Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-02-08
w. c. T. u. COLUMN.
Motto: "eod and Home and Native Land
THE REACH OF INFLUENCE.

pebble and the circling waves should
perhaps be laid upon the shelf, but it
is just as true today as in the first
hour of its birth.
The waves on the rivers surface
return to calm, but the waves of in
fuence reach out and out until there
is no computing their extent.
We mothers sometimes grow
weary, and seeing SO little of results
from our best endeavor, feel that our
work is lost. Not so, tired mother,
patient sister, toiling father, your
pebbles are making ripples on the
tide of time which may reach into
eternity.
1t seems such a humdrum work to
be sure, to wash little faces, mend
torn garments, speak the gentle
words which will quiet and 'soothe a
little mind and draw it closer to you
in bonds of love.
The mother of the Wesleys doubt
less had her blue Mondays, and her
hours when it seemed to her that
John never had been so mischievOus,
and that Charles had never made so
much noise; when every nerve was
strained, and muscles taxed to the
utmost. If this busy mother of
large family had felt sometimes that
her labor was in vain, and envied
those who seemed called to fill higher
spheres than just the humble one of
an everyday house mother, who
could blame her? How could she
know that she was laying the founda-
ton of work for God in the training
of those sons, which should tower
up, colossal structure which will
outlast the ages?
Before her day, a lovely, pure Jew
ish maiden was given holy mission
from God.
In her own heart she was most
blessed, and innocent as the purest
snowflake. But in the eyes of the
world, her Jewish world, even in the
sight of the one she loved most, her
affianced, she must bear the brand of
shame. Her life is SO crowned with
the glory of the results Of it, that we
lose sight of her sore humiliation.
What pangs of horror and grief she
rnust have suffered, for in those days
the mantle of charity was very scant!
Those stern Jewish fathers stoned
maidens for such faults. Who would
| believe her report? Even Joseph
had to be convinced by an angel
from heaven. 1t is quite possible
that the shadow of evil report over
cast her entire life, to some extent,
and she would have been a wonder
full woman, indeed, if at times she
did not doubt and wonder at the
meaning of all these trials. She
| could not possibly comprehend the
! wave on wave, out and. onward, to
the very limit of the worlds millen-
NAL salvation, which her humiliation
would set in motion.
The glory of the cross and the tri-
umph of the crown was as much
sealed book to her as the result of
the humble efforts of the mothers of
today are to them.
The mother oil Lincoln, in her log
cabin, had but few leisure moments
in which to dream about a sphere. She
patched little Abraham's trousers
| (and, no doubt he grew up out of
them with startling rapidity), and
picked slivers out of his feet, without
thought that those feet were going
to make footprints on the sands of
time'' which would never be obliter
ated. The pebble she cast on the
ocean of time was the training and
care of this son, and the eddying grip
pies of his life will never be still.
Not all of us can have the training
of a Garfield, Simpson or Grant
as our mission, but we can do our
humble work we'll, and it is the hum
BILE work which has the promise.
The Lord gave the increase of the
one talent, until it became ten tai
ents in faithful and prudent SER
wants hand, and He will likewise care
] for the patient, conscientious effort
of every servant who tries to do His
will.
The little roots of the plant might
reasonably complain, away down in
the darkness, that they were doing
nothing worthy of living, in just the
eating and drinking incident to their
plant life, and growing, silently and
alone.
They can not comprehend the won
derful purpose of their growing, and
so I think, sometimes we humble
ones, who are only the rootlets of
some of Gods divine purposes. will