Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1906-07-14

soldiers when they make their appoint
mcnts to West Point. AS rule it Is
far easier to make n soldier out Of
boy whose father and grandfather were
soldiers than to make soldier out Of
the son of n merchant or out of one
whose ancestors were tillers of the soil.
Learn the tendency Of your minds by
studying the records Of your ancestors
mental accomplishments. Our mental
acumen comes from them as well as
our physical equipment. "Whose son
art th0uW From whom didst thou
get the gray matter of thy brain?
Inheritance Of Capacity.
We inherit our physical and mental
tendencies, then, but we do more than
that We also inherit our capacities.
As some people are born with a mu-
sical gift or an artists gift or with
weak legs or with weak eyes, so some
people are born impulsve or lethargic
or gruff .Or gentle or lazy or energetic
or brave or cOwardly. Our way OF
dealing with the brain or the body Is
Just as much an ancestral heritage as
the body and the mind themselves.
Let me illustrate my thought by
very common incident Of everyday life:
Here, for instance, is a child born
with the quality Of cautiOusness well
developed. This child's father and
mother and grandfathers and grand
mothers were all cautious. The male
ancestors were not men of adventure.
They were not fishermen, defying the
storms off the banks of Newfoundland.
But these ancestors were quiet mer-
chants Of tho city. What is the resultf
The country boy who roams over the
fields barefOoted laughs at the city boy
as a coward. BY birth and education
he is in direct contrast to him and is
afraid Of nothing. The horses hoofs
md the barking dogs and the squirm-
ing snakes and the deadly tarantulas
mean no more to him than so many
harmless doves or fleeing cOttontail
rabbits In the one case the child both
by birth and by education is a cautious
child. while in the other, the country
boy, by birth and education, knows not
what physical fear means.
But let us go further and find this
inherited tendency in the moral and
the spiritual life. Here, for instance,
is child born the son and the grand
son and the great-grandson Of crimi-
nails. Oh, yes, those ancestors may
have been physically brave. They may
have been brave as highwaymen to
halt the stagecoach at the point Of the
revolver or brave as unarmed crimi-
nails to wrench the pistol out OF the
grasp Of the officer who came to ar
rest them. But for years those ances-
tors may have been living in the viii
ating atmosphere Of immortality and
sin. Now, can any one affirm that that
child. coming from such morally dis
eased ancestry, has as much disposi-
ton to live a good, moral life as has
the child who is the son and the grand
son and the great-grandson of Chris
tan parents? No, no! Their inherited
dispositions are different. The one dis
position almost sweeps the child off his
feet and leads him like running
stream away from God. The other In
herited disposition, like a swift moving
ctrrcht, ,4carries him toward God. The
body is inheritable. The mental acu-
men Is inherltable The dispositions Of
that body. mind and soul are also In
heritable.
Make Allowances For Them.
The sins Of the fathers and mothers,
as we'll rs their virtues, are visited up
on the children even to the third and
the fourth generations. | believe his
tory and statistics prove it. Now,
what are.to be the great practical de-
ductiOns? In the first place, l would
charge yOu TO have sympathy with
those who prenatally as well as by en-
vironment in childhood had a bad
start in life. DO not be too harsh upon
the wayward ones unless you find out
mother If even with all the good
physical and moral ancestral blood
flowing in your veins you have had
such a hard time to do right, how
much harder must it be for that man
10 do right who was born wrong and
whose early parental training has not
been what it ought to have been? BY
the law of birth you have no right to
Judge all men alike. 1t is not fair or
lust or right. Why are we not ready
to confess the difference of man from
man in moral and spiritual and a
physical sense?
In almost every family there are GER
tain moral or spiritual delinquencies to
be found in the ancestral records. We
do not speak much about their short
comings in public The family skele-
tons are nearly always put in the far
thest corners of the darkest closets.
We not only shut the doors of these
closets. but doubly lock them with
two different locks. Then we plug up
the keyhOes.
Now, my friends, l do not want you
to publish your past family difficult
ties. But what I do want is for yod
never to forget the moral weaknesses
Of that ancestor Just as you should
guard your body against the tendency
to consumption which you may have
inherited from your mother you should
guard against the special moral or the
spiritual weakness which you may
have inherited from your father OF
one Of your grandparents. Brother
you cannot afford to trifle with that
Intoxicating glass. You cannot afford
to do it any more than could Henry
Wilson, who was once vice president
Of the United States. For years he
was one of the very few prominent Of
fcials in the city Of Washington who
would turn down his glass at the pub
lie banquets. One day some one asked
him why he was so pronounced upon
the temperance question, and he re-
piled: Il was brought up in the home