A CRUMB FOR MOTHERS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 9, 1901

A CRUMB FOR MOTHERS

AN AGED MOTHER

At the present day most of the burden and responsibility of the training of the family are laid upon the mother. There is so much written and said for the benefit of parents, especially mothers, that I wonder the young generation is not far in advance of former generations in everything good. Why, even poets tell us that “the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world;” and the mother is attending mothers’ meetings and child-culture clubs, seeking advice and wisdom, sometimes from those who God knew were not capable of training children of their own, and so withheld from them that blessing, and gave it to some who seemed to have less wisdom; for God sometimes chooses “the weak things” to confound the wise.

O mothers, when you ask advice, ask it of God, and cast your care upon Him. And you who give advice and write for the benefit of parents, give the mothers a little more rest and comfort, and the fathers a little more burden for the training of the children. Let us search the Scriptures more on this subject. Why did God choose Abraham? — Because he would command his children after him. Let us not pass this over lightly; for we can all see that there is something wrong somewhere at the present day. Are we following God’s plan? Does God blame or rebuke the mothers? If so, where? Do we truly teach the Fifth Commandment? Are the young taught to love and honor their parents? Some who really wish to do missionary work will go to these willful young people, who are disobedient and headstrong. They wish to excuse themselves — and how natural the desire to lay the blame on some one else! Adam, you remember, excused his disobedience by reminding God that it was the woman He had given him who led him to disobey. How much easier for a child to blame an earthly parent! The missionary sympathizes with the erring child, and straightway pens an article for the benefit of those parents.

Do the children see this article?—Oh, yes; it is in the REVIEW perhaps; and the mother trembles to see her children read it. She knows not why; for it must be all right, coming from that source. The father perhaps never thinks about the effect on the children — another straw added to the mother’s burden. A poet has truly written, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful child.” The pain, the sorrow, the deep love, of motherhood are incentives to faithfulness, unknown to the father. The mother knows and ponders every trait of that child. Only God knows the burden she carries. Take courage, dear mother, God knows it all. Isaiah sings of his Beloved, who had a vineyard in a fruitful hill — a good place. And He planted in it the choicest vine, gathered out the stones, and made a wall around it. There was no opportunity for it to mingle with the wild grapes over there in the wood. No; no! He made every provision to gather good fruit for His labor. But when it came time for fruit, time for Him to rest and enjoy the fruit, alas! it was only sour wild grapes. Whose fault was it?

Dear mothers, and fathers, too, God alone knows how often that question has been wrung from sore and aching hearts. He it is who pities. He who said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children,” saw our sorrows. Let us be comforted in remembering His precious promise; nothing is too hard for God. Let us plead for our children and our neighbors’ children.