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The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
page 18 of 142 (12%)
home, as well as abroad. God has in almost every case connected
enjoyment with duty, and sorrow with sin. But in no case is this
connection more intimate, than in the duty which children owe their
parents. And to every child who reads this book, I would say, If you
wish to be happy, you must be good. Do remember this. Let no
temptation induce you for a moment to disobey. The more ardently you
love your parents, the more ardently will they love you. But if you
are ungrateful and disobedient, childhood will pass away in sorrow;
all the virtuous will dislike you, and you will have no friends worth
possessing. When you arrive at mature age, and enter upon the active
duty of life, you will have acquired those feelings which will
deprive you of the affection of your fellow beings, and you will
probably go through the world unbeloved and unrespected. Can you be
willing so to live?

The following account, written by one who, many years after her
mother's death, visited her grave, forcibly describes the feelings
which the remembrance of the most trifling act of ingratitude will,
under such circumstances, awaken.

"It was thirteen years since my mother's death, when, after a long
absence from my native village, I stood beside the sacred mound,
beneath which I had seen her buried. Since that mournful period, a
great change had come over me. My childish years had passed away, and
with them my youthful character. The world was altered too; and as I
stood at my mother's grave, I could hardly realize, that I was the
same thoughtless, happy creature, whose cheeks she so often kissed in
an excess of tenderness. But the varied events of thirteen years had
not effaced the remembrance of that mother's smile. It seemed as if I
had seen her but yesterday--as the blessed sound of her well-
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