THE NATURE AND INFLUENCE OF MATERNAL

ASSOCIATIONS.-(Concluded.)

3. I come now to a third consideration-the tendency of such associations to increase family and maternal religion.

On this subject I speak chiefly from the testimony of mothers. I have seen extracts from many letters written by mothers, and I have the testimony of mothers in my own church, that they have found that every meeting of the Maternal Association sent them home to their closets, humbled under a sense of their deficiencies, and casting themselves more fully on covenant grace to aid them in the discharge of maternal duty.

One influence is found in the fact, that they have led to the collection of the best writings calculated to impress a mother's heart, and the bringing them together to hear them read; and it is unquestionable, as a general principle, that a thing read in a large company is altogether more impressive than that read alone. When the best writings of the best heads and the best hearts are brought before a collected assembly of mothers, I think that the influence must be happy, in elevating the standard of maternal piety, and having the mothers go back to the domestic circle to elevate the standard of maternal religion. I know the fact, that, when an individual mother has received a special blessing from God in answer to prayer, when an individual mother has found her endeavors owned and blessed of God, and when she has gone to the meeting to tell it-each mother has said, "Then I must get nearer to God myself, and wait more faithfully upon him, and he will give me, too, the blessing which he has given to my sister."

4. I urge a fourth consideration in recommendation of Maternal Associations; they tend to facilitate the discharge of maternal duties.

In the first place, they increase the information of mothers. And I will just run over a little catalogue of their duties, on which they need information. The mother's art is the most

difficult perhaps in the world. She has to train the body through the most delicate and exposed period of its existence; she has to carry it through the period when particular diseases invade it; she has to attend to the physical development of the entire man, in beauty, in strength and healthfulness. And then, at the same time, she has to rear the intellect and the heart—to judge of a thousand difficult questions of conscience, that are rising up almost every day in her sphere. It is a difficult art, I say; and, like every other art, we must have mothers more and more cducated in it, to carry on human nature to its highest possible degree of attainment and perfection. If an apprentice must be sent, for a certain term of years, to learn the simple trade of making a watch, or a shoe, or a hat, what shall we say of her, that undertakes to mould the mind of immortal man, to prepare it to be steadfast amid the trials of life, and then to pass to the spheres of endless glory? Well might angels wish to take the place of a mother, when they see how much is to be done in forming the future character of the man, in those years when he lies a helpless infant on his mother's lap. I speak from the testimony of missionary mothers; and I delight to recommend it to those that feel for their missionary sisters in this land. It is now becoming extensively introduced in missionary stations. I was present at a meeting of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in America, when this question was agitated for many hours; and it was exceedingly difficult to know what to do; a missionary carries his children with him, or they are born in the country where he has gone, and they are cut off entirely from Christian privileges; if they go outside the boundaries of their home, they are exposed to the most destructive influences; what was the missionary to do? The question came back to us with the most heart-rending anxieties of Christian mothers and Christian fathers, and it seemed as if we must call them back-as if it were too much to ask them, not only to sacrifice their earthly comforts, but to lay their children's souls (as it were) upon the altar; for it seemed as though they could not guard them. But the manner in which some of the missionary ladies have written upon the subject, is beginning to cheer our hearts. We begin to think,

that what they want is, to make a more complete society of Christian mothers, and to train their children under its influence; and, if it is difficult, God will hear their prayers and give them peculiar help. Missionary mothers are rejoicing now in the formation of these Associations, which bring as it were the entire power of the mothers of the station to bear upon the duty of each individual mother in the church.

But I was speaking of the points on which mothers need instruction, and on which these Maternal Associations furnish it. They need to understand the subject of health, of course; they need to understand the whole subject of the physical development of man. For man's body is a wonderful organ. Just see what his hand alone can be taught to accomplish-what he can do as a painter, what he can do as a musician, what he can do as a writer; the thousand uses to which the human hand can be brought, how much power there lies hid in this machine, and how much skill is demanded properly to begin, and by and by to intrust to other hands, the full developing of the physical power of man. Then she needs for his intellectual education another class of information; and then another for his religious education; and still another for the formation of his moral habits, and rightly to interest him in his own proper department of education. No more difficult subject can be found than man in his infancy. Maternal Associations tend to facilitate the discharge of maternal duties by throwing increased light upon this difficult subject.

