The mother at home; or, The principles of maternal duty familiarly illustrated

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Preface

The Mother at Home, and its companion and counterpart, the Child at Home, were written simply with the view of affording to mothers in the common walks of life, plain and simple instruction in respect to the right discharge of their maternal duties, and, at the same time, some practical aid in leading the minds of their children to proper views of their obligations to God, to their parents, and to one another. Although one of the volumes is addressed nominally to the mother, and the other to the child, they are in fact each intended for both mothers and children. If a parent reads and explains the Mother at Home to her children, they will derive great benefit from the exercise, as they will thus be taught to realize something of the nature and the weight of the responsibilities, the duties, and the cares which such a trust as that which is

VI PREFACE committed to a mother necessarily brings. They will thus the more readily acquiesce in the measures adopted for their good, and submit to the authority which ought to be exercised over them ; and they may be expected also to imbibe, in some degree, the Christian spirit which the book inculcates. On the other hand, the Child at Home is intended quite as much to afford to mothers a practical exemplification of the spirit and manner by which their instructions to their children should be characterized, as to act directly upon the children themselves ; and its effect even in this last point of view will be greatly enhanced, if the mother, instead of giving her children the book, should read it to them herself, or allow them to read it aloud to her, chapter by chapter, at some calm and silent hour, in the evening or upon the Sabbath, when the hearts of the listeners may be open to salutary impressions, and when the instructions of the printed page may be accompanied by the kind and familiar explanations of the living teacher.

The volumes thus, though under different names, aim at one and the same end, and are intended as the counterparts and companions of each other.

PREFACE. Vll

They regard the family as one, — -and in explaining and enforcing the relative duties of parents and children, they are intended to exert upon the two classes for which they are designed, a common and simultaneous influence.

Since the original publication of these works, they have been translated into many different languages, and have been circulated very extensively throughout the Christian world. The favor with which they have thus been regarded has led to the republication of them at this time in a new and greatly improved form. The works have been carefully revised, and much enlarged, and the various scenes and incidents described in them are illustrated with numerous engravings, which, it is hoped, will aid in making them attractive both to parents and children.

Contents

CHAPTER PA OR

I. — Responsibility, 11

II. — Maternal Authority, . . . . 40

Chapter I

A few years ago, some gentlemen who were associated together in a religious institution, in a course of preparation for the christian ministry, conceived the design of ascertaining what proportion of their number were the children of pious mothers. They were greatly surprised and greatly pleased at finding that out of one hundred and twenty students, over one hundred had been borne by a mother's prayers, and directed by a mother's counsels, to the Savior. Though some of these had in early life broken away from the restraints of home, and like the prodigal, had wandered deviously for a time in paths of sin and sorrow, yet they could not even in their wanderings forget the impressions of childhood, and were eventually brought to the Savior, in fulfillment of the promises made so frequently in the Scriptures, that success shall sooner or later attend the efforts of parental fidelity, faith, and prayer. Many other striking examples might be adduced, in addition to this, to show how intimate is the connection between the christian character of the mother and the salvation of the child.

The efforts which a mother makes for the improvement of her children in knowledge and virtue, are necessarily retired and unobtrusive. The world knows not of them ; and hence the world has been slow to perceive how powerful and extensive is this secret and silent influence. But circumstances are now directing the eyes of the community to the young, and the truth is daily coming more distinctly into view, that the influence which is exerted upon the mind during the first eight or ten years of existence, in a great degree guides the destinies of that mind for time and eternity. And as the mother is the guardian and guide of the early years of life, from her emanates the most powerful influence which is exerted in the formation of the character of man. And why should it not be so ? What impressions can be more strong, and more lasting, than those received upon the mind in the freshness and the susceptibility of youth ? What instructor can gain greater confidence and respect than a mother ? And where can there exist circumstances more favorable for guiding human souls into the way of salvation, than when the little flock cluster around a mother's knee to hear of God and heaven ?

