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BV 3265 .S3 

Scudder, John, 1793-1855. 
An appeal to Christian 
mothers in behalf of the 



APPEAL 



CHRISTIAN MOTHERS, 



BEHALF OF THE HEATHEN. 



BY REV. mm SCUDDER, M. D., 

MISSIONARY IN INDIA. 



THE CHILD 18 FATHKR OF THE MAN. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW-YORK. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 



Pafff! 



Inadequacy of the means now employed for the 

conversion of the world. . . .5 

CHAPTER II. 

Necessity of Maternal Influence, . . .8 

CHAPTER III. 

Power of Maternal Influence, . . . .11 

CHAPTER IV. 

Miseries of the Heathen, . . , . 17 

CHAPTER V. 

Degradation of Heathen Females, . . w 28 

CHAPTER VI. 

Condition of Christian Females contrasted with 

that of the Heathen, 40 

CHAPTER VII. 

) Leans to be used by Christian Mothers, , . .50 



AN APPEAL 



T 6* .Ctii f^¥t f # ' ]Vr T HERS 



CHAPTER I. 

Inadequacy of the means now employed for Qie 
conversion of the ivorld. 

Christian Mothers — Were the great 
mass of human beings who are ignorant of 
the only true God, and of Jesus Christ whom 
he has sent, collected together, and placed 
as near to each other as they could conve- 
niently stand and move, they would form a 
phalanx a mile in breadth and more than a 
hundred miles in length. Phalanx after pha- 
lanx of this description has entered eternity 
since Christ lifted up his voice and said " It 
is finished," and the astounding cry comes 
up to us, that forty thousand millions of them 
have, since that period, been added to the 
congregation of the dead. 

One would suppose that Christ had never 
given the command to send the Gospel to 
every creature, and if this command were 



6 AN APPEAL 

not found on the page of inspiration, would 
be ready to deny that it had ever been given. 
Who could believe that the church, with her 
solemn vows upon her, would have allowed 
forty thousand millions of her fellow-beings 
to pass from the stage of life with so little 
effort on her part to evangelize them ? I say 
so little effort ; for now and then some de- 
gree of effort has been put forth. This was 
the case in the early periods of Christianity. 
It is the case to some extent now. A few of 
the followers of the Redeemer have awaked 
from their slumbers, and begun to think that, 
with the aid which is promised from on high, 
they have before them a world to be con- 
verted. But these instances are compara- 
tively rare. The great majority of christians 
have not learned to act upon the high and 
ennobling principles of the Gospel. There is 
but here and there one, "who by his ago- 
nizing prayers, active efforts and benevolent 
charities, throws himself into the mighty 
work of converting the world." 

Many do not seem to understand what it 
is to live for Christ. They practice but little 
or no self-denial in his service. They in- 
dulge themselves and lay up money, even it 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 7 

is to be feared, in many instances, for the 
ruin of their children, instead of sacrificing 
their pleasures and dedicating their children 
and their substance for the promotion of the 
Gospel. Most of our pious young men shun 
the ranks of the ministry. Millions of the 
heathen are going down to the grave every 
year, without having heard that there is a 
Savior ; but these young men cannot be per 
suaded to give up their farms, or their mer- 
chandize, or their law, or their medicine, 
that they may bear the tidings of his name 
to their shores. That which chimes with 
their inclination is made out to be their duty. 
They turn away in whole companies, pro- 
fessing but not bearing the cross. They bow 
their knees at the throne of grace, and pray, 
*' Thy kingdom come," while at the same 
moment they refuse to do any thing person- 
ally by which that kingdom may come. They 
stretch forth their hands, while they keep 
back part of the price. The sufferings of the 
Son of God — the joys of heaven — the tor- 
ments of hell — the solemnities of their dying 
bed, and the realities of the judgment day 
are urged, but urged in vain, to induce them 
to do differently. The sapling has grown 



8 AN APPEAL 

into a tree, and every effort to bend it is 
useless. 



CHAPTER 11. 

Necessity of Maternal Influence. 

