element of his idea of manliness to be pure, and do not forget constantly to couple the words "brave and pure," or "manly and pure," or "pure and high character," in his hearing; that he may be endued, not with that pale, emasculate thing that pa.s.ses muster for purity nowadays, which always seems to me chiefly conscious of its own indecency, full of the old nervous "touch not, taste not, handle not" spirit, bandaged up with this restriction and that lest it fall to pieces, and when it comes to saving another from defilement in body and soul shuffling uneasily into a pair of lavender kid-gloves and muttering something about its being "such a very delicate subject"--nay, not this, but that militant sun-clad power which Milton dreamed of, rushing down like a sword of G.o.d to smite everything low, and base and impure; a purity as of mountain water or living fire, whose very nature it is, not only to be pure itself, but to destroy impurity in others.

V

And now let me throw together two or three practical suggestions, which will probably be superfluous to the most experienced mothers, but may be useful to younger and more inexperienced parents.

In the first place, I think there are few of the heads of the medical profession who would not agree with me that our English dietary is too stimulating and too abundant. Sir Andrew Clark certainly held that a large proportion of our diseases spring from over-eating and over-drinking. I don't suppose that for a boy it so much matters, as he is eating for "edification" as well as for sustenance, for the building up of his walls as well as for the nutrition of his existing frame. But "the boy is father to the man," and I would ask you not to accustom your boys to a rich dietary, as the habit once formed will be prolonged into early manhood, and undoubtedly such stimulating diet does greatly increase the temptations with which young men have to contend. It is perfectly unnecessary for the developing of strength and stature, as is shown by the splendid Scotchmen who yearly carry off some of our highest university distinctions and prizes--many of them farmer lads who have scarcely tasted meat in their boyhood, but have been brought up on the simple farinaceous food of the country. There was much force and meaning in the quaint congratulatory telegram sent by a friend to a Cambridge Senior Wrangler hailing from Scotland, "Three cheers for the parritge!"

And that curious and most impressive fact which Mr. Bayard, the late American Amba.s.sador, hunted up for our edification from various dictionaries of biography--the fact, namely, that a large proportion of our most eminent men spring from the homes of the poorer clergy, where certainly sumptuous fare and much meat do not obtain, is a proof that abstemious living, while forming a valuable discipline for the soul, does not injure but promotes the health of the body and the strength of the brain. Our having given up the religious uses of fasting I often think is a loss to young men; and it might, therefore, be as well if we were to imitate our "Corybantic" brethren, the Salvationists, and inst.i.tute a week of self-denial, leaving the children to work out an economical dietary, with due care on our part that it should be fairly nutritious, and allowing them to give what they have saved from the ordinary household expenses to any cause in which they may be interested. It would give them a wholesome lesson in self-denial and cheap living; both lessons much needed in these luxurious days. But whether this suggestion finds favor or not, we have always to bear in mind that "plain living" is the necessary companion of "high thinking"--the lowly earth-born twin who waits upon her heavenly sister.

On the vexed question of the use of alcohol there was but one point on which there was a consensus of opinion in the discussion by our leading medical men, which appeared some years ago in the pages of the _Contemporary Review_. The point upon which they were all agreed was that alcohol is injurious to children, and if the boy has been accustomed from his early youth to do without it, and, as he grows up, remains a total abstainer, there is no question that his abstinence will prove a great safeguard; though I cannot go as far as some of my abstaining friends, who seem to regard the use of alcohol as the root of what must, in the nature of things, be one of the strongest primal pa.s.sions of human nature, and therefore liable to abuse, whether men are total abstainers or not. Anyhow, though a lad can be trained to strict moderation, abstinence in both alcohol and tobacco must after a time come of the lad's own free will; the last thing that answers is to multiply and enforce restrictions; the rebound is inevitable and often fatal. But I do say that where there is a great pinching in the home in order to afford the educational advantages of school and university, it does show some radical defect in the training of our boys that they should indulge in such expensive habits, especially the expensive and wholly unnecessary habit of smoking, when the dear mother and young sisters are doing without many a little home comfort in order to meet the expense of the young rascal's education. One rich old grandmother whom I met abroad promised each of her grandsons fifty pounds if they would give up smoking; and it was marvellous how that stern necessity of doing as other young men do disappeared like their own tobacco smoke before the promise of that fifty pounds for their own pockets! They were all able to claim it one after the other. If boys were not trained by their mothers to be systematically selfish, might not the home-claims in the heart be as strong as those fifty pounds in the pocket?

