On the other hand, if one has led a life of uprightness and morality, and has obeyed physical law, his children will inherit his physical vigor, and his moral stamina. It becomes of exceeding great importance that these facts should be known to the young, in order that they may endeavor to overcome their own weaknesses, and strengthen their own good qualities for the sake of future generations.
This heredity, the transmission of the qualities of the parent to the child, is found among plants and animals as well as in the human race.
The seed of a plant produces another plant of the same kind, and the farmer knows when he sows wheat, that his harvest will be wheat, and he should know just as certainly that if he "sows wild oats" in his youth he may expect "wild oats" in his children. The character of the food we eat, the air we breathe, the occupations we follow, the habits we create, are the forces which shape not only our own destiny, but create the tendencies of our children.
With these thoughts in mind, the question of the use of narcotics becomes one of great importance. There are few, if any, tobacco users who are anxious that their boys should early begin the use of the weed.
But they do not realize the fact that in their own use of it they may have diminished the vital force of these boys, transmitting a tendency to disease, or perhaps an appet.i.te for the tobacco itself, and not only will the boys feel the effects, but the girls as well. As the thought of men is turned in this direction, proofs are acc.u.mulating of the evil results to the children of tobacco-using parents. A prominent physician says: "I have never known an habitual tobacco user whose children did not have deranged nerves, and sometimes weak minds. Shattered nervous systems, for generations to come, may be the result of this indulgence.
The children of tobacco-using parents frequently die with infantile paralysis. I have known two cases in which the crying of the baby could not be stopped until the tobacco-pipe was placed between its lips." Dr.
Pidduck a.s.serts that in no instance is the sin of the father more strikingly visited upon his children than the sin of tobacco using. "The enervation, the hypochondriasis, the hysteria, the insanity, the dwarfish deformities, the consumption, the suffering lives, and early deaths of the children of inveterate smokers bear ample testimony to the feebleness and unsoundness of the const.i.tution transmitted by this pernicious habit."
The effect of alcohol upon the child is equally marked, and from all sides comes the testimony that the degenerations do not stop with the individual, but pa.s.s on to succeeding generations. Sometimes the influence is seen in the stunting of the growth, both mentally and physically. Dr. Langden Downe reports several cases of this sort where the children had lived to be twenty-two years old and still remained infants, symmetrical in form, just able to stand beside a chair, utter a few monosyllabic sounds, and to be amused with toys. Dr. F. R. Lees, referring to the injury inflicted upon the liver by alcohol, says: "And recollect, whatever injury you inflict upon this organ, to your posterity the curse descends, and as is the father, so are the children." Dr. Kerr a.s.serts that the effects of injury to the mind and body may not always show themselves in the drinker himself, yet it is doubtful if his children ever entirely escape the effects in one form or another. These effects may be manifest in insanity, or in a tendency to diseases of the stomach, liver, bowels, lungs, or other organs; or with a like love for alcoholic stimulants. Not only may the child be weak in body but also in intellect. It is the statement of a score of observant physicians that the children of intemperate parents are apt to be feeble in body and weak in mind.
Another very striking thought in this connection is that while the physical effects may not show in the individual himself, nor in his children, they may be manifest in the deterioration of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A prominent temperance advocate who was laid up with rheumatic gout, which is apt to be the result of alcoholic indulgence, replied to a friend who wondered that he, a drinker of cold water, should suffer with this disease, "Yes, my ancestors drank the liquor and I foot the bills." In 1834 the Parliament of the British House of Commons made a report of intemperance in which they stated that the evils of alcoholism "are c.u.mulative in the amount of injury they inflict, as intemperate parents, according to high medical testimony, give a taint to their offspring before birth, and the poisonous stream of spirits is conveyed through the milk of the mother to the infant at the breast; so that the fountain of life, through which nature supplies that pure and healthy nutriment of infancy, is poisoned at its very source, and a diseased and vitiated appet.i.te is thus created, which grows with its growth, and strengthens with its increasing weakness and decay."
A tendency to commit suicide seems to be a marked bequest of an inebriate parent to his children, and it is well to state that in the opinion of medical men who are dealing with all forms of inebriety, the evils resulting to the children may be transmitted by parents who have never been noted for drunkenness. Continual moderate drinking keeps the body so constantly under the influence of alcohol that a crowd of nervous difficulties and disorders may be transmitted even more surely than from the parent who has occasional sprees with long intervals of sobriety between. It is not only through the drinking father that injury is done to the children, but the mother may have a vitiated inheritance from her father and transmit it to her children.
