Chinedu Ezeh

Religious Mayhem Claims 30 in Bauchi

NO fewer than 30 persons, including four soldiers from the 33 Field Artillery Brigade, Bauchi, may have been killed in a fresh clash between members of an Islamic sect called kala-kato and security personnel in the Zango area of Bauchi Metropolis in the early hours of yesterday.

The kala-kato (which means “he has said”) sect claims to be an off shoot of the original Maitatsine sect of the 1980s.

Among the victims who died were 15 children between the ages of three and seven.

A cripple, Yusufa Abba, was said to have been slaughtered like a ram by the sect members.

A number of houses in Zango were set on fire by members of the sect who went on rampage demanding the release of their leader arrested by the authorities.

Affected, was Gambo Nabarasi whose house opposite the sect’s enclave in Zango area was burnt down completely. When The Guardian visited the Federal Low-cost House Estate, which is near the scene of the clash, sound of gunshot exchange between security personnel and the members of the sect still rent the air.

There was apprehension among citizens while all businesses in the area remained shut.

The bodies of the military personnel were being conveyed in a Hilux Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) by some of their colleagues.

The security operatives were seen trying to fish out the members of the sect who retreated into the hills nearby.

Governor Isa Yuguda, was again away in Britain when the crisis erupted. None of his officials was on hand to brief journalists on the situation. Among those killed, according to unconfirmed reports, were four soldiers drafted to the troubled area alongside other security operatives.

About four innocent children who fell victims were burnt when their parents’ house was set ablaze by the rampaging sect members.

According to an eyewitness, Ibrahim, who is one of the neighbours to the sect members, said that the residents started to sense trouble early yesterday when the preacher of the sect embarked on a sermon insulting other Moslem sects.

Ibrahim said that the preacher called other sects infidels.

“I live at the Zango Main Road but this street is called Saidawa. I was at the open preaching of the sect yesterday night (Sunday) and this morning (Monday) when the preacher questioned the rationale behind the killing of the dreaded Boko Haram members when all the sect members were preaching against is reality,” he said.

He added: “One of the listeners challenged the preacher and he was dealt with there while another who called on the people to leave the venue of the preaching was killed instantly and before we knew what was happening, the sect members had taken to the street burning down people’s houses and maiming others. It is very unfortunate this is happening again in Bauchi,” Ibrahim said.

When contacted, the State Police Command spokesman, Mohammed Barau, confirmed the crisis.

Barau said the command deployed a combined team of regular and Mobile policemen to the area to maintain law and order, adding that as at the time of this report, the command was still awaiting situation report from those on the field.

The spokesman said the Police Commissioner, Atiku Yusuf Kafur, was not ready to comment as he was awaiting directives from the Police Headquarters in Abuja.

Barau gave assurance that the situation was under control and it should be reported as such.

Meanwhile, as at the time of going to Press, a security meeting was going on between the Army and the Police Commands.

This will be the third religious crisis in Bauchi this year including the dreaded Boko Haram in June which claimed many lives and property.

From Ali Garba, Bauchi

Source: Guardian News

VATICAN CITY – A woman jumped the barriers in St. Peter’s Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI at the start of Christmas Eve Mass, but the 82-year-old pontiff got up unhurt and proceeded as planned with Thursday’s service.

Witness video obtained by The Associated Press showed a woman dressed in a red hooded sweat shirt vaulting over the wooden barriers that cordoned off the basilica’s main aisle and rushing toward the pope before being swarmed by bodyguards.

The video showed the woman grabbing the pope’s vestments as she was taken down by guards, with Benedict then falling on top of her.

The commotion occurred as the pope’s procession was making its way toward the main altar and shocked gasps rang out among the thousands who packed the basilica. The procession came to a halt, the music stopped and security rushed to the trouble spot.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini said the woman appeared to be mentally unstable and had been taken into custody by Vatican police. He said she also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who was taken to hospital for a checkup.

