relief; and as you are doubtless too full of feeling to express yourself, let the mouth of the babe and suckling speak for you. The babe wants to breathe. Leave it alone. If you must say something to it, you may begin to tell it, if you like, what you will have to tell it, times without number, if it lives. "Don't cry, you can do it." If you must do something, sing "Tis a lesson you should heed, Try, try, try again; If at first you don't succeed, Try, etc. Then your courage should appear; For if you will persevere, You will conquer, never fear, The breath and the cry come alike from the same organs. There is a temporary confusion in the exercise of the lungs and the larynx. It has to learn to breathe without crying. The little thing has everything to learn. Before the day is out it will have to try to get its own living, and it is as likely as not that it will cry over its work. After the tearful time of teething it will have to take to solid food, and then once and again, as a tyro in eating, it will bite its tongue. It will have to learn to stand by constantly falling, and if in the commencement of its career it be not petted nor fondled after its failures, it will take gradually as a matter of course the ups and downs of life. After a while all these difficulties will be overcome, and if we care enough about the child to hide our feelings, we shall save it from belonging to the helpless and hopeless class of mortals who cannot manage themselves and are constantly getting into trouble, and letting their friends know all about it. There are times, from the first to the last, in this mixed life of ours, when the body will have its own way, and it may, and it must be, allowed its liberty. There are times to cry. A good cry is found, so it is said by some people, to be a great relief, and we can understand that help may be gained in this way, under the vexations as well as under the sorrows of life. We are, however, to keep under the body, and to bring it into subjection. There are many tears that may be prevented, and there is much crying that should be stopped. We hold the opinion that if there were better training there would be more "good babies ;" and if the babies were better, there would, we believe, be more good people. Let us turn again to our new-born babe, and see what can be done. Except it be sickly, if we understand and anticipate its bodily wants-which, by-the-by, will involve no small amount of study, patience, and devotion-we shall be able to say, what many have said before us, who have nursed their babes from the birth, “Our children never cry!" The fact will prove that we possess the genius for nursery nurture, at least so far as the first few months are concerned. If the child be out of health, we admit that the case is altered. There will be special difficulties connected with its management, but these difficulties must be met and mastered. We shall have many a weary day and many a sleepless night, but yet there is something that we can do for the child, and much that we can do for ourselves, by intelligence and submission. Babies' cries differ, and they must receive different treatment. In some instances they are to be met by fun, in others by philosophy. By fun, we mean some harmless flash of humour, which is ever ready to show itself in a holy home; by philosophy we mean "the wisdom that cometh from above," which we all lack, and which none can receive except it be given by our Father in heaven. The parents of a sick child must live very near to God, and learn of Him that pity and patience which will be required for its nurture and admonition. Our healthy babe, however, except the greatest caution be maintained, will imperceptibly acquire a habit of crying. If its wants be misunderstood or neglected it will cry, and if the cry be followed by help, it will soon understand the association, and will learn to cry for anything that it wants. We have heard this conduct justified: "What else, poor little thing, can it do? it is its way of asking for what it wants." We do not accept as a necessary home institution the chronic cry of a healthy babe. Our belief is, that crying should be the exception, and not the rule. The babe ought not to be left to cry for anything that it really needs. If it be, then those who have it in charge have failed in their duty; and further (for it is in this way that the child is the father of the man), if the little urchin finds, as it will, that it can obtain anything it cries for, it will soon discover the power it possesses in making itself disagreeable to others. The babe will have been trained to be tiresome. It is in this way those children are reared whose gifts of teasing seem to be almost preternatural, and who are often acknowledged to be beyond human endurance. It is in these crying homes that you may find the birthplaces of those miserable members of society who are ever troubling others, in order that they may be comfortable themselves. There is but a step between crying for everything and crying for nothing; the one leads to the other; the force and impetus of the habit are in this direction. Use breeds a fatal facility. Babies' crying may become a vice. We all know the misery of a home where any one of its members has fallen into evil ways. The misery is often greater than it appears. Vicious habits demoralise, for they take away the heart; and it is not only the transgressor who suffers; the home being an organism, all the members suffer with it. The little sinner who has been allowed to fall into the habit of crying for nothing will not be alone in its iniquity; the other children will only too readily follow the example of selfishness. Even the parents, though they may not choose to acknowledge the fact, or may not, perhaps, be aware of it, are not free from its influence. The difficulty becomes a nuisance, and developes into a sin and the occasion of sin. Because this iniquity abounds, the love of some fathers has waxed cold, and "Babies' crying" has interfered with the home habits of other men besides those who work for their living. If the first cry of the first child be responded to with alacrity and intelligence, if it be regarded, as indeed it is, as the first oral summons to understand and sustain parental responsibility, nursery nurture will never become invested with insuperable difficulties, and nursery cries will never be uttered in vain. The vocation will be received as a call from God, and that power will be sought and obtained by which alone the courage will be maintained in the face of any difficulty, and the temper will be kept under any annoyance. An infallible remedy for "babies' crying" is to let it alone. If we are sure that the culprit has nothing to cry for, however long and loudly it may squeal and squall, it will eventually tire itself with its vociferations, and leave off when it discovers that they are of no avail. The mother, or the father, or the grandmother, or some of its relations, will be almost certain to attempt to interfere at a trying time, and except you care for the child a great deal more than they do, you will give way to the pressure that is put upon you, and the child will be comforted for its crying, and will have cried in vain. One or two thorough doses of this 'simple' ensure a perfect and a lasting cure. No one need fear any evil results on the child's feeling towards himself if he has been careful to select the time for trying to teach his child the lesson. We may learn from ourselves that they will ever remember with love and gratitude those who have been just and firm with them in the correction of their faults :— "Few are the fragments left of follies past; They that last For worthless things are transient. And out of good their permanence inherit." |