A Word To Mothers

W. Lipscomb

Each mother is an historian. She writes not the history of empires or of nations on paper, but she writes her own history on the imperishable mind of her child. That tablet and that history will remain indelible when time shall be no more. That history each mother will meet again, and read with eternal joy or unutterable grief in the far coming ages of eternity. This thought should weigh on the mind of every mother, and render her deeply circumspect, and prayerful, and faithful in her solemn work of training up her children for heaven and immortality.

The minds of children are very susceptible, and easy impressed. A word, a look, a frown, may engrave an impression on the mind of a child which no lapse of time can efface or wash out. You walk along the seashore when the tide is out, and you form characters, or write words or names in the smooth white sand, which it has spread out so clear and beautiful at your feet, according as your fancy may dictate, but the returning tide shall in a few hours wash out and efface for ever all that you have written.

Not so the lines and characters of truth, or error, which your conduct imprints on the mind of your child. There you write impressions for the everlasting good or ill of your child, which neither the floods nor the storms of earth can wash out, nor death’s cold fingers erase, nor the slow-moving ages of eternity obliterate. How careful then, should each mother be of her treatment of her child. How prayerful, and how serious, and how earnest to write the eternal truths of God on his mind — those truths which shall be his guide and teacher when her voice shall be silent in death, and her lips no longer move in prayer in^. his behalf, in commending her dear child to her covenant God. (Gospel Advocate, September, 1857, page 303.)

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