In almost any city in the South any Sunday in the year you will find more children--more boys and girls--outside of the Sunday-schools than you will find inside. There is a loud and crying call sounding from the past and from the future and bidding mothers and fathers to be more diligent in the matter of having their children embrace opportunities of growth and spiritual culture which are almost within a stone’s throw. If mothers and fathers will not hear and obey this clarion call I believe that they will be brought to account for it in the day of judgment. Not only so, but in the years to come they will be compelled to wail out their sorrow over prodigal sons and daughters who might have proven to be ornaments to society and to the church if their parents had devoted half the care upon them that they expended upon colts and calves, kittens and puppies that grew up with them!
In all earnestness I implore those to whom God has given winsome little children to begin early, as early as thy find it possible, to train their young lives for God and heaven. Let their little voices learn early to lisp the precious name of Jesus and be attuned to sing His praise. If you leave them this legacy--than which there is none greater--there will come peace and joy to your old age, and the light of heaven, like the golden glow of a radiant sunset, will rest on your dying bed.
And now, as I close these stories, there comes to me across the intervening space of silence and of tears fond memories of a sweet and patient mother. I cannot remember when she began to talk to me of Jesus nor read to me the word of God. I remember well when she taught me how to read, and the old-fashioned blue back spelling book is as plainly before me now as in those long past days. But, long before that, I had heard her read the Bible and raise her voice in prayer for all whom she loved. And to-day those memories live when a thousand busy scenes of after life lie dead. And when old age comes on--if God should spare me to be old--the memory of my mother’s words and her reverential prayers will be the brightest of all the joys that shall light up the evening of my life.
The language of the original publication has been retained, including unusual and inconsistent spelling, except as listed below.