The Portland daily press., 1866-12-22
Winter.

We read an article the other day in Balti-
more paper, written evidently in spirit quite
too petulant to be styled amiable, setting forth
the evils of a northern winter, without the ac-
acknowledgements of single circumstance in its
favor; as if Providence, in this matter, had for
gotten or disregarded that wise system of COM
pensation in the vicissitudes of the seasons,
which appears in every other department of ma
ture According to his account, everything
here in New Englandis cold-our wind is cold,
water is cold, feet are cold, noses are cold,
shirts and sheets are cold; it is cold outside
and cold inside. In short the world in which
zoe live is cold, and the hearts in it are cold as
icebergs. Here, too, so far from Sthe equator
and the sun, every thing is dark; the clouds
are dark; the night is dark the day is dark and
human intellects are dark. In addition to this,
everything hereabouts is blue; looks are blue;
women's cheeks are blue and the prospects OF
our people are blue If the writer, even in ge-
NAL Baltimore, did not himself have the blues
when he wrote, he must have had the unwOnt-
ed faculty of seeing darkness by daylight. sa.s
Such person does injustice to divine Provi-
dence, and maligns the real facts in the case.
The blessings of Heaven are more equally dis
rtibuted through the successive seasons than
many are willing to allow. Said Solomon,
"God hath made every thing beautiful IN its
time" If green things are beautiful in sum-
mer, equally so are the white fields of winter.
If the teeming earth lies at rest in her slum
bers during the winter, she only thus allows
| her human occupants to enjoy themselves the
more merrily while she sleeps. Winter in the
North is after all, the liveliest and merriest
season of the whole year. The timely SHOWS
give us railroads in every direction through
forests, field and lawn" and the music of the
bells imparts livelness to the scene.
The social effects of winter, too, are Of ines
Unable value and importance to our communi-
ties There is then more time for visiting and
for reading, for lyceums and other literary as
sociations which abound in New England. 1t
is to the rigors of a northern winter that we
are indebted for much of our moral and social
pre-eminence over the sunny South ihsai. d.
With the December solstice winter has be-
gun. Let the long evenings now before us be
well appropriated to purposes of intellectual
Improvement and social happiness. As the
father returns to his fireside from the tolls and
cares of busy life, let him arrange for certain
evenings in the week. system OF judicious
family reading. Let him select some useful
works Of history, biography, travels, &C., and
cause them to be read in course by some MEM
Der or members of his household, taking care
to give variety and interest to the sittings by
seasonable conversations involving useful hints
and suggestions as the exercises proceed. In
this way he may save his children from vain
and careless reading within doors, and from
bad company and vicious influences abroad,
and thus confer a lasting good upon his rising
family. No person deserves to enjoy the rela-
ton or the honored name of father who does
not by some such system, take good care to
feed the minds Of his offspring with salutary
intellectual and moral food as well as to pro-
vide for their mere animal wants. "The mind
is the stature OF the man" and that should en-
gage the first care and the highest thoughts of
every parent to whom is committed the solemn
responsibility of so training up the children
which God has committed to their care, that
when they become old they will not depart
from the right way. 10 TRAxI.