Lydia Sigourney

“ Childhood, whose richest heritage is its innocent joy, must hush its sportive laugh, and repress its merry footstep, as if its plays were sins. Or if the diseased nerves of the mother, do not habitually impose such sacrifices, it learns from nature's promptings, to fashion its manners, or its voice, or its countenance, after the melancholy model of the sufferer whom it loves, and so forfeits its beautiful heritage of young delight. ”

“ Death, to the suffering body, and the willing soul, is the herald of release. Its terrors, for surely it bath terrors, arise from other sources: from things left undone, that ought to have been done, and from things done, that ought not to have been done. Let us guard against these fearful evils, now in the time of health and hope, and live every day, as if it were to be our last on earth. ”

“ The man of the world, pauses in his absorbing career, and claps his bands, to gain an infant's smile. The victim of vice, gazes wishfully on the pure, open forehead of childhood, and retraces those blissful years that were free from guile. The man of piety loves that docility and singleness of heart, which drew from his Saviour's lips, the blessed words, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." ”

“ Thus, Death, coming as a guest, long prepared for, may be both welcomed by us, and bear to us the welcome of angels.
We pay deference to good teachers. We desire to secure the benefits of their wisdom, for ourselves, and for our children. But who teaches like Death? Who like him reveals character? and unveils motives which had lain for many years, in a locked casket? and strips the illusion from the things which men covet? and makes us feel our own pitiable weakness, in not being able to soften the last pang for those we love? ”

“ You have gained an increase of power. The influence which is most truly valuable, is that of mind over mind. How entire and perfect is this dominion, over the unformed character of your infant. Write what you will, upon the printless tablet, with your wand of love. Hitherto, your influence over your dearest friend, your most submissive servant, has known bounds and obstructions. Now, you have over a new-born immortal, almost that degree of power which the mind exercises over the body, and which Aristotle compares to the "sway of a prince over a bond-man." ”

“ As the termites patiently carry grains of sand, till their citadel astonishes the eye, as the coral insect toils beneath the waters, till reef joins reef, and islands spring up with golden fruitage and perennial verdure, so let the mother, "sitting down or walking by the way," in the nursery, the parlour, even from the death-bed, labour to impress on her offspring that goodness, purity and piety, which shall render them acceptable to society, to their country, and to their God. ”

“ We should consider the goodness of God, in giving to our wearied frames the repose of the grave. The dim eye seeks a long sleep. The ear rests from the toil of gathering sounds. The lip grows silent. The limbs cease from their labour. The senses, those reporters of the mind, resign their office. In the citadel of life, the sentinels slumber. The red fluid, so long circulating through its thousand channels, stagnates. The clay-fabric, mysteriously tenanted by the unresting spirit, is ready to dissolve. ”

“ And when in her beautiful infant, there were the first developements of character, and of those preferences and aversions which leave room to doubt whether they are from simplicity or perverseness, and whether they should be repressed or pitied, and how the harp might be so tuned as not to injure its tender and intricate harmony, there burst from her soul a supplication more earnest, more self abandoning, more prevailing, than she had ever before poured into the ear of the majesty of heaven. ”

“ A barrier to the torrent of corruption, and a guard over the strong-holds of knowledge and of virtue, may be placed by the mother, as she watches over her cradled son. Let her come forth with vigour and vigilance, at the call of her country, not like Boadicea in her chariot, but like the mother of Washington, feeling that the first lesson to every incipient ruler should be, "how to obey." The degree of her diligence in preparing her children to be good subjects of a just government, will be the true measure of her patriotism. ”

“ The culture of young minds, in their more advanced stages, has indeed been entrusted to me, and I have loved the office. But never before, have I been so blest, as to nurture the infant, when as a germ quickened by Spring, it opens the folding-doors of its little heart, and puts forth the thought, the preference, the affection, like filmy radicles, or timid tendrils, seeking where to twine. ”

“ Is she not also herself an image of His goodness, while she cherishes in her bosom the young life that he laid there? A love, whose root is in death, whose fruit must be in Eternity, has taken possession of her. No wonder that its effects are obvious and great.
Has she been selfish? or rather has the disposition to become so, been nourished by the indulgence of affluence, or the adulation offered to beauty? How soon she sacrifices her own ease and convenience to that of her babe. She wakens at its slightest cry, and in its sicknesses forgets to take sleep. ”

“ Yet is it not alone in the quickening of sympathy, or the excitement to benevolence, that such deep afflictions bring gain to the sufferer. Other seeds of goodness are sown in the softened soil. The thoughts and affections are drawn upward. The glorified spirit of the infant, is as a star to guide the mother to its own blissful clime. ”

“ The effects of vice had debilitated his constitution, and once as he was apparently recovering from a long paroxysm of intemperance, apoplexy struck his heated brain, and he lay a bloated and hideous carcase. [55]
The poor mother faded away and followed him. She had watched over him, with a meek, nursing patience, to the last. Her love had never turned away from him, through years of neglect, brutality, and revolting wickedness. "Bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things," was its motto.
Is not the same love in the hearts of us all, who are mothers? ”

