A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE by San Benito Advance

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 13, 1881

A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.

By San Benito Advance

More than one of the great men of this nation have, in their ripe age, carefully put it on record that they owed the self-control and steadfast principle by which they rose to honor, directly to a mother's influence in the critical days of their youth. If any of us were asked what one thing chiefly saved him from waywardness and evil companionship, and has kept him to this day free from vice, I believe he would answer, "Under the grace of God, the reverence or the memory of a mother." Her appeal had power when all other influences failed. Her unspoken wish restrained us. Her purity and love made all that was base abhorrent. Her devotion was felt as a safeguard all along the walks of temptation. We would not wound or dishonor her. The mere remembrance of such a mother, though dead, has many a time been a man's life-long protection. And never till she dies do we know how powerfully her life has invested ours to shelter and purify it. It is a day of heart-searching to any man when he buries a true mother out of his sight. Then he sums up the blessing which he has received in her. And though he may be conscious that he discovers her worth only in part, he finds cause enough to wonder at the patience and faithfulness which

have been spent on him. It would be strange indeed if some contrite tears should not flow, as he recalls the haste, the ignorance, the willfulness, possibly the disrespect, with which that unwavering love has sometimes had to bear. There's many a man of us who would gladly redeem one hour of that lost part, that he might speak some words of tender sorrow for neglect irreparable, or of fuller gratitude for a loving sacrifice, never realized till it was taken from us forever.