A TIRED MOTHER'S VICTORY

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 12, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 7

A TIRED MOTHER'S VICTORY.

A LITTLE timely gentleness sweetens a parent's recollections in after years; whereas the memory of hasty severity to little ones must bring a pang. This tender story of a mother's experience, published in the Christian Weekly, is a beautiful lesson in itself. The mother had laid her table with great care and pains for a company of distinguished guests, when her little girl accidentally overturned a tureen of gravy on the snowy cloth.

“What should I do? It seemed a drop too much for my tired nerves—many drops too much for my table-cloth. I was about to jerk my child down angrily from the table, when a blessed influence held me. I caught the expression on her face; such a sorry, frightened, appealing look I never saw; and suddenly a picture of the past came and stood out vividly before my mind's eye. My child's face revealed feelings which I had experienced twenty years before.

“I saw myself a little nervous girl, about eight years old, in the happy home of my childhood. It was a stormy afternoon. It was when coal-oil lamps were first introduced, and father had bought a very handsome one.

“The snow had drifted up against the kitchen windows, so although it was not night, the lamp was lighted. Mother was sick in bed up-stairs, and we children were gathered together in the kitchen to keep the noise and confusion away from her.

“I was feeling very important, helping get supper; at any rate, I imagined I was helping; and in my officiousness I seized that lamp, and went down into the cellar for some butter. I tried to set it on the hanging shelf; but alas! I didn't give it room enough, and down it fell on the cemented floor. I shall never forget the shock it gave me. I seemed almost paralyzed. I did not dare go up-stairs, and was afraid to stay down there; and to make it worse, I heard my father's voice in the kitchen. He had cautioned us all, again and again, to be careful of the lamp; and now there it lay, smashed to pieces at my feet!

“But his voice seemed to give me the impetus I needed to go up and meet the scolding or whipping, or both, which I felt sure awaited me, and which I really felt I deserved. So I crept up the dark stairway, and as I entered the kitchen, I met my father, with such a stern look upon his face that I was frightened. I saw that there was no use to tell him what had happened. He had heard the crash, and if he had not, I guess my face would have told the story. The children stood silently around, waiting to see what father would do, and I saw by their faces that they were horror-struck; for that lamp had been the subject of too much talk and wonder to be smashed without a sensation. As for me, I felt so frightened, so confused and sorry, that I could not speak. But upon glancing again at father's face, I saw the angry look die out of his eyes, and one of tenderest pity take its place.

“I doubt not that he saw the same look in my face then that I saw in my child's face to-day. In a moment he had lifted me in his arms, and was holding me close to his breast. Then he whispered, oh, so kindly, ‘Never mind, little daughter; we all know it was an accident, but I hope you will take the small lamp when you go down cellar again.’

“Oh, what a revolution of feelings I experienced! It was such a surprise to me that I was suddenly overwhelmed with feelings of love and gratitude; and burying my face, I sobbed as if my heart would break. No punishment could have affected me half so much, and nothing can ever efface the memory of it from my mind.

“How I loved my father to-day, as the sight of my own little girl's face brought it all freshly before me!

“Will she love me as dearly, I wonder, twenty years or more from now, because, moved by the same God-given impulse that stirred my father's heart in that long-ago time, I was able to press the little frightened thing to my heart, and tell her kindly that I knew she did not mean to spill the gravy, and that I knew she would be more careful another time? Will she be helped by it when she is a mother, as I have been helped to-day? Mothers, rule with love's scepter; it is the nearest way to the heart.”