A Mother Touch—-
Rock The Cradle
Mother's, "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that moves the world." Yours is a work that lives through the ceaseless ages of eternity.
The lessons of early life are most firmly stamped upon the mind. You cannot afford to let Satan sow the first crop. Let not an impatient, fretful word escape your lips. Bring Jesus into your homes. If heaven is a good place, why not make home a little heaven below? In your zeal to secure the things of this life, or to make elaborate preparations for company, do not neglect your children. When wearied and worn with cares and perplexities, we cannot properly train them, neither can we take that comfort and peace that we might. Christ commanded us not to lay up for ourselves treasures on the earth. He knew that if we did, it would cause us needless anxiety and sorrow. If you have means, do not hoard it. There are precious souls to save. Instead of caring for self alone, lift up the fallen; instead of petting lap-dogs, care for the needy, those who have souls to save. There is earnest work to be done. All that we need means for, is to use to the glory of God. I would present before you Christ and him crucified. Give him your heart's best affections. Give him your intellect; it belongs to him. Give him your talents of means and of influence; they were only lent to you for improvement. Jesus laid aside his robes of royalty, stepped down from his eternal throne, clothed his divinity with humanity, and for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich. Rich in money? in lands? In bank-stock?-- No; that we might secure eternal riches. There is no salvation except that which comes through Christ. He came to earth to lift up the fallen. With his human arm he encircles the race, while with his divine arm he grasps the throne of the infinite, thus connecting finite man to the infinite God, and uniting earth to heaven.
SARSH October 27, 1885
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The day of God will reveal how much the world owes to the holy influences of the home for men who have been unflinching advocates of truth and reform. When the Judgment shall sit, and the books shall be opened, when the "Well done" of the great Judge is pronounced, what joy unspeakable will fill our hearts, if, as we gather around the great white throne, we shall see our children, saved through our instrumentality, with the crown of immortal glory upon their brows. How shall we feel as we look upon that company and see that those whom we have won for Christ have saved others, and these still others,-- a large assembly all brought into the haven of rest as the result of our labors, there to lay their crowns at Jesus's feet, and to praise him through the endless cycles of eternity?
ST May 4, 1888