The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1880-01-09
Written for the Times.
A MOTHERS INFLUENCES.

IN your circumScribcu sphere OF life A.? Did 1t
ever occur to you, tired mother, that the thought
less and impatient word which escaped your
lips but q moment since sank deep into the heart
and mind of that blue eyed little daughter sit
ting at your feet and will bear fruit after awhile?
You may have forgotten it, but mark me she will
not, and when least You think of it that same
ugly word will be lispel by her rosy lips. You
will doubtless chide her for it, when, perhaps,
she will look up with grave wonder in her in
nocent face and say, "why, mama, you said thai
naughty word only yesterday, your very self ~
How shocked, how self rcbuked you must then
feel. But the 'cords we speak, though they may
shock us and astonish our little ones, are not so
potent for evil our actions, for they spread
far out from our homes and WELD power and
an influence separate and distinct.
1t is true that the character of the mother,
and the power of her influence, moulds the char
acter of her offspring, but do We take in the full
scope of 'comans influence upon al the relations
of society? Do we realize how thoroughly,
taste, morals, intellect, politics and religion are
moulded by our forming hand? All if VIC but
did, if this mighty thought, the knowledge of
this responsibility, would ever abide uppermo5t
in our thoughts, how humble and yet how ex-
alted it should make us feel. UumJt, in tha
we must feel our unworthiness; GRATED that we
are called of God to SO high destiny! 1t has
been said that the moral status of q community
is judged by its women and while cannot Ell.
trely subscribe to this belief know that We
are 90 be censurcd for great deal that is wror..
We should frown down upon wrong doing wher-
IL repar1nsq of IN wealth
high social position of the guilty one But there
is gentle way to do even this-a way that car
ries with it an influence for good that frowns
and bitter words must, in the nature of things,
fail to do. We should not draw aside our skirts
with the look and feeling which say, "Iam more
holy than Mou-stand thou aside No, q tn GUS
and times no but go to the guilty ones, pleNi
with them, kneet and pray with them if necessa-
ry, and in tho sanctity of our homes, in the
quiet solitude Of our closets, think on them then,
ask God to turn them from the error of their
ways. Cease not to pray ,0uh them and for them
antI we Jeet that our prayers have been heard.
There is no person on earth, however humrlc
their position in life may be, who does not wiell
an influence somewhere and somehow, either
for good or bad. We cannot, we must not shirli
this thought! Our influence though silent and
unfet, perhaps, by ourselves, is like o pebble
thrown upon the bosom of some fair lake the
little waves widen and circle, grows broader and
longer until they reach out, .fur out from the
source from which they spring. Just so with
our influence, it reaches, in time, far away from
the sphere of our homes, and sometimes is for the
veal or woe Of more than we dream of now.
Our little children feel the powers of this in
huence every day, every hour, yes, every mo-
ment of their existence, and some day they will
be better men or better women, just rs the ma
ture Of that influence las been.
am disposed to think that girls, though very
much, are not so entirely Influenced by their moth
ers as the boys. The future husband comes
in to modify the yet plastic lines Of her charac.
ter and to improve deteriorate, according as it
may chance to be ; but mans opinion Of wo
man, in the abstract, or his character in the
main, is seldom touched by his wife, though un-
alterably moulded by the character of his moth
cr, and the nature Of the influence she has ex-
erted over him from infancy up to man hood
IT, when grown up, he marries woman Of low
m:ral type, and his mother has been as good
and pure this one is gnoble and debased, hr
looks back on the grandor nature as something
that was as good and true as this one is false
and through the blessed influence Of that good
pure mother can recognise the loveiness Of wo-
man kind in general, whatever his individual
experience may have been. But if the wife and
mother are both bad, (alas that this is some
times, but not often, the casc) how can we wonder
if he refuse to believe in the worth of the sex
nj ,,,l a., Ill 4 I. :
truest, whatever others may say. will venture to
say that no man who had good and noble
Mother was found to dcspisc the sex,
whatever his after experience may have been,
for almost all men who speaks ill Of women,
speak from the platform of their flial recolec-
tons. Mothers, fear, do not often think of this
nor how vitality impoI ant is the effect of the
influence which they exert over their sons, how
it will color, once and Gorerer, the tone of their
mind towards all women in the future, and make
man chiyalrous or boor, contemptuous or
spccful for the whole of his after life. Oh, this
thought weighs me down at times, sends me
down deep into the "valley of humiliation"
when sit in the twilight of these long evenings
when my mind takes q retrospect of the day fast
passing away, and ask myself. what has been the
nature Of my influence for this day-this day
gene past all-recall? =? Has my influence
over my little one been such will store lis
mind and heart with noble thoughts and good
and generous impulses? Will there be gsrnercd
up in his young and plastic mind, rich plants Of
thought that will bear good fruit after awhile?
Oh, mothers, watch over your little ones, mark
how soon they are moulded by the power of your
own individuality. How astonished / am at