A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 21, 1881

A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE

Wendell Phillips related the following in his address a short time ago: In a railway car, once, a man, about sixty years old, came to sit beside me. He had heard me lecture the evening before on temperance. "I am master of a ship," said he, "sailing out of New York, and have just returned from my fiftieth voyage across the Atlantic. About thirty years ago I was a sot; shipped while dead drunk, as one of a crew, and was carried on board like a log. When I came to, the Captain sent for me. He asked me, 'Do you remember your mother?' I told him she had died before I could remember anything. 'Well,' said he, 'I am a Vermont man. When I was young I was crazy to go to sea.' At last my mother consented that I should seek my fortune in New York. He told how she stood on one side the garden gate and he on the other, when, with his bundle on his arm, he was ready to walk to the next town. She said to him, 'My boy, I don't know anything about towns, and I never saw the sea, but they tell me those great towns are sinks of wickedness, and make thousands of drunkards. Now, promise me you'll never drink a drop liquor.' He said, 'I laid my hand in hers and promised, as I looked into her eyes for the last time. She died soon after. I've been on every sea, seen the worst kinds of life and men—they laughed at me as a milksop, and wanted to know if I was a coward. But when they offered me liquor I saw my mother across the gate, and I never drank a drop. It has been my sheet-anchor; I owe all to that. Would you like to take that pledge?' said he. My companion took it, and he added, 'it has saved me. I have a fine ship, wife, and children, at home, and I have helped others.' How far that little candle threw its beams! That earnest mother saved two men to virtue and usefulness—how many more, He who sees all alone tell."