Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-04-16

ligious notions and I will give you a dress
that will cost $500, and 1 you may wear Il
next week to that party" The daughter
took the dress, and she moved in the gay
circles, and the gayest of the gay, that
night; and, sure enough, all religious im-
pressions were rome, and she stopped
praying. A few months after she came to
die, and in her closing moments said:
"Mother, I wish you would bring me that
dress that cost $500" The mother thought
it q 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 n 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 a mo-
mentous thing it is to be a mother?
4. 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
cipline exerted over him. she got abund.
ance compensation in the piety and the
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 a 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 flail
in the fathers hand comes down upon the
barn floor with a more vigorous thump.
children. Do you send them good news
alwaysY
Look out for the young man who, speaks
of his father as "the Governor" "the
Squire" or the "old chap" Look out for
the young woman who calls her maternal
ancestor the "old woman" 1.-THE eye
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 III the
pang Of hat mother who, after ! life Of
s~treet-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 n%onentities in a world where
only bravery and stalwart character can
stand the shock! But blessed be the
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 mother recon
pense, to see children coming up useful in
the world, retaining the lost, healing the
sick, pitying the ignorant, earnest and
useful in every sphere. That throws a new
light back on the old family Bible when
ever she reads it, n that will be ONT
ment to the the aching limbs of decrep-
itude, and light p the closing hours of
life's day with the gloPies of an autumnal
| sunset. q, ....
There she sits, the old Christian mother,
ripe for heaven. Her eyesight is almost
gone, but the splendors of the Celestial
City kindles up her vision. The gray
light of Heavens morn has struck through
the gray locks which she folded back
over the wrinkled temples. She stoops
very much now under the burden of
care she used to carry for her children.
She sits at home, too old to find her way
to the house of God; but while she sits
there, all the past comes back, and tue
children that forty years ago tripped
around her armchair with their griefs,
and joys and sorrows-those children are
gone now. Some caught up into a better
realm, where they shall never die, and
others out in the broad world. testing tho
excellency of a Christian mothers disci-
pline. Her last days are full of peace;
and calmer and sweeter will her spirit be-
come, until the gates of life shall lift and
let in the worn out pilgrim into eternal
%springtide and youth, where the limbs
never ache and the ayes never grow dim,
and the staff of the exhausted and decropit
pilgrim shall become the palm of the inn.
mortal athlete.