We have seen that the means now employ- 
ed are inadequate for the world's conver- 
sion ; and such, we have reason to fear, will 
continue to be the state of things until the 
church is blessed with a different race of 
mothers — a race of mothers who will con- 
nect the subject of their infant sons entering 
the ministry, as they shall be called of God, 
with the subject of their conversion — who, 
while dandling them upon their knees, and 
rehearsing to them the history of the suffer- 
ings and death of Christ, and while urging 
upon them the importance of their dedicating 
themselves to him, will, at the same time, 
tell them the history of our ruined race, and 
endeavor to impress them with a sense of 
their obligations to enter the Gospel ministry, 
provided God the Holy Ghost shall qualify 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 



thcni for this momentous work. Mighty in- 
strumcntahties are needed for the conversion 
of the world, and as they are not now to be 
found in the church of God, we must look 
for the required help from those who are at 
present in the nursery. To the coming gene- 
ration our eyes turn with intense interest. It 
must be trained in habits differing from those 
which chain their fathers to earthly things. 
It must be fashioned to a new standard. The 
missionary spirit must be infused into the 
heart of the rising generation while it is in 
its infancy, and the impression must be made 
now. The hope of the church in our own 
land and the world rests, in a great degree, 
under God, on the infant sons and daughters 
of pious mothers. 

Christian mothers, our hearts are sick and 
faint with the burden of perishing millions. 
We look over the moral landscape, and our 
eyes are wearied with the dreariness of the 
prospect. We look to you, and hope again 
beams upon us. We look to you as God's 
agents not only in training laborers for our 
own land, but in training missionaries for 
the whole world. The hearts of the coming 
generation are, in an important sense, in your 



10 AN APPEAL 

hands — taking shape from j^our tuition. In 
the cradles you rock, lie infolded the hopes 
of Christless nations. As the potter shapes 
the clay, so should you endeavor, under 
God, to shape the heart of the generation 
which is now growing up, that it may be- 
come a missionary generation. A great re- 
sponsibility in reference to raising up minis- 
ters of the Gospel devolves upon you. Would 
that I could convince you of this truth. 
Would that I could awaken in you emotions 
corresponding in some degree with the im- 
portance of it, and lead you to such action 
as may, through the agency of the Holy 
Spirit, result in inducing your sons to be- 
come ambassadors of the cross. Could I but 
do this, I doubt not that distant heathen con- 
tinents would, in coming days, murmur their 
deep thankfulness to you, and the isles of 
the sea would clap their hands with jo^^. 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. i I 

CHAPTER in 

Poiver of Maternal Influence. 

In addressing you on the momentous sub- 
ject of training your infant son, I invite you 
to consider that you have the strongest rea- 
son to beheve that, with the aid of the Holy 

Spirit, YOUR EFFORTS WILL BE SUCCESSFUL. 

That you may be convinced of this, I ask 
your attention to the following considerations. 
1. Your child receives its Jirst impressions 
from you. In the light of your countenance 
it catches its earliest thoughts. Your eye and 
voice and your caresses awaken the first ex- 
ercises of its mind, and beget the first emo- 
tions in its heart. Whatever be the charac 
ter of these emotions, good or bad, ennobling 
or grovelling, it drinks them in from you. It 
watches you with instinctive affection, and 
as its susceptible heart yearns toward you, 
it receives the impress of that which you pat 
upon it. The chords of its soul vibrate ac- 
cording to the manner in which you touch 
them. Its heart is like a soil that has never 
been occupied, where as yet no plough has 



IS AN APPEAL 

traced any line and no harvest has ever 
waved to the breeze. 

2. These first impressions are also the 
(trongest and most enduring. Some soft sub- 
stances grow hard when exposed to the air. 
So the heart becomes hard as it is exposed 
to the world. The impression which is made 
on the soft infantile heart goes down into its 
depths, and there it lies, and lives, though 
the surface becomes hard. Such an impres- 
sion is stronger than any which is made af- 
terwards, when it has acquired a power of 
resistance, a hardness that it had not be- 
fore. And it is the most enduring; for while 
other impressions made on the hard surface, 
one after another, aie effaced by attrition, 
this lying lowest, towards the centre, is the 
last to be reached. And when old age has 
wasted away the outer coatings of the soul, 
while there is a core of a heart yet left, that 
impression will be found like a bright seed 
in its cells. Facts will show this. Mental 
philosophers testify to its truth. 

