I shall take occasion hereafter, to remark on the stubborn and invincible apathy of the red men of our forests, in the endurance of slow fire, and all the forms of torture, which the ingenuity of Indian revenge can devise. I no longer trace this apparent insensibility to pain and fear, as I formerly did, to a more callous frame, and nerves of obtuser feeling. I see in it the astonishing result of their institutions, and the influence of public opinion upon them. In the same connexion, I shall remark upon the testimony which the conduct of martyrs bears to the same point. Place a sufficient motive before the sufferer, and the proper witnesses around him, and he may be disciplined to endure anything without showing a subdued spirit. The most timid woman will not shrink from a surgical operation, when those she loves and respects, surround her and applaud her courage. Leave her alone with the surgeon, and the very sight of his instrument will produce shrieks and faintings. The mad personage who leaped the Genesee falls, fell a victim, to the influence which encouraged vanity and ambition exert upon their subject to spur him on to any degree of daring. If the right application of a motive, so little worthy as the mere gratification of a moment’s vanity, can harden the spirit for such attempts, what might not be effected by a discipline, wisely guided by a simple purpose to impart force, energy and unshrinking courage, to meet and vanquish the inevitable evils of life? To me there is nothing incredible in the story of the Spartan boy, who had stolen the fox, and allowed the animal, while concealed under his mantle, to tear his entrails, rather than, by uttering a groan, to commit his character for hardihood and capability of adroit thieving. Parents, your children will be compelled to encounter fatigue, privation and pain, under any circumstances in which they can be placed. You can easily pamper them to an effeminacy that will shrink from any effort, and, if I may so quote, ‘to die of a rose in aromatic pain;’ to be feeble, timid, repining, and yet voluptuous. You can as easily teach them to find pleasure in labor, and in the sentiment of that force of mind, with which they can firmly meet pain, privation, danger and death. Train them for the world in which they are destined to live. Teach them to _quit themselves like men, and be strong_. Note 10, page 51.