“During the procession an unstable person jumped a barrier and knocked down the Holy Father,” Benedettini told The AP by telephone. “(The pope) quickly got up and continued the procession.”

It was the second year in a row that there had been a security breach at the Christmas Eve service and this was the most serious incident involving the public in Benedict’s five-year papacy. At the end of last year’s Mass, a woman who had jumped the barriers got close to the pope but was quickly blocked on the ground by security.

That woman too wore a red hooded sweat shirt, but Benedettini said it was not immediately known if the same person was behind Thursday’s incident.

MaryBeth Burns from Paris, Texas, was about four people away from the woman who jumped the barriers and was filming the pope’s procession as the commotion started.

“All of a sudden this person sort of flew over the barricade and the Holy Father went down and all the security people were on top of it, a whole pile there, getting her off and him back up,” said Burns, who was visiting Italy with her family on a religious pilgrimage for Christmas.

“I’m really mad because I had a perfect shot lined up,” she added. “I’m still shaking.”

Benedict lost his miter and his staff in the fall. He remained on the ground for a few seconds before being helped back up by attendants. At that point, a few shouts of “viva il papa!” (long live the pope!) rang out, followed by cheers from the faithful, witnesses said.

After getting up, Benedict, flanked by tense bodyguards, resumed his walk to the basilica’s main altar to start the Mass. The pope, who broke his right wrist in a fall this summer, appeared unharmed but somewhat shaken and leaned heavily on aides and an armrest as he sat down in his chair.

Few people who were watching the Mass on giant screens set up in a rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square even knew that the pope had fallen, with many saying that either they weren’t looking or had arrived too late.

Benedict made no reference to the disturbance after the service started. As a choir sang, he sprinkled incense on the altar before opening the Mass with the traditional wish for peace in Latin.

The incident was the first time a potential attacker came into direct contact with Benedict, and underscored concerns by security analysts who have frequently warned the pope is too exposed in his public appearances.

There have been other security breaches at the Vatican.

In 2007, during an open-air audience in St. Peter’s Square, a mentally unstable German man jumped a security barrier and grabbed the back of the pope’s open car before being swarmed by security guards.

Then there was the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in 1981. John Paul suffered a severe abdominal wound as he rode in an open jeep at the start of his weekly audience in the Vatican piazza.

The pope is protected by a combination of Swiss Guards, Vatican police and Italian police.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., the Vatican has tightened security at events where the pope is present. All visitors must pass by police to get into the square, with those entering the basilica going through metal detectors or being scanned by metal-detecting wands.

However, Sister Samira, an Indian aide to Vatican officials who attended the service and saw the incident, said she is never searched by security when she attends papal Masses, and said the same holds true for other people in religious garb.

Burns, the U.S. pilgrim, said security had been tight, and that it seemed there was no way to have prevented the woman from getting to the pope other than keeping the public out altogether.

“This is Midnight Mass in the heart of our church,” she said. “I guess the Holy Father puts himself at risk every time he’s around anybody, any crowds really.”

In a similar incident, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was attacked as he was greeting the crowd at a political rally earlier this month. A man with a history of psychological problems hurled a souvenir statuette at the politician, fracturing his nose and breaking two of his teeth.

Benedict celebrated this year’s Christmas Eve Mass two hours earlier than the usual midnight starting time in a move by the Vatican to ease the pontiff’s busy holiday schedule.

Benedict has been remarkably healthy during his pontificate, keeping to a busy schedule and traveling around the world.

But in July, he broke his wrist during a late-night fall while vacationing in an Alpine chalet and had to have minor surgery and wear a cast for a month — an episode that highlights the risk he ran in Thursday’s tumble.

In his homily, delivered unflappably after the incident, the pope urged the world to “wake up” from selfishness and petty affairs, and find time for God and spiritual matters.

“To wake up means to leave that private world of one’s own and to enter the common reality,” Benedict said in Italian. “Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world.”