A case or two in point may be mentioned. 
An old man who had passed into his second 
childhood was stretched upon his dying bed, 
a picture of impaired faculties, a mind in 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 13 

ruins. While his friends stood by his bed- 
side he opened his lips and rudely uttered 
a couplet from a foohsh nursery song. On 
inquiry it was found that the nurse who had 
borne him in her arms had taught him this 
vvDrthless ditty. The first thing learned was 
the last to be forgotten. A gentleman not 
long since told me, that he has a very aged 
father, whose faculties are so much impair- 
ed that he cannot remember the occurrences 
of yesterday, but still he can readily repeat 
the hymns which he learned in mfancy. 

3. These early impressions which you 
make, shape your child's course in life. Those 
things which are uppermost in your own 
breasts will be also uppermost in your con- 
duct, and will make the first impressions on 
its heart. There is a oneness between you, 
which resembles that between the branch 
and the vine, and the same kind of sap will 
be in the offshoot as is found in the trunk 
The ideas which your child receives from 
you, with regard to the relative importance 
to be attached to different things, will gene- 
rally retain their influence even to its death, 
shaping and modifying its course at every 
step of its existence. Locke asserts, and 



14 AN APPEAL 

doubtless there is much truth in the asser- 
tion, that a child learns more by the time it 
is four years old than during all the other 
periods of its life. During these four years 
then, while your child continues to be al- 
most a part of yourself, you impart to it much 
of your own spirit, your own ideas of thai 
which you consider to be most valuable, 
most to be sought after in the present world. 
And these ideas imparted by you must un- 
questionably have an influence in determin- 
ing the spirit and the ruling desires of its 
future life. You may at this early age make 
impressions respecting dress, equipage or 
the gratification of any appetite, which will 
stamp its character. A mother who has a 
martial or peaceful, a money-grasping or li- 
beral, a jealous and suspicious or frank spi- 
rit, may impart to her infant this same spirit, 
and gi^^e complexion to all its plans and stri- 
vings on the stage of life. 

" The most likely and hopeful reformation 
of the world," says Archbishop Tillotson, 
" must commence with children." What 
truth or force can there be in this remark, il 
what I have said in regard to early impres- 
sions be untrue ? It is a truth — a philosoph- 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 15 

ical truth — a most solemn and awful truth. 
Mothers, the hearts of your children love 
you and trust you, as a man trusts God. No 
one interposes between you and them to 
prevent your making what impression you 
please upon them. Their hearts are like 
melted wax, and readily run into the moulds 
you make for them. " Tell me," a person 
once exclaimed, " what a man is, and I will 
tell 3^ou what his mother was." 

Now if it has been made evident that 
your child obtains its earliest, strongest and 
most lasting impressions from you ; if it is 
clear that the impressions you make during 
the first four years of its life will, in a most 
important sense, determine its temporal aims 
and shape its whole future course, then the 
conclusion cannot be evaded, that you have 
every reason to believe you can, by the help 
of your covenant-keeping God and Redeem- 
er, give the mind of your infant son a direc- 
tion towards the Gospel ministry. God has 
determined to have a ministry. He has left 
means, which will secure this end, if pro- 
perly used ; and these means he has m 
no small degree committed to you. From 
ibis it follows that God intends that you 



16 AN APPEAL 

shall be instruments in establishing his 
purposes. 

Let me turn you to one or two facts. 
Years ago there was a missionary meeting 
held in one of our Eastern States. Strong ap- 
peals were made. Hearts thrilled and burn- 
ed with love for a perishing world. Money 
poured in. There was one man and woman 
there, who were poor, but the spirit of Christ 
was not lacking in them. So they took in their 
arms their infant son and trod slowly up to 
the altar and dedicated him to God, to be 
employed, if such should be his pleasure, in 
the missionary work. The child nurtured by 
these parents imbibed their spirit and be- 
came a missionary of the cross. 

There was a devoted woman in England 
who had a son. She was accustomed to take 
him with her into her closet and pray with 
him when he was four years of age or be- 
fore, and when she thus prayed she put her 
hand upon his head. The boy became a 
reckless young man, yet in all his reckless- 
ness he never forgot the soft hand of his 
mother resting upon him as he knelt with 
her before the throne of grace. That man 
died in the beauty of holiness, with many 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. J 7 

souls as the seals of his ministry. This was 
the Rev. John Newton. 

