MOTHERS' CORNER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9919, 6 August 1910, Page 4

MOTHERS' CORNER.

(Specially Compiled for the, " Star.") " Every home is a mint for tho coining of character." A recent English mail brought a most interesting account of tho Mothers' Union Anniversary Day service at St Paul's Cathedral, London., from Mrs Scott; who attended it iji company with Mrs J. Cracroft Wilson. Oar two ex-vice-presidents seem greatly to liavo enjoyed it together, "looking upon everything, as it were, in the light of New Zealand and our dear friends there." The Bishop of Kensington preached the sermon and took for his subject the four aspects of Holy Communion specially to be kept in remembrance by" the Mothers' Unionj viz., " Thanksgiving, Humiliation, Intercession and Consecration." The next day Mrs Scott attended a meeting of the Central Council and spoke upon the work of our branches in Canterbury. Amberley has lately suffered a heavy loss through the departure of Mrs Tobin, who originally started the branch of the Mothers' Union there, and has ever since worked most ungrudgingly in its service. THE MOTHER AS GOD'S VICE-

GERENT. " Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages."

These words were spoken by Pharoah's daughter when she found the infant Moses in the reeds by the river brink. She determined to adopt liim. for her own son, and to give him a great place in her father's kingdom. But first she must find someone to nurse the child for her till she could take him to the palace; and she found the child's own mother. To her she delivered tho little one and said, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." That too is what God says to each of you: your children are entrusted to your care by Him; they are yours for a time, but they are His for ever. They are meant for high positions in the palace of tho_ King of Kings, "and they must be trained- and fitted to be worthy of their Heavenly birth. As Joohobed stood to her own child in the place of Pharoah's daughter, so each of you mothers stands to your children in the place of God. As such you will have to give account to Him; as such you may win the . highest glory with which womanhood can bo crowned. Not only does the responsibility rest upon you ; of the care of your child's body and mind; you have also in your keeping an immortal soul, and it depends upon you to give it its first' inclination either towards good or towards evil. You lay the foundation of the character of the future man or woman; it starts from what you make it, and if you give it a bad start you may make a mark upon that soul that will last it for eternity. You stand to your children in their infant days in the place of God.; you are His agent; Ho means them to learn to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him, to be blessed by Him. But they are 'to do it through you. What you say is their law; they look up to you as tho highest wisdom and the greatest power they know. They question nothing: truth for them is what you tell thern. Beware that you speak as the oracles of God, for before your little ones know how to choose the good and refuse the evil you will make the choice for them—yes, and you must make it. You must not , shrink from the responsibility , that God laid upon you when he said, "Take this child and nurse it for Me. Children nowadays are often _ allowed to have far. too much of their own way. I have heard mothers weakly say that their little ones have not been to Sunday school 'because they were not willing, or because some little friend of theirs has persuaded them to go elsewhere. Mothers, mothers!, God has not put authority in yourv hands for nothing. When your chil- ! dren grow iip they may choose for themselves, hut not now. Christ expects you to keep them from straying. . When it can be done, _ certainly the first lessons in the faith of Jesus Christ ought to come from the mother's lips. None can sink so deeply into the mind and heart as these do. Other things may be cast away and forgotten, but tli© teaching that a little child gets at his mother's knee comes back to him again and again in after years, even against his will sometimes, and it never can b© wholly lost white life endures. You are at first to your child in tho place of God; then you must, point tho way to One who is higher than yourself. Do not, trust to school for that. Let the little ones learn at your knee how to speak to, that loving Father in Heaven, Whose ears are always open to the children's prayer. Do not burden them with much to learn by heart. The "Our Father'' and a simple childish prayer or. two, with the Apostle's Creed, and perhaps a hymn—these are quite enough. Only show them not just how to say them but how to pray them. Do not be ashamed to pray with them, as well as for them. And then upon you depends chiefly that subtlest of influences, the atmosphere of home. Tho mail who is out at his work all day may do his best, but for the most part tho home life is what the woman makes it. It does not depend upon what you say or do so niuch as upon the way you live, whether the whole tone of your homo shall be Christian or otherwise. There is a something to be felt'rather than described in the atmosphere of a Christian home, that makes it plain to all who enter it that those who live there have decided, "As for mo j and my house, we will serve the Lord. Remember that in your home Christ is the unseen Guest at every meal, tho unseen Listener to every conversation, the unseen Watcher of everything that is done. , , i ■ Lead your cmlciren, do not drive them, in the way everlasting. So in the great day, when you and they staiuf before the Judgment Seat of God, not one lost, not cno missing, your children shall rise up and call you blessed. The Lord of Glorv will f»jcept them at your hand, and Ho vnU prvc von thcv v» r cm cilasting life, because by your holy life and loving cure von have. secured for those He committed to your charge an inheritance in the kingdom of light that fadeth not away.

(Abridged from an address given by -ho Rev Lambert Woodard to the merabsrs oi the Mothers' Union, Bedford, England.)