p. 11 | The Mother’s Part by Mrs. I. H. E.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 31, 1916

The Mother’s Part

By Mrs. I. H. E.

The future of the children lies largely in the hands of the mothers. “Children are what their mothers are,” it is said; and it may be as true to say, Children are what their mothers make them. In one of the beauty spots of our nation’s beautiful capital, I saw yesterday, slowly raising its marble whiteness against the blue bowl of the summer sky, what is to be one of the most stately and lovely monuments erected in honor of man. And I thought, as I looked at those perfect fluted pillars, any one of which would have represented wealth beyond their dreams to the boy Abraham Lincoln and his frail mother, of his tribute to her: “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” And to those who remember, this gleaming pile will speak perhaps as loudly of the mother who lived only ten years of her son’s life with him, but left her impress so completely on him, as of the Emancipator himself.

Many a mother has invested her life in her children—her time, her strength, her hopes, her plans, all that she had. And many a mother is doing the same thing today. If with this investment she keeps the lamp of faith and love to God alive in their hearts, if she sets high ideals before them, the investment must always pay, and pay well.

There are hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist mothers living in poverty, working daily far beyond their strength, denying themselves everything they desire, in order that their sons and daughters may have advantages that they never enjoyed. But not that they may gather to themselves, giving nothing again. No; they hope to see their children out in the great harvest field, taking some part in giving to the world the truth they love.

For the encouragement of such mothers, a number of our well-known workers have told how their mothers helped them. You will notice that one note sounds through all these tributes—poverty and self-denial and toil, hope and perseverance and prayer. The first of these may be yours against your will, the second may be yours if you will. Perhaps your choice for your children today may affect their whole future destiny. You may have no money to give them, but you can give them something better, a desire to gain an education, a willingness to work, a resolution that will overcome difficulties, and an unfaltering faith in prayer. Choose wisely, labor unselfishly, pray unceasingly, and many of you will have the joy of seeing your sons and daughters putting their young strength and courage into the Master’s service. MRS. I. H. E.

What My Mother Gave Me

My mother was a woman of strong faith and mighty in prayer. Her influence struck deeper than education; it powerfully affected my religious being. I became a Christian because she prayed. I cast my lot with Seventh-day Adventists because she prayed. I always wanted an education, and I suppose that desire was largely an inheritance from her; for she always encouraged my efforts to gain knowledge. Silver and gold she had none to give me for my education, but she gave me that which was far more valuable—a capacity to seek after God, and a desire to fit myself for his work. The formal education came after that, as a matter of course. I could not help getting it—someway, somehow.

An Educational Atmosphere

My mother had been a school-teacher before her marriage. She was therefore very naturally interested in the education of her children. I remember her efforts to have a district school established in our neighborhood, and of course remember my first start in the log schoolhouse across the road from our farm. My father was one of the first directors of that school; and my earliest experiences in board meetings were in the meetings of its board of directors, held in our sitting-room, where I, as a small boy, sat in the corner and listened.

There was an educational atmosphere in my boyhood home, which was an inspiration and an encouragement to me in seeking an education. Such an atmosphere should pervade every Seventh-day Adventist home. FREDERICK GRIGGS.

Mother’s Sympathy Helped

As I was the only son in a family of six children, father was very anxious, as I grew to manhood, to have me take charge of the big farm he owned. But I had an unquenchable desire to obtain an education. Father refused to give me any financial help; but mother sympathized with me, and wanted to see my wish gratified.

When I was eighteen years old, I resolved to leave home, and attend the State normal school. I lacked $135 of having enough to pay my expenses for

the first year. Mother had a well-to-do bachelor brother, and she persuaded him to give me a loan of $135 at six per cent interest, with the promise that she would pay it back if I did not. That one year at the State normal school enabled me to secure a teacher’s certificate, and I taught a country school the following year. After that I was able to meet my own expenses by teaching and canvassing until I finished my college course.

