St. Landry democrat., 1886-04-10

of JOY in Heaven, or whether across il
shall jar eternal discords, and after a life
of wrong doing on earth it shall go to a
home of impenetrable darkness and an
abyss of Unreasonable plunge, is being
decided by nursery song and Sabbath les
son, and evening prayer, and walk, and
ride, and look, and frown and smile. Oh
how many children in glory, crowding all
the battlements, and lifting million
voiced hosanna, brought to God through
Christian parentage!
One hundred and twenty clergymen
were together, and they were telling their
experience and their ancestry; and of the
100 clergymen, how many of them, do you
suppose, assigned as the means of their
conversion the influence of a Christian
mother! One hundred out of the 1870!
Phillip Doddrdge was brought to God by
the Scripture lesson on the Dutch tiles of
chimney Fireplace. The mother thinks
she is only rocking child, but al the same
time she may be rocking the fate of ma
lions, rocking the glories of Heaven. The
same maternal power that may lift the
child up may press a child down.
A daughter came to worldly mother
and said she was anxious about her sins,
and she had been praying all night. fhe
mother said: ooh, stop praying? J don't
believe in praying. Get over all these re-
ligious notions and l will give you dress
| that will cost $500, and you may wear it
next week to that party" The daughter
took the dress, and she moved in the CAV
| circles, and the gayest of the gay. that
| night; and, sure enough, all religious i'm
| presslons were gone, and she stopped
praying. A few months after she came to
| die, and in her closing moments said:
| Mother, wish yol would bring me that
| dress that cost $500" The mother thought
it a very strange request, but she brought
it to please the dying child. "Now," said
the daughter, mother, hang that dress on
the foot of my bed," and the dress was
hung there, on the foot of the bed. Then
the dying girl got up on one elbow and
looked at her mother. and then pointed to
the dress and said: "Mother, that dress is
the price of my SOUL" Oh what mo.
mentous thing it is to be mother?
a. Again, and lastly, Hannah stands
before you the rewarded mother. For all
the coats she made for Samuel, for all the
prayers she offered for him, for the dis
ance compensation in the piety and tn
usefulness and the popularity of her son
Samuel, and that is true in all ages. Every
mother gets full pay for all the prayers
and tears in behalf of her children. That
man useful in commercial life: that man
prominent in a profession; that master
mechanically, every step he takes in life |
has an echo of gladness in the old heart |
that long ago taught him to be Christian,
and heroic and earnest.
The story of what you have done, or
what you have written, or the influence
you have exerted, has gone back to the old
homestead-for there is some one always
ready to carry good tidings, and that story
makes the needle in the old mothers
tremulous hand fly quicker, and the flai1
in the fathers hand comes down upon the
barn floor with more vigorous thump.
Parents love to hear good news from their
children. Do you send them good news
always?
Look out for the young man who speaks
of his father as "the Governor" ''tSle
Squire" or the ''old chap" Look out for
the young woman who calls her maternal
ancestor the "old woman'' "The eve
that mocketh at his father, and refuseth to
obey his mother, the ravens of the valley
shall pick it out, and the young eagles
shall eat it,"
God grant that all these parents may
have the great satisfaction of seeing their
children grow up Christians But oh. the
pang of that mother who, after a life of
street-gadding and gossip-retailing, hang
ing on the children the fripperies and fol-
lies of this world, sees those children
tossed out on the sea of life like foam on
the wave, or nonentities in world where
only bravery and stalwart character can
stand the shock! But blessed be the
mother who looks upon her children as
sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.
Oh! the satisfaction of Hannah in seeing
Samuel serving at the altar; of Mother
Eunice in seeing her Timothy learned in
the Scriptures. That is the mothers recon-
pense, to see children coming up useful in
The world, retaining the lost, healing the
sick, plying the ignorant, earnest and
Useful in every sphere. That throws a new
light back on the old family Bible when-
aver she reads it, and that will be ONT
nent to the the aching limbs of decrep-
tude, and light up the CLOSING hours of
ife's day with the glories of an autumnaI
unset. ,
There she sits, the old Christian mother,
'ipe for heaven. Her eyesight is almost |
zone, but the spiendors of the Celestial
jity kindles up her vision. The gray ,
light of Heavens morn has struck through {
he gray locks which she folded back
'ver the wrinkled temples. She stoops !
cry much now under the burden of 8
are size used to carry for her children.
'he sits at home, zoo old to find her way
o the house of God; but while she sits {
here, all the past comes back, and the G