I know a mother who has eight sons, and 
who is not aware, as she once told me, that 
a day ever passes in which she does not 
pray for each of these sons by name, that 
they may become ministers of the Gospel. 
One of these sons has recently entered the 
ministry. Three others are preparing for this 
same work. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Miseries of the Heathen. 

There are various motives which should 
induce you to go forward in the gooti work 
to which your attention has been directed. 

1. Consider the woes and ivants of the hea- 
then. Look over into those doleful lands 
where the prince of darkness rules with de- 
solating sway. They are the border grounds 
of liell. Millions live and die there under the 
thraldom of evil spirits. Look at their moral 
degradation as well as at iheir other miseries. 

Ch. Moth. 2 



18 AN APPEAL 

It has been said that the Hindoos are a 
virtuous people. " Alas ! how should virtue 
exist in a nation whose sacred writings en- 
courage falsehood, revenge and impurity— 
whose gods were monsters of vice — to whose 
sages are attributed the most brutal indul- 
gences in cruelty, revenge, lust and pride — 
whose priests endeavor to copy these abo- 
minable examples, and whose institutions 
are the very hotbeds of impurity." 

In vain will you seek to find virtue among 
the heathen in India. In the place thereof 
you will find every crime mentioned by the 
apostle Paul in the latter part of the first 
chapter of his epistle to the Romans ; and, ] 
was almost ready to say, crimes of so black 
a nature that the Holy Ghost would not al- 
low him to pen them. Indeed, were what I 
know of the abominations of the heathen 
written in the Bible, that book could never 
be opened again and read. I never saw n 
man in India whose word I would be willing 
lo trust. In defence of a cause in a court oi 
justice they will swear falsely, in a most 
shocking manner, so that a judge nevei 
knows when he may safely believe a Hindoo 
witness. It is said that some of the courts ol 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 19 

justice are infested by a set of men termed 
four- annas-men, (four annas are equal to 
about twelve and a half cents,) who for so 
paltry a sum are wilUng to make oath to any 
thing, however false. Sir William Jones, after 
a residence of twenty years in India, testi- 
fied that he never knew a Hindoo who would . 
not perjure himself for money. If deceit, dis- 
honesty, filthiness of conversation, adultery, 
fornication, discord, hatred, abuse, slanders, 
injuries, litigations, can degrade a people, 
then the Hindoos have sunk to the lowest 
mark in the scale of human depravity. Oh I 
could tell you sucli a tale in illustration of 
this point as would make the ears of every 
one of you to tingle. But I must forbear. 
The recital would be too appalling. 

*' The impurity of the conversation and 
manners of the Hindoos," says Mr. Ward, 
one of the late missionaries at Serampore, 
"is so much dreaded by Europeans, that 
ihey tremble for the morals of their children, 
and consider their removal to Europe, how- 
ever painful such a separation may be to the 
mind of the parent, as absolutely necessary 
to prevent their ruin. In the capacity of a 
servant, the wife of an English soldier is 



20 AN APPEAL 

considered as an angel when compared with 
a native woman." We no more think of al- 
lowing our children to associate with the na- 
tives in common, than we would think of turn- 
ing them into a den of lions, and bears, and 
tigers. " The deliberate malice, the false- 
hood, the calumnies and the avowed enmity 
with which the people pursue each other, 
and sometimes from father to son, offer a 
very mortifying view of the 'human charac- 
ter. No stranger can sit down among them 
without being struck with this temper of ma- 
levolent contention and animosity as a pro- 
minent feature in the character of this peo- 
ple. It is seen in every village. The inhabi- 
tants live with each other in a sort of repul- 
sive state; nay, the spirit of contention en- 
ters into almost every family. Seldom is 
there a household without its internal divi- 
sions and lasting animosities." 

Private murder is practised to a dreadful 
extent, especially in the houses of the rich, 
where detection is almost impossible. Infan- 
ticide is a thing of very frequent occurrence 
The relation of a single fact on this point 
must suffice. In the province of Mulwa, 
where this crime is common, a gentleman, 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 2l 

who was some time since engaged in politi- 
cal investigations there, discovered in one 
village that while there were forty-two male 
children not a single girl was to be found. 
They had all been slaughtered almost as 
soon as they were born. 