Benedict’s next scheduled appearance is at noon on Christmas Day, when he is to deliver his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” speech (Latin for “To the city and the world”) from the basilica’s balcony.

Source: Yahoo News

Nenwe Day is a cultural event usually celebrated in 1^st January with lots of pageantry, entertainment, cultural activities to engage and satisfy all in attendance.

2010 event will be a multi-celebration, parades of traditional dance from Nenwe and beyond. The famous (ORIGINAL) IKWIRIKWO Music will be the climax of this colourful occasion, which MTN Communications and a foremost Philanthropist, Dr. C.O Onuora are the key sponsors of this year’s event which one cannot afford to miss.

Date:	Friday, January 1, 2010
Time:	12:30pm – 6:30pm
Location:	St. Peter’s Field Nenwe in Aninri LGA, Enugu State

It was jubilation, celebration and excitement in South Africa last night as Kevin Pam, who hails from Jos, the Plateau State capital, carted home the $200,000, prize money in the Big Brother Africa competition, which lasted 91 days.

The 27-year-old graduate of English Language from the University of Jos won 45 percent of the total votes cast across the whole of Africa.

“I feel like President Obama now. It is God. I say thank you Africans. I just want the light to shine”, Kevin told Africans amidst huge jubilation in the arena.

The Managing Director of M-Net Africa, Mrs Biola Alabi, later presented a cheque of $200,000 to Kevin, who broke down in tears.

Emma from Angola came second, while Edward from Namibia emerged third in the contest. The very controversial Mzamo and Nkenna emerged fourth and fifth respectively.

Yesterday was the grand finale of chasing the largest reality series prize that M-Net has ever offered and almost certainly the largest reality TV cash prize on offer on the continent.

The very entertaining Nigerian emerged winner out of 25 contestants.

There were other two Nigerians: Nkenna and Geraldine, as well as representatives from other African countries like Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. Runner-up Edward won his native Namibia.

Kevin is described as “a complete package of what an entertainer should be”. Some watchers had said “he was fully aware of his limitation in the Revolution house. He most times ignores very sensitive utterances. ”

Kevin said he would like to travel to Hollywood to see a movie in the making. He also said he would spend his money on creating an entertainment empire and will also share some of it with friends and family who have stood by him.

In 91 days, over 1,000,000 SMS messages poured in to the show’s innovative strap-line where fans could post their comments and opinions for other fans to read.

The grand finale was fun all the way, as American music artiste Bow Wow thrilled the audience with his hit tracks. Most Nigerians hailed Kevin as a “role model” for displaying a “high level of morality.”

In anticipation of the Big Brother Revolution, he said: “I have raw talent, which isn’t enough anymore, and I am ready to grow.”

Influence of Female Character

1. Moral Effect.—It is in its moral effect on the mind and the heart of man, that the influence of woman is most powerful and important. In the diversity of tastes, habits, inclinations, and pursuits of the two sexes, is found a most beneficent provision for controlling the force and extravagance of human passion. The objects which most strongly seize and stimulate the mind of man, rarely act at the same time and with equal power on the mind of woman. She is naturally better, purer, and more chaste in thought and language.

2. Female Character.—But the influence of female character on the virtue of men, is not seen merely in restraining and softening the violence of human passion. To her is mainly committed the task of pouring into the opening mind of infancy its first impressions of duty, and of stamping on its susceptible heart the first image of its God. Who will not confess the influence of a mother in forming the heart of a child? What man is there who can not trace the origin of many of the best maxims of his life to the lips of her who gave him birth? How wide, how lasting, how sacred is that part of a woman’s influence.

3. Virtue of a Community.—There is yet another mode, by which woman may exert a powerful influence on the virtue of a community. It rests with her in a pre-eminent degree, to give tone and elevation to the moral character of the age, by deciding the degree of virtue that shall be necessary to afford a passport to her society. If all the favor of woman were given only to the good, if it were known that the charms and attractions of beauty, and wisdom, and wit, were reserved only for the pure; if, in one word, something of a similar rigor were exerted to exclude the profligate and abandoned of society, as is shown to those who have fallen from virtue,—how much would be done to re-enforce the motives to moral purity among us, and impress on the minds of all a reverence for the sanctity and obligations of virtue.

