The Mother; Her Responsibilities by Dr. Madison C. Peters

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 4, 1915

The Mother; Her Responsibilities

By Dr. Madison C. Peters

MAKE rules for your daily life. Keep them conscientiously. Put the service of God first, and then show your sweetest piety in your home duties. Even though husbands are possessed by the spirit of the age, which is to claim the best of everything for self, still you must act on the principle of giving the first and the best of your time and thoughts to your home.

If I look not out for myself, who will look out for me? is the sentiment of our time. We talk on principle, but act on interest — self-interest. Our children are brought up not to think of duty or of work, but of amusing themselves, the middle-aged think of amassing fortunes and of improving their condition in life, the old crave comforts and luxuries, and care little what happens to others, with the result that society is in a rush and race for riches — a little more comfort, a little more luxury, a little more of this world’s goods. This love of self is at the bottom of the disinclination for the church, and is the real cause of the growing tendency to neglect the lofty duties and serious responsibilities of the home.

If you wives have such selfish, worldly husbands, what shall you do? Give way and sink to their level, or try by a loving and consistent example to raise them to a higher level? Paul’s wise counsel to husbands and wives who are not of one mind in religious matters may help you in your difficulty. Read 1 Cor. 7: 10-40. He was writing to those who had come over to Christianity from heathendom; and while he bids women not wilfully to marry unbelievers, he also counsels them to dwell with their husbands if already married, and to try to win them to the truth by good living. The same applies now: seek as much as possible for sympathy on the highest subjects in those you think of marrying or have married; and if you awake later to the

truth and find you have been mistaken, still follow Paul’s advice and make the most of a bad bargain by high thinking and right living.

Every earnest-minded mother, when she comes to consider her responsibilities toward her children, feels that she must first begin with herself; she must do her duty herself before she can make her child obedient. How can she teach her child to be upright, obedient, and straightforward unless she sets the example?

If mothers would do all the good the world expects of them, they must learn to keep themselves — the lower part of their natures, the fleshly impulses and natural inclinations — under strict discipline, exact obedience to rule, so that the spiritual, the nobler part of their nature, the unselfish strivings, may have sway, and the soul have control of the body.

If the mother would exercise all the good influence in her power over her children, she must strengthen and develop the higher side of her nature.

If baby may be influenced by the mother even before birth, for good or ill, why should she not learn to keep under her body and bring it into subjection,—in other words, discipline herself,—developing a calm and unruffled temper, not allowing her nerves to yield to alarms or fancies, leading a healthy life, philosophically accepting the discomforts and disagreeables that are her portion in God’s divine plan for the world? Peculiar are the trials of motherhood. They come, too, in depression of spirit, in weariness of body, in countless aches; but trials are not gusts of wind to carry us off our feet, but are meant to prove us and see if our wills are rooted in the right direction.

The leaves of the aromatic plant shed but a faint odor as they wave in the air, the gold shines scarcely as it lies hidden in the ore, the ragged crust of the pebble conceals from the eye its interior beauty; but let the aromatic leaf be crushed, let the ore be submitted to the furnace, let the pebble be cut and polished, and the fragrance, the splendor, and the fair colors are then brought out.

Discipline is absolute obedience and submission to the rule that we know to be binding upon us, and we know to be good for us.—Dr. Madison C. Peters.