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Page 41
Mrs. Adams burst into tears, and walked out of the room. Charles was
convinced that _she_ would not uphold his opinion.
"Certainly," said John, "I intend to provide for my children; but
_there is no hurry_, and"--
"There should be no hesitation in the case," interrupted Charles;
"every man _intends_ to provide for his children. God forbid that I
should imagine any man to be sufficiently wicked to say--I have been
the means of bringing this child into existence--I have brought it up
in the indulgence of all the luxuries with which I indulged myself;
and now I intend to withdraw them all from it, and leave it to fight
its own way through the world. No man could look on the face of the
innocent child nestling in your bosom and say _that_; but if you do
not appropriate a portion of the means you possess to save that child
from the 'hereafter,' you act as if you had resolved so to cast it on
the wild waters of a turbulent world."
"But, Charles, I intend to do all that you counsel; no wonder poor
Lucy could not bear these words, when I, your own and only brother,
find them stern and reproachful; no wonder that such should be the
case; of course I _intend_ to provide for my children."
"Then DO IT," said Charles.
"Why, so I will; but cannot in a moment. I have already said there is
no hurry. You must give a little time."
"The time may come, my dear John, when TIME will give you no time. You
have been spending over and above your debt--more than, as the father
of four children, you have any right to spend. The duty parents owe
their children in this respect has preyed more strongly on my mind
than usual, as I have been called on lately to witness its effects--to
see its misery. One family at Repton, a family of eight children, has
been left entirely without provision, by a man who enjoyed a situation
of five hundred a-year in quarterly payments."
"That man is, however, guiltless. What could he save out of five
hundred a-year? How could he live on less?" replied the doctor.
"Live upon four, and insure his life for the benefit of those
children. Nay," continued Charles, in the vehemence of his feelings,
"the man who does not provide means of existence for his helpless
children, until they are able to provide for themselves, cannot
be called a reasonable person; and the legislature ought to oblige
such to contribute to a fund to prevent the spread of the worst sort
of pauperism--that which comes upon well-born children from the
carelessness or selfishness of their parents. God in his wisdom, and
certainly in his mercy, removed the poor broken-hearted widow of the
person I alluded to a month after his death; and the infant, whose
nourishment from its birth had been mingled with bitterness, followed
in a few days. I saw myself seven children crowd round the coffin
that was provided by charity; I saw three taken to the workhouse, and
the elder four distributed amongst kind-hearted hard-working people,
who are trying to inure the young soft hands, accustomed to silken
idleness, to the toils of homely industry. I ask you, John Adams, how
the husband of that woman, the father of those children, can meet
his God, when it is required of him to give an account of his
stewardship?"
"It is very true--very shocking indeed," observed Dr. Adams. "I
certainly will do something to secure my wife and children from the
possibility of any thing like _that_, although, whatever were to
happen to me, I am sure Lucy's family would prevent"--
Charles broke in upon the sentence his brother found it difficult
to complete--"And can you expect distant or even near relatives to
perform what you, whose duty it is, neglect? Or would you leave those
dear ones to the bitterness of dependence, when, by the sacrifice or
curtailment of those luxurious habits which, if not closely watched,
increase in number, and at last become necessaries, you could leave
them in comfort and independence! We all hope for the leisure of a
death-bed--awful enough, come as it may--awful, even when beyond its
gloom we see the risen Sun of Righteousness in all his glory--awful,
though our faith be strong in Him who is our strength; but if the
consciousness of having neglected those duties which we were sent on
earth to perform be with us then, dark, indeed, will be the Valley of
the Shadow of Death. I do not want, however, to read a homily, my dear
brother, but to impress a truth; and I do hope that you will prevent
the possibility of these dear children feeling what they must feel,
enduring what they must endure, if _you_ passed into another world
without performing your duty towards them, and through them to
society, in this."
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