4. The Influence of Woman on the Moral Sentiments.—The influence of woman on the moral sentiments of society is intimately connected with her influence on its religious character; for religion and a pure and elevated morality must ever stand in the relation to each other of effect and cause. The heart of a woman is formed for the abode of sacred truth; and for the reasons alike honorable to her character and to that of society. From the nature of humanity this must be so, or the race would soon degenerate, and moral contagion eat out the heart of society. The purity of home is the safeguard to American manhood.

To Young Women

1. To Be a Woman, in the truest and highest sense of the word, is to be the best thing beneath the skies. To be a woman is something more than to live eighteen or twenty years; something more than to grow to the physical stature of women; something more than to wear flounces, exhibit dry goods, sport jewelry, catch the gaze of lewd-eyed men; something more than to be a belle, a wife, or a mother. Put all these qualifications together and they do but little toward making a true woman.

2. Beauty and Style are not the surest passports to womanhood—some of the noblest specimens of womanhood that the world has ever seen have presented the plainest and most unprepossessing appearance. A woman’s worth is to be estimated by the real goodness of her heart, the greatness of her soul, and the purity and sweetness of her character; and a woman with a kindly disposition and well-balanced temper is both lovely and attractive, be her face ever so plain, and her figure ever so homely; she makes the best of wives and the truest of mothers.

3. Beauty Is a Dangerous Gift.—It is even so. Like wealth, it has ruined its thousands. Thousands of the most beautiful women are destitute of common sense and common humanity. No gift from heaven is so general and so widely abused by woman as the gift of beauty. In about nine cases in ten it makes her silly, senseless, thoughtless, giddy, vain, proud, frivolous, selfish, low and mean. I think I have seen more girls spoiled by beauty than by any other one thing. “She is beautiful, and she knows it,” is as much as to say that she is spoiled. A beautiful girl is very likely to believe she was made to be looked at; and so she sets herself up for a show at every window, in every door, on every corner of the street, in every company at which opportunity offers for an exhibition of herself.

4. Beware of Beautiful Women.—These facts have long since taught sensible men to beware of beautiful women—to sound them carefully before they give them their confidence. Beauty is shallow—only skin deep; fleeting—only for a few years’ reign; dangerous—tempting to vanity and lightness of mind; deceitful—dazzling often to bewilder; weak—reigning only to ruin; gross—leading often to sensual pleasure. And yet we say it need not be so. Beauty is lovely and ought to be innocently possessed. It has charms which ought to be used for good purposes. It is a delightful gift, which ought to be received with gratitude and worn with grace and meekness. It should always minister to inward beauty. Every woman of beautiful form and features should cultivate a beautiful mind and heart.

5. Rival the Boys.—We want the girls to rival the boys in all that is good, and refined, and ennobling. We want them to rival the boys, as they well can, in learning, in understanding, in virtues; in all noble qualities of mind and heart, but not in any of those things that have caused them, justly or unjustly, to be described as savages. We want the girls to be gentle—not weak, but gentle, and kind and affectionate. We want to be sure, that wherever a girl is, there should be a sweet, subduing and harmonizing influence of purity, and truth, and love, pervading and hallowing, from center to circumference, the entire circle in which she moves. If the boys are savages, we want her to be their civilizer. We want her to tame them, to subdue their ferocity, to soften their manners, and to teach them all needful lessons of order, sobriety, and meekness, and patience, and goodness.

6. Kindness.—Kindness is the ornament of man—it is the chief glory of woman—it is, indeed, woman’s true prerogative—her sceptre and her crown. It is the sword with which she conquers, and the charm with which she captivates.

