A FAITHFUL MOTHER.
—Her pure and holy spirit now
Doth intercede at the eternal throne.
Miss Landon.
The following anecdote strikingly illustrates the strength of maternal love, the beauty of faith, and the efficacy of prayer. It was related by a blind preacher:
"When I was about eighteen years of age, there was a dancing party in Middleboro, Massachusetts, which I was solicited to attend, and act, as usual, in the capacity of musician. I was fond of such scenes of amusements then, and I readily assented to the request. I had a pious mother; and she earnestly remonstrated against my going. But, at length, when all her expostulations and entreaties failed in changing my purpose, she said: 'Well, my son, I shall not forbid your going, but remember, that all the time you spend in that gay company, I shall spend in praying for you at home.' I went to the ball, but I was like the stricken deer, carrying an arrow in his side. I began to play; but my convictions sank deeper and deeper, and I felt miserable indeed. I thought I would have given the world to have been rid of that mother's prayers. At one time I felt so wretched and so overwhelmed with my feelings, that I ceased playing and dropped my musical instrument from my hand. There was another young person there who refused to dance; and, as I learned, her refusal was owing to feelings similar to my own, and perhaps they arose from a similar cause. My mother's prayers were not lost. That was the last ball I ever attended, except one, where I was invited to play again, but went and prayed and preached instead, till the place was converted into a Bochim, a place of weeping. The convictions of that wretched night never wholly left me, till they left me at the feet of Christ, and several of my young companions in sin ere long were led to believe and obey the gospel also."
ANECDOTE OF MRS. SPAULDING OF
NEW HAMPSHIRE.[32]
Through the deep wilderness, where scarce the sun
Can cast his darts, along the winding path
The pioneer is treading.
Street.
An energy A spirit that will not be shaken.
Willis.
One of the first two settlers of Northumberland, New Hampshire, was Daniel Spaulding, who removed thither in the summer of 1767. On the way to his new home, with his wife and child, the last burnt himself so badly at Plymouth that the mother was obliged to remain and take care of him, while Mr. Spaulding proceeded to the end of the journey. She soon became uneasy, and, anxious to join her husband, started off with her child, twenty-one months old, to travel twenty-six miles through the wilderness. A friend who had agreed to accompany her the whole distance with a horse, returned after traveling about one third of the way. Undaunted and persevering, she pushed on, alone and on foot; waded through Baker's river with her child in her arms; was overtaken by a heavy "thunder gust" in the afternoon, and thoroughly drenched; seated herself beside a tree when darkness appeared, and held her child in her lap through a long and sleepless night; resumed her journey early the next morning; waded through a small pond, with the water waist-high; pushed on to another river, which, though swollen by the rain of the preceding day and looking rapid and terrifying, she forded in safety; and at eleven o'clock that day, the second of her journey, she met her husband, who was on his way back with a horse for her accommodation.[33]