Let me point you to a few of the scenes 
which are witnessed in that Eastern World, 
in order that you may be more fully convin- 
ced of the misery which reigns there. 

1. The great temjple of Juggernaut at Orissa. 
Every year more than a milUon of persons 
visit this celebrated spot, there to pay 
homage to a rough hewn block with a din- 
gy visage and a bloody mouth. The roads 
thither, for fifty miles around, are skirted by 
the bleached bones of the pilgrims who have 
died by the way-side. Look at one of their 
horrid festivals : infuriated men catch the 
long ropes and drag the ponderous car of 
the idol through the deep sand. On it rolls, 
like a fiend-drawn chariot. The robed Brah- 
mins sit perched in its lofty tiers — the clang 
of harsh instruments, the shoutings of the 
swarming throng, and the howls of those de- 
votees who roll their bodies in its track, or 
throw themselves under its massive wheels 



22 



AN APPEAL 



to be crushed to death, give a vivid picture 
of hell's demoniac host. It is said that one 
hundred and fifty persons were once killed 
near the gate of the temple by the tremen- 
dous press of the vast crowd. 

2. The Ganges. The river Ganges is said 
to be a goddess. " The sacred books of the 
Hindoos declare that the sight, the name, or 
the touch of this river takes away all sin. In 
prospect of dissolution, its waters are fraught 
with peculiar efficacy in washing away the 
stains of sin. To think intensely on the Gan- 
ges at the hour of death, should the person 
be far distant, will not fail of a due reward. 
To die in the full view of it is pronounced 
most holy. To die on the margin, in its im- 
mediate presence, is still holier ; but to die 
partly immersed in the stream, besmeared 
with its sacred mud, and imbibing its puri- 
fying waters, holiest of all. If distance inter- 
pose a barrier, the preservation of a single 
bone, for the purpose of committing it at 
some future time to the Ganges, is believed 
to contribute essentially to the salvation of 
the deceased. 

" Were you standing on the banks of this 
river, you might in one place see two or 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 23 

three young men roughly carrying a sickly 
female towards it. If you were to ask them 
what they are going to do with har, perhaps 
they would reply, we are going to give her 
up to Gunga, to purify her soul, that she may 
go to heaven ; for she is our mother. In an- 
other place you might see a person seated 
in the water accompanied by a priest, who 
pours mud and water down his throat, cry- 
ing out, O mother Gunga, receive his soul. 
The dying man may be roused to sensibihty 
by the violence. He may implore his priest 
to desist. But his entreaties are drowned. 
He perseveres in filling his mouth with this 
mud and water, until he gradually expires, 
stifled, sufl^cated, murdered in the name of 
humanity — in the name of religion." 

In another place you might see a man de- 
scending from a boat into the river, with 
water-pans suspended to his neck ; which 
water-pans when filled will drag him down 
to the bottom, so as to be seen no more for 
ever. There is murder again in the name of 
religion. He is a devotee, and has purcha- 
sed heaven, as he supposes, by this his last 
and greatest good deed. You might then fol- 
low the carcasses which are ever floating 



24 AN APPEAL 

down the current of this great water ceme- 
tery, until your eye should rest upon the 
island which lies at its mouth. It is Saugor 
island. In 1837 there were more than 60,000 
boats abreast of its most holy landing-place ; 
and it was supposed that there were 300,000 
pilgrims there. This is the island where 
hundreds of mothers were accustomed to 
hurl their infants to be devoured by croco- 
diles, until prevented by British bayonets. 

There is one circumstance connected with 
the river Ganges which I would not fail to 
mention. "When any person," says Cap- 
tain Williamson, " has been taken to the 
side of the Ganges, or other substituted 
waters, under the supposition that he is 
dying, he is, in the eye of the Hindoo law, 
dead. His property passes to his next heir, 
according to his bequest, and in the event of 
recovery — which, from a sudden rallying of 
the vital powers or other causes, sometimes 
happens, especially in cases of rapid and 
great prostration of strength — the poor fellow 
becomes an outcast. Even his own children 
will not eat with him nor afford him the least 
accommodation. If by chance they come in 
contact, ablution must follow. The wretched 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 25 

survivor from that time is held in abhor- 
rence, and has no other resort but to asso- 
ciate himself with persons in similar circum- 
stances." He literally becomes a fugitive 
and a vagabond upon the earth. 

