Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/196

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184
Side Talks with Girls

your girl's religion to be one to live by when she sees that it has no part in your daily life? Can you expect your girl to be a good and noble woman when you are petty and selfish and trifling?

Every day in your life you must remember that you are the living example that your daughter is to follow. Every morning you ought to pray for help to live so well during the day that your daughters will find in you their ideal of the perfect woman. The girl who is happy enough to have her mother represent all that is good, is the girl who cannot but be good herself. So much of it rests with you. I tell you the cry of the children all over the land is for mothers, for thoughtful mothers, loving mothers, and sympathetic mothers. So many girls are hungry for a little love and a little sympathy, and you, who should be so generous with them—you, from whom they have a right to ask so much—you let them starve. Certainly your reward will come to you; there would be no justice if it did not, and knowing this, I beg of you to think of your children, and be mothers, not strangers to them.

IN YOUR OLD AGE

Then it will all come up before you—the mistakes that you have made. And you will realize that not only have you failed in your duty toward God