The Newberry herald. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1865-1884, 1873-05-14
A WORD TO PARENTS.

~ ApCSt ~ O"iL I" AVN "tet'
q feather, or stop an earthquake
with plaster, or drown a hurri.
cane with tin whistle, is about
as reasonable as to expect by ar
gument or advice to change the
inclinalions ofyoung people when
they are under the influence of
! the passion they call love, and
are determined to marry the OBJ
ject Of their desire.
! Say what you will, and do
: what will, and I will have him u
said one girl, and she did have
him, with intemperance, poverty,
beggary, insanity, and death to
close the scene.
: "Would you marry him if you
thought these stories were true p
said a christian minister to a
young relative who was commit
ting her heart to the keeping vf
one against whom evil charges
were brought by mutual friends
who had opportunity to know the
truth.
"No, I would not" said she; but
no one could convince her Of the
truth Of the statements. Twenty
Or thirty years Of pain and sor-
row, and broken heart and broken
spirits have done tho work for her
at last.
"Would you marry him if you
knew he drank liquor?" SAID a
woman to . fair young girl.
"Certainly l would-marry him
and reclaim him." was the an
swer; and she did marry him and
ere she had passed a month with
her husband she was advised by
her friends to leave him and af-
ter year and q half of abuse anL
sorrow she returned to her fathers
house, poor wrecked shadow Of
her former self-Aeeing from her
brutal, drunken, and adulterous
husband to save what little life
she had left.
Ten thousand girls stand on the
verge Of the same abyss to-day,
and nothing you can say, or I can
say, will affect them in the least,
except to hurry them on to their
terrible doom.
Why is it? Partly because
they have never yielded their
wills to parental control, and have
always had their own way, and
partly because their parents have
never warned them of their dan
ger, till it came upon them like
an overrunning food. Parents do
not win or encourage the conf
dence Of their children. Old peo-
pie forget that they were ever
young, and young people do not
remember that they may yet be
old. Mutual confidence is need
full to mutual comfort or improve.
ment.
If the mother would say to her
daughter IN early lifelong be.
fore the dangerous period comes
my child, there will come . time
when new feelings, impulses, in
stincts, and emotions will sway
you, and when the opposite sex
will awaken in you passions which
often prove stronger than Judg-
ment, reason and conscience and
coming under the influence Of
some young man, you will be lia-
BILE to lose your self:control, and
be swayed by their will, and think
his thoughts, and feel his feelings,
and say yes 10 his requests, be-
cause it is his will and mind that
makes you speak the words be
desires to hear: all this will come
and you will be liable to be swept
to ruin by the force of an influence
which you do not understand, and
can neither control nor resist and
VI which may be strong in proper
tion as it's source is vile and worth
less, and your only security from
it is to place your future in the
hands Of God, and watch your
paths, and thoughts, and avoid
even the outer circles Of this dan
gerous whirlpool, by investigating
and Judging first, and loving af-
forwards F.; and only yielding your
affections when and where un-
biased judgment will declare that
it is safe and right to yield them" l"
If such warnings and instruc-
tions as these were given from
day to day in early life, how many
a young girl would ponder the
path Of her feet, and walk care
fully that she might escape the
ruin that attend so many in their
wayward course.
Mothers and fathers, begin III
season with your children. Pre-
pare them to rightly estimate the
new instincts aud emotions ofma-
turing life, not by joking and hee:
toring them, but by a wise and
loving course. Win their conf
dence and keep it. Preserve
their privacies ; shield the secrets
of their hearts from the rude gaze
and mocking laugh, and let them
feel that it is the safest thing, they
can do to show their frst-love let
ter to their father, or whisper
their first tender secret into their