Show great men iden in their domestic relations IN BUSINESS EATING HP UP THE SOCIAL QUALITIES OF THE parent oarse OAISE OF the tue tue THE MORE MOKE LASTING OF tue TUB MOTHER the london times in a defence of life peer ages agres the other day apropos of baron markss recent elevation made a start startling declaration about aboul the imperfect manner in liz which v ich lawyers discharge their duties ditties as fathers the writer says nothing is more melancholy in general than the history of the succession to law peer agis ages a topic susceptible of ample illustration I 1 were we to accept lord challenge and enumerate the melancholy instances of the degenerate impoverished and disreputable des of great lawyers whose names er enc imber the hereditary peerage the ile family of a great lawyer is most moat frequently ill brought up the father is immersed in busi busl business the mother seldom equal to the position to which she is raised when a preat great lawyer is offered a peera gehe ins h As to consider whether ier ler his oldest son is worthy to succeed him and whether if he be lie will starve his younger chil chii children dien to provide him an estate suitable to the dignity degnit y to such a man one would have supposed a peerage for life a most welcome refuge but vanity carries it against prudence and modesty and lawyers must transmit their titles to posterity even while they are well assured that posterity will disgrace tafta ahk m it is but too true that the descendants of great reat lawyers have rarely if ever ien ten lengthened of their ancestral tree and though we should by no means go as far as to say that they are always a disgrace to their progenitors not been bien able to call to mind the name nam C of asin a single le eminent lawyer who succeeded in transmitting his genius or his talents to his ott off sprigg 1 auf bu is the information of the times an any y more true of lawyers law than of any other class of professional men who achieve eminence through the ixer exercise cise of the intellect ila iia have 1 I 1 the emin mi ent clergy orators p poets oets historians historia S philosophers been more fortunate milton bacon shakespeare Shak speare newton gibbon jeremy jere my taylor the leading Engli english sli representatives of thesa the six great g re at departments of intellectual activity left n no heirs co to their genius y and all the exceptions which millich can be found among their less distinguished di followers may be enumerated on ones fingers fil lIers A reason for this in respect to lawyers Is is glanced at by the writer in the times and it is 13 equally applicable to tb the other orders ord ers of intellectual tel tei eminence such men when uben they become fathers are mersed immersed Am in business and are apt to neglect their children this is one of the almost in evl evi lible consequences of too prolonged and excessive e intellectual labor it produces a mor lid iid activity of the cerebrum and gradually enfeebles the sentiments and the affections through which children are able to interest their parents and secure from them the kind of attentions which shape the destiny of the young to good ends As the strength of the affections Ife becomes bomes comes feeble the cravi craving tig for intellect intellectual lial ital en becomes more engrossing family duties kie tie become more irksome and disposed ed of more mores summarily and finall finally are looked upon as a tax to fo which none but simple simpie minded common place people whose time is of little or no value can afford to submit thus the mow mot monument nu of earthly fame is raised until u gradually its iti summit is burned buried in everlasting I 1 snows which no r ray ay cf human sympathy ever warms and wh erti etti nothing grows but ice this is the mos most unadulterated form of human selfishness and vet it is one for which the world is disposed to be most indigent dugent in eminence of any kind is apt to be respected ris ri ras s acted ec ted at whatever expense it lat is acquired the mass cf ef men will ivill bow to the sceptre of the intellect though like that 0 of f hernds He if rods the lives of all the children of a nor non 19 this tb is subordination of the affections to the intellect confined to men of letters it is as al common ampong our men of busin ses our successful merchants merc hants th tha e pleasure of conducting a large trade soon supplants the joys of the domestic circle and a father readily excuses himself for neglecting the society of his children by the reflection that he is working to accumulate wealth for their enjoyment ile he flatters himself that he lie toils for fo r his family it Is to gratify that intellectual intemperance to which we have already alluded which grows ly by what it feeds on exair extirpates extirpated pates the sentiments of love from the soul and makes monsters of i men monster lawyers law yere monster judges monster ster politicians monster ians monster merc mere merchants ants monster contractors monster speculators ula tors and many other kinds of monsters who are worshipped wor shipped as idolatrously as ignorantly and as foolishly within their respective spheres cf df inal influence bence as those canned and pictured dc de forini ties w which inspire the devotions of the chepa pai pa i gan pan vior ivor worshippers wor shipp shippers ers of china and japan of course it follows that these intellectual giants are ascertain to have obscure parents as to beget t degenerate children this leads bs us to notice a fact which a reference to the authorities ihori ties will verify that those who have achieved distinction among meb were more indebted to the virtues than to the intellectual capacities of their parents it is a familiar observation that the greatest men have had not illustrious but excellent mothers the j observation is substantially true and the reason sonis is that women generally maintain the equilibrium between their moral and intellectual activity more faithfully than men their sentiments are relatively more cultivated in christian countries than those of the sterner sex it is their ambition to make their children more worthy of admiration than thin of being admired themselves the woman of i whom this cannot be said ia is generally pro bounced a poor wife and worse mother such buch solicitude on the part of a parent works as mysteriously but as effectively in developing the ill e youthful character as the genial rays of or the sun upon lepon the tender plant when st augustin was yet a lad lie he mani mahi f ested tested an inclination to the doctrines of mani chee ism his mother who abhorred this sect begged one of the bishops to visit him and I 1 lead him back from his heresy go in peace 21 i lie he replied and keep on praying for him for it i is s impossible that a son for whom so many tears are arc shed should ever perish y Th the elove love iove of which those tears were the sign is the great I 1 power of or a parent and the bishop did not overestimate its efficacy when those tears are dried up and the parents love for his offspring is is converted into love for himself and arid when the activity of his nature is transferred entirely from the affections to the intellect the curse of qualified sterility descends upon him the power is given him of procreation Z his selfishness but I 1 not the faculties and talents which united to it would make him a calamity to his race N NY Y eve eye post |