Part 4 (2/2)
Does any one wonder that we have divorces, despair, infanticides, foeticides, suicides, bagnios, etc, and that other class, I fear not less nunation houses_”?
These you cannot ”police,” or ”localize” They, like a subtle poison, circulate through all the veins and arteries of that society called in fashi+onable phrase ”genteel,” penetrating the vital tissues of the social body, and corrupting, too often, the very fountains of life
CHAPTER VII
WHAT IS IT TO BE A MOTHER?
Let us again bear in irls of to-day will be theup children for heaven This is their grand ive angels to heaven! Would to God she only knew the real dignity and importance of her mission, and coious order that best prepare her for the duties of her subli! What mission can be more sublime, more sacred, what iving to the young child the priwhich conducts to higher perfection, than to instruct children in their religious duties This instruction of children is a royal, apostolic, angelic, and divine function _Royal_, because the office of a king is to protect his people froer _Apostolic_, because our Lord commissioned apostles to instruct the nations, and, as St Jeroelic_, because the angelical spirits in heaven enlighten, purify, and perfect each other according to their spheres, and their earthlyfor the salvation of us calls those who instruct others in the way of salvation, ”the substitutes of angels” Indeed this mission of mothers is divine; they are called to carry on the very work of God Hihty God has done from the creation of the world, and which He will continue to do to the end, has been, and will be, for the salvation of htened the world by His doctrine, and who still continues to instruct His people by His chosen disciples
Those mothers, then, who direct their children in the paths to heaven, who allure them from vice, who forels, and saviours Oh! what glory awaits those els, and even of God Hi for the salvation of the souls of their children If this employment is honorable for mothers, it is also not less ious instruction of children, but conferring on a class of our race, the weakest and reatest of all blessings? For while the physical develope, it is not so with the ious instruction only can develop the noble faculties of the soul The soul of a child, so to speak, would continue to live enshrouded in Pagan darkness, if the old in the world is but dross in coe
Our Saviour says: ”Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones, even a cup of cold water, shall not lose his reward”--(Matt x
42) May we not infer that those mothers who bestow upon children the treasures of divine knowledge will receive an exceedingly great reward?
If God denounces so severely those who scandalize little children: ”But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones, it were better for hied about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt xviii 6), what recompense will mothers not receive who instruct and sanctify theive their efforts and er of God, and to insure their own salvation They choose the best hty God gives to each one the graces proper to his vocation Mothers, therefore, who are devoted to the religious instruction of their children, races to arrive at perfection ”Whoever,” says our Lord, ”shall receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me”--(Matt
xviii 5) Whosoever, then, believes that our Saviour will not allow Himself to be surpassed in liberality, s on those e of God and the love of virtue
What obligations have not the ”angels” of children ”who always see the face of the Father who is in heaven” (Matt xviii 10), to pray for these ues and charitable substitutes, who perform their office and hold their place on earth The children will pray for theirto the prayers of children, and their supplications will ascend with the prayers of the angels
Do you desire, O Christian reat treasures in heaven, and to attain great perfection in this life?--Eious instruction of your children Do you wish to gain the love of our Lord, and to deserve His protection?--Teach your children to fear and love God; you cannot do anythingto His Divine Heart
It is related in the Gospel that ht touch theht them And when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, and said to them: ”Suffer little children to codo His hands on them, He blessed them” If Jesus was displeased with those who prevented little children fro to Him, what love and tenderness will He not have for those mothers by whose means they come to Him?
Oh! how consoled will they not be in their last hour, when they shall see the souls of those whoels, surrounding their bed of death, foruard to protect them from the snares and assaults of the enemy!
This is a happiness which those ive their children a good religious education Ah! would to God, I say once more, that mothers would understand their sublime mission on earth!
But it is just here that the difficulty lies: how can a ive the child these early lessons of piety and devotion, if she has never learned the heart to that Heavenly Father, and ask His, of whose name or law she has never been informed or instructed in the Public Schools? How can she ie which she herself has never learned in the Public Schools, and which she has always been taught to look upon as unnecessary? Can she teach the child to love God and keep His commandments, to hate sin, and avoid it for the love of God?--To love, honor, and obey its parents, not fro, it would love, honor, and obey God in the person of its father and th of days here below, but also the joys of heaven above? This lesson the poor ht in the Public Schools How can she teach her sweet child that it has an ihts of the soul, that it is this soul that sins by consenting to the evil inclinations of the heart; that when the child is teer, disobedience, theft, lies, or any ht as well as deed, that it el to co, and its body froood God? All this the poor ht in the Public Schools The State claiard this kind of knowledge necessary, else it would have provided it
Let us again bear in irls of to-day will be the wodon in is horeat, , and more really beautiful and useful, than when in her own house, surrounded by her children, giving the some plan of intellectual entertainrandest position in this world for a woman, and this home-audience is nearer and sweeter to the affectionate heart of a mother whose brain is properly developed, than all the applause and flatteries that the outer world can bestow It is not in the court-rooregation that won paramount This, however, is not easily understood and practised by woion And it is for this reason that such wo ladies whose education has been devoid of ination, always over-ardent and vivacious, has been still more stimulated by a class of exercises, public exaive them an unreal than a sober view of life, are not prepared to fulfil their divine mission on earth An illustration of this truth is the fact that quite recently over six hundred personal applications--irls of from fifteen to twenty--were made in one day at the Grand Opera House in New York to fill places in the ballet and Oriental marches of the spectacle of Lalla Rookh assuredly this fact is evidence that the women in New York, like soto do the hich properly belongs to the one mentioned above, to honest household labor There are thousands of ladies to who description, written by a lady herself, may well be applied:
”How is it that there is not e, and less sophistication in society, and that hters to fit the traps to get husbands Why, the young ladies of the present day are quite ashanorant of the name of the last new opera and its conant if they were asked whether they kne to s
”Above all, you can notice in the young ladies of the present day a madness beyond description for dress, for balls, theatres, watering-places, and all kinds of worldly areatest desire to appear ladies They go and spend the whole day at the perfuoldsures A few days ago, the father of one of these ladies had to pay a bill of forty-nine hundred dollars at the ony of thewoest possible waterfall, the sht They do nothing froht but read novels, and look at their white hands, or the passers-by in the street They all seem to be senseless creatures, for their capacious brain soars no higher than dress, fashi+on, pleasure, cohters, hundreds of parents at this moment would have a happier countenance, and not that careworn, wretched look that we so frequently see when honest people get in debt, incurred by living beyond their _ men would not be afraid to marry, consequently would not be led into the tee is one sure step towards morality, and consequently tends to the decrease of cri ladies act as catch-traps, with their painted faces and affected sweetness, to lure young men into the swamps of iniquity
”I frequently read co their proper duties; in fact, of their incompetency to fill the office they apply for: _and it is true_
”In Boston, a short tiirls were arrested in _one night_; and I doubt not that the greater portion of them could have _once_ been respectable servants, but considered the office and _narace to become carpenters and masons, and it is certainly as respectable to clean a house, and keep it in order, as it is to build it And what kind of a nairls now? What future have these women to look forward to?