The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-02-24

family in the old time way, with but little
or. no hired help, except perhaps for the
washing day or for the swine Strengthening,
commonly called "the killing dayw There
was then no reading of elaborate treatiscs
on the best modes of rearing children and
then leaving it all to hired help, with one
or two visits day to the nursery to see if
the principles announced are being carried
out. The most of those old folks did the
sewing, the washing, the mending, the
darning, the patching, the millinery, the
mantua making, the housekeeping and in
hurried harvest time helped spread the hay
or tread down the load in the NOV.
They were at the same time caterers,
tailors doctors, chaplains and nurses for II
whole household all together down with
measles or scarlet fever or round the house
with whooping coughs and groups and run
round fingers and earaches and all the in
fantile distempers which at some time
swoop upon every large household. Some
of those mothers never got rested in this
world Instead of the self rocking cradles
o. our day, which, wound up, will 20 hour
after hour for the solace of the young slum-
berer it was weary foot on the rocker some
times half the day or half the night-ruck
-rock-rock-rock.
Instead of our drug stores filled with all
the wonders of materia medica and called
up through a telephone, with them the
only apothecary short of four miles ride
was the garnet, with its lunches Of pepper
mint and pennyroyal and catnip and mus
tard and camomile flowers, which were eX-
pected to do everything. just think of It'll
THE OLD FASHIONED MOTHERS.
Fifty years of preparing breakfast, dinner
and supper The chief music they heard
was that of spinning wheel and rocking
chair. Tagged out, headachy and with
ankles swollen. Those old fashioned moth
ers-if any persons ever fitted appropriately
into good, easy, comfortable heaven they
were the folks and they got there, and they
are rested They wear no spectacles for
they have their third sight-as they lived
long enough on earth to yet their second
sight-and they do not have to pant for
breath after going up the emerald stairs of
the Eternal palace, at whose window they
now sit waiting for news from the battle.
But if any one keeps on asking the ques-
tion, where's motherfn | answer, she is
in your present character. The probability
| is that your physical features suggest her.
| If there be seven children in a household,
/ at least six of them look like their mother
and the older you get the more you will
| look like her But speak now especially
| of your character and not of your looks
This is easily explained During the first
| 10 years of your life you were almost all
| the time with her, and your father you saw
I only mornings and nights There are no
/ years in any life so important for impress
sion as the first TO- Then and there is the
impression made for virtue or vice, for
truth or falsehood, for bravery or coward
ice, for religion or skepticism
l Snl1pp1v St. hal nd
and brighten the child, and you may shatter
his nervous system for n lifetime. During
the first 10 years you can tell him enough
spook stories to make him a coward till he
dies Act before him as though Friday were
an unlucky day, and it were balcful to have
10 Mt the table, or see the moon over the left
shoulder, and he will never recover from
the idiotic superstitions. You may give that
girl before she is 10 years old fondness for
dress that will make her mere dummy
frame, - or fashion plate, for 30 years. Eze-
kiel xvi, A, "As is the mother SO is her
daughter"
Before one decade has passed you can de
eide whether that boy shall be "A Shylock or
a George Peabody. Boys and girls are gen
orally echoes of fathers and mothers. What
an incoherent thing for a mother out of
temper to punish child for getting mad,
up in dark closet because he has found
him with an old stump of a cigar in his
mouth, or for that mother to rebuke her
! daughter for staring at herself too much in
| the looking glass when the mother has her
/ own mirrors so arranged as to repeat her
| form from all sides. The great English
poets loose moral character was decided
before he left the nursery, and his school
master in the schoolroom overheard this
conversation: Byron, your mother is n
fool" and he answered, II know it,"
THE GOOD BRIDGE OF MORALS.
You can hear through all the heroic life
of Senator Sam Houston the words of his
mother when she in the war of 1912 put IA
musket in his hand and said: There, my
son, take this and never disgrace it, for re-
mem Der | had rather all my sons should fill
one honorable grave than that one of them
should turn his back on an enemy. Go and
remember, too, that while the door of my
cottage is open to all brave men it is always
shut against cowards."' Agrippina, the
mother of Nero, a murderess, you are not
surprised that her son was a murderer.
| Give that child an overdose of catechism,
| and make him recite verses Of the Bible as
| a punishment and make Sunday a bore
| and he will become a stout antagonist of
! Christianity. Impress him with the kind
ness and the geniality and the loneliness of
religion, and he will be its advocate and eX-
emplar for all time and eternity.
| A few days ago right before our express
train ON the Louisville and Nashville rail
road the preceding train had gone down
through "A broken bridge, IL cars falling a
hundred feet and then consumed. | saw
that only one span of the bridge was down
and all the other spans were standing. Plan
Ibid l..
daughters, but have the first span of 10
years defective, and through that they will
crash down, though all the rest keep stand
ing. o man, o woman, if you have pre-
served your integrity and are really Chris
tian, you have first Of all to thank God,
and | think next you have to thank your
mother.
The most impressive thing at the inau.
guration of James A. Garfield as president
of the United States was that after he had
| taken the oath of Office he turned round
and in the presence of the supreme court
and the senate of the United States kissed
| his old mother. If / had time TO take sta.
| tistics out of this audience and could ask
what proportion of you who are Christians
owe your salvation under God to maternal
| fidelity, think about three-fourths of you
would spring to your feet. Hal haP' said
the soldiers of the regiment to Charlie, one
OF their comrades. What has made the
change in you? You used TO like sin as
well as any of u.s." Pulling from his peck
ct his mothers letter, in which, after tell
ing of some comforts she had sent him, she
concluded, 1--WE are all praying for you
Charlie, that you may be a Christian" he
said Boys, that's the sentence"
THE NEEDLE AND THE SWORD.
The trouble with Ssera's mother was
that while sitting at the window of my text
watching for news of her son from the bat
tlefield she had the two bad qualities of be
ing absolute and being too fond of personal
adornment. The Bible account says: "Her
wise ladies answered her yea. She returned
answer to herself; Have they not spedi
Have they not divided the prey-to every
man damsel or two To Sisera a rnrev al