And they do it by fortifying the determination of mothers. The great struggle in a mother's heart is between her tenderness, that cannot bear to behold the sufferings of her child, much less to inflict them, and at the same time the duty faithfully to restrain and reprove her child; and, perhaps, there is not a mother, who will not find her determination more fortified, when meeting her sisters, they have compared their own cases, and seen the limits to which duty carried others when refusing to inflict pain, and the limits to which duty carried them when inflicting i.

They tend likewise to facilitate the discharge of maternal duties by encouraging mothers. And here I wish to meet an objection, which seems to imply, that, if a lady joins a Maternal

Association, she has peculiar need of being instructed. I look at the subject in the other light; I would say, if the kind providence of God has given to any mother peculiar light on this subject, peculiar strength and peculiar faith, she is the very person to go to her sisters and give them the benefit of the light God has given her, and give them the benefit of the faith and confidence which inspire her own soul. Here is the very sphere for her

benevolence and her talent.

5. And I close my arguments in favor of Maternal Associations, by presenting the fact, that they lead to concerted prayer for children.

I well remember to have heard it remarked, long before Maternal Associations were instituted, that, in a particular church in the State of New York, a number of fathers set apart an evening in the week to meet and pray for their children; and the remark was made to me fifteen years ago, that every child of those families was converted to God; there was not one left out. Oh! it must be good for mothers to meet together and talk of the value of the souls of their children. It must be good for mothers to meet together, and talk of the guilt and danger of their children, and together talk over the precious promises that encourage them, and together bow them before the mercyseat, and plead (those "two or three gathered together") that God would convert their children's souls. I need not dwell upon such an argument. It is certainly good for you to pray alone for your children; and it is certainly good for you to get your sister to pray also for your children. It is good to have regular periodical prayer for your children, as well as to have constant family

prayer.

Let me close with a word more particularly addressed to

mothers.

Mothers! give your children every advantage-every advantage that truth can give, every advantage that a holy example can give, every advantage that much pleading the promises of God can give. You feel for the diseases of the body of your child; you are speedy in sending for the physician, when the body is diseased; oh! feel for that immortal disease of sin, and send for

the great Physician. And, if he comes not at the first knock, knock again; for he says "it shall be opened;" ask again, for he says that "it shall be given you;" seek again, for he says that "ye shall find." Oh! seek salvation for your children. Seek that they may be converted early; for if you want testimonies, there are enough of us that can give a painful testimony, that it is too late to be converted at twenty and twentyone; not that we may not-not that we are not-for some of us reached even that period; but what we mean is this—it is too late for many important purposes. It is so late that it gives, to the end of life, fearful struggles with the habits of the heart. It is too late, because there is so much left unlearned, that we should have learned if we had been pious in our early youth; we should have gone so much deeper into the counsels of God, if we had come early to Christ, and, like Timothy, learned the Scriptures on our mother's lap, and followed the finger of a mother's love as it pointed to the Savior. Oh! pray that your sons may not grow up in sin; pray that they may be converted in their earliest years; labor that they may be converted in their earlier years. Pray that your daughters, from the first development of their moral faculties, their moral being, may learn to love their God and Savior, and be trained for usefulness here and glory hereafter. Your responsibility is great; for the evils of society are to be rectified in the young. Mothers! with you who can harm them, who can train them, rests this responsibility; and may God's blessed spirit impress it on your hearts, and lead you to seek light and grace at the fountain from which they come.

Mothers! bring up your little ones to Jesus. Bring them by faith; and if Satan seems to stand and rebuke, if a wicked and unbelieving world, by its example and its influence and its maxims, seems to rebuke, still bring your little ones to Christ; still press even to his feet, and never bear your mother's burdens alone, but roll them upon a breast that beats in sympathy with yours; roll them upon the heart, and roll them upon the arms of the blessed Redeemer. Bring them to Jesus as their Savior. Bring them to Jesus as their Sovereign, and teach their wills to bow to his will. Bring them to Jesus as their pattern. It is said