Part 13 (1/2)
If parents knew more of dietetics there would not be so many dyspeptic stomachs and weak nerves and inactive livers among children. If parents knew more of physiology there would not be so many curved spines and cramped chests and inflamed throats and diseased lungs as there are among children. If parents knew more of art, and were in sympathy with all that is beautiful, there would not be so many children coming out in the world with boorish proclivities. If parents knew more of Christ, and practised more of His religion, there would not be so many little feet already starting on the wrong road, and all around us voices of riot and blasphemy would not come up with such ecstasy of infernal triumph.
The eaglets in the eyrie have no advantages over the eaglets of a thousand years ago; the kids have no superior way of climbing up the rocks than the old goats taught hundreds of years ago; the whelps know no more now than did the whelps of ages ago--they are taught no more by the lions of the desert; but it is a shame that in this day, when there are so many opportunities of improving ourselves in the best manner of cultivating children, that so often there is no more advancement in this respect than there has been among the kids and the eaglets and the whelps.
III. Again, Hannah stands before you as
A CHRISTIAN MOTHER.
From her prayers and from the way she consecrated her boy to G.o.d, I know that she was good. A mother may have the finest culture, the most brilliant surroundings; but she is not fit for her duties unless she be a Christian mother. There may be well-read libraries in the house, and exquisite music in the parlor, and the canvases of the best artists adorning the walls, and the wardrobe be crowded with tasteful apparel, and the children be wonderful for their attainments, and make the house ring with laughter and innocent mirth, but there is something woeful-looking in that house if it be not also the residence of a Christian mother.
I bless G.o.d that there are not many prayerless mothers--not many of them. The weight of the responsibility is so great that they feel the need of a divine hand to help, and a divine voice to comfort and a divine heart to sympathize. Thousands of mothers have been led into the kingdom of G.o.d by the hands of their little children. There were hundreds of mothers who would not have been Christians had it not been for the prattle of their little ones. Standing some day in the nursery, they bethought themselves: ”This child G.o.d has given me to raise for eternity. What is my influence upon it? Not being a Christian myself, how can I ever expect him to become a Christian?
Lord, help me!” Are there
ANXIOUS MOTHERS
who know nothing of the infinite help of religion? Then I commend to them Hannah, the pious mother of Samuel. Do not think it is absolutely impossible that your children may come up iniquitous. Out of just such fair brows and bright eyes, and soft hands, and innocent hearts, crime gets its victims--extirpating purity from the heart, and rubbing out the smoothness from the brow, and quenching the l.u.s.tre of the eye, and shriveling up and poisoning and putrefying and scathing and scalding and blasting and burning with shame and woe.
Every child is a bundle of tremendous possibilities; and whether that child shall come forth to life, its heart attuned to the eternal harmonies, and, after a life of usefulness on earth, go to a life of joy in heaven; or whether across it shall jar eternal discords, and, after a life of wrong-doing on earth, it shall go to a home of impenetrable darkness and an abyss of immeasurable plunge, is being decided by nursery song and Sabbath lesson and evening prayer and walk and ride and look and frown and smile. Oh, how many children in glory, crowding all the battlements, and lifting a million-voiced hosanna, brought to G.o.d through Christian parentage!
One hundred and twenty clergymen were together, and they were telling their experience and their ancestry; and of the one hundred and twenty clergymen, how many of them, do you suppose, a.s.signed as the means of their conversion the influence of a Christian mother? One hundred out of the one hundred and twenty! Philip Doddridge was brought to G.o.d by the Scripture lesson on the Dutch tiles of a chimney fireplace. The mother thinks she is only rocking a child, but at the same time she may be rocking the fate of nations, rocking the glories of heaven. The same maternal power that may lift the child up may press a child down.
A daughter came to
A WORLDLY MOTHER
and said she was anxious about her sins, and she had been praying all night. The mother said: ”Oh, stop praying! I don't believe in praying.
Get over all these religious notions and I'll give you a dress that will cost $500, and you may wear it next week to that party.” The daughter took the dress, and she moved in the gay circle the gayest of all the gay, that night; and sure enough all the religious impressions were gone and she stopped praying. A few months after she came to die, and in her closing moments said: ”Mother, I wish you would bring me that dress that cost $500.” The mother thought it a very strange request, but she brought it to please the dying child. ”Now,” said the daughter, ”mother, hang that dress on the foot of my bed,” and the dress was hung there, on the foot of the bed. Then the dying girl got up on one elbow and looked at her mother, and then pointed to the dress, and said: ”Mother, that dress is the price of my soul.” Oh, what a momentous thing it is to be a mother!
IV. Again, and lastly, Hannah stands before you
THE REWARDED MOTHER.
For all the coats she made for Samuel, for all the prayers she offered for him, for the discipline exerted over him she got abundant compensation in the piety and the usefulness and the popularity of her son Samuel; and that is true in all ages. Every mother gets full pay for all the prayers and tears in behalf of her children. That man useful in commercial life; that man prominent in a profession; that master mechanic--why, every step he takes in life has an echo of gladness in the old heart that long ago taught him to be a Christian, and heroic and earnest.
The story of what you have done, or what you have written, of the influence you exerted, has gone back to the old homestead--for there is some one always ready to carry good tidings--and that story makes the needle in the old mother's tremulous hand fly quicker, and the flail in the father's hand come down on the barn floor with a vigorous thump. Parents love to hear good news from their children. Do you send them good news always?
Look out for the young man who speaks of his father as ”the governor,”
the ”squire,” or the ”old chap.” Look out for the young woman who calls her mother her ”maternal ancestor,” or the ”old woman.” ”The eye that mocketh at his father, and refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.”
G.o.d grant that all these parents may have the great satisfaction of seeing their children grow up Christians. But, oh! the pang of that mother, who, after a life of street gadding and gossip retailing, hanging on the children the fripperies and follies of this world, sees those children tossed out on the sea of life like foam on the wave, or nonent.i.ties in a world where only bravery and stalwart character can stand the shock! But blessed be the mother who looks upon her children as sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.
Oh! the satisfaction of Hannah in seeing Samuel serving at the altar; of Mother Eunice in seeing her Timothy learned in the Scriptures. That is the mother's recompense, to see children coming up useful in the world, reclaiming the lost, healing the sick, pitying the ignorant, earnest and useful in every sphere. That throws a new light back on the old family Bible whenever she reads it, and that will be ointment to soothe the aching limbs of decrepitude, and light up the closing hours of life's day with the glories of an autumnal sunset!