7. Admired and Beloved.—Young lady, would you be admired and beloved? Would you be an ornament to your sex, and a blessing to your race? Cultivate this heavenly virtue. Wealth may surround you with its blandishments, and beauty, and learning, or talents, may give you admirers, but love and kindness alone can captivate the heart. Whether you live in a cottage or a palace, these graces can surround you with perpetual sunshine, making you, and all around you, happy.

8. Inward Grace.—Seek ye then, fair daughters, the possession of that inward grace, whose essence shall permeate and vitalize the affections, adorn the countenance, make mellifluous the voice, and impart a hallowed beauty even to your motions. Not merely that you may be loved, would I urge this, but that you may, in truth, be lovely—that loveliness which fades not with time, nor is marred or alienated by disease, but which neither chance nor change can in any way despoil.

9. Silken Enticements of the Stranger.—We urge you, gentle maiden, to beware of the silken enticements of the stranger, until your love is confirmed by protracted acquaintance. Shun the idler, though his coffers overflow with pelf. Avoid the irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who “looks upon the wine while it is red;” him too, “who hath a high look and a proud heart,” and who “privily slandereth his neighbor.” Do not heed the specious prattle about “first love,” and so place, irrevocably, the seal upon your future destiny, before you have sounded, in silence and secrecy, the deep fountains of your own heart. Wait, rather, until your own character and that of him who would woo you, is more fully developed. Surely, if this “first love” cannot endure a short probation, fortified by “the pleasures of hope,” how can it be expected to survive years of intimacy, scenes of trial, distracting cares, wasting sickness, and all the homely routine of practical life? Yet it is these that constitute life, and the love that cannot abide them is false and must die.

Home Power

“The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise in solitary places.”—Helps.

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1. School of Character.—Home is the first and most important school of character. It is there that every human being receives his best moral training, or his worst, for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure through manhood, and cease only with life.

2. Home Makes the Man.—It is a common saying, “Manners make the man;” and there is a second, that “Mind makes the man;” but truer than either is a third, that “Home makes the man.” For the home-training includes not only manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the home that the heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is awakened, and character moulded for good or for evil.

3. Govern Society.—From that source, be it pure or impure, issue the principles and maxims that govern society. Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries, and they who hold the leading-strings of children may even exercise a greater power than those who wield the reins of government.

4. The Child Is Father of the Man.—The child’s character is the nucleus of the man’s; all after-education is but superposition; the form of the crystal remains the same. Thus the saying of the poet holds true in a large degree, “The child is father of the man;” or as Milton puts it, “The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.” Those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are rooted the deepest, always have their origin near our birth. It is then that the germs of virtues or vices, of feelings or sentiments, are first implanted which determine the character of life.

5. Nurseries.—Thus homes, which are nurseries of children who grow up into men and women, will be good or bad according to the power that governs them. Where the spirit of love and duty pervades the home, where head and heart bear rule wisely there, where the daily life is honest and virtuous, where the government is sensible, kind, and loving, then may we expect from such a home an issue of healthy, useful, and happy beings, capable as they gain the requisite strength, of following the footsteps of their parents, of walking uprightly, governing themselves wisely, and contributing to the welfare of those about them.

6. Ignorance, Coarseness, and Selfishness.—On the other hand, if surrounded by ignorance, coarseness, and selfishness, they will unconsciously assume the same character, and grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and all the more dangerous to society if placed amidst the manifold temptations of what is called civilized life. “Give your child to be educated by a slave,” said an ancient Greek, “and, instead of one slave, you will then have two.”

7. Maternal Love.—Maternal love is the visible providence of our race. Its influence is constant and universal. It begins with the education of the human being at the outstart of life, and is prolonged by virtue of the powerful influence which every good mother exercises over her children through life. When launched into the world, each to take part in its labors, anxieties, and trials, they still turn to their mother for consolation, if not for counsel, in their time of trouble and difficulty. The pure and good thoughts she has implanted in their minds when children continue to grow up into good acts long after she is dead; and when there is nothing but a memory of her left, her children rise up and call her blessed.

