The semi-weekly messenger., 1898-10-21

tumnal days that we cdil indlan sum-
mer.
Is it not time that you and I do two
things-swing open a picture gallery
Of the wrinkled faces and stopped
shoulders Of the past and call down
from their heavenly thrones the god
ly grandmothers, TO give them our
thanks, and then TO persuade the
mothers Of today that they are living
for all time and that against the sides
SERMON 2
of every cradle in which a child is
srocked beat the two eternities?
CRADLE ACROSS ALL TIME.
Here we have an untried, undiscuss-
ed and unexplored subject. You often
hear about your influence upon your
own children. / am not talking about
that. What about your influence upon
the twentieth century, upon the thir-
tieth century, upon the fortieth CEN
tury, upon the year 2000, upon the
year 1000, if the world lasts so long?
The world stood 1000 years before
Christ came. 1t is not unreasonable
to suppose that it may stand 1000
years after his arrival. Four thousand
years the world swung off in sin, 1000
years it may be swinging back into
righteousness. BY the ordinary rate
of multiplication of the worlds popu
laton in a century your descendants
will be over 300, and by two centuries
over $4,000, and upon every one of them
you, the mother of today, will have an
influence for good or evil. And If in
four centuries your descendants shall
have with their names filled scroll
Of hundreds of thousands will some an
gel from heaven, to whom is given the
capacity to calculate the number of
the stars Of heaven and the sands of
the seashOre, step down and tell US
how many descendants you will have
in 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
out of sight from the world, feeling
that they have no relations to it. The
mothers of the last century are today
in the person of their descendants,
in the senateS, the parlamentS,
the palaces, the pulpits the banking
houses, the professional chairs, the
prisons, the almshouses, the company
Of midnight brigands, the cellars, the
bitches of this century. You have
been thinking about the 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. You have
been thinking of your child's destiny
for the next so years if it should pass
on to be an Octegenarian. That is
well, but my subjects sweeps a thOuS-
ands years, a million years, a quadril-
lion of years. | cannot stop at one
cradle; l am looking at the cradles
that reach all around the world and
across all time. l am not talking of
Mother Eunice. | am talking Of Grand
mother Lois. The only way you can
tell the force of a current is by sailing
up stream, of the force of an ocean
wave by running the ship against it.
Running along with it We cannot ap-
preciate the force.
In estimating maternal influence we
generally run along with it down the
stream of time, and so we don't under
stand 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 it has accomplished multiplied in
magnificent or appalling compound in
terest. The difference between that
mothers influence on her children now
and the influence when it has been
multiplied in hundreds of thousands of
lives is the difference between the Mis-
sissippi river away up at the top of
the continent starting from the little
Lake Itasca, seven miles long and one
wide, and it's mouth at the gulf of
Mexico, where navies might ride. Be
burial in the sea the Missouri pOurS in,
and the Ohio pours in, and the Arkan-
sas pours III, and the Red and White
and the 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 a mothers influence, We need
to come in off the ocean Of eternity and
sail up toward the one cradle, and we
fcih q rio of
pouring in and pouring down. But it
is, after all, one great river of power
rolling on and rolling forever. Who can
fathOm it -? Who can bridge it. Who can
! stop it? Had not mothers better be in
tensifying 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 start
| ing an influence which will be stupen-
douS after the last mountain of earth
| is fiat. and the last sea has dried up
and the last flake of the ashes of a
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 dis
cover not so much as a cinder of the
burned down and swept off planet. In
CeylOn there is a granite column 81
square feet in size, which is thought
by the natives to decide the world s
continuance. An angel with robe spun
from zephyrs is once a century to de-
scend and sweep the hem of that robe
across the granite, and when by that
| attrition 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 way.
ON THE GREAT DIVIDE.
| If a mother tell a child if he is not
good some bugaboO Will come and
| catch him, the fear excited may make
| the child a coward. and the fact that
| he finds that there is no bugaboo may
! make him a liar, and the echo of that
| false alarm may be heard after fifteen
| generations FEve been born and have
| expired. If a mother promises a child
| reward for good behavior and
| after the good behavior forgets to give
| the reward. the cheat may crop out ir
! some faithlesSness half a thousand
! years further on. If a mother cultiva tt
| child"s vanity and eulogize his curls
| and eXtOl the night black or sky blu