THE MODEL MOTHER

By R. H. Rivers

            The responsibility of mothers cannot be too strongly emphasized. They do more in forming the character of the men and women who are to follow them, than all others. They begin with the infant in the cradle. The expression of countenance, the intonation of voice---the tenderness and the patience manifested by the mother in the nursery must tell upon the character and destiny of the child all through life to eternity. The model mother is a blessing beyond the power of language to express:

            1. She is gentle and firm. Mild as the zephyr, yet strong as the mountain, is the mother who is fitted, both by nature and by grace, to bring up children for her country, her Church, and her God.

            2. She is patient. She never gives way to temper. She has perfect control of her tongue. She does not fret. She does not scold. She bears and forbears. Her language, however firm and strong, is never violent, never threatening. Her patience is unyielding; her sweetness of temper perpetual.

            3. She is truthful. She is extremely careful never to exaggerate. She does not make promises to be broken. She states facts with perfect accuracy. She does not extenuate or set down aught in malice. She is no gossip. She is free from the vice of slander. Her words may be relied on almost as the words of Holy Writ.

            4. She is prudent. No word or act of imprudence ever stains her character. Her husband can safely trust in her, and her children can rise up and call her blessed.

            5. She is impartial. She does not excite the envy of one child by her weak partiality for another. As children possess different dispositions, she may have to treat them differently, but never with injustice.

            6. She is free from groundless suspicions. Mothers may do much harm by indulging in unjust suspicions of either son or daughter. Never suspect a child of wrong without the strongest evidence of its guilt, is the motto of the model mother.

            7. She is a Christian in the strongest and most spiritual sense of that word. She is full of love to God and man. She is without guile and free from all inconsistency. She is a woman of constant, earnest prayer. She has faith in God. She loves the Saviour. She is filled with the spirit divine. With these qualities, she possesses a power over her children which will be felt long after she is wearing her crown in Heaven. Mothers, let one who appreciates in all the depths of his nature the womanly character of the mothers in our land, beseech you to rise to the model here presented, and then your reward will be great on earth but greater in Heaven. Such a mother never spoils her children on the one hand nor is tyrannical on the other. She controls others with a power almost superhuman because she has perfect self-control.

            (The Pulpit Treasury, Oct. 1887).