Trained to unvarying respect for the truths of revealed religion, in which she was herself a firm believer, and rigidly regardful of the dictates of an enlightened conscience, her gifted son was indebted to Mrs. Washington for his quick moral sense, and the unflinching adhesion to principle that so strongly marked every act of his public and private life. matron. The noble friend and pupil of Washington, and others among her numerous panegyrists, have likened the mother of the "Hero" to a Spartan With due deference to the high source whence the comparison emanated, it seems scarcely just to her who was its subject. Her life reminds us rather, of those celebrated women whose names are recorded with grateful affection and respect by St. Paul, in his Epistles,-those heroic, self-sacrificing friends and champions of early Christianity, and its devoted advocates, who were "succorers of many," who scorned not to "bestow much labor" upon the temporal necessities of the Apostle and his fellow-martyrs, and the stories of "The Little Hatchet," and of "The Sorrel Colt," almost the only authentic anecdotes of the childhood of the great American hero, and which also incidentally illustrate more than one of his youthful habits. who even "laid down their own necks" for them! Mrs. Washington was a CHRISTIAN MATRON, who derived her ideas of parental authority and gov. ernment from the same Book, wherein she sought her own rules of life; and she was as much superior to a Spartan mother, as are the inspired principles of our blessed religion to the heathen teachings which exalted mere physical courage above the highest virtues of humanity! CHAPTER II. 'T is the Divinity that stirs within us! ADDISON. -Must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, Such seed within her breast and Europe no such shore? BYRON. We are unable to present our readers with any particulars of the life of MRS. WASHINGTON, for several years previous to the American Revolution, except such as are gleaned from the published accounts of those troubled times, as associated with the history of her son. The incipient workings of the mighty spirit destined to achievements that should move the world, influenced the youthful Washington, when only fourteen years of age, to form plans for independent efforts in a more enlarged sphere of exertion than was afforded him by the employment and duties of home life. He had actually taken the necessary steps preliminary to entering the English Navy, when the disapproval of his mother prevented the accomplishment of his design. Our readers will be interested in the details respecting this incident furnished by Mr. Sparks: Washington's "eldest brother,* Lawrence, had been an officer in the late war, and served at the siege of Carthagena and in the West Indies. Being a well-informed and accomplished gentleman, he had acquired the esteem and confidence of General Wentworth and Admiral Vernon, the commanders of the expedition, with whom he afterwards kept up a friendly correspondence. Having observed the military turn of his young brother, and looking upon the British Navy as the most direct road to distinction in that line, he obtained for George a midshipman's warrant, in the year 1746, when he was fourteen years old. This step was taken with his acquiescence, if not at his request, and he prepared with a buoyant spirit for his departure; but, as the time approached, the solicitude of his mother interposed with an authority, to which nature gave a claim." "At this critical juncture, Mr. Jackson, a friend The eldest son of Augustine Washington. of the family, wrote to Lawrence Washington as follows: I am afraid Mrs. Washington will not keep up her first resolution. She seems to dislike George's going to sea, and says, several persons have told her it was a bad scheme. She offers several trifling objections, such as fond un. thinking mothers habitually suggest; and I find that one word against his going has more weight than ten for it.' She persisted in opposing the plan, and it was given up. Nor ought that decision to be ascribed to obstinacy, or maternal weakness. It was her eldest son, whose character and manners must already have exhibited a promise, full of solace and hope to a widowed mother, on whom alone devolved the charge of four younger children. To see him separated from her at so tender an age, exposed to the perils of accident and the world's rough usage, without a parent's voice to counsel or a parent's hand to guide, and to enter on a theatre of action, which would forever remove him from her presence, was a trial of her fortitude and sense of duty, which she could not be expected to hazard with. out reluctance and concern."* Chief Justice Marshall's version of the matter *Sparks' LIFE of Washington, vol. i. p. 10. |