p. 87 | A Word to Mothers

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 29, 1871

A Word to Mothers.

PERMIT me to ask, Have you weighed the responsibility and realized the importance of your work. Yours it is to take the infant soul and mold and shape that soul with the impress it may never put off. Your hand is penciling on their hearts those characters of light and shade which will stand out in bold relief at the bar of God. The woman of fashion will educate her children to shine in the circles of the polished and the polite, and they who have made gold their idol, will qualify theirs for his service to whom they have given themselves. But, Christian mother, give your sons and your daughters to God. The temple of the Lord of Hosts needs polished stones, and to you he looks for those materials which must complete the structure. Rouse yourselves to the high ambition of preparing your sons to be pillars in the house of the Lord—your daughters to perform their part in the glorious work. Sisters, your task is great, and may not be accomplished with weak hands or a feeble heart. They only possess the necessary qualifications, who are often at the mercy-seat. The patience, the self-denial, the self-control, requisite, are found by those alone who, sensible of their weakness, have gone to the Strong One for strength. Mothers, bear your children upward upon your hearts. Plead with strong crying and many tears with Him who is able to help, and verily your work shall not be in vain. Happy are those children whose mothers exhibit the purity and simplicity of truth in all their deportment, and who are ever leading them onward and upward in the high course of moral and intellectual improvement. Unnoticed and unhonored as her work may be on earth, her name is written high in the arch of Heaven—its glorious portals will unfold to receive, not her alone, but also the children that He giveth her. The man who spends his life in the pursuit of fame perishes, and oblivion rests upon his name. The man who has sold his soul for wealth, vainly grasps in his dying hand his treasure—but the faithful mother's jewels are garnered up on high. But a little, and she shall realize her reward, and share the triumph of those of whom He shall say, She hath done what she could.—Advocate and Guardian.