"What is that?" said Caleb.
"Filial affection is a boy's love for his father or mother," replied Madam Rachel. "I said to myself, How will it do to appeal to Dwight's filial affection, to-day? I can say to him, 'Now, Dwight, be a good boy to-day, to please me. I shall be very happy to-night if Mary Anna comes home and says that you have been kind, and gentle and yielding all day.' But then, on reflection, I thought that that motive would not be powerful enough. I knew you had at least some desire to please me, but I had some doubt whether it would be enough to carry you through all the temptations of the whole day. Do you recollect what I did say to you, Dwight?"
"Yes, mother," replied Dwight, "you told me just before I went away, that if I was a good, pleasant boy, Mary Anna would want to take me again some day."
"Yes, and what principle in your heart was that appealing to?"
Dwight did not answer. David said, "Selfishness."
"Yes," said his mother; "or rather not selfishness, but self-love. Selfishness means not only a desire for our own happiness, but injustice towards others. It would have been wrong for me to have appealed to Dwight's selfishness, as that would have been encouraging a bad passion; but it was right for me to appeal to his self-love, that is, to shew him how his own future enjoyment would depend upon his being a good boy that day.
"Now, Dwight, do you think that what I said had any influence over you that day?"
"Yes, mother," said Dwight, "I think it did. I thought of it a good many times."
"Would it have had as much influence if I had asked you to be a good boy only to please me?"
Dwight acknowledged that he did not think it would.
"Do you think it would have had as much influence if I had asked you to do right to please God?"
"No, mother," said Dwight.
"Do you think that would have had any influence at all?"
Dwight seemed at a loss, and said he didn't know.
"Do you think it would?" said Caleb.
"Why, yes," said Madam Rachel, though she spoke in rather a doubtful tone. "I rather think it would have had some influence-not much, but some. He would not have thought of it very often, but still, I rather think, at least I hope, that Dwight has some desire to please God, and that it now and then influences him a little. But in boys generally, I don't think that such a motive would have any influence at all."
"Not any at all?" said David.
"Why, you can judge for yourself. Do you suppose that the boys at school, and those that you meet in the street, are influenced in their conduct every day, by any desire to please God?"
"Why, nobody tells them," said Dwight.
"O, yes, they have been told over and over again, at church, and in the Sabbath school, till they are tired of hearing it."
The boys were silent, and the whole party walked along very slowly, for several steps; and then David said that he thought that though the boys were pretty bad, he did not think they were quite so bad as they would be, if they did not hear any thing about God. He said it seemed to him that it had some influence upon them.
"O, yes," said Madam Rachel, "I have no doubt that what is said to them about their duty to God has a very important influence over them in various ways. Religious instruction produces a great many good effects upon the conduct of boys and men, even where it does not awaken any genuine love for God, and honest desire to please him. That is a peculiar feeling. I will tell you."
So saying, Madam Rachel paused, and seemed a moment to be lost in thought. The whole party had by this time gone almost the whole round of the walk, and were now slowly sauntering towards the house and as Madam Rachel said those last words, they were just passing along by the side of the rocky declivity at the back of the garden. Madam Rachel looked upon the rocks, and saw a beautiful little blue-bell growing there in a crevice, and hanging over at the top.
"What a beautiful blue-bell there is!" said she.
"Where?" said the boys, looking around.
"There," said she, "just by the side of the little fir-tree. How Mary Anna would admire it."
"I'll climb up and get it for her," said Dwight. "I'll have it in a minute."
He dropped his mother's hand, and began scrambling up the rocks. They were jagged and irregular fragments, with bushes and trees among them, and Dwight, who was a very expert climber, soon had the blue-bell in his hand, and was coming down delighted with his prize. He brought the leaves of the plant with it, and it was in fact an elegant little flower.
"Now, Dwight," said Madam Rachel, as they walked along again, Dwight holding his flower very carefully in his hand, "notice this feeling you have towards Mary Anna, which led you to get the flower. It was not fear of her,-it was not hope of getting any reward from her, I suppose."
"No, indeed, mother," said Dwight.
"It was simply a desire to give her pleasure. When you go in, you will take a pleasure yourself in going to her, and gratifying her with the present. Now, do you suppose that the boys generally have any such feeling as that towards God?"
"No, mother," said David, "I don't think they have."
"Nor do I. They are dead to all such feelings. They take no pleasure in pleasing God. They don't like to think of him, and I don't see that they shew any signs of having any love for him at all."
They walked along, after this, silently. Dwight saw how destitute of love to God his heart had been, and still was; and yet he could not help thinking that he did sometimes feel a little grateful to God for all his kindness and care; and at least some faint desires to please him.
It was nearly dark when they arrived at the house; and Dwight asked his mother to let him run and give Mary Anna her blue-bell. She was very much pleased with it indeed. She arranged it and the leaves that Dwight had brought with it, so as to give the whole group a graceful form, and put it in water, saying she meant to rise early the next morning to paint it. Dwight determined that he would get up too and see her do it.
CHAPTER XIII. THE JUNK.
A few days after this, when David and Dwight were at work one evening upon their mole, and Caleb was playing near, sometimes helping a little and sometimes looking on, Mary Anna came down to see them. They had nearly finished the stone-work and were trying to contrive some way to fasten up their flag-staff at the end.
"We can't drive the flag-staff down into our mole," said Dwight, looking up with an anxious and perplexed expression to Mary Anna, "for it is all stony."
"Couldn't you drive it down into the bottom of the brook, and then build your mole up all around it?" said Mary Anna.
"No," said Dwight, "the bottom of the brook is stony too."
"It looks sandy," said Mary Anna, looking down through the water to the bottom of the brook.
"No, it is very hard and stony under the sand, and we cannot drive any thing down at all."
"Well," said Mary Anna, "go on with your work, and I will sit down upon the bank and consider what you can do."
After some time, Mary Anna proposed that the boys should go up to the wood-pile and get a short log of wood, which had one end sawed off square, and roll it down to the mole. Then that they should dig out a little hole in the bottom of the brook with a hoe, so deep that when they put in the log, the upper end would be a little above the surface of the mole. Then she said they might put in the log, with the sawed end uppermost, and while one boy held it steady, the other might throw in stones and sand all around it till it was secure in its place. Then they could build the mole a little beyond it; and thus there would be a solid wooden block, firmly fixed in the end of the mole.
"But how shall we fasten our flag-staff to it?" said David.
"Why you must get an augur, and bore a hole down in the middle of it, and make the end of your flag-staff round so that it will just fit in."