The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-03-01

when they deserve it, and have SO re-
laxed their ideas of family discipline that
they would spoil all the youngsters of the
household by too great leniency. These
old folks are the resort when great trou-
bles come, and there is calming and
soothing power in the touch of an aged
hand that is almost supernatural They
feel they are almost through with the
journey of life, and read the old book
more than they used to, hardly knowing
which most they enjoy, the Old Testa-
ment or the New, and often stop and
dwell tearfully over the family record
half way between We hail them today
whether in the house of God or at the
homestead. Blessed is that household
that has in it a Grandmother Lois.
Where she is angels are lowering round
and God is in the room. May her last
days be like those lovely autumnal days
that we call Indian sum ner.
1 never knew the Joy of having
grandmother; that is the disadvantage
of being the youngest child of the family
The elder members only have that bene-
diction. But though she went up out of
this life before I began it, l have heard
of her faith in God that brought all her
children into the kingdom and two OF
them into the ministry, and then brought
all her grandchildren into the kingdom,
myself the last and least worthy. Is it
not time that you and l do two things,
swing open picture gallery of the
wrinlled faces and stopped shoulders of
the past, and call down from their heav-
emily thrones the godly grandmothers, to
give them our thanks, and then persuade
the mothers of today that they are living
for all time, and that against the sides of
every cradle in which child is rocked
beat the two eternities.
Here we have an untried, undiscussed
and unexplored subject. You often hear
about your influences upon your own
children-I am not talking about that.
What about your influence upon the
Twentieth century, upon the Thirtieth
century, upon the Fortieth century, upon
the year two thousand, upon the year
four thousand, if the world lasts SO long.
The world stood four thousand years be-
fore Christ came; it is not unreasonable
to suppose that it may stand four thous-
and years after his arrival. Four thou
sand years the world swung off in sin;
four thousand years it may be swinging
back into righteousness. By the ordin-
ary rate of multiplication of the
worlds population, in century your
descendants will be over six hun
dred, and by two centuries at least
over hundred thousand, perhaps
two hundred thousand and upon every
one of them you, the mother Of today,
| will inf
And if in two centuries your descendants
shall have with their names filled scroll
of hundreds of thousands, will some angel
from heaven, to whom is given the ca
pacity to calculate the number of the
stars of heaven and the sands of the sea-
shore, step down and tell us how many
descendants you will have in the four
thousandth year Of the worlds possible
continuance. Do not let the grand
others any longer think that they are
ietired, and sit clear back out of siglS
from the world, feeling that they
have no relation to it. The moth
ers of the last century are today
in the senates, the parlialnents, the
palaces, the pulpits, the banking houses,
the professional chairs, the prisons, the
almshouses, the company Of midnight
brigands, the cellars, the bitches of this
century. You have been thinking about
the importance Of having the right in
fiuence upon one nursery. You have
been thinking of the Importance of get
ting those two little feet on the right
4 path. You have been thinking Of your
child's destiny for the next eighty years,
If it should pass on to be an octogenarian.
That is well; but my subject sweeps a
thousand years, million years, a quad
rillion of years. cannot stop at one
cradle, am looking at the cradles that
reach all round the world and across all
time. I am not talking of mother
Eunice, I am talking of grandmother
Lois The only way you can tell the
force of current is by sailing up stream;
or the force Of an ocean wave,
by running the ship against it. Run
ming along with it we cannot appreciate
the force. In estimating maternal infu-
ence we generally run along with it
down the stream Of time, and so we
don't understand the full force. Let us
come up to it from the eternity side,
after it has been working for centuries,
and see all the good it has done and all
the evil it has accomplished multiplied in
magnificent or appalling compound in
terest. The difference between that
mothers influence on her children now
and the influence when it has been mul.
tiplied in hundreds of thousands of
lives, is the difference between
the Mississippi river way up at
the top of the continent, starting
from the little Lake Itasca, seven miles
long and one wide, and its mouth at the
Gulf of Mexico, where navies might ride
Between the birth of that river and its
burial in the sea the Missouri pours in,
and the Ohio pours in, and the Arkan-
sas pours in, and the Red and White and
Yazoo rivers pour in, and all the states
and territorities between the Allegheny
and Rocky mountains make contribu-
ton. Now, in order to test the power OF
a mothers influence, we need to come in
off of the ocean of eternity and sail up
toward the one cradle, and we will find
ten thousand tributaries Of influence
pouring in and pouring down, But it is
after all one great river Of power rolling
on and rolling forever, Who can fathom
it2 Who can bridge its Who can
stop it? Had not mothers better be in
tensifying their prayers? Had they not
better be elevating their example3 Had
they not better be rousing themselves
with the consideration that by theii
faithfulness or neglect they are starting
an influence which will be stupendou,
/ after the last mountain of earth is fat
and the last sea has been dried up, anc
| the last fake of the ashes of consumed
| world shall have been blown away, anG
? all the telescopes of other worlds directed
f to the track around which our worlt
once swung shall discover not so mucl
as a cinder of the burned down ant
t swept off planet. In Ceylon there is 1
{ granite column thirty-six square feet il
S size, which is thought by the natives t
: decide the worlds continuance, Al
j.. angel with robe spun from gephyrs i
s once century to descend and sweep TIN
' hem of that robe across tie granite, anc
r when by that attrition the column i
o worn away they say time will end. Blu
n by that process that granits column woul'