Mother’s sympathy, her persuasive pleadings in my behalf, and her prayers, broke down the first great barrier in my way, and started me on the road toward my cherished goal. C. S. LONGACRE.

What I Owe to My Mother

To my mother, more than to all other human influences combined, do I owe a debt of lasting gratitude. From my earliest infancy she was the inspiration of my life. It was her early instruction which led me to give my heart to God. Well do I remember how night after night, after I retired to rest, I would hear her praying audibly in her room, remembering each one of her nine children by name.

Reared in a humble home, and lacking advantages possessed by others more fortunate, my mother sought to inspire me with the idea of making the most of my opportunities, and of preparing myself for a life of usefulness in the cause of God. She and my father sacrificed the aid I might have rendered the family, and encouraged me to devote my time and my earnings to secure an education, so that I might have a part in this work.

When I was absent from home attending one of our schools, my mother’s frequent letters proved my inspiration, and nerved me for the hard problems I encountered. Later in life when as a colporteur and Bible worker, and still later as a licensed minister, I was endeavoring to gain an experience in the work of God, her continued letters were incentives to faithfulness and consecration, and the frequent assurance that I was the object of her intercessions gave me confidence and strength to meet life’s trials and difficulties. She rests from her labors, but her influence lives on in the lives her labors blessed. F. M. WILCOX.

Value of Mother’s Interest and Sympathy

I wish that somehow the dear, anxious, praying mothers of growing boys could always be conscious of their influence for good over these boys. A mother’s interest in a boy’s welfare is a great help to him. That interest brings to her boy smiles, sympathy, encouragement, and such other help as she possesses.

I shall ever be indebted to the interest and sympathy of a fond mother in my earnest desire to secure an education. When I was four and a half years old, my father died in the Civil War, leaving my mother in poverty, with three small children to care for. The pension allowed by the government to aid the widows and orphans of soldiers was a

great help to us, but was so small that it little more than met our daily needs for food. The struggle for means to meet other necessities was long and hard.

As I grew older, the prospect of securing an education looked very dark, but knowing my needs and desires, my mother tried to save a little from her small pension to help me. When Battle Creek College opened in 1875, I wanted to enter, but we could not manage the finances. The deep interest my mother manifested encouraged me to hope that I might get through some day. The next year we had nearly one hundred dollars, and with this I left Iowa for Battle Creek. The money did not last long, but my mother’s sympathy, counsel, and encouragement stayed with me through the first struggle. Somehow I fancy that her parting benediction has remained with me to this day.

Boys need more than money. That is important, but the mother-love expressed in words of interest, sympathy, counsel, and courage, helps boys to triumph. A. G. DANIELLS.

The Education of Her Children a Primary Responsibility

My mother took active charge of my earlier education, not leaving it to chance or to the “teacher,” as is often the case. To her the education of her children was a primary responsibility. She taught me the first and second grades at home, before sending me to school at six years of age.

Before taking me to camp meeting for the first time, she told me that while I was still in my cradle, she had dedicated me, her oldest son, in a special way to the cause of God as a laborer. This fact, and the way in which she communicated it to me, was, I am sure, an important factor in my conversion at the camp meeting soon after, and it gave direction to my efforts to secure an education.

Many times she told us of her own struggles in pioneer life, and the efforts she put forth to secure an education, in spite of the fact that she was able to attend school only six months. Her stories were an inspiration to industry and personal effort.

When I was old enough to work on the farm, it seemed necessary for me to drop my work during the busy summer months. My mother encouraged me to keep pace with my classes by studying evenings and attending school on rainy days. It did not rain often enough those days. But through my mother’s encouragement and help, I kept up with my classes, even during one summer that I remember well, when I attended school only one day each week.

It was largely my mother’s influence which led to the sacrifice necessary on the part of my parents to permit me, at the age of seventeen, to enter the colporteur work, and attend school at South Lancaster, Mass. Next to God, my mother helped me through all these struggles for an education, giving direction, words of encouragement, and inspiration to every effort, and remembering me daily, I know, at the throne of grace. E. R. PALMER.

