of this day, ninety-nine out of a hundred of them, came from such an
illustrious ancestry of hard knuckles and homespun.
And who are these people in society, light as froth, blown every
whither of temptation and fashion--the peddlers of filthy stories, the
dancing-jacks of political parties, the scum of society, the
tavern-lounging, the store-infesting, the men of low wink, and filthy
chuckle, and brass breast-pins, and rotten associations? For the most
part, they came from mothers idle and disgusting--the scandal-mongers
of society, going from house to house, attending to everybody's
business but their own, believing in witches, and ghosts, and
horseshoes to keep the devil out of the churn, and by a godless life
setting their children on the very verge of hell. The mothers of
Samuel Johnson, and of Alfred the Great, and Isaac Newton, and of St.
Augustine, and of Richard Cecil, and of President Edwards, for the
most part were industrious, hard-working mothers.
Now, while I congratulate all Christian mothers upon the wealth and
the modern science which may afford them all kinds of help, let me say
that every mother ought to be observant of her children's walk, her
children's behavior, her children's food, her children's looks, her
children's companionships. However much help Hannah may have, I think
she ought every year, at least, make one garment for Samuel. The Lord
have mercy on the man who is so unfortunate as to have had a lazy
mother!