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666 BOOK OF THE A. AND A. KITE.
come the obstacles to faithful and punctual performance inter
posed by our indolence, our frailties, our passions, and the en-
thralments of business, pleasure, or ambition.
Be not offended, therefore, if we detain you for a few moments,
while we enumerate some of those duties, for the purpose of en-
abling you to see that we understand in what manner we are to
assist you if you continue to live, and in what manner to endeavor
to fill your places if you should be taken away from these children
before they attain such age as no longer to need our counsel and
protection.
Orator. Teach your sons and daughters that one may be
clothed in rags, may be occupied in the lowest business, may
make no show, be scarcely known to exist, and yet may be more
truly great than those who are more commonly so called ; for
greatness consists in force of soul, that is, in force of thought, of
moral principle, and love, and this may be found in the humblest
condition. For the greatest man or woman is that one who
chooses right with the most invincible resolution, who resists the
sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the
heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms, and most
fearless under menaces and frowns, whose reliance on truth, vir-
tue, and God is most unfaltering.
J. W. Teach them, first of all, to love, honor, and obey their
parents, for that not to do so is ungrateful, unnatural, and hateful.
Teach them to respect those older than themselves, and to listen
patiently to their counsel, and even to their reproofs, because, if
they are j ust, they ought to profit by them ; and if they are un-
just, they ought to be too glad, knowing them so, to be angry.
S. W. That the love which we bear to the country that gave
us birth is not unreasoning nor absurd, but is an instinct of oui
nature, implanted by God in mankind for the preservation and
Drosperity of nations ; that it is not artificial nor fictitious, but aa
natural and genuine as the love of a child for its mother ; that
indeed, our countiy is our mother; and when her honor and in