3. Goomsoor. Look at the horrid festival 
of the Khonds. See that human victim fast- 
ened to a strong post, amid the surrounding 
multitude. There is a strange fierce look 
about that crowd. They are decked in holi- 
day finery, and drawn knives are in their 
hands. Hear the appointed signal, and wit- 
ness the impetuous rush of the throng upon 
that living victim, each vying with his neigh- 
bor who shall gash out the first piece from 
the quivering body ! This is common. 

Captain Campbell, of the English service, 
rescued, on one occasion, no less than one 
hundred and three children, who had either 
been bought or stolen, and who were des- 
tined to this doom. He writes as follows, " I 
have been most fortunate in my late expe- 
dition among the wild Khonds of Goomsoor, 
and have rescued no less than one hundred 
and three children of various ages, who were 
intended for sacrifice by these barbarians. 
These children are now at head quarters, 



26 AN APPEAL 

and form a most interesting group, happy 
(such as were aware of their situation) in 
having escaped the fate which awaited them. 

After the arrival of the British troops in 
tliat country a female found her way to tlie 
Collector's camp with fetters on her legs. 
She had escaped from those who had charge 
of her, and related that she had been sold 
by her own brother for the purpose of being 
sacrificed . 

4. Let me enumerate some of the penan 
ces whereby the heathen endeavor to propi- 
tiate their deities, and gain the adoration of 
men. Some of the Fakeers or Yogees (devo- 
tees who go about and beg alms) practice 
most fearful austerities upon themselves. 
Some live in holes and caves ; some drag 
around a heavy chain attached to them ; 
some make the circuit of an empire, creep- 
ing on their hands and knees ; some roll their 
bodies from the shores of the Indus to the 
Ganges ; some swing all their life time be 
fore a slow fire ; some hold up one or both 
arms until the muscles become rigid and the 
limbs become shrivelled into stumps ; some 
stretch themselves on beds of iron spikes ; 
some carry iron collars round their necks. 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 27 

See these wretched creatures, groping the 
dark way to eternal death, without any 
knowledge of Christ, striving to make atone- 
ment for their sins ; some lying all day with 
their heads on the ground and their feet in 
the air ; some stuffing their eyes with mud 
and their mouths with straw ; some lying 
with pots of fire upon their breasts ; some 
enveloped in nets of ropes ; some stretchea 
out in ponds of water. 

See some casting themselves down from 
a height upon iron spikes or bags of straw 
with knives in them ; some dancing on fire ; 
some having their sides or tongues perfora- 
ted, and canes, swords, or living snakes put 
through the aperture ; some with their breast 
and arms packed with pins ; some sitting all 
night by the temples with lamps, whose 
pointed extremities are fastened in the flesh 
of their foreheads. See some swing through 
the air by hooks grappled in the flesh of 
their backs ; some bind themselves to trees 
until they die ; some throw themselves from 
precipices and are dashed to pieces ; some 
bury themselves alive in graves which their 
own relations have dug. These facts and 
these scenes to which I have drawn your at- 



28 ^ AN APPEAL 

tentioTi, will show you how great are the 
moral degradation and the miseries in gene- 
ral of the heathen of India. 



CHAPTER V. 

Degradation of Heathen Females. 

Having given you a description of the 
miseries m general of the heathen, I must 
ask you to proceed one step further and look 

at THE WRETCHEDNESS AND DEPRAVITY OP 

HEATHEN FEMALES. Of thesc I caunot draw 
a more accurate picture than Paul has exhi- 
bited in the third chapter of his Epistle to 
the Romans : " There is nore righteous, no 
not one. There is none that understandeth : 
there is none that seeketh after God. They 
are all gone out of the way : they are alto- 
gether become unprofitable. There is none 
that doeth good, no not one. Their throat is 
an open sepulchre : with their tongues they 
have used deceit, the poison of asps is under 
their lips : wh^se mouth is full of cursing 
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 89 

blood. Destruction and misery are in their 
ways : and the way of peace have they not 
known. There is no fear of God before 
their eyes." 

