Letters to a Daughter by Mother

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 18, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 28.

Letters to a Daughter

By Mother

By a Mother

Conscientiousness — Faithfulness

MY DEAR DAUGHTER,—

It hardly seems possible that already half of your precious preparation time is past. Your account of your experience is intensely interesting to us. Your father and I can scarcely realize that our little girl has grown to the capacity of such grave responsibilities.

As you look back over the last two years, and trace the making of your fitness for your present trust, I am sure you can not but admire the wisdom of the makers of your course. You see now, do you not, the importance of much that seemed menial and irrelevant in the earlier months of your training?

I am sure you have been faithful to your best. It speaks volumes to us of the character of your work, that you should be trusted with this case. I want to recall to your mind that mistake about which you wrote me, and which caused you so much sorrow and mortification at the time. I believe it was on a piece of work entrusted to you by this same surgeon by whom you are now engaged. I remember well what a cross it was for you to face this stern man with a confession of your error, and tell him promptly and truthfully the facts, not shirking the blame. My heart bled for you. You remember that you felt he would never trust you again. You see now that that very circumstance proved a stepping-stone to your advancement. Thus do we rise by our failures. The doctor knows he can trust you, because you were brave enough to acknowledge your mistake. Honesty ever brings its own reward. It is “the best policy.” Do not harbor a falsehood even in thought, nor for one moment entertain a violation of your own conscience. Conscience is your heavenly Father’s best gift. It is easily wounded. Every untruth or injustice we inflict upon it, is a stab that weakens its force. It may be stabbed to death—the voice within silenced forever—and we left as a ship without a rudder.

This training you are getting, of having to follow so explicitly to the letter the directions of your physician, is a great education. It makes you alert and exact.

Do not allow yourself to be tempted to make false entry upon your chart. Should you dare to do it, your sin would find you out, and “something will drop dead within you.” Let not your concern be for the good opinion of others, but for the approval of your own conscience and your God. Emerson says: “A man passes for what he is worth. What he is, engraves itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes, in letters of light, which all men may read but himself. Concealment avails him nothing; boasting, nothing. There is confession in the glances of our eyes, in our smiles, in salutations, and in the grasp of hands. His sin bedaubs him, mars all his good impressions. Men know not why they do not trust him; but they do not trust him. His vice glasses his eye, demeans his cheek, pinches his nose, sets the mark of the beast on the back of the head, and writes, O fool! O fool! on the forehead of a king. If you would not be known to do anything, never do it.”

Remember there is really only one thing that counts, and that is character. Do not set your heart on the doing of some great thing, that may be beyond your reach, but do faithfully the thing at hand, be it ever so small. The large things will come by and by. Or if they never should come, your life-work would be nevertheless complete. What more can we wish for?

The widow’s mite is greater than the Pharisee’s thousands. Of the Bethany woman, the Master said, “She hath done what she could.” Her name has come down the ages as an inspiration to loyal response to present need; not to what we can not do, but to what we can do. It is all the loving Father asks of us, and man has no right to demand more.

“This faith that makes faithful enables us to rest in our humblest endeavor: The lawyer may not, can not, purify his profession; but he can be a pure member in it. The merchant can not stop the iniquitous practises of trade; but he can be an honest merchant, or else go out of business. The mother may not be able to keep down the shallow standards that bewitch her daughters; but she can pitch the key of her own life so high that the dignity of her soul will rebuke these standards and disarm them of their power. The father may not be able to keep his sons from temptations; but he can himself desist from the filthy habit, the loose language, the indifferent life, that his admiring child is more likely to copy from him than from any one else. Our lives can not escape disappointments and weaknesses; but if we could only have faith in the efficacy of doing all we can, there would flow into our lives a sweetness, a wholesomeness, a strength and a peace that would ultimately overflow into the world and into eternity.”

“What shall I do to be forever known?” “Thy duty ever.” “This did full many who yet slept unknown.” “O, never, never! Thinkest thou perchance that they remain unknown By angels’ trumps in heaven their praise is blown— Divine their lot.”