The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-10-21
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.0O Per Year.

steady themselves by the banisters IS
they go up and down. When they get
a cold it hangs on them longer than it
| used to. They can not bear to have
the grandchildren punished even when
they deserve it, anu have so relaxed
| their ideas of family discipline that
they would spoil all the youngsters of
the household by too great leniancy.
| These old folks are the re sort when
/ great troubles come, and there is a
! calming and soothing power in the
| touch of an aged hand that is almost
! supernatural. They feel they ATE al
most through with the journey of
| life, and read the old book more than
they used to, hardly knowing which
most they enjoy, the Old Testament
or the New, and often stop and dwell
tearfully over the family record half
way between. We hail them to-day,
whether in the house of God or at the
| homestead. Blessed is that household
| that has in it a grandmother Lois.
| Where she is, angels are lowering
round and God is in the rooom. May
| her last days be like those lovely au-
tumnal days that we call Indian sum-
meri
Is it not time that you and / do two
Ghings-swing open a picture gallery
of the wrinSled faces and stopped
I 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 to-day that they are living
for all time, and that against the sides
of every cradle in which child is
rocked beat the two eternities?
Here we have an untried, undis-
cussed, and unexplorcd subject. You
| often hear about your influence upon
your own children; l am not talking
about that. What about your infiu-
ence upon the twentieth century, upon
the thirtieth century, upon the for
tieth century, upon the year 1000, upon
the year 1000, if the world lasts so
long? The world stood 1900 years be-
fore Christ came; it is not unreason-
able to suppose that it may stand 1000
years after His arrival. Four thou
sand 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
population in century, your descend
ants will be over 800, and by two cen
turies over $4,000, and upon every one
of them, you, the mother of to-day,
will have an influence for good or
evil. And if in four centuries your de-
scendants shall have with their names
filled a scroll of hundreds Of thou
sands, with some angel from Heaven,
to whom is given the capacity to cal
culate the number of stars of Heaven
and the sands of the seashore, step
down and tell us how many descend
ants you will have in the four thou
sandth year of the worlds possible
continuance? Do not let the grand
mothers any longer think that they
are retired, and sit clear back out of
sight from the world, feeling that they
have no relation to it. The mothers
of the last century are to-day in the
person of their descendants, in the
senates, the parliaments, the palaces,
the pulpits, the banking houses, the
professional chairs, the prisons, the
almshonses, the company of midnight
brigands, the cellars, the bitches of
this country. You have been think
ing about the Importance of having
the right influence upon one nursery.
You have been thinking of the i'm
portance of getting those two little
feet on the right path. You have been
thinking of your Lhild's destiny for
the next eighty years, if it should pass
on to be an octogenarian. That is
WELL but my subject sweeps a thou
sand years, a million years, a quadril-
lion of years. [ can not stop al one
cradle, / 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
grandmother Lois. The only way you
can tell the force of current is by
sailing up stream; or the force of ar
ocean wave, by running the ship
against it. Running along with it we
can not appreciate 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 eterHity 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
interest. The difference between. Ihat
mothers influence on her children
now and the influence when it has
been multiplied il hundreds of thou
sands of lives, is the difference be-
tween the Mississippi river away up at
thestop of the continent starting from
the little Lake Itaska, seven miles long
and one mile wide, andits mouth at the
gulf of Mexico, where navies might
ride. Between the birth OF that river
and its budial in the sea the Missouri
pours in, and the Ohio pours in,
and the Arkansas pours in, and the
Red and White and the YaZoo rivers
pour in, and all the states and terri
tories between the Allegheny and
. Rocky mountains make contribution.
Now, in order to test a mothers infiu-
ence, we need to c,7me in off the ocean
of eternity and sail up toward the one
cradle, and we viii find 10000 tribu-
taries of influence pouring in and
pouring GOWN. but IL IS aTIef all one
great river OF power rolling on and
rolling forever. Whc can fathom it !?
Who can bridge it? Who can stop it?
Had not mothers better be intensity
ing their prayers? Had they not bet
ter be elevating their example? Had
they not better be arousing them
selves with the consid ideration that by
their faithfulness or neglect they are
starting an influence which viii be
stupendous after the last mountain of
earth is fat, and the last sea is dried
up, and the last of ashes Of con-
surncd world shall have been blown
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