" A good boy generally makes a good man." Said the mother of Washington, " George was always a good boy." It was this always having been a good boy in childhood, that constitutes one great secret of the subsequent greatness of Washington. He had a mother who made him a good boy, and instilled into his heart those principles which raised him to be the benefactor of his country, and one of the brightest ornaments of the world. The mother of Washington is entitled to a nation's gratitude. She taught her boy the principles of obedience, and moral courage, and virtue. She, in a great measure, formed the character of the hero, and the statesman. It was by her own fireside that she taught her boy in the playful years of infancy, to govern himself; and it was thus that he was prepared for the brilliant career of usefulness which he afterward pursued. We are indebted to God for the gift of Washington ; but we are no less indebted to him for the gift of his inestimable mother. Had she been a weak, and indulgent, and unfaithful parent, the unchecked energies of her son might have elevated him to the throne of a tyrant; or youthful disobedience might have prepared the way for a life of crime and a dishonored grave. Byron had a mother just the reverse of lady Washington ; and we see the character of the mother in this case also, reflected in that of the son. We can not wonder at the character and conduct of Byron, for we see them to be the almost necessary consequence of the education which he received, and the scenes which he witnessed in his mother's parlor. She would at one time allow him to disobey with impunity ; at another she would fly into a rage and beat him. She thus taught him to defy all authority, human and divine ; to indulge, without restraint, in sin ; to give himself up to the power of every maddening passion. It was the mother of Byron who laid the foundation of his pre-eminence in guilt. She taught him to plunge into that sea of profligacy and wretch- j edness, upon whose agitated waves he was tossed for life. If the crimes of the poet deserve the execration of the world — the world can not forget that it was the mother who fostered in his youthful heart those passions which made the son a curse to his fellow- men.

There are, it is true, innumerable causes incessantly operating in the formation of character. A mother's influence is by no means the only influence which is exerted. Still it may be the most powerful ; for, with God's ordinary blessing, it may form in the youthful mind the habits, and implant the principles, to which other influences are to give permanency and vigor.

A pious and faithful mother may have a dissolute child. Her son may break away from all restraints, and God may leave him to " eat the fruit of his own devices." The parent, thus afflicted and broken-hearted, can only bow before the sovereignty of her Maker, who says, " be still, and know that I am God." The consciousness, however, of having done one's duty, divests this affliction of much of its bitterness. And beside, such cases are rare. Profligate children are generally the offspring of parents who have neglected the moral and religious education of their family. Some parents are themselves profligate, and thus not only allow their children to grow up unrestrained, but by their example lure them to sin. But there are others who are very upright, and virtuous, and even pious themselves, who do, nevertheless, neglect the moral culture of their children ; and as a consequence, they grow up in disobedience and sin. It matters but little what the cause is which leads to this neglect. The neglect itself will ordinarily be followed by disobedience and self-will.

Hence the reason that children of eminent men, both in church and state, are not unfrequently the disgrace of their parents. If the mother is unaccustomed to govern her children, if she look wholly to the father to enforce obedience from them, and control them ; when he is absent, all family government is absent, and the children are left to run wild ; to learn lessons of disobedience ; to practice arts of deception ; to build, upon the foundation of contempt for a mother, a character of insubordination and iniquity. But if the children are under the efficient government of a judicious mother, the reverse of this is almost invariably the case. And since, in nearly every instance, the early years of life are intrusted to a mother's care, it follows that maternal influence, more than any thing else, forms the future character.

The history of John Newton is often adduced as a proof of the deep and lasting impression which a mother may produce upon the mind of her child. He had a pious mother. She often retired with him to her closet, and placing her hand upon his youthful head, implored God's blessing upon her boy. These prayers and instructions sank deep into his heart. He could not but revere that mother. He could not but feel that there was a holiness in such a character, demanding reverence and love. He could not tear from his heart, in after-life, the impressions then produced. Though he became a wicked wanderer, though he forsook friends and home, and every virtue, — yet the remembrance of a mother's prayers, like a guardian-angel, followed him wherever he went. He mingled in the most dissipated and disgraceful scenes of a sailor's life, and while surrounded with guilty associates, in midnight revelry,

B he would fancy he felt the soft hand of his mother upon his head, pleading with God to forgive and bless her boy. He went to the coast of Africa, and became even more degraded than the savages upon her dreary shores. But the soft hand of his mother was still upon his head, and the fervent prayers of his mother still thrilled in his heart. And this influence, after the lapse of many guilty years, brought back the prodigal, a penitent and a child of God ; elevated him to be one of the brightest ornaments of the Christian church, and enabled him to guide many sons and daughters to glory. What a forcible comment is this upon the power of maternal influence ! And what encouragement does this present to every mother to be faithful in her efforts to train up her child for God ! Had Mrs. Newton neglected her duty, had she even been as remiss as many Christian mothers are, her son, to all human view, might have continued in sin, and been an outcast from heaven. It was through the influence of the mother that the son was saved. Newton became afterward a most successful preacher of the gospel, and every soul that he was instrumental in saving, in singing the song of redeeming mercy, will, through eternity, bless God that Newton had such a mother.

