Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1894-07-19

with just as much mother love and ambi-
ton, see their boys fill criminal cells and
drunkards' graves? Say what we will of
the mothers influence on the growing
boy, her power does not begin with the
influence of the father and the fathers
friends 1t is not the mother that forms
the model, the ideal her boy looks to-
| ward as he grows in stature and in years.
1t is the father the boy wants to be like,
it is some man he looks to as the goal he
longs to reach. o, ye men, you are the
ones responsible for the boys aim in life,
you are the ones that form the ideal the
boy is striving for, you are the model not
only for your own son, but for your
neighbours son as well. The men and not
the women in any community form the
standard of morality and high living for
the boys. Can you not see why our boys
leave Sunday-school and church as soon
as they stand at the door of manhood?
If the fathers and their friends think
church life unnecessary, of course the
boys will think 50 too, and all the
prayers of the mother will fall on deaf
ears.
Now character IS bulded as temples
are. There must be a model which the
structure is patterned after. If the
model is defective from any cause, the
building will surely be faulty. And, my
brothers, each of you is a model for some
boy. Every defective spot in the model
will appear more prominently in the new
building. If you men stay away from
that place where spirit growth is pro-
noted, where moral stamina is strength
ened, if you refuse to lend your presence
at the Sunday service but let inclination
and circumstances govern you you may
rest assured your sons will do likewise,
and the reverence and religious convic-
ton generated in you by your fathers
will be manifested in less degree in the
boy who sees you indifferent to church
life
do not deny that there are good men
who do not go to church, men who would
scorn to do dishonest or an ignoble act.
But they would be better men, and be-
leve happier men, if they lent their sup
port by personal effort to that institution
"nlch STANDS LOT righteousness III the
community. o, my brothers, do not get
so buried beneath business cares, society
conventionality, and the Sunday news
paper that you forget your duties to the
growing boys. Throw off your indiffer-
ence to that which pertains to your soul
life and come to the help of woman. She
needs the supplement of your practical
religion, you need her spiritual incite,
she needs the aid of your iron arms, you
need her gentleness and tenderness, she
needs the support Of your liberal convic-
tions, you need her conservatism to help
you see CLEANS of the Fathers face, to
help you become pure and upright models
for the boys growing up around you.
Then listen to the call of duty, come
to the aid of woman, help her infuse
spiritual life into cur many dormant
. churches by adding your knowledge,
your practi zeal sympathy TO her sentiment,
to her spiritual impulses. Church ser
vice as constituted today by liberal chris
tnnity is not something that an advanc-
ing rationalism has cast off, but evolving
upthrough the superstitions and errors
and out of the m ighty central truths of
religion. X is today the survival of the
ii ttest. Let the men now join with the
women in the further development OF
this great source of all our lives and then
men, women and children will again meet
toget her to worship without the fear and
horror that married the services of olden
times, but instead the God of the universe
His children and all will feel a gladnes-
when it is time to enter the house of the
Lord.