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INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. |
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is there the precious metal is first molded into the shape which may afterwards be rasped and polished, but cannot be recast. There the lines are traced on a pliable nature that will become more enduring than if sculptured on marble. The lessons of our earliest home are wrought into the very structure of the immortal mind. The heart of the little one nestled in a mother's arms is a daguerreotype plate that receives whatever image is first cast upon it, but unlike the picture on the artist's plate, the living heart grows larger and stronger, but always carries on it the first impressions. They are the most distinct and lasting. The tiniest leaves of the forest, of ages so long ago that we know not their date, have left their impressions upon the granite rocks. So with smiles or frowns, or vows that may have been carelessly uttered, and with the scenes enacted in the family circle— they sink into the soul of childhood, though apparently at the time taking no notice of them, and yettheirinfluence may be traced upon its every fibre forever afterwards, as if written with a pen of iron or the point of a diamond.*
It was the mother's example and lessons of social philosophy, and experimental divinity that molded the character of George Washington. And John Quincy Adams says: " It is due to gratitude and nature that I should acknowledge and avow that such as I have been, whatever it was, such as I am, whatever it is, and such as I hope to be in all futurity, must be ascribed under providence tc the precepts, prayers and example of my mother.v Similar, strong and beautiful, are the tributes of John Randolph, of Roanoke, and of Andrew Jackson, to the influence of their mothers. " God bless mothers."
W. A. Scott.
San Francisco, Cal. |
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•See u The Giant Judge," Samson, by the writer of this Introduction. |
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