hs that has been the greatest
obstacle to the progress of my work.

But I appeal to you: Who but a mother can bring such a constant and
potent influence to bear as to secure the mind and character moving on
its own higher plane in relation to the whole of this side of our
nature? Who so well as a mother can teach the sacredness of the body as
the temple of the Eternal? Who else can implant in her son that habitual
reverence for womanhood which to a man is "as fountains of sweet water
in the bitter sea" of life? Who like a mother, as he grows to years of
sense and observation, and the curiosity is kindled, which is only a cry
for light and teaching, can so answer the cry and so teach as to make
the mysteries of life and truth to be for ever associated for him with
all the sacred associations of home and his own mother, and not with the
talk of the groom or the dirty-minded schoolboy? Who so well as a
mother, as he passes into dawning manhood, can plead faithfulness to the
future wife before marriage as well as after? Nay, as I hold by the old
Spanish proverb "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy," who
like a mother, by her prayers and ever-present example and influence,
can lead him to the Highest, and impress upon him that his life is
given him for no lower end than, in the words of the Westminster
Confession, "to know God and to glorify Him for ever"; and that
therefore he is made on a very high plan--as Browning puts it, "Heaven's
consummate cup," whose end is to slake "the Master's thirst"; and that
the cup from which He drinks must be clean inside as well as out, and
studded within and without with the pearl of purity?

But refuse to give him this higher teaching and training; go on, as so
many mothers have done, blankly ignoring the whole subject, because it
is so difficult to speak to one's boys,--as if everything worth having
in this life were not difficult!--leave him to the teaching of dirty
gossip, of unclean classical allusions in his school-books, of scraps of
newspaper intelligence, possibly of bad companions whom he may pick up
at school or business, and be sure of it, as this side of his nature is
awakened--in his search after gratified curiosity or pleasurable
sensation, in utter ignorance of what he is doing, through your fault,
not through his--he will use his imagination and his will to strengthen
the animal instincts. What ought to have been kept on a higher plane of
being will be used to s