AN INDUSTRIOUS MOTHER.
There was no need for her to work. Elkanah, her husband, was far from poor. He belonged to a distinguished family; for the Bible tells us that he was the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph. "Who were they?" you say. I do not know; but they were distinguished people, no doubt, or their names would not have been mentioned.
Hannah might have seated herself with her family, and, with folded arms and dishevelled hair, read novels from year to year, if there had been any to read; but when I see her making that garment, and taking it over to Samuel, I know she is industrious from principle as well as from pleasure. God would not have a mother become a drudge or a slave; He would have her employ all the helps possible in this day in the rearing of her children. But Hannah ought never to be ashamed to be found making a coat for Samuel.
Most mothers need no counsel in this direction. The wrinkles on their brow, the pallor on their cheek, the thimble-mark on their finger, attest that they are faithful in their maternal duties. The bloom, and the brightness, and the vivacity of girlhood have given place for the grander dignity, and usefulness, and industry of motherhood. But there is
A HEATHENISH IDEA
getting abroad in some of the families of Americans; there are mothers who banish themselves from the home circle. For three fourths of their maternal duties they prove themselves incompetent. They are ignorant of what their children wear, and what their children eat, and what their children read. They intrust to irresponsible persons these young immortals, and allow them to be under influences which may cripple their bodies, or taint their purity, or spoil their manners, or destroy their souls.
From the awkward cut of Samuel's coat you know his mother Hannah did not make it. Out from under flaming chandeliers, and off from imported carpets, and down the granite stairs, there has come a great crowd of children in this day, untrained, saucy, incompetent for all practical duties of life, ready to be caught in the first whirl of crime and sensuality. Indolent and unfaithful mothers will make indolent and unfaithful children. You cannot expect neatness and order in any house where the daughters see nothing but slatternness and upsidedownativeness in their parents. Let Hannah be idle, and most certainly Samuel will grow up idle.
Who are the industrious men in all our occupations and professions? Who are they managing the merchandise of the world, building the walls, tinning the roofs, weaving the carpets, making the laws, governing the nations, making the earth to quake, and heave, and roar, and rattle with the tread of gigantic enterprises? Who are they? For the most part they descended from industrious mothers, who, in the old homestead, used to spin their own yarn, and weave their own carpets, and plait their own door-mats, and flag their own chairs, and do their own work. The stalwart men and the
INFLUENTIAL WOMEN
of this day, ninety-nine out of a hundred of them, came from such an illustrious ancestry of hard knuckles and homespun.