The influence thus exerted upon the mind, in early childhood, may, for many years, be apparently lost. When a son leaves home, and enters upon the busy world, many are the temptations which come crowding upon him. If when he thus withdraws from his mother's personal watch and care, his heart has not been fortified with established principles of religion and of self-control, he will most assuredly fall before these temptations. He may indeed fall, even after all that a mother has done, or can do ; and he may become deeply involved in guilt. But even then, when he has apparently forgotten every lesson that he learned at home, the secret influence of a mother's instructions, and a mother's prayers, may be yet working powerfully and effectually in his heart. He will think of a mother's tears, when remorse keeps him awake at midnight, or when danger threatens him with speedy arraignment at the bar of God. The thoughts of the sacredness of home will often throw bitterness into his cup of guilty pleasure, and compel him to sigh for the virtue and the peace which he has forsaken. Even though far away, in abodes of infamy, degraded and abandoned, he must occasionally think of a broken-hearted mother. Thus may he, after many years, perhaps long after she has gone down to the grave, be led, by the remembrance of her virtues, to forsake his sins.

A short time since, a gentleman, in one of' our most populous cities, was going to attend a seaman's meeting in the mariner's chapel. Directly opposite to the chapel there was a sailor's boarding-house. In the doorway of this house there was a hardy, weather-beaten sailor, sitting with arms folded, and smoking a cigar, — watching the people as they gradually assembled for the meeting.

The gentleman walked up to him and said, " Well, my friend, won't you go with us to meeting ?"

" No !" said the sailor, bluntly.

The gentleman, who, from the appearance of the man, had been prepared for a repulse, mildly replied, " You look, my friend, as though you had seen hard days ; have you a mother ?" The sailor raised his head, looked earnestly in the gentleman's face, and made no reply.

The gentleman continued : " Suppose your mother were here now, what advice do you think that she would give you ?" The tears rushed into the eyes of the poor sailor ; he endeavored for a moment to conceal them, but could not; and hastily brushing them away with the back of his rough hand, rose and said with a voice almost inarticulate through emotion, " Fll go to the meeting." He crossed the street, entered the door of the chapel, and took his seat with the assembled congregation.

What afterward became of the man is not known. It is however almost certain that he must have had a mother who had given him good instruction ; and when the gentleman appealed to her, hardened as the sailor was, his heart melted. It is by no means improbable that this interview may have checked this man in his sins, and led him to Christ. At any event, it shows the strength of maternal influence. It shows that years of wandering and of sin can not erase from the heart the impression which a mother's instructions and a mother's prayers have left there.

It is a great trial to have children undutiful when young ; but it is a tenfold greater affliction to have a child grow up to maturity in disobedience, and become a dissolute and abandoned man. How many parents have passed days of sorrow and nights of sleeplessness in consequence of the misconduct of their offspring! How many have had their hearts broken, and their gray hairs brought down with sorrow to the grave, solely in consequence of their own neglect to train up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord ! Your future happiness is in the hands of your children. They may be the means of filling all the future years of your life with joy, and on the other hand they may throw gloom over all your prospects, embitter every enjoyment, and make you so miserable, that your only prospect of relief will be in death.

That little girl whom you now fondle upon your knee, and who plays, so full of enjoyment, upon your floor, has entered a world where temptations are thick around. What is to enable her to resist these temptations, but established principles of piety ? And where is she to obtain these principles, but from a mother's instructions and example ? If, through your neglect now, she should hereafter yield herself to temptation and sin, what must become of your peace of mind ? O mother ! little are you aware of the wretchedness with which your Moved daughter may hereafter overwhelm you !

Many illustrations of the most affecting nature might be here introduced. It would be easy to appeal to a vast number of living sufferers, in attestation of the woe which the sin of a child can occasion. You may go, not only in imagination, but in reality, to the darkened chamber where the mother sits weeping, and refusing to be comforted, for a daughter lost to virtue and to heaven. Still, though we may witness the scene, no one but those who have experienced it can conceive how overwhelming is the mental agony which must prey upon a mother thus dishonored and broken-hearted. This is a sorrow which can only be understood by one who has tasted its bitterness and felt its weight. We may go to the house of piety and prayer, and find the father and mother with countenances emaciated with suffering ; not a smile plays upon their features, and the mournful accents of their voice tell how deeply seated is their sorrow. Shall we inquire into the cause of this heart-rending grief? The mother would only reply with tears and sobs. The father would summon all his fortitude, and say, " my daughter" — and say no more. The anguish of his spirit would prevent the farther utterance of his grief.