8. Woman, above All Other Educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart of humanity; he its judgment, she its feeling; he its strength, she its grace, ornament, and solace. Even the understanding of the best woman seems to work mainly through her affections. And thus, though man may direct the intellect, woman cultivates the feelings, which mainly determine the character. While he fills the memory, she occupies the heart. She makes us love what he can make us only believe, and it is chiefly through her that we are enabled to arrive at virtue.

9. The Poorest Dwelling, presided over by a virtuous, thrifty, cheerful, and cleanly woman, may thus be the abode of comfort, virtue, and happiness; it may be the scene of every ennobling relation in family life; it may be endeared to man by many delightful associations; furnishing a sanctuary for the heart, a refuge from the storms of life, a sweet resting-place after labor, a consolation in misfortune, a pride in prosperity, and a joy at all times.

10. The Good Home Is Thus the Best of Schools, not only in youth but in age. There young and old best learn cheerfulness, patience, self-control, and the spirit of service and of duty. The home is the true school of courtesy, of which woman is always the best practical instructor. “Without woman,” says the Provencal proverb, “men were but ill-licked cubs.” Philanthropy radiates from the home as from a centre. “To love the little platoon we belong to in society,” said Burke, “is the germ of all public affections.” The wisest and best have not been ashamed to own it to be their greatest joy and happiness to sit “behind the heads of children” in the inviolable circle of home.

The Mother’s Influence

A Good Name

1. The Longing for a Good Name.—The longing for a good name is one of those laws of nature that were passed for the soul and written down within to urge toward a life of action, and away from small or wicked action. So large is this passion that it is set forth in poetic thought, as having a temple grand as that of Jupiter or Minerva, and up whose marble steps all noble minds struggle—the temple of Fame.

2. Civilization.—Civilization is the ocean of which the millions of individuals are the rivers and torrents. These rivers and torrents swell with those rains of money and home and fame and happiness, and then fall and run almost dry, but the ocean of civilization has gathered up all these waters, and holds them in sparkling beauty for all subsequent use. Civilization is a fertile delta made by the drifting souls of men.

3. Fame.—The word “fame” never signifies simply notoriety. The meaning of the direct term may be seen from its negation or opposite, for only the meanest of men are called infamous. They are utterly without fame, utterly nameless; but if fame implied only notoriety then infamous would possess no marked significance. Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but who bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals and follows them to the grave.

4. Life-Motive.—So in studying that life-motive which is called a “good name,” we must ask the large human race to tell us the high merit of this spiritual longing. We must read the words of the sage, who said long centuries ago that “a good name was rather chosen than great riches.” Other sages have said as much. Solon said that “He that will sell his good name will sell the State.” Socrates said, “Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.” Our Shakspeare said, “He lives in fame who died in virtue’s cause.”

5. Influences of Our Age.—Our age is deeply influenced by the motives called property and home and pleasure, but it is a question whether the generation in action to-day and the generation on the threshold of this intense life are conscious fully of the worth of an honorable name.

6. Beauty of Character.—We do not know whether with us all a good name is less sweet than it was with our fathers, but this is painfully evident, that our times do not sufficiently behold the beauty of character—their sense does not [19]detect quickly enough or love deeply enough this aroma of heroic deeds.

7. Selling Out Their Reputation.—It is amazing what multitudes there are who are willing to sell out their reputation, and amazing at what a low price they will make the painful exchange. Some king remarked that he would not tell a lie for any reward less than an empire. It is not uncommon in our world for a man to sell out all his honor and hopes for a score or a half score of dollars.

8. Prisons Overflowing.—Our prisons are all full to overflowing of those who took no thought of honor. They have not waited for an empire to be offered them before they would violate the sacred rights of man, but many of them have even murdered for a cause that would not have justified even an exchange of words.