Secondly, with regard to betting and gambling, which may be cla.s.sed with drinking, as the fruitful parent of bad company, and a _descensus ad infernum_:--do you not think a boy may be best guarded against a habit of betting, which is so likely to lead on to gambling, by taking the same line as a boy of my acquaintance took with his mother when she was warning him against it: "Well, mother, you see, it always does seem so mean to me to get a fellow's money from him without giving him anything in return; it always does seem so like prigging, and some of our fellows are awfully hard up, and can't afford to lose a penny." Mr. Gladstone was evidently of the same opinion when he once said to his private secretary, Sir Edward Hamilton, that he "regarded gambling as nothing short of d.a.m.nable. What can be the fun of winning other people's money?"

This strikes me as a way of putting it which would appeal most forcibly to a boy; and if, in addition, we were to point out to him that, like all shady things, it has a tendency to grow and sharpen the man into a sharper and develop the blood-sucking apparatus of a leech, besides bringing wretchedness and misery on others, he might be led to resist the first beginnings of a betting habit which may lead on to gambling in after years.

And here I would say that the absolute absence of any training given to a boy in the right use and value of money, which has obtained till lately in our English schools, is surely suicidal and must lend itself to every form of abuse. I do not know whether it is the same with you, but many of our boys know money only in the form of pocket-money, when it becomes to him a metal token mostly signifying so much "tuck"; becoming, as he grows older, more and more deleterious "tuck" in the shape of billiards, betting, etc., and ending in a general going "on tick," which is worse still. But in this matter we are improving. I think most sensible parents nowadays place a small sum at their bank to the boy's account, with a check-book, making him responsible at first for small articles of clothing, neckties, shirt-collars, etc, and as soon as he shows himself trustworthy, for all his expenses except school bills. The boy is expected to keep accounts, get nothing without first asking the price, and to bring his receipted bills at the end of the term to his father, and see that they tally with his foils; and, above all, always to pay in ready money--unpaid bills being contemplated in the bald light of shop-lifting. To this I would add, if possible, the habit of giving the Jewish tenth, so as to make giving a steady principle, and not a hap-hazard impulse.

Thirdly, it is a vital point to give your boys interesting pursuits.

There is great force in the rough old saying, "Never give the devil an empty chair to sit down upon, and you won't be much troubled with his company." Vice is constantly only idleness which has turned bad,--idleness being emphatically a thing that will not keep, but turns rotten. It is not the great industrial centres of our population that are chiefly ravaged by vice; it is the fashionable watering-places, the fashionable quarters of large towns, where idle men congregate, in which it is a "pestilence that walketh in darkness," and slays its thousands of young girls. "Empty by filling," has always been a favorite motto of mine. How many a young man has been driven to betting, drinking, and the race-course from the want of something of interest to fill his unoccupied hours, because more wholesome tastes have never been developed in him! Of course, tastes must be to a certain degree inborn, but I am quite sure that many a taste perishes, like a frost-bitten bud, full of the promise of blossom and fruit, because it has never been given the opportunity to develop.

Take a boy's innate love of collecting. Could you not develop it by the offer of a little prize for the best collection of dried flowers, of b.u.t.terflies or insects, of birds' eggs, even, in some cases, of geological specimens, but, in any case, with the scientific and common names attached; so forming a healthy taste for natural history, which may be a source of perpetual interest and profit in after-life? Do not let your dislike of destroying life interfere; reverence for life can be as well, nay, better taught by insisting that only the necessary specimens should be given of each species, only one or two eggs taken from the nest, and the nest itself disturbed as little as possible.

Chemistry and electricity also appeal to a boy's love of experimentizing and of making electrical contrivances, easily constructed of the commonest materials. As to hand-work, the lack of which in ill-health has made so many a man a torment both to himself and others, there ought to be no difficulty with regard to that. Carpentering, wood-carving, repousse-work in metal, bent-iron work, mosaic work, any of these, except possibly the last, may be set on foot with very little expense, besides drawing, modelling, etc. Where there are sufficient means it would be a good thing if boys were taught, as far as may be, how things are made and the amount of toil that goes into the simplest article. I remember giving a small printing-press to a boy of ours--an excellent gift, by the by, for a lad, and it can be had for five or six shillings--and his coming to me soon after with a match-box in his hand, exclaiming with wonderment, "Why, auntie, there are six different kinds of type on this match-box!" If they could learn how to build, how rafters and joists are put in, and construct as much as a miniature summer-house in the garden, how useful this being able to turn their hands to anything might prove to them in their after-life. And with what added respect they would look upon all labor if they had never looked upon it as the part of a "gentleman" to stand aloof from it.

