The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-06-27
WOMAN'S SPHERE.
BY A MOTHER.

what purpose should we do it? What will be
the result of our labor? When men take up
any branch of work they look forward to the
result of their labor.
The farmer, when he plows and sows his
field does not do it for the pleasure the work
affords him. He performs his labor in
WEAKNESS, but looking forward to bountiful
harvest he has courage to persevere.
The carpenter, when engaged in the con-
struction of house, does not saw, and ham,
mer, and plane without definite plan. The
work in detail may be mere drudgery, but as
he proceeds beautiful structure takes shape,
and when it stands complete be views his
work with satisfaction.
So it is in every occupation. And when
you tell US that rearing children is our work,
we ask for the means to perfect our work,
and protect it from the spoiler.
A few days ago a tramp came to my door
to beg breakfast. He was some mothers
work spoiled by liquor. The rumseller's
sign was in his face. Oh, my brothers, when
you speak SO lightly of a mothers work, do
you realize what it cost her? How after
months of suffering she goes down to deaths
door for her child then tends and guards
him through sleepless nights and weary days,
doing for him the most mental services
through anxious years. If his life is in dan
ger she will rescue him at the risk of her
own. Is he less dear to her when grown to
>. T., l. H., 10, ot,l
Don't tell me that if she does her duty her
children will be safe. I am tired of hearing
that falsehood.
have thought much about liquor drinking
ever since 1 became a girl of fifteen in the
mines of Nevada and saw SO many noble
young men ruined by it. Young men who
came from homes in the eastern states, who
had attended Sunday school for years, fell
victims to the social glass and the gambling
table as readily as those who had been less
favored. Men of fine education and brilliant
talents, who were SO conscious of their degra-
dation that they would absent themselves
my presence while under the influence of
liquor.
l resolved then to use my influence against
this fell destroyer, which robbed young men
of their manhood and their money when far
from the hallowed influence of home and
loved ones.
My resolution has been strengthened as I
viewed the wrecks along my pathway, and
u nd IF into
liquors in my family, and have taught my
children temperance principles. With what
result !?
l worked in woman's prescribed sphere
worked faithfully, as all who know me can
testify. What did I accomplish
l learned, as many other heart-broken
mothers have learned all over this beautiful
land, that the natural tendencies of the
human heart, which Gods word says &C is as
prone to evil as the sparks to fly upward"
and the example of men, and the influence of
the world was too much for me, and l stand
to-day living witness that a mother does
not mould the character of her boys
Boys don't take their mothers for their
models. Their mothers are women. The
boys expect to be men, and they hardly lay
aside their pinafores before they begin to imi-
tate the men around them.
1 have many times wondered with indigna-
ton that men, knowing this, persist in habits
that have such injurious effects on the young.
Before l had boys of my own, when heard
men say if they choose to use tobacco it was
their own business, was willing to waive the
question of whether buying tobacco was the
best possible use to which they could put their
money, and admit that it was their own bust
ness But when my poor foolish boy, only
ten years old, came home from school with
his teeth and lips stained, and his breath
poisoned with cigar stubs he had picked up
and chewed TO lo0k like q man, I began to
think it was my business. And when en-
treaties, and commands, and hiring, and, as a
last resort, threats and punishments could not
prevent him from using tobacco, and when
through its excessive use he became dull and
listless, his body stopped and enfeebled and
his intellect stupefed, felt such hatred of
the vile weed that it required all the grace I
could command to respect man who in
dulged in the useless and pernicious habit
Talk about home influence No one in
my family used either tobacco or liquor, yet
my boys use both, and since / have learned