348 FEEDING. 



with the vain expectation of reaping some \yonderful profits, 

 from what he has been taught to consider an improved mode 

 of managing bees. 



Such conduct, in its results, resembles very much the 

 noxious influences, under which too many of the children of 

 the rich are so fatally reared. With every whim gratified, 

 pampered and fed to the very full, how often do we see 

 them disappoint all the fond expectations of parents and 

 friends, their money proving only a curse, while not unfre- 

 quently beggared in purse, and bankrupt in character, they 

 prematurely sink to an ignoble or dishonored grave. Think 

 of it, ye who are slaving in the service of Mammon, that ye 

 may leave to your sons, the overgrown wealth which usually 

 proves but a legacy of withering curses, if you have neglected 

 to train them up in those habits of Christian morality, steady 

 industry, and noble self-reliance, without which the wealth 

 even of Crossus would be but a despicable portion I Think 

 of it, as you contrast its results in the bitter experience of 

 thousands, with the happier influences under which so many 

 of our noblest men in Church and State, have been nurtured 

 and developed, and then pursue your sordid policy, if you 

 can. " There is that withholdeth " from good objects, 

 " more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty ;" yes, to 

 poverty of Christian virtue and manliness, and of those 

 "treasures" which we are all entreated by Christ himself, to 

 " lay up " in the store-house of Heaven. Call your narrow- 

 mindedness, and gross deficiencies in Christian liberality, 

 nothing more than a natural love of your children, and an 

 earnest desire to provide for your own household. Little 

 fear there may be that you will ever incur the charge of 

 being " worse than an infidel " on this point ; but lay not on 

 this account, any flattering unction to your souls ; look 