“ Teach their little feet to turn aside from the worm, and spare to trample the nest of the toiling ant. Point out the bird, "laying the beams of its chambers" among the green leaves, or the thick grass, and make them shudder at the cruelty which could rifle its treasures. Inspire the with love for all innocent creatures, with admiration for every beautiful thing; for it is sweet to see the principles of love and beauty, leading the new-born soul to its Maker. ”

“ Still I have thought it right to give a strong delineation of the disappointed earthly hope, which a broken constitution often creates, that I might incite mothers to early attention to the health of their daughters, "if by any means, I might provoke to emulation, these which are my flesh, and might save some of them."
But if to manhood, the influence of perpetual debility, in the partner of its joys, is so dispiriting, how much more oppressive is it to those little ones, who are by nature allied to gladness. ”

“ I have seen a young and beautiful mother, herself like a brilliant and graceful flower. Nothing could divide her from her infant. It was to her as a twin-soul. She had loved society, for there she had been as an idol. But what was the fleeting delight of adulation, to the deep love that took possession of her whole being? ”

“ The soul, the soul of the babe, whose life is nourished by our own! Every trace that we grave upon it, will stand forth at the judgment, when the "books are opened." Every waste-place, which we leave through neglect, will frown upon us, as an abyss, when the mountains fall, and the skies shrivel like a scroll. ”

“ Mothers ought to be ever awake to the evils of compression, in the region of the heart and lungs. A slight ligature there, in the earlier stages life, is fraught with danger. To disturb or impede those labourers, who turn the wheels of life, both night and day, how absurd and ungrateful. Samson was bound in fetters, and ground in the prison-house, for awhile, but at length he crushed the pillars of the temple, and the lords of the Philistines perished with him. Nature, though she may be long in resenting a wrong, never forgets it. ”

“ If we are so happy as at last to arrive at heaven, and some reproving seraph at its gate, should ask why we came mourning or repining along our pilgrim-path, and assure us that the dispositions of that blessed clime ought to have been cultivated below, that joy and praise were the elements of its atmosphere, how earnestly should we wish that the whole of our life had been a preparation for that Eternity of love, and that we had travelled thither with a countenance always radiant, "an everlasting hymn within our souls." ”

“ Mothers, is there any thing we can do, to acquire for our daughters a good constitution? Is there truth in the sentiment sometimes repeated, that our sex is becoming more and more effeminate? Are we as capable of enduring hardship as our grand-mothers were? Are we as well versed in the details of house-keeping, as able to bear them without fatigue, as our mothers? Have our daughters as much stamina of constitution, as much aptitude for domestic duty, as we ourselves possess? These questions are not interesting to us simply as individuals. They affect the welfare of the community. ”

“ But if the lineaments of happiness are so beautiful in a wife, they are still more indispensable to a mother. The little child opens the door of its heart to the kind tone, the smiling brow, the eye looking above this world, to a brighter sun. Especially while engaged in teaching her little ones, let the mother preserve every symbol of cheerfulness ”

“ Perhaps, with a seraph smile, they hover around you. Will they not rejoice to behold you walking to meet them, with a placid brow and submissive spirit, solacing yourself with such deeds of goodness to others, as are approved in the sight of heaven? ”

“ To neutralize this mass, to rule its fermentations, to prevent it from becoming a lava-stream in the garden of liberty, and to purify it for those channels where the life-blood of the nation circulates, is a work of power and peril. The force of public opinion, or the terror of law, must hold in check these elements of danger, until Education can restore them to order and beauty. ”

“ No longer will their dove-like moaning distress the friend watching by their sleepless couch, nor the parent's shudder with untold agony to find that they have no power to soothe the last fearful death-groan. We, who still bear the burdens of a weary pilgrimage, who have still to meet the pang of disease, and to struggle ere we pay our last debt to the destroyer, cherish as our strongest consolation, the hope of entering that peaceful haven which they have already attained. ”

“ How this new affection seems to spread a soft, fresh green over the soul. Does not the whole heart blossom thick with plants of hope, sparkling with perpetual dew-drops? What a loss, had we passed through the world, without tasting this purest, most exquisite fount of love. ”

“ But, young mother, what do you hold in your arms? A machine of exquisite symmetry; the blue veins revealing the mysterious life-tide through an almost transparent surface; the waking thought speaking through the sparkling eye, or dissolving there in tears; such a form as the art of man has never equalled ”

“ If to a father, the influence of continued ill and happy have sought its chamber of discipline, feeling that it was as the "very gate of heaven." The smile of chastened resignation has a beauty, an eloquence, which the flush of prosperity may not boast. ”

“ To reveal its complacence by gifts, seems to be one of the native dialects of love. The little child presents its favourite teacher, with a fresh flower. It hastens to its mother, with the first, best rose, from its little garden. In the kiss to its father, with which it resigns itself to sleep, it gives away its whole heart. ”

“ In order to give to those whom we instruct, cheering and consoling views of Death, we must correct our own. We must make it the subject of daily contemplation, praying for divine grace, to consider it as the consummation of our highest hope, the end for which we were born, the summons to arise, and take upon us the nature of angels. We have seen, or read, with what calmness, the righteous have passed away. ”