9. Integrity the Pride of the Government.—If integrity were made the pride of the government, the love of it would soon spring up among the people. If all fraudulent men should go straight to jail, pitilessly, and if all the most rigid characters were sought out for all political and commercial offices, there would soon come a popular honesty just as there has come a love of reading or of art. It is with character as with any new article—the difficulty lies in its first introduction.

10. A New Virtue.—May a new virtue come into favor, all our high rewards, those from the ballot-box, those from employers, the rewards of society, the rewards of the press, should be offered only to the worthy. A few years of rewarding the worthy would result in a wonderful zeal in the young to build up, not physical property, but mental and spiritual worth.

11. Blessing the Family Group.—No young man or young woman can by industry and care reach an eminence in study or art or character, without blessing the entire family group. We have all seen that the father and mother feel that all life’s care and labor were at last perfectly rewarded in the success of their child. But had the child been reckless or indolent, all this domestic joy—the joy of a large group—would have been blighted forever.

12. An Honored Child.—There have been triumphs at old Rome, where victors marched along with many a chariot, many an elephant, and many spoils of the East; and in all times money has been lavished in the efforts of States to tell their pleasure in the name of some general; but more numerous and wide-spread and beyond expression, by chariot or cannon or drum, have been those triumphal [20]hours, when some son or daughter has returned to the parental hearth beautiful in the wreaths of some confessed excellence, bearing a good name.

13. Rich Criminals.—We looked at the utter wretchedness of the men who threw away reputation, and would rather be rich criminals in exile than be loved friends and persons at home.

14. An Empty, or an Evil Name.—Young and old cannot afford to bear the burden of an empty or an evil name. A good name is a motive of life. It is a reason for that great encampment we call an existence. While you are building the home of to-morrow, build up also that kind of soul that can sleep sweetly on home’s pillow, and can feel that God is not near as an avenger of wrong, but as the Father not only of the verdure and the seasons, but of you. Live a pure life and bear a good name, and your reward will be sure and great.

Habit

It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his Errors as his Knowledge.—Colton.

There are habits contracted by bad example, or bad management, before we have judgment to discern their approaches, or because the eye of Reason is laid asleep, or has not compass of view sufficient to look around on every quarter.—Tucker.

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1. Habit.—Our real strength in life depends upon habits formed in early life. The young man who sows his wild oats and indulges in the social cup, is fastening chains upon himself that never can be broken. The innocent youth by solitary practice of self-abuse will fasten upon himself a habit which will wreck his physical constitution and bring suffering and misery and ruin. Young man and young woman, beware of bad habits formed in early life.

2. A Bundle of Habits.—Man, it has been said, is a bundle of habits; and habit is second nature. Metastasio entertained so strong an opinion as to the power of repetition in act and thought, that he said, “All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself.” Evil habits must be conquered, or they will conquer us and destroy our peace and happiness.

3. Vicious Habits.—Vicious habits, when opposed, offer the most vigorous resistence on the first attack. At each successive encounter this resistence grows fainter and fainter, until finally it ceases altogether and the victory is achieved. Habit is man’s best friend and worst enemy; it can exalt him to the highest pinnacle of virtue, honor and happiness, or sink him to the lowest depths of vice, shame and misery.

4. Honesty, or Knavery.—We may form habits of honesty, or knavery; truth, or falsehood; of industry, or idleness; frugality, or extravagance; of patience, or impatience; self-denial, or self-indulgence; of kindness, cruelty, politeness, rudeness, prudence, perseverance, circumspection. In short, there is not a virtue, nor a vice; not an act of body, nor of mind, to which we may not be chained down by this despotic power.

5. Begin Well.—It is a great point for young men to begin well; for it is the beginning of life that that system of conduct is adopted which soon assumes the force of habit. Begin well, and the habit of doing well will become quite easy, as easy as the habit of doing badly. Pitch upon that course of life which is the most excellent, and habit will render it the most delightful.