When we recall the fact that one hundred thousand men fall into drunkard"s graves every year, we are appalled at the thought of that vast army marching on to death and destruction. As we listen, we can, in fancy, almost hear the tramp, tramp of that "mighty host advancing, Satan leading on." In the front rank comes the one hundred thousand men who shall fall into drunkard"s graves this year, and behind them the one hundred thousand men who are to fall next year. They come with sound of revelry and song, and close beside them press a crowd of weeping wives and mothers and little children, starved, crippled, and murdered, who are to be fellow victims with the drunkard. Not very far back from the front row come one hundred thousand young men in the very prime of young, vigorous life, just beginning to drink their first gla.s.s of wine or beer, with no intention of ever standing in that front row, yet having started on the way. Back of them, one hundred little school boys who think it manly to ape the follies of their predecessors. Back of them, one hundred thousand little toddlers whose feet stagger in their innocent helplessness. Back of them, one hundred thousand mothers with babies in their arms. Oh, how sweetly those baby eyes look up into the loving eyes that are brooding over them. Is it possible those baby brows will ever lie low in the gutter, those sweet lips be stained by oath or gla.s.s; those crumpled rose-leaf fingers ever strike the murderous blow incited by alcohol? It must be, if that front rank of one hundred thousand drunkards is to be recruited, for the drunkards of the future are to-day babies in their mother"s arms. Do you who read these words intend to join this vast army of prospective drunkards, or will you belong to the cold-water army that is marching on accompanied by health, vigor, industry, prosperity, success and long life?
We must not be so interested in the inheritance of evil qualities as to forget the transmission of good. We read in Exodus, twentieth chapter, that the sins of the fathers are to be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate the Lord, but mercy will be shown to _thousands of generations_ of them that love Him and keep his commandments. As we have seen the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children in transmission of diseased bodies, perverted moral natures and weakened wills, and realize that the promise is being fulfilled in the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children, let us see if the other promise is being fulfilled also, in the mercy shown to thousands of them that love the Lord and keep His commandments.
An English specialist in children"s diseases has carefully noted the difference between twelve families of drinkers and twelve families of sober parents during a period of twelve years.
INTEMPERATE. | TEMPERATE.
| Produced 57 children; 25 died in | Produced 61 children; 6 died the first week of life. These | in first week, of weakness.
deaths due to convulsions, or | 4 had curable diseases. 2 oedema of brain and membranes. | showed inherited nervous defects.
2 were idiots. 5 dwarfs. 5 | This leaves 50 who were in epileptics. 1 had ch.o.r.ea. 5 were | every way normal, sound in body deformed. 2 became drunkards. | and mind.
This leaves only 10 who showed | during the whole of life a | normal disposition and development | of body and mind. |
If it were not a fact that health, purity, integrity, intellect and virtue were being transmitted to a far greater extent than sin and vice, there would be little good in the world, but the transmission of these good qualities is so extended, so like the air and the sunshine and the water, a common thing, that we almost forget to recognize it. When we turn our thoughts to the investigation of this phase of the subject, we find that vigorous parents have healthful children, that powers of intellect are transmitted, and that honesty and uprightness in the father warrants us in expecting the same in the son. We recognize the transmission of powers of intellect in the fact that where the parents have a peculiar talent, we very generally find the same talent in their children. We are acquainted with musical families, mathematical families, artistic families, and in the study of renowned people of the world we find evidences of this transmission of intellect. We also learn that the effects of education are transmissible, and if the parents are educated along a certain line the children receive education along that line much more readily. This fact becomes a wonderful incentive to us to build up all that is best in our own natures in order that through us the world may receive an impetus towards higher and better things.
Sometimes when your faults and defects press upon you with tremendous force and you find it so very hard to overcome them, you may be tempted to lay the blame on your ancestry who gave you such a dower, who by their lives handicapped you in your life-struggle. You may feel inclined to say with some writer, to me unknown, who says:
HEREDITY.
"Your strictures are unmerited, Our follies are inherited, Directly from our gran-pas they all came; Our defects have been transmitted, And we should be acquitted Of all responsibility and blame.
We are not depraved beginners, But hereditary sinners, For our fathers never acted as they should; "Tis the folly of our gran-pas That continually hampers-- What a pity that our gran-pas weren"t good!
Yes, we"d all be reverend senators, If our depraved progenitors Had all been prudent, studious and wise; But they were quite terrestial, Or we would be celestial, Yes, we"d all be proper tenants for the skies.
If we"re not all blameless sages, And beacons to the ages, And fit for princ.i.p.alities and powers; If we do not guide and man it, And engineer the planet, "Tis the folly of our forefathers--not ours."
But the lesson of these lines is not that you should lie back in inaction, making no effort to overcome your defects because they are inheritances. There is for you a wiser lesson in the theme than that.
When Marshall Ney was taunted with the fact that the Imperial n.o.bility had no pedigree he proudly replied, "We are ancestors."
There is a grand thought for you. If your ancestors did not do the best for you, will you not profit by your knowledge of this fact and do the best for those who shall look back to you as their ancestor? Supposing that your parents in their youth had said: "I will take care of my health so that my children may be born with vigorous bodies; I will make good use of my intellect so that my children will inherit an added capacity for acquiring knowledge; I will obey all laws of morality so that my children will by inheritance tend toward virtue;" and supposing that you to-day, with healthful bodies, keen intellects and upward tending moral natures, were reaping the reward of their forethought, would you not bless them for it?
