Sharp County record., 1888-03-15

Il IptTOl. DNb luON5h oAA~
this life before began it, l have Aea.u y.
her faith in God, that brought all Oh nes
children into The kingdom, and TWO oL
them into the ministry, and then OrouSnV
all her grandchildren into the ElnguGni, !.
rnvseIf tbe last and least worthy Is IL
not time that you and l do two tnihg''
swino omen a picture gallery OF tue
wriukled faces and stopped Shou'ueIS ~
tha mast, and call down from tnel
Heavenly thrones the Igodly grandmOtn'
orc 70 give them our thanks, ana tneh
norsrade the mothers of to-day that they
are living for all time, and that against
the sides Of every cradle in which a culu
10 rocked beat the two eternities:
Here we have an untried, undlScuSSeu
and unexplored subject. You often near
about your influence upon your chllureHL
am not talking about that Nhat aOouU
vonr influence upon the twentieth cent
,,rv unon the thirtieth century, upon the
fortieth century, upon the year Two tnou'
sond. ppon the year four thousand, II the
T,,orId lasts so long? The world stood four
thousand wears before Chr st came; IL Is
NOT unreasonable to suppose that u may
ctond four thousand years after HIS ar
rival. Four thousand years the Worlu
evunp off in sin; four thousand years IL
NAV be swinging back into righteousness:
Rv the ordinary rate of multiplication OF
the worlds population, in a century your
descendants will be over six hundreu anu
hv two centuries at least over one nun
eTed thousand, perhaps two hundred thou'
sand, and upon every one OF tnem you
the mother of to-day, will have an lnnu'
ence for good or evil. And II IN TWO
Centuries your descendants snail naVo
With their names filled a scroll OF hun.
dreds Of thousands, will some ahgel
from Heaven to whom is given Cne
capacitv to calculate the numoer
Of the stars of Heaven and the sands OF
the seashore, step down and tell US no"
many des scendants you will have IN 1ne
four thousandth year of the worlds pos
sibIe continuance? Do not let the grand
mothers any longer think that they are
retired, and sit clear back out OF slgnu
from the world, feeling that they nave no
relation to it, The mothers of the last
century are to-day in the senates, the
narlaments, the palaces, the pulpits, the
banking houses, the professional cnairs'
the prisons, the almshouses, the company
Of midnight brigands, the cellars, the
bitches of this century. You have peeh
thinking about the Importance OF having
the right influence upon one nursery. You
have been thinking Of the Importance Oh
eating these two little feet on the
RIGHT path. You have been thinking OF
your chld's destiny for the next elghty
wears, if it should pass on to be an octo'
genarian. That is well, but my SUBJECT
sweeps a thousand years, million years,
a ouadrillion of years. l can not 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, am talking Of Grandmother
Lois. The only way you can tel the force
of current is by sailing up stream; OF
the force of an ocean wave, by running
the ship against it, Running along with
il we can not appreciate the force. In
estimating maternal influence we gen.
erallv 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
on for centuries, and see all the good
it has done and all the evil II
has accomplished, multiplied IN mag,
-~nU - Gppai'i~1 ""rnnnnnd
interest. The difference between that
mothers influence on her children now
and the influence when it has been multi
piled in hundreds of thousands OF lives Is
the difference between the Mississippi
river way up at the top of the con tinent,
starting from the little Lake ltasca, 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 Arkansas pours in, and the Red
and White and Yazoo rivers pour in, and
all the States and Territories between the
Allegheny and Rocky mountains make
contribution. Now, in order to test the
power of mothers influence, we need tC
come in off the ocean Of eternity and sal
up towards the one cradle, and we will
find 10000 tributaries of influence pour
ing in and pouring down.
If a mother tell a child he is not good
some bugaboo will come and catch him,
the fear excited may make the child q
coward, and the fact that he finds that
there is no bugaboo may make him liar
and the echo of that false alarm may be
heard after fifteen generations have beer
born and have expired. If a mother prom
ise q child a reward for good behavior
and after the good behavior forgets tC
give the reward, the cheat may crop out
in some faithlessness half thousand
wears further on. If a mother culture g
child's vanity, and eulogize his curls, and
extol the night-black or sky blue, or nut
brown of the child's eyes, and call out il
his presence the admiration of spectators
pride and arrogance may be prolonged
after half a dozen family records havl
been oblteratod. If a mother express
doubt about some statement of the holy
Bible in a child's presence, long after the
gates of this historical era have closed anc
the gates of another era have opened
the result may be seen in a champion
blasphemer. But on the other hand, il {
mother walking with child see suffer
ing one by the wayside and says: "My
child, give that ten cent piece to tina
lame boy" the result may be seen on tht
other side of the following century il
some George Mullen building "a whole
village of orphanages. If mother sit al
most every evening by the trundle bed o
a child and teach it lessonsIof Saviour
o--~ ~.,,.,I~ oF 'Io i''',o"tnnon Of truth ant