Thus passed away a most beautiful life in the morning of its usefulness, and in the quiet shades of evening the tortured, pain-racked body was laid to rest.
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."
"Earth's sweetest flowers bloom but to decay."
The following lines which we subjoin are the last expressions of her pen, and in full harmony with her genial disposition as a mother.
Mother! How much that word means; how much care, trust, responsibility, power and self-sacrifice are involved in those six letters of the alphabet, m-o-t-h-e-r. Yet so many of our mothers regard that position in life as a mere trifle, as irksome, never giving one thought to the many duties resting upon them as the laying of the true foundations upon which their little innocent ones are to build. Did I say innocent? Yes, because they are truly pure and innocent when given to our care and keeping. How can you consider them irksome? Have you a mother? Then remember the pang it gave your young heart whenever a look or a word your mother seemed tired of you. If you have no one (a mother), how much worse, because as you look back upon your childhood you can see how much your young heart yearned for a mother's love, a mother's care and a mother's interest. How" can you expect your child to be sweet and loving if you yourself are not the embodiment of those true and noble principles? Many mothers foster the idea that being patient only spoils the child, but can you not be patient and yet be positive?
Some mothers sigh over the great responsibility, as they term it, of rearing girls, while the rearing of their boys is a pleasure, but if they were to look on the other side of the picture would they not see that if the proper care and pains were used to keep the boys' minds pure and innocent as is taken for the girls, how much less would be the shedding of tears over fallen girls?
Look at the temptations your boys are throwing in the paths of your neighbor's girls, or the temptations your neighbor's boys are throwing in the pathway of your own girls. Is this not sufficient proof that the reins should be drawn with equal force on the boys as well as on the girls? How many mothers care so much for pleasure and society that they entirely neglect the training of their little ones! Oh, mot
