Responsibility of Mothers.
How few mothers fully comprehend the responsibility of their position. To them a soul has been given to train for a higher existence. A pure soul! and if it becomes stained, blackened and withered, whose is the fault? Little sins, like little weeds, take root rapidly, and will grow and choke out the sweet blossoms of truth and innocency, unless, with never-failing earnestness and an unsparing hand, you sow the good seeds, and root out all the tendencies to sin and corruption. The little child’s soul may be likened to soft clay, and the characters which are engraved upon it must be daily retraced, with line upon line, until they become so indelible that nothing can ever efface them. Characters traced in water are instantly obliterated; those traced on clay sink into the yielding surface, but they require the aid of the graver’s tools to deepen the lines, else they, too, may be effaced. So we must do our work faithfully and thoroughly if we would rejoice when the harvest comes. Then we gather in our sheaves, fair or foul, according to the seed we sowed in youth. We sow in the morning of our lives, but we reap in our declining years—in pride and joy, or in utter wretchedness and woe. Daily the observant mother recognizes her own faults in her children. She sees developing in them her own selfishness, pride, resistance to restraint, uncharitableness to others’ failings and deceit. These sins crop out among the fair flowers of their innocence, and she beholds them with dismay and sorrow. Alas! these hydra-head serpents which have thrust their fangs into her heart, will now poison the sweet promise of her children’s lives unless she can strangle them before they have grown too strong. And, we would ask, what are the claims of society, compared to the holier claims which children have upon us? Years pass away with great rapidity after the third decade is gone, and before we realize it, our babies are men and women, ready to take an active part in the battle of life and to work for the kingdom of heaven, or for what? That is the question which is sometimes brought home to mothers with an agony exceeding any other that earth can give. The bells of the town hall in many large cities are tolled for lost children, and the solemn knell strikes terror into many a mother’s heart. But alas! if they were tolled for the children who are lost, utterly lost by the culpable neglect of parents, they would toll on and on, and their echoes would never be silent. Lost—yes, lost! lost in the dram-shops and saloons of nearly every town and village in our land—lost in the dens of iniquity—lost in the prisons of every State? Terrible are the records of sin! woeful the annals of crime! and yet where can we trace239them but to the neglect of proper guidance and discipline in childhood—to the influence of the bad example of parents? Our boys are led astray, they sin and continue to sin. If we can forgive the first offenses and lead the offender back to the paths of right, well for him and for us. But if we throw him off, if we upbraid and threaten him continually, then we surely drive him to the bitter end. Mothers, who groan over your work, whose nights are sleepless, and whose nerves are racked and taxed, seemingly to the utmost, think on these things! “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Truer words are not to be found in Holy Writ. If irritable speeches, cross looks and passionate rebuffs are the seed you sow now, be sure that the harvest will be of the same bitter nature. But if self is put far out of sight; if throbbing pulses and aching nerves are soothed and stilled by thoughts of “One mighty to save, all powerful to succor,” of Him who bore the cross so meekly, and said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven,”—then, oh, then, the harvest will bring you fully ripened sheaves, whose fruit will make your age to rejoice, and be glad. But if you will not attend to the discipline of the souls given to your keeping, how can you expect that hirelings will do the work? For children will soon rebel against the government of servants, and the mother will exclaim— “Were there ever such children as mine? What shall I do with them?” Forgetful that “the parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Can we wonder at the undisciplined state and sinfulness of many of the children of the present day, when their parents are so forgetful of their highest duty? How many daughters are lost in the giddy round of fashion—in idleness and selfishness forgetting the obligations to those who have toiled and watched for them from their infancy! And if they become wives, do they not continue in the same condition? Happy marriages and happy homes are among the sweet dreams of our youth, but how rarely do we enter into their possession! Experience, however, is our best earthly teacher; and God grant that it may teach many mothers to be more loving, considerate and unselfish!—Sel.