Lastly, but not least, I would plead most earnestly for the frequent home-letter, should your boy be sent to a boarding-school. If you would have him resist the temptations of school life, keep the home as close to his heart and as present to his mind as you can. Make it your first and paramount duty to write every day if you can, if not every other day, at least twice a week.

Do not misunderstand me here. G.o.d knows I do not go in for the devoted mother who thinks of nothing but her boys and to whom the whole world besides is nothing but an empty flourish of the pen about their names.

Such mothers are like Chinese teacups, with no perspective and everything out of proportion; where the Mandarin is as big as the PaG.o.da, and suffers from a pathetic inability to get in at his own door.

You must see things in moral perspective in order to train character on large and n.o.ble lines. And it is from the rough quarry of the outside world, with its suffering and sin, that you must fetch the most precious stones for the building up of true manhood or womanhood. The sooner children are taught that their small concerns must be subordinated at times to the needs of the sick, the poor, and the suffering, the better for them. For a mother, therefore, to undertake _some_ outside work may and will prove the best element in their education, enabling them in their turn to live in relation with the world in which G.o.d has placed them and do their part in the service of humanity.

All that I mean is, do not so crowd your life with outside work or social engagements as to have no time to spare for this daily or at least bi-weekly letter to the boys at school. Bear in mind that the most important work you can do for the world is the formation of n.o.ble character, building it up stone by stone as you alone can do. Do not be too busy to make yourself your boy's friend and throw yourself heartily into all that interests him. I have known philanthropic mothers to whom cricket was nothing but an unmeaning scurrying backwards and forwards, and who scarcely knew the stern of a boat from its bows!

And what a liberal education a mother's home-letters to her boys at school might be made! The stirring incident in the newspapers, the fine pa.s.sage in the book, a verse or two of a n.o.ble poem, as well as all the loving thought and prayer that is for ever flying like homing birds to the dear absent lads, and the inculcation of all things lovely and pure and manly, brightened by home jokes and the health of the last cherished pet--all these things might go to make up the home letters. Above all, what an opportunity it would give for pleading the cause of the little chaps who, by some strange insanity working in the brain of the British parent, are sent into the rough world of a large school when they are fitter for the nursery, and whom you might appeal to your boys to look after and protect, so far as they are able; and not only these, but to side with every boy who is being bullied for acting up to his conscience or because he has not the pluck to stand up for himself.

In conclusion, I would earnestly ask you to believe in your own power when united to the knowledge which is necessary to direct it. "A man is what a woman makes him," says the old saw. Look back upon the men you have known who have been touched to finest issues, and you will find, with few exceptions, that they are the shaping of a n.o.ble woman's hands--a n.o.ble mother, a n.o.ble wife, a n.o.ble sister. Doubt not, but earnestly believe that with those wonderful shaping hands of yours you can mould that boy of yours into the manhood of Sir Galahad, "whose strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure"; that you can send him forth into the world like King Arthur, of whom our own poet, Spenser, says, that the poorest, the most unprotected girl could feel that

"All the while he by his side her bore She was as safe as in a sanctuary."

Nay, may I not go further still and say that by the grace of G.o.d you can send him forth "made of a woman" in the image of the strong and tender Manhood of Jesus Christ, to Whom even the poor lost girls out of the street could come and know that here was a Man who would not drag them down, but lift them up; believing in Whom, clinging to Whom, trusting in Whom, they grew no longer lost and degraded, but splendid saints of the Christian Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: _Morality in Public Schools_, by Dr. Butler, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and late Head-Master of Harrow.]

[Footnote 12: _The Preservation of Health_, by Clement Dukes, M.D., M.R.C.S., Howard Medallist, Statistical Society of London, p. 150.]

[Footnote 13: _Ibid._, p. 157.]

[Footnote 14: _A Confidential Talk with the Boys of America_, by J.M.

d.i.c.k. Fleming H. Revell Co.]

[Footnote 15: See Appendix.]

[Footnote 16: See _Parents' Review_, No. 5, July, 1895, p. 351.]

[Footnote 17: have quoted here from _The Ascent of Man_ by Professor Drummond, pp. 292, 293; but any standard work on botany will give you the method of the fertilization of plants in greater detail.]

[Footnote 18: _Ibid._, p. 310.]

[Footnote 19: Erroneously called neuter, as in reality it is an imperfectly developed female, and is only capable of producing males.]