You have no right to remain listless and discouraged because of your inheritances, whatever they may be. Hear the inspiriting words of Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x:
There is no thing you cannot overcome.
Say not thy evil instinct is inherited; Or that some trait inborn, makes thy whole life forlorn, And calls for punishment that is not merited.
Back of thy parents and grandparents lies, The great Eternal Will; that, too, is thine Inheritance--strong, beautiful, divine; Sure lever of success for one who tries.
Pry up thy fault with this great lever--will; However deeply bedded in propensity; However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet Is that great power that comes from truth"s immensity.
There is no n.o.ble height thou canst not climb; All triumphs may be thine in time"s futurity, If whatsoe"er thy fault, thou dost not faint or halt, But lean upon the staff of G.o.d"s security.
Earth has no claim the soul can not contest.
Know thyself part of the supernal source, And naught can stand before thy spirit"s force The soul"s divine inheritance is best.
The youth of to-day have in their own hands the molding of the future, not only of themselves, but of the nation, by the every day habits of their lives. By their thoughts and aspirations, by the moral tendencies which they are cultivating in themselves, they are determining what shall be the characteristics of the nation in a hundred years to come.
Shall this be, in a hundred years, a nation of drunkards? The young people of to-day are deciding that question. Shall it be a nation of invalids? This, also, the young people are deciding. Shall it be a nation filled with greed of gain, with a low standard of morals, with dishonest methods in business, or shall it be a nation wherein vigorous health is the rule, unflinching courage, absolute integrity and pure morality shall everywhere reign? What the young people of to-day are making of themselves physically, mentally and morally, is deciding what shall be the future of the country.
THE WHITE CROSS.
The cross is considered as an emblem of self-denial, the immolating of selfish wishes upon the altar of universal good.
In a n.o.bler sense it means not so much self-denial as the creation of n.o.bler desires, so that the individual wants only those things which he rightfully should have; he is not obliged to deny himself, because he asks nothing but that which is n.o.ble and pure. In this sense the cross is not so much the emblem of self-denial as an emblem of self-enn.o.blement--the exaltation of self.
The White Cross typifies the purifying of the life from the desire of mere sense pleasures. It means the n.o.ble manhood which claims for itself the privilege of chast.i.ty and the rewards of purity.
The White Cross army is composed of men and boys over fourteen years of age who unite to resist vice, to secure safety for the home and for society, to become all that becomes true manhood. In organized co-operation there is strength. It is not only the "long pull" and the "strong pull," but the "pull altogether," that is thoroughly successful.
Hundreds of men are living the white life individually, but are not a.s.sociated together in an effort to influence others. Such a.s.sociation would result in more rapidly spreading the idea of the responsibility of the individual, would create public opinion, would give moral support to those who might find their unaided strength inadequate to meet the temptations of the world, in short, would furnish the conditions favorable to the highest ideals of social and individual life.
The White Cross Society aims to unite men in such an organized effort for the elevation of moral standards. Its members are pledged to the keeping of a fivefold obligation. The first of these appeals to the chivalry latent in the heart of every man, making him a protector of every woman, however lonely or friendless she may be, recognizing her potential value to the race; protecting her against his own selfish desires, against the open and covert a.s.saults of other men, against her own unwisdom, if need be.
The second obligation pledges the White Cross knight to a pure heart expressed not only in conduct but in word. He will think and speak reverently of life in all its phases, and help to cleanse the language--written or spoken--of all that pollutes the heart or vitiates the imagination. The third obligation claims for the White Cross soldier the glory of living up to the highest moral standards, of being as pure as the n.o.blest woman that lives. The fourth recognizes the power of influence and binds the members to a helpful interest in all humanity.
The fifth covers the whole scope of life in the obligation to use every effort to fulfil the command, "Keep thyself pure." The heart of the true man must throb a quick response to the appeal made to him by the White Cross.
It means marital fidelity, it implies the sanct.i.ty of the home, it creates individual purity, and that insures social purity, it means a n.o.bler manhood, a grander womanhood, a safer childhood.
The appeal is made to you individually. Will you not become a White Cross knight? Will you not, even if you cannot join an organized society, become a standard-bearer of the White Cross, pledging yourself to its five obligations? Soon you will find others willing to unite with you in this great work, and the society will be formed.
Each one who reads this book may become a true and faithful knight of the White Cross, no matter where he may be, in city mart or lonely farm, in busy shop or quiet school, and not only may he be a soldier, but he may be a recruiting officer, inducing others to enlist under the White Cross banner.
THE WHITE CROSS PLEDGE.
"_Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see G.o.d._"
I PROMISE, BY THE HELP OF G.o.d: