The Nicodemus cyclone. [volume] (Nicodemus, Graham County, Kan.) 1887-1888, 1888-03-02

| evil. And IL in two centuries your descendant
shall have with their names filled a scroll oil
hundreds of thousands, will some angel from
| heaven to whom is given the capacity to cal
culate the number of the stars of heaven and
the sands of the scaehUte; step down ard tel
us how many descendants YOU will have
ia the four thOusandth year OF
the worlds possible continuance.
Do not let the grandmothers any longer think
that they are retired, and sit clear back ott oil
sight from the world, feeling that they have
no relation to It, The mothers of the last cen.
tury are to-day in the senates, the parliaments,
the palaces, the pulptS; tile banking houses,
| the professional chairs, the PRISONS the altls-
houses, the company of midnight brigands, the
| cellars, the bitches OF this century. You have
been thinking about importance of having the
right influence upon one nursery. You have
| been thinking Of the Importance Of getting
| those two little feet on the right path. Yo1
| 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 NY
| subject sweeps a thousand years, a million
| years, Cuadrillion of years. | cannot stop al
one cradle, | am looking at the cradles that
reach all round the world and across all time.
| [ am not talking Of mother Eunice, | am talk
| ing of grandmother Lois. The only way you
can tell the force of a current is by sailing up
| streams or the force of an ocean wave, by run
ming the ship against it, Running along with
1t we cannot appreciate the force In esti-
mating maternal influence 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 1t from the eternity side, after it
has been working on centuries, andAbee all
| the good it has done and all the evil it has ac-
compished multiplied in magnificent or ap-
| palling compound interest The difference
between that mothers influence on her chill
dren now and the influence when it has been
multiplied in hundreds of thousands of lives,
ia the difference between the Mississippi River
way up at the top Of the continent starting
from the little lake ftasca, 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 DOurs in, and the Ohio pOurs
in, and the Arkansas pOIrs in, and the Red
and White and YaZOO rivers pour in, and all
the States and territories between the Allie
CLANCY 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 trib-
utarles 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 ita Who can bridge its Who can
stop itf Had not mothers better be intensity
Ing their prayers? Had they not better be
elevating their example? Had they not better
be rOusing themselves with the consideration
that by their faithfulnesS or neglect they are
starting an influence which will be stupendOus
after the last mountain of earth is fiat, and
the last sea has been dried up, and the last
lake OF the ashes OF consumed world shall
have been blown away, and all the telescopes
OF other worlds directed to the track around
which our world once swung shall discover not
so much as a cinder of the burned down and
swept-of planet. In Ceylon there is granite
column thirty-six square feet In size, which is
thought by the natives to decide the worlds
continuance. An angel with robe spun from
zephyrs is once a century to descend and
sweep the hem of that robe across the granite,
and when by that attrtlOn the column is
worn away they say time will end. But by
that process that granite column would be
worn out of existence before mothers influ-
ence will begin to give away.
If mother tells a child he is not good,
some bugaboo will come and catch him, the
fear excited may make the child coward,
and the fact that he 1inds that there is no
bugaboo may make him liar, and the echo
of that false alarm may be heard after fifteen
generations have been born and have expired.
IT mother promises a child a reward for
good behavior and after the good behavior
fOrgets to give the reward, the cheat may
crop out in some faithlessness half a thous-
and years further on. If mother culture a
child's vanity and eulOgize his curls and extol
the night black or sEy-blue or nut-brown of
the child's eyes, and call out in his presence
the admiration of spectators, pride and ar
rOgance may be prolonged after half a dozen
family records have been obliterated. If
mother expresses doubt about some state
ment Of the Holy Bible in child's presence,
long after the gates of this historical era have
closed and the gates Of another era have
opened, the result may be seen in "a champi-
on blasphemer. But, on the other hand, if a
mother walking with a child see q suffering
one by the wayside and says: "My child give
that ten cent piece to that lame boy" the re-
cult h1r fl,Or.1 d. - %No Il
lowing century in some George Muller build
ing a whole village of Orphanages. If
mother sit almost very evening by the
trundle bed of child and teach itlessOns of
SavtOrs love and a SaViOr's example, of the
Importance of truth and the horror of lie,
and the virtues of industry and kindness and
sympathy and self-sacrfce, long after the
mother has gone and the lettering on both
the tombstOnes shall have been washed
out by the storms of innumerable
winters, there may be standing, as
a result of those trundle bed lessons, flaming
erangels, woodworking refOrmers, circulating
Summertelds, weeping PaysOns, laundering
Nhitetields. emancipating Washngtons.
Good or bad influence may skip one genera
ton or two generations. but it will be sure to
land in the third or fourth generation, just as
the Ten Commandments, speaking of the visi-
tatiOn of God on families, says nothing about
the second generation, but entirely skips the
second and speaks of the third and fourth gen.
Grafton: "Nsiting the iniquiIies of the faith
ers upon the third and fonrth genera
lions of them that hate me-" Parental
Influence, right and wrong, may jump over a
generation, but it will come down further on
as sure as you sit there and / stand here
TimOthy's ministry was projected by his
grandmother Lois. There are men and WO-
men here, the sons and daughters of the
Christian church, who are such as a result of
the conservation of great-great- grandmOthers
Why, who do you think the Lord is! You
talk as though his memory was weak. He
can no easier remember PRAYER five minutes
than he can five centuries. This explains
what we often see-sOme man or woman dis
tinguished for benevolence when the father
and mother were distinguished for penurious-
ness, or you see some young man or woman
with bad father and a hard mother come out
gloriously for Christ and make the church sob
and shout and sing under their exhortatiOns
We stand in corners Of the vestry and whisper
over the matter and say: "HOw is this, such
great pety in sons and daughters of such
parental worldlinss and sinr' | will explain
it to YOU If you will fetch me the old Family
Bible containing the full record. Let some
septuagenarian look with me clear upon the
page of births and marriages, and tell
me who that woman was with the
old-fashioned name Of Jemima or Betsy
or Mehtabel. All, there she is, the old grand
mother or great grandmother who had enough
religion TO saturate a century
There she is, the dear old soul, Grandmoth-
er Lois. In our beautiful GreenwoOd-(may
rrn ell slaar fhoro xrha i e.