SACRED DUTY OF MOTHEEHOOD. 225 



And besides this, the birth of the little stranger has, in some new 

 and mysterious way, made them akin to all humanity. The child- 

 hood of the world has crept into their bosoms and made its home 

 there. They love all children for their own child's sake. Even the 

 beggar's brat, which they were wont to pass with disgusted feelings 

 and averted eyes, seems now to be invested with a new and inex- 

 plicable charm. Their eyes have been somehow unsealed, so that 

 they can look through the dirt and rags down to the angel nature 

 which they hide. 



SACRED DUTY OF MOTHERHOOD. 



It seems hardly conceivable that any wife could be willing to 

 forego this divine joy of motherhood and this sacred duty of home- 

 building, for the unnatural claims and doubtful pleasures of fashion- 

 able society; yet such wives we are assured there are, and not a 

 few. In the larger towns and cities the so-called centres of civi- 

 lization it is said that, with many society -ladies, motherhood is 

 dreaded as a curse and prevented by crime. Undoubtedly, so far as 

 they are concerned, the sin brings its own punishment, and the 

 punishment is sufficiently severe. It makes no difference, that they 

 are for the present unconscious and dreadless of that harvest of woe 

 whose seeds their jeweled hands are sowing every day. It will come 

 soon and fast enough. In broken health and blighted life in 

 loneliness and lovelessness they will realize, at last, that they are 

 reaping as they have sown. But the crime against society the sin 

 against government and race the infidelity to marriage vows and 

 obligations the putting out of the light of a home the blighting 

 of human possibilities of greatness and worth the destruction of a 

 factor in the purity of society and the strength of a state, what per- 

 sonal suffering of the wretched criminal can atone for this? During 

 an eternity of misery could she suffer it this sin would grow 

 blacker by all the smoke of her torment, and greater with every 

 groan of her anguish. The sufferings of the sinner cannot undo the 

 sin; albeit, it is ordained, by the organic law of our being, that the 

 sinner shall suffer. We see, however, still more distinctly, by the 

 lurid light of such a crime against nature and society, how essential 

 is that second condition of home, which we have named as the rela- 

 tion of parents and children. 



HOME AN ABIDING PLACE. 



Another of those essential constituents of home whose import- 

 ance it would be difficult to exaggerate, is a dwelling-place. This, 

 if possible, should be the inalienable possession of its occupants. 

 Let it be altered, improved, amended, if they will and can, but 

 never, save under the stress of urgent necessity, abandoned. The 

 local attachments of our nature are strong and ineradicable. The 

 popular proverb, " A rolling stone gathers no moss," is fairly appli- 



