child; and that where good sense and good principle are wanting in the mother's conduct, the absence of these essentials to good influence, especially the latter, will, in all probability, tell upon the characters of her children in after life to an alarming extent. In vain might such a mother train her children according to the most-approved and best-established rules. In vain might she admonish them, though in the language of sincerity and love. In vain might she lay down for them a system of the purest morals, or even preach to them a holier law derived from the Bible itself. The unsophisticated mind, and clear discriminating eye of childhood, are not to be thus deceived. Long before a child knows how to make use of the words consistency and truth, it possesses a discerning spirit, to perceive where consistency is deviated from, where truth is violated; and when this is the case in the conduct of the mother, what hold can she possibly have upon the confidence and esteem of her children?
We should remember, too, that impressions are with children the data from which they afterward reason; and long before they are capable of what may be strictly denominated conviction, they have in all probability received impressions never to be effaced. Could we look into the mind of a child, and examine the tablet of its memory, we should see by that faithful record, that each day had produced a particular set of impressions, even at a very early age. We discover this from their prattle in their waking hours, and often from the image which evidently flits before their mental vision, when they lie down to sleep. It is, therefore, by impressions chiefly, that the mother has to work; and well is it for her, and for all who have to do with the management of children, if, while delivering lectures to them upon what is right and wrong, they do not receive the impression that it is very tedious and very disagreeable to be instructed how to be good. Well, too, if, while the mother is most careful to instil into their minds by verbal instruction, all manner of good principles, they do not, from her conduct, receive the impression that these things may be well enough for little boys and girls, but that one of the great privileges of men and women is to be able to do without them. Yet, if such be the power of influence