[Footnote 20: I owe my first clear apprehension of the gradual evolution of the preservative and altruistic elements in nature, arising from the struggle for existence, to a sermon of Dr. Abbott's called _The Manifestation of the Son of G.o.d_, now, I fear, out of print. Of course Darwin recognized these factors as a necessary complement to the survival of the fittest, else had there been no fittest to survive; but the exigencies of proving his theory of the origin of species necessitated his dwelling on the destructive and weeding-out elements of Nature--"Nature red in tooth and claw," rather than the equally pervasive Nature of the brooding wing and the flowing breast. Had not Professor Drummond unfortunately mixed it up with a good deal of extraneous sentiment, his main thesis would scarcely have been impugned.]

[Footnote 21: In case this method of teaching should seem to some mothers too difficult, I intend to embody it in a simple "Mother's Talk on Life and Birth," which a mother can read with her boys.]

[Footnote 22: See a White Cross paper of mine called _My Little Sister_.

Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., London.]

[Footnote 23: Twice since the wreck of the _Birkenhead_ has the same true manhood been evinced on the high seas in the face of almost certain death--once in the wreck of the troopship, the _Warren Hastings_, and again by the crew and the civilian pa.s.sengers of the _Stella_. Perfect order was maintained, and though, ultimately all the men were saved, not a man stirred hand or foot to save himself till the women and children had first been safely got on sh.o.r.e.]

[Footnote 24: _French and English_, by Philip Hamerton, p. 44.]

[Footnote 25: _The British Zulu_. Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., London.]

CHAPTER VII

EARLY MANHOOD

If, in the words of the great educator I have already quoted, the chief moral teaching and moral trend of the character must be given in the schoolboy days, yet early manhood presents its own fruitful field for the influence of a mother on the side of whatsoever things are pure and lovely. The methods of exerting this influence must change as your son grows from a boy into a man; the inevitable reticence, the exquisite reserve of s.e.x, must interfere with the old boyish confidences and with your own freedom of speech. Other barriers, too, will most likely spring up as your son goes forth into the world and mixes freely with other young men of his own standing. Whether it be at college, or in the army, or in business, he will inevitably be influenced by the views of the men he a.s.sociates with, which he will enlarge into the opinion of the world in general, and will probably come home, if not to contradict his mother, at least to patronize her and go his own way, smiling at her with an air of manly superiority and with a lofty consciousness that he knows a thing or two which lie beyond a woman's ken. Probably enough he takes up with views on religion, or politics, or social questions which are emphatically not yours, and which make you feel left very far behind, instead of the old familiar "walking together" which was so sweet. Worse still, he may evince for a time a cynical indifference to all great questions, and all your teaching may seem to be lost in a desert flat. The days of the latch-key and the independent life have come, and you often seem to stand outside the walls which once admitted you into their dearest recesses, left with but little clue as to what is going on within.

But have patience. Early teaching and influence, though it may pa.s.s for a time into abeyance, is the one thing that leaves an indelible impress which will in the end make itself felt, only waiting for those eternal springs which well up sooner or later in every life to burst into upward growth; it may be a pure attachment, it may be a great sorrow, it may be a sickness almost unto death, it may be some awakening to spiritual realities. I often think of that pathetic yet joyful resurrection cry, "This is our G.o.d, we have waited for Him"--waited for Him, possibly through such long years of disappointment and heart hunger--only to cry at the last, "This is our G.o.d, we have waited for Him, and He has saved us."

But it is not all waiting. If with early manhood the "old order" has to give place to new, and old methods and instruments have to be laid aside as no longer fitted for their task, G.o.d puts into the hands of the mother new instruments, new methods of appeal, which in some ways are more powerful than the old. In early manhood she can appeal to the thought of the future wife. I believe that this appeal is one of the strongest that you can bring to bear upon young men.

I once had to make it myself under circ.u.mstances of unparalleled difficulty; and I was struck with the profound response that it evoked.

