St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1888-03-10

this life before / began it, have heard of
her faith in God, that brought all of 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 I do two things,
swing open picture gallery of the
wrinkled faces and stopped shoulders Of
the past, and call down from their
Heavenly thrones the Igodly grandmoth-
ers to give them our thanks, and then
persuade the mothers of to-day 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 influence upon your children
/ am not talking about that. What about
your influence upon the twentieth cent
ury, upon the thirtieth century, upon the
fortieth century, upon the year two thou
sand, upon the year four thousand, If the
world lasts SO long? The world stood four
thousand years before Chr st came; it is
not unreasonable to suppose that it may
stand four thousand years after His ar
rival. Four thousand years the worl d
swung off in sin; four thousand years it
may be swinging back into Righteousness.
By the ordinary rate of multiplication of
the worlds population, in a century your
descendants will be over six hundred, and
by two cen turtles at least over one hum
cred thousand, perhaps two hundred thou.
sand, and upon every one of them you.
the mother of to-day, will have an lnfiu'
ence for good or evil. And if in two
centuries your descendants shall have
with their names filled scroll of hun.
dreds Of thousands, will some angel
from Heaven to whom is given the
capacity to calculate the number
of the stars of Heaven and the sands OF
the seashore, step down and tell US how
many descendants you will have in the
four thousandth year of the worlds pos.
sible continuance? Do not let the grand.
mothers any longer think that they are
retired, and sit clear back out Of sight
from the world, feeling that they baye no
relation to it, The mothers of the last
century are to-day in the senates, the
parliaments, the palaces, the pulpits, the
banking houses, the professional chairs,
the prisons, the a1mshouses, the company
9. midnight brigands, the cellars, the
bitches of this century. You have bsen
thinking about the Importance of having
the right inf uence upon one nursery. You
have been thinking Of the Importance Of
getting these two little feet on the
right path. You have bsen thinking OF
your child's destiny for the next eighty
years, If it should pass on to be an .octo
genarian. That is well, but my subject
sweeps thousand years, a million years
quadrillion of years. / can not stop a.
one cradle, I am looking at the cradle:
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; OF
the force of an ocean wave, by running
the ship against it. Running along witt
it we can not appreciate the force. Il
estimating maternal influence we gen
orally run along with it down the stream
| of time, and so we don't understand thu
| full force. Let us come up to it from thu
eternity side, after it has been working
on for centuries, and see all the gooe
| it has done and all the evil i
has accomplished, multiplied in mag
niicent or appalling COMPOUND
| interest. Tho difference between thai
mothers influence on her children nov
| and the influence when it has been multi
piled in hundreds of thousands of lives il
| the difference between the MISSISSIPPI
| river way up at the top Of the con tinent
starting from the little Lake Itasca, sever
miles long and one wide, and it's mouth
| the Gulf of Mexico. where navies Nigh
ride. Between the birth of that river ant
| its burial In the sea the Missouri pour
| in, and the Quo pours in
| and the Arkansas pours in, and the Re-
/ and White and Yazoo rivers pour in, AM
all the States and Territories between tn
| Allegheny and Rocky mountains max
/ contribution. Now, in order to test tn
power of a mothers influence, we need t
i come in off the ocean Of eternity and sa
/ up towards the one cradle, and we VII
| find 10000 tributaries of influence pour
/ ing in and pouring down.
II mother tell child he is not gooo
i some bugaboo will come and catch him
the fear excited may make the child
coward, and the fact that he finds tina
| there is no bugaboo may make him lial
| and the echo of that false alarm may b
heard after Fl fteen generations have bee
born and have expired. II q mother prom
ise child a reward for good behavior
| and after the good behavior forgets
| give the reward, the cheat may crop OF
/ in some faithlessness half thousan
| wears further on. If mother culture
child,s vanity, and euiogize his curls, an
/ extol the night-black, or sky-blue, or nui
brown OF the child's eyes, and call out
his presence the admiration of spectator
pride and arroe ance may be prolonge
after half dozen family records hav
been obliteratsd. IL mother expires
doubt about soree statement of the Hol
Bible in chi pre- sence, long after th
| gates of this historical era have closed an
the gates of another era have openet
the result may be seen in champio
bIasphemer But on the other hand, II
mother walking with child see suffer
ing one by the wayside and says: IN
child, give that ten-cent piece to thu
lame bow the result may be seen ON tt
other side Of the following century
some George Mullen building who
village of orphana res. Ii a mother sit
most every evening by the trundle bed
n child and teach it lessons.of Saviour
example, OF the Importance OF truth ar
the horror OF lie. and the virtues OF i
dustry and kindness and sympathy ar
Il self.sacrifice, long after the mother hs
gone and the child has gone and the 10
tering or both the tombstones shall ha'
been washed out by the storms OF innl
merable winters, there may be standin
q ! resnit OF those trundie-b8d lesson
| a.n,;r. ayaugels. world moving reforI