Mother’s Devotion and Encouragement

In a little white cottage nestled at the base of the Allegheny foothills, where they break into the valley of the Ohio, still resides the little woman who, more than any one else on earth, gave me an early stimulus to get an education—my noble mother. Always a pious Methodist from her youth, she sent me regularly to Sunday school, even when I had to ride three miles on horseback to get there. She started me to public school the first September after I was six years old, to a teacher who boarded at our house. When present truth began to be preached in that same district schoolhouse four years later, she took me to see the prophetic and commandment charts, and hear the wonderful prophetic stories and Sabbath truth told by Elders E. H. Gates, D. M. Canright, and H. A. St. John, who stayed at our house much of the time.

Before that winter was over, mother, my two younger sisters, and I were Seventh-day Adventists. A new inspiration had come into mother’s life and mine—that I might be fitted for God’s service. Though a soldier’s widow, she had educated, by sacrifice, my older sister to become a successful teacher in the public schools, and now she longed for me to become a Christian worker, while she prayed for the conversion of my older sister and brother to the truth. She was rewarded in both.

One day the following spring, while for the first time I was driving a two-horse breaking plow in the field, at the age of ten, Elder Gates passed by. Doing faithfully the all-round work of a preacher in those days, he led me into conversation about plowing, and crops, and my youthfulness, up to the point where he said, “Some day you will want to go to our college at Battle Creek.” The impression made by that remark was never lost by me, nor by my mother, to whom, leaving my team standing in the field, I went at once to carry this new idea.

It took eight years for that idea to come to fruitage, but cherished in my mother’s heart as the ideal thing for her growing boy, and wet with her tears, and borne to heaven in her daily and nightly prayers, the idea did not die. Through her sacrifices, my efforts to earn money for the purpose, and the interest of a dear aunt who still lives, I arrived at Battle Creek College in September, 1888. Whatever I have done for God during the intervening twenty-eight years, I owe primarily, under him, to the devotion and encouragement of my mother. I hope to be a star in her crown. W. E. HOWELL.

My Mother’s Influence

Among my earliest recollections is that of having an intense desire to go to school. I was the tenth child in our family. My older brothers and sisters of course were attending school; and without doubt the desire to accompany them and not be left behind, was a great incentive in the matter. Neither father nor mother had very much education:

but they had a great desire that their children should be educated, and every effort was put forth to have all the work out of the way; and as I remember, it seems to me that all the matters of the farm and home were run with reference to letting the children attend school when it was in session.

I begged so hard to go to school when four years of age that my mother gathered me up one day, after the rest had gone, and carried me more than a mile, and set me down on the steps of the schoolhouse. I went in, and was kindly received by the teacher and by the rest of the school. I enjoyed that day; and as it seems to me now, there never was a day in school that I did not really enjoy.

My mother always took a deep interest in my education; and although we were poor, and my parents could not help me after I had finished the district school, my mother always endeavored to encourage me in my work. Later, when I was attending Battle Creek College, seeking to get an education to fit myself for usefulness in the cause of God, she expressed her interest in the matter, saying that she would rather go to the poorhouse than have me hindered in gaining an education. I have always felt sure that she meant every word of it; and when I know what feeling there was about going to the poorhouse in old age, I can appreciate more what it meant.

My parents, knowing that they would be unable to leave their children any property to speak of, felt that if they could give them a fairly good education, it would take the place of houses or lands received by inheritance, and would really be a better start in life. I am sure that their idea in this matter is correct, that nothing can be left to the children that will be of more value than an education. Little things in early life shape the entire course that follows. Perhaps I cannot even now realize how much the influence of my mother had to do with starting my feet in the direction that I have gone ever since, and in which I have found the greatest of pleasure. G. W. CAYNESS.