The Blossoms of Morality

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Johnson Richard. The Blossoms of Morality

PREFACE

Ernestus and Fragilis

Juvenile Tyranny conquered

The Book of Nature

The Unexpected Reformation

The Recompence of Virtue

The Pleasures of Contentment

The happy Effects of Sunday Schools on the Morals of the rising Generation

The Happy Villager

The Indolent Beauty

An Oriental Tale

Generosity rewarded

An Evening Vision

The Anxieties of Royalty

The Generous Punishment

Female Courage properly considered

The beautiful Statue

Dorcas and Amarillis

The Conversation

Dr. Chamberlaine

Madam Lenox

Sir John Chesterfield

Lady Heathcote

Dr. Sterne

Edwin and Matilda

The pious Hermit

The Caprice of Fortune

The melancholy Effects of Pride

The Nettle and the Rose

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THE faint glimmerings of the pale-faced moon on the troubled billows of the ocean are not so fleeting and inconstant as the fortune and condition of human life. We one day bask in the sunshine of prosperity, and the next, too often, roll in anguish on the thorny bed of adversity and affliction. To be neither too fond of prosperity, nor too much afraid of adversity, is one of the most useful lessons we have to learn and practise in the extensive commerce of this world. Happy is the youth whose parents are guided by these principles, who govern their children as good princes should their subjects, neither to load them with the chains of tyranny, nor suffer them to run into the excesses of dissipation and licentiousness. The following History of Ernestus and Fragilis is founded upon these general principles.

Ernestus and Fragilis were both the children of Fortune, but rocked in two different cradles. Philosophy and Prudence were the nurses of the first, and Vanity and Folly lulled the second to his repose. Ernestus was early used to experience the various changes of the air, and accustomed to a regular diet; while Fragilis was treated in a very different manner, being kept in a room where, it was supposed, no rude wind could intrude itself; and hurtful delicacies were given him, under the idle notion, that strength is to be acquired in proportion to the dainties and excesses of our meals.

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The heart of this amiable spouse was, for some time, too full of grief for the misfortune she felt, to give any immediate reply: but, at last, recovering her usual spirits and sensibility, she withdrew her head from the bosom of her generous husband, on which it had been for some time tenderly reclined.

"Ah! my beloved partner of happiness and misery," said she, "why am I thus sorrowful and wretched? why do I thus fly in the face of Providence, for depriving us only of the baubles of life? Have I not still left an amiable and tender husband, and a dutiful and beloved son. These are treasures which I still possess – treasures infinitely beyond those I have lost – treasures that will support me in the stormy hour of adversity, and enable me to make a mockery and derision of every thing that the cruel hand of fabled Fortune can inflict."

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