Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1902-12-04

| hammedan priests assert that women
have no souls and no hereafter. And
so one day when this little girl was
trying to describe Gods love for her
sex she said, why, 1t is the small
est love In the world, II 1t is a lover
How small Is thatT asked the lady
missionary. ooh, very, very small"
But how small7" why" answered
the young Indian maiden, 1.-THE love of
God for us women is as small-lt Is as
small as the love my father felt for me
on the day that I was born" May
God never allow you, o father and
mother, to instill such distorted
idea Of parental affection into any
child's mind and heart on account of
favorltism for some Of your children
at the expense of the others. May God
inspire every one of you to teach your
boys and girls that each one of them
has full measure of your love! May
God inspire all parents to treat all
their children alike, with the exception
that they should be n little gentler and
more thoughtful of the child who is
sick, or is crippled, like Mephibosheth,
who was lame In both his feet!
Trusting to Servants.
Allowing the servant girl to take the
place of maternal and paterna COM
partnership can truly be classed among
parental sins. | would not for an i'll
slant either say or write one word
which would wound the feelings of
thousands and tens of thousands of
young women who have consecrated
their lives to the noble calling of nurse
girls work Some of the miChtiest
men of the ages have testified that
they would never have been what they
were but for the self sacrificing love Of
their nurses. who not only rocked them
to sleep when they were tired. but also
started their little feet in the paths of
rectitude and piety. The Earl of
Shaftesbury declared that the greatest
inspiration for n true religious life was
instilled into him by the faithfulness
Of his Christian nurse. The mighty
potentate, the late Alexander Ill, the
ear of all the Russias, honored the
fathfulness and the devoted love of
his nurse. Surrounded by the grand
dukes of Russia for three long miles
he followed afoot after the hearse
which carried the mortal remains of
that dear friend through a binding
snowstorm out to the Royal mauso-
leum of st Petersburg. And as the
dying French soldier, writhing under
the surgeons knife, cried out, Doctor,
cut a little deeper, and you will sec
pictured upon my heart the face Of the
! nf 2
we cut down into the hearts Of the
faithful servants who have watched
over us in our childhood, could there
find our own faces, because the hearts
of these faithful servitors beat with
love for US.
But though many of our household
servants may be to us and to our chill
drcn as the Earl of Shaftesbury's
Christian nurse was to him. yet no true
father or mother can afford to delegate
the physical, moral and religious train
ing OF their children to servants, no
matter how faithful and true those
servants may be. No woman can take
the place of true mother by the side
of the crib. Nc man can do for the
boys what consecrated father IS able
to do when he is faithful to tie trust
which God has given 10 him.
Oh. man, studying the debit and
credit sides of your ledgers, counting
up your hundreds of thousands of dol
lars and carefully watching the mani
fold details of vast mercantile enter
prise, which taxes your physical and
mental energies to the utmost, you
may think you have no time to OK
anime into the details of how your
thirteen year-od son spends his weekly
allowance But you ought to take that
time. On account Of that parental neg
lect you may live to regret the day
that you were born and also the day
that your son was born. Oh, woman,
you may think this is the age for the
emancipation Of your sisters. In pride
you may listen to weekday lectures on
womans rights and Shakespeare and
sculpture and art. You may consider
it a great social opportunity to be able
to join card party one afternoon and
go to n tea the next afternoon and be
the equal and the associate Of the So
cial queens OF our most prominent
cities But no social nor worldly hon
or ought to be great enough or impor-
tant enough to entice you away from
your nursery, so that you must dele
gate the care Of your children to
hired servant. Parental neglect Is not
in Gods sight simple misdemeanor
it Is a sin-a burning sin--which may
not only destroy the spiritual life Of
the child. but impair also the eternal
happiness of the father and mother
1t is a sharp two edged sword which,
with one stroke down and another
stroke up. can destroy not only the
rose. but the bush which gave It birth
Lack of Discipline.
Lack of nursery discipline can some
times be classed among parental sins,
or, rather, mistakes. We would not
like to call the actions of too in
dulgent parent by such a harsh word
rs sin. Yet Solomon, who wrote the
words Of my text, gave the parental
mistakes Of overindulgence even a
harder definition than that of sin. He
said, HE that spareth his rod hateth
his son, but he that loveth him. chas-
tcneth him betimes." In other words,
we have a right to make by this
quotation the simple deduction that If