It was on the occasion of the inaugural White Cross address to the students of the Edinburgh University, now one of the first medical schools in the world. The date of the address had been fixed, the hall taken, when an unforeseen difficulty arose. Eminent man after eminent man was asked to give the address, but all with one consent began to make excuse. Spirit and flesh quailed before so difficult and rowdy an audience on so difficult and perilous a subject. At last the professor who was chiefly interested implored me to give the address myself, or the whole thing would go by default. Under these circ.u.mstances I had no choice but to do so. But as I sat in the committee room while the order of the meeting was being arranged, and heard my audience shouting, singing, crowing like c.o.c.ks, whistling like parrots, caterwauling like cats, and keeping up a continuous uproar, I thought to myself, "I have got to go into that, and control it somehow so as to be heard"; I confess I did feel wrecked upon G.o.d. Professor Maclagan, who took the chair, agreed that a prayer was impossible, a hymn was equally out of the question. The only thing was to push me at once to the front; and almost immediately after a few very brief words from the distinguished chairman I found myself face to face with an audience that evidently meant mischief. By some instinct I told them at once about James Hinton, whom, of course, they knew by name as the first aurist of his day; how, with all that this life could give him, he had died of a broken heart, a heart broken over the lost and degraded womanhood of England, the hosts of young girls slain in body and soul whom he met with at night in our terrible streets. This seemed to strike and sober them, that a man should actually die over a thing which to all of them was so familiar and to many had been only the subject of a coa.r.s.e jest. Fortunately, there is a stage of nervous terror which rounds again on desperate courage, and having once got hold of my audience, I determined to use the occasion to the uttermost and venture on the most perilous ground.

In the course of my address I asked them to take notice of a great silent change that was taking place all round them in the position of women, the full significance of which they might not have grasped.

Everywhere women were leaving the seclusion of their homes and were quietly coming forward and taking their place by their side in the great work of the world. I thanked them for the generous welcome that they had accorded them. But had they seized the full meaning, the ulterior bearings of this changed att.i.tude in women, and the wider knowledge of the world that it brought with it? Not so long ago it was an understood thing that women should know nothing of the darker side of life; and there was nothing dishonorable in a man keeping the woman he loved in ignorance of the darker side of his own past, if such there were. But in the greater knowledge that has come to women, and the anguish some of them feel over the misery and degradation of their lost sisters, can this att.i.tude any longer be maintained without conscious deception?

"What would you say," I asked, "if the woman you loved with the whole strength of your soul pa.s.sed herself off as an undamaged article upon you, and let you worship her as the very embodiment of all that is white and pure, when something unspeakably sad and sinful had happened in her past life? You know you would be half mad at the wrong done to you if after marriage you found it out. And what are you going to do, I ask some of you who are so careless as to the life you lead, are _you_ going to pa.s.s yourself off as an undamaged article on the woman who loves and worships you, and who gives herself so unreservedly to you that she loses her very name and takes yours? Is it fair, is it honorable, is it even manly? No, I see by your faces you are saying, 'I don't think it is, I should have to confess.' Well, that is better than basing your life on a dishonorable lie. But, alas! it is no way out of the misery.

At the very moment when you would give all you possess to be worthy of that great love she gives you, you have to prove that you are unworthy; and the whole of the only last gleam of Eden that is left to this poor life of yours, the pure love of a man to a pure woman, is blotted out with bitter and jealous tears; the trail of the serpent is over it all.

I know well that women can love, and love pa.s.sionately, impure men; but every woman will tell you that there is _a_ love that a woman can only give to a man who has been faithful to her before marriage as well as after; and for ever and for ever there will be a shut door at the very heart of your Eden of which you have flung away the key, a love that might have been yours had you kept yourself worthy of it. There is but one way out of the difficulty, now that in the changed position of women you can no longer honorably keep them in the dark--to make up your mind that you will come to the woman you love in the glory of your unfallen manhood, as you expect her to come to you in the beauty of her spotless maidenhood."

I did not know for one moment whether they would not break out into cooing like doves; but, on the contrary, they listened to me with profound attention, and I could see that none of my words went so home to them as those. When I had finished my address a member of the committee said to one of the professors, "I think if she had asked them to go off and storm Edinburgh Castle they would have marched off in a body and done it." So great is the power of a woman pleading for women.

If I could use this sacred plea with effect under circ.u.mstances of--I think you will allow--such unspeakable difficulty, must it not be possible to you, the mother from whom such an appeal would come so naturally, to use this same influence, and in the quiet Sunday walk through the fields and woods where Nature herself seems to breathe of the sanct.i.ty of life in every leaf and flower, or in the quiet talk over the winter fireside before he leaves home, to plead with your son to keep himself faithful to his future wife, so that when he meets the woman he can love and make his wife, he may have no shameful secrets to confess, or, worse still, to conceal from her, no base tendencies to hand down to his unborn children after him? Thank G.o.d! how many an American and English wife and mother can speak here from personal experience of the perfect love and perfect trust which have been bred of a pure life before marriage, and a knowledge that the sacraments of love and life had never been desecrated or defiled, so that no shadow of distrust or suspicion can ever darken the path of her married happiness.

How powerful the pleading of such a mother may become with her son, to give his future wife the same perfect trust and unclouded happiness in her husband's love!