The care and management, and consequently the health and future well-doing of the child, principally devolve upon the mother, "for it is the mother after all that has most to do with the making or marring of the man." [Footnote: Good Words, Dr W. Lindsay Alexander, March 1861.] Dr Guthrie justly remarks that—"Moses might have never been the man he was unless he had been nursed by his own mother. How many celebrated men have owed their greatness and their goodness to a mother's training!" Napoleon owed much to his mother. "'The fate of a child,' said Napoleon, 'is always the work of his mother;' and this extraordinary man took pleasure in repeating, that to his mother he owed his elevation. All history confirms this opinion…" The character of the mother influences the children more than that of the father, because it is more exposed to their daily, hourly observation.—Woman's Mission.
I am not overstating the importance of the subject in hand when I say, that a child is the most valuable treasure in the world, that "he is the precious gift of God," that he is the source of a mother's greatest and purest enjoyment, that he is the strongest bond of affection between her and her husband, and that
"A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure,
A messenger of peace and love."—Tupper,
I have, in the writing of the following pages, had one object constantly in view—namely, health—
"That salt of life, which does to all a relish give,
Its standing pleasure, and intrinsic wealth,
The body's virtue, and the soul's good fortune—health."
If the following pages insist on the importance of one of a mother's duties more than another it is this,—that the mother herself look well into everything appertaining to the management of her own child.
Blessed is that mother among mothers of whom it can be said, that "she hath done what she could" for her child—for his welfare, for his happiness, for his health!
For if a mother hath not "done what she could for her child"—mentally, morally, and physically—woe betide the unfortunate little creature;—better had it been for him had he never been born!
ABLUTION
3. Is a new-born infant, for the first time, to be washed in warm or in cold water?