It was my mother, said the matron, that taught me all that I know, forty years ago in the forests of Michigan, and I am trying to bring up my girls so that they shall know everything that their grandmother taught me. They could read, and write, and cypher. They were little farmers, and gardeners, and seamstresses, and housewives. Nor had their religious and moral training been neglected. The good Book lay well thumbed and dogeared on the kitchen shelf. The sound of the "church-going bell" had never been heard by those children, but every Sunday the mother gathered them about her, and they read together from the New Testament. "It is ten years," said the matron, "since I have seen a church. I remember the last time I visited San Francisco, awaking Sunday morning and hearing the sound of the bell which called us to meeting. It was sweeter than heavenly music to my ears, and I burst into tears." What a suggestion was that, pointing to the unsatisfied craving of that lonely heart for the consolation of the promises uttered by consecrated lips! Right and fitting it is that woman, God-beloved in old Jerusalem, that she, the last at the cross and the first at the sepulcher, though far from the Sabbath that smiles upon eastern homes, should keep alive in the hearts of her children the remembrance of the Saviour and of the Lord's day.
Rove wherever they may, the sons and daughters of the wilderness will find amid the stormiest lives a safe anchorage in the holy keeping of the Christian Sabbath, and in the word of God, for these are the best and surest legacies of a pious mother's precepts. A civilization in which the early lispings of childhood are of God and Christ, cannot become altogether corrupt and degenerate, for woman here is the depository and transmitter of religious faith.
From the earliest times to a comparatively recent period, a large proportion of the distinguished men of our country have necessarily passed their first years in remote settlements, if not on the extreme border of civilization. The lives of those men who have risen to eminence as generals, statesmen, professional men, and authors, and date their success from the lessons received from woman's lips in the early homes of their childhood, would fill volumes. We pass by the first generations of these pupils, and come to the men of that period from which to-day we date the birth of the Republic.
The heroic age of American statesmanship commenced in 1776. Of all those illustrious men who signed the immortal Declaration, or framed the Constitution of the United States, a considerable number passed their childhood and youth in secluded and remote settlements. They were the sons of "Women on the American Frontier." They drew in with their mother's milk the intellectual and moral traits, and gathered from their mother's lips those lessons which prepared them in after years to guide the councils of their country in the most trying period of its history.
Let us commence the list with the deathless name of Washington. Born in a secluded and primitive farm-house at Bridge's Creek, Virginia, he was left by the death of his father to the care and guardianship of his mother. "She," says his biographer, "proved herself worthy of the trust. Endowed with plain, direct good sense, thorough conscientiousness, and prompt decision, she governed her family strictly, but kindly, exacting deference while she inspired affection. George, being her eldest son, was thought to be her favorite, yet she never gave him undue preference, and the implicit deference exacted from him in childhood continued to be habitually observed by him to the day of her death. He inherited from her a high temper and a spirit of command, but her early precepts and example taught him to restrain and govern that temper, and to square his conduct on the exact principles of equity and justice. Tradition gives an interesting picture of the widow, with her little flock gathered round her, as was her wont, reading to them lessons of religion and morality out of some standard work. Her favorite volume was Sir Mathew Hale's Contemplations, moral and divine. The admirable maxims therein contained, for outward action as well as self government, sank deep into the mind of George, and doubtless had a great influence in forming his character. They certainly were exemplified in his conduct throughout life. His mother's manual, bearing his mother's name, Mary Washington, written with her own hand, was ever preserved by him with filial care, and may still be seen in the archives of Mount Vernon. A precious document! Let those who wish to know the moral foundation of his character, consult its pages."
Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, the author of that immortal document; George Wythe, afterwards Chancellor of Virginia; Francis Hopkinson, the poet and patriot Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Huntington, Edward Rutledge, and many others, have left upon record testimonials of their great obligations to their mother's care and teachings.
In the second era of American statesmanship, a large number of those most eminent for public services were also born and nurtured on the frontier. A cursory examination of the biographies of those distinguished men will show how largely they were indebted to the early training which they received from their mothers.
Incidents drawn from the early life of the seventh President of the United States, will prove with striking clearness the lasting influence of a mother's teachings.
During one of the darkest periods of the Revolution, and after the massacre at Warsaw by the bloodthirsty Tarleton, when the British prison-pens in South Carolina were crowded with wounded captive patriots, an elderly woman, with the strongly marked physiognomy which characterizes the Scotch-Irish race, could have been seen moving among the hapless prisoners, relieving their wants and alleviating their sufferings. She had come the great distance, alone and on foot, through swamps and forests, and across rivers, from a border settlement, on this errand of compassion.
After her work of charity and mercy had been finished, she set out alone and on foot, as before, upon her journey home. She sped on, thinking doubtless of her sons, and most of all of the youngest, a bright and manly little fellow whom she had watched over and trained with all of a mother's care and tenderness. The way was long and difficult, the unbridged streams were cold, the forest was dark and tangled. Wandering from her course, weary and worn with her labors of love and pity, she sank down at last and died.