Is this exaggeration ? No ! Let your lovely daughter, now your pride and joy, be abandoned to infamy, be an outcast from society, and you must feel what language can not express.

This is a dreadful subject ; but the danger is one which the mother ought to feel and understand. None are exempt from it. There are facts which might here be introduced, sufficient to make every parent tremble. We might lead you to the dwelling of the clergyman, and tell you that a daughter's sin has carried the mother to the grave, and sent paleness to the cheek, and trembling to the frame, and agony to the heart of the aged father. We might carry you to the parlor of the rich man, and show you all the elegance and the opulence with which he is surrounded ; and yet he would tell you that he was one of the most unhappy of the sons of affliction, and that he would gladly give all his treasures if he could purchase back a daughter's virtue ; that he could gladly lie down to die, if he could by so doing, even blot out the remembrance of a daughter's infamy.

No matter what your situation in life may be, that little child, now so innocent, whose playful endearments and happy laugh awaken such thrilling emotions in your heart, may cause you years of most unalleviated misery.

And mother ! look at that drunken vagrant, staggering by your door. Listen to his horrid imprecations, as bloated and ragged he passes along. That wretch has a mother. Perhaps, widowed and in poverty, she needs the comfort and support of an affectionate son. You have a son. You may soon be a widow. In that case if your son is dissolute, you are doubly widowed ; you are worse, infinitely worse than childless. You can not now endure even the thought that your son will ever be thus abandoned. How dreadful then must be the experience of the reality !

I once knew a mother who had an only son. She loved him most ardently, and could not bear to deny him any indulgence. He, of course, soon learned to rule his mother. At the death of his father, the poor woman was left at the mercy of this vile boy. She had neglected her duty when he was young, and now his ungovernable passions had become too strong for her control. Self-willed, turbulent, and revengeful, he was his mother's bitterest curse. His paroxysms of rage at times amounted almost to madness. One day, infuriated against his mother, he set fire to her house, and it was burned to the ground, with all its contents, and she was left in the extreme of poverty. He was imprisoned as an incendiary, and, in his cell, he became a maniac, if he was not such before, and madly dug out his own eyes. He now lies in perpetual darkness, confined by the stone walls and grated bars of his dungeon, an infuriated madman.

How hard it must be for a mother, after all her anxiety, and suffering, — her days of toil, and her nights of watching and care, to find her son a demoniac enemy, instead of a guardian and friend ! You have watched over your child, through all the months of its helpless infancy. You have denied yourself, that you might give it comfort. When it has been sick, you have been unmindful of your own weariness, and your own weakness, and the livelong night you have watched at its cradle, administering to all its wants. When it has smiled, you have felt a joy which none but a parent can feel, and have pressed your much loved treasure to your bosom, praying that its future years of obedience and affection might be your ample reward. And now, how dreadful a requital, for that child to grow up to hate and abuse you ; to leave you friendless, in sickness and in poverty ; to squander all his earnings in haunts of iniquity and degradation.

There is, in many families, an impression that the boys must soon grow beyond a mother's control or influence, and that, while it is expected that the girls should still be obedient to their mother, the sons must, at a certain age, be left to the control of the father. Thus insensibly they imbibe the feeling that they are above their mother's authority. The mother feels

RESPONSIBILITY.

that she has no power to govern them ; the father is away, and the whole mind is engrossed with other cares, and the boys are left uncontrolled. This is the influential cause of the ruin of thousands of families.

Probably there is not one who will read this page, who can not recall to mind many illustrations of the truth of this statement.

Here is a lost son dying in the forecastle of a ship, far away upon the ocean.- Why is he there, far from his own pleasant fireside and the love of home ? Because his mother never established any control over her boy. In his infancy she indulged him, under the influence of an overweening maternal fondness The injury might possibly have been retrieved in the early years of boyhood, but the golden opportunity was allowed to slip by. The boy, as he grewr in strength and energy, became reckless and uncontrollable, and after a long and

THE SAILOR-BOY.

sorrowful experience of struggle, disappointment, and suffering, he was sent to sea, to perish miserably in some noxious foreign clime.

