ally invites to early rising. The
pleasant light, the music, at certain seasons, of some of the animated
tribes, and the joy which we feel in activity, and in the society of
those whom we love, all conspire to rouse us. If we have retired late,
however, and especially in a feverish condition, so that when we wake we
feel wretched, and, as sometimes happens, more fatigued than when we lay
down, other collateral motives may be needed.

I have said that everything invites us, in the morning, to rise early;
but it was upon the presumption that our parents, and brothers, and
sisters set us a good example. If parents and other friends lie in bed
late themselves, can anything else be, expected of children? Admitting,
even, that they rise early themselves, if they never speak of early
rising as a pleasure, and connect along with it, in their children's
minds, pleasant associations, they would be unreasonable to expect
otherwise than that their children should cling to the morning couch,
till they are fairly compelled to rise as a relief from pain and
uneasiness.

But when parents go farther than this, and actually discourage their
children from rising early, and use every means in their power short of
actual punishment--and sometimes even that--to make them lie still till
breakfast, in order that they may be out of the way, what shall we say?
And what is to be expected as the result?

There is hope, however, under the last circumstances. People sometimes
carry things to an extreme that defeats their very purposes. Thus it
occasionally is, in the case before us. This forbidding children to rise
early, and threatening them if they do, sometimes excites their
curiosity, and leads them to the forbidden course of conduct, simply
_because_ it is forbidden. Not a few persons among us possess the
disposition to be governed by what has sometimes been called the "rule
of contrary."

I might stop here to show that there is nothing so well calculated to
develope and improve the mind and heart, even of parents themselves, as
the society of those whom God gives them to train for Him and their
country. I might show that not a few of those traits of character which
render the company of many old persons rather irksome, especially to the
young, have their origin in their neglect of the young, and of keeping
up, as long as circumstances will possibly admit, juvenile feelings,
actions, and habits.

And yet what do we too often witness in li