Here is a mutilated corpse upon some bloodstained field of battle. The form is that of a graceful youth, whose fair cheek is hardly browned by the southern sun. Why has this young man been plunged into these awful scenes of human butchery, and come to this untimely and disgraceful death ? It is because his mother did not control him when he was a child.

The idea is a totally erroneous one, that a son, by nature, feels that there is an inferiority in a woman, and that it is not manly to obey his mother. The natural feeling is just the reverse, and a judicious mother can retain control over a son as long as he lives. The bond will be changed it is true, when he becomes a man, from that of authority to that of affection, but it will endure to the end of life, and grow stronger and stronger every year.

Indeed, a well-educated young man feels a peculiar pride in being obedient to his mother. There is a chivalrous feeling, a sense of honor connected with such submission which is highly pleasurable to every ingenuous mind.

No one can read the biography of Payson without seeing the control which a mother's mind exerted over him, through all his collegiate and theological course, and when all the cares of his arduous profession were crowding him. The same maternal supremacy which protected his infancy, guided and curbed the impetuosity of his childhood, the ardor of his youth, and the energies of his manhood. For the mother may be, in many things, always the superior of her son, and be capable of being his counselor and benefactor.

The memoirs of Wesley, who has, perhaps, exerted as powerful an influence as any other man upon the destinies of the world, are filled with illustrations of this continued influence of a mother's mind guiding her apostolical son in all the conflicts of his laborious and glorious career.

Read the letters of the mother of John Quincy Adams, and you will be at no loss to account for the invincible moral courage, the unvarying principle, and the almost superhuman energy which has shed such luster upon his life. Before her noble mind he was ever proud to bow in homage. He was always, even in the most exalted manhood, his mother's child, ever prompt to do her bidding, and ever feeling himself honored in honoring her.

Even the Emperor Napoleon attributed the formation of his character, in a great measure, to his mother's influence. And in speaking on the subject generally, he remarked, that " the man is what the mother makes him. France wants mothers."

In fact, every young man wants to be proud of his mother. He loves to feel under her control. He delights in having a mother w7ho is capable and worthy of guiding him. And she who virtually abandons the government of her boy just as he is entering upon the fiery temptations of impetuous youth, inflicts upon him an irreparable injury, and is an almost unpardonable betrayer of her sacred trust.

From these and similar facts it is plain that God has placed in the hands of parents an influence which is almost boundless. We are very prone to underrate this power. You observe that your child has some fault which you endeavor to remove. Persuasion, entreaty, punishment — all perhaps fail, or secure only partial success ; and you say, " How little influence have I, after all, over my child." But you forget that there is an influence of conduct and example as well as of precept, and that very probably, by your own previous neglect or sin, you may yourself have riveted the chain which you now strive in vain to break by a word.

Besides the individual instances that have been adduced, we can see the influence ot parents byobserving how national characteristics are preserved from generation to generation. The population of Turkey, of China, of New England, and of every savage island, will in one hundred years be slumbering in the ground, and their places will be filled by others, who will all be substantially alike when they enter the world. The millions of infants who are to compose the next Turkish generation will not, as infants, differ from those who are to be our descendants in this happy land, — or from the future throng which will fill the Chinese empire, — or from the babes which open their eyes in the wildest hut or wigwam. And yet how certainly will every one of these classes, as they come forward into life, receive the traits of mind and the characteristics of their parents. How certainly will the next generation in Turkey be substantially like the last, and China in the twentieth centurybe like China now, unless some extraneous cause comes in to produce a change. The power of parental influence is almost unbounded.

But besides the influence which mothers can thus exert in securing the future welfare and happiness of their children, their own enjoyment, in their declining years, is almost wholly dependent upon the results of their dealings with those thus dependent upon them. The influence which you now exert upon your children will react, after many years, with prodigious power upon yourselves. It is natural that in early life parents should have no conception of the extent to which their own peace and happiness are ultimately to be placed in their children's hands. See that infant : weakness and helplessness itself, it has scarcely strength to sustain its own tottering footsteps, or courage to look without agitation into a stranger's face ; dependent for every want, and completely submissive to every command, it can scarcely be said to have a separate existence. It knows nothing — it does nothing, but through parental permission ; and if there is throughout the world an instance of complete, unlimited, absolute power on the one hand, and most entire and helpless submission on the other, it is to be found in the empire which such a parent holds over such a 1 child.