In illustrating this I shall mainly give you 
quotations from the natives of the soil. Per- 
haps in no country is the quarrelling of fe- 
males carried to such an extent as it is in 
India. Being held in the most deplorable 
ignorance and slavish subjection, they vent 
their furious passions against each other, and 
indulge in the most virulent and indecent 
railings. 

" Their throat is indeed an open sepulchre, 
the poison of asps is under their lips." They 
swear in the most terrible manner, laying 
their children down and stepping over them, 
uttering at the same time the most filthy and 
blasphemous expressions. Not only do they 
curse God, but they call down his curses 
upon themselves and their children. They 
will say as follows : " Make it known, O 
God, that the crime which my accusers as- 
cribe to me is false : if otherwise, let thy 
temple go to ruin, let thy bowels burst, let 
thyself be destroyed, and let thy shrine bo 
levelled to the dust. If this accusation be 



30 AN APPEAL 

true, let this my child on the ground die." 
Paul has s.aid correctly, " Their mouth is full 
of cursing and bitterness." 

Let us advance a step farther in this hor- 
rid revelation, and see how literally these 
words of the apostle are verified in theii 
case — " Their feet are swift to shed blood. 
Destruction and misery are in their ways." 
Tn the province of Bengal alone it is sup- 
posed that 120,000 infants are yearly de- 
stroyed ere they have seen the light of day. 

It is a common if not invariable practice 
for heathen husbands to beat their wives. 
On such occasions these wives show theii 
revengeful spirit in different ways. At one 
time they fly to the temple of the goddess 
Karle — the goddess of vengeance, who wears 
two dead bodies for ear-rings, who has the 
heads of giants whom she has slain as a 
girdle to her loins, and who is said to be 
pleased a thousand years with the sacrifice 
of one man. To her shrine they fly and en- 
treat her to take vengeance on their husbands, 
as I myself have witnessed. When abused 
by their husbands, they sometimes wreak 
their spite upon their poor children, kicking 
them in a most violent manner. Sometimes 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 31 

they starve themselves to death ; sometimes 
they destroy themselves by cutting theii 
throats, or swallowing poison, or throwing 
themselves into wells. 

" The way of peace have they not known." 
Suicide is more frequent among the women 
than among men. A number of reasons have 
l)een assigned for their committing this crime. 
The first has been already mentioned, name- 
ly, the ill-treatment they receive from their 
husbands. Another is the belief that if they 
destroy themselves they shall be changed 
into devils, and can take full vengeance upon 
those who have used them ill. The females 
of India are objects of contempt even before 
they are born. The great reason why sons 
are so highly respected and daughters so de- 
graded is, that none but the male offspring 
of a family can perform the annual funeral 
rites to the souls of their deceased ances- 
tors ; and according to their conviction it 
follows that all the progenitors of a family 
are cast into hell for want of a son among 
their descendants. 

When a female child is born the fact is 
generally made known to the relations most 
nearl}^ connected with the family, but some- 



32 AN APPEAL 

times the news does not go beyond the door- 
posts. The members of the household sel- 
dom distribute sugar and beetle-nuts to their 
friends, as is done at the birth of a son. The 
brand of shame is thus early put upon the 
tender infant. The mothers groan at the un- 
happy destiny to which their daughters must 
eventually be subjected, and on this account 
spend many of their leisure moments in me- 
lancholy meditation. They are frequently 
heard to say that it would be better if their 
daughters were born mud or clay, which the 
potter shapes into cooking utensils, than to 
be destined to become the worst treated 
slaves in the world. On the thirteenth or 
some other convenient day a name is given 
to the female child. It is chosen from the 
catalogue of goddesses related to the gods 
or goddesses whom the family worship. The 
name is seldom given with any very splen- 
did ceremonies, even among rich individu- 
als. The great majority of the Hindoos give 
names to their daughters without invitation 
or ceremony. The mother is forbidden to 
address the children by their own names, if 
they happen to be the same in sound with 
the names of their mothers-in-law, fathers- 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 33 

in-law, husbands, brothers-in-law, or other 
relations of their husbands' houses. The 
Hindoos say that the wife who pronounces 
the names of these relations and of her hus- 
band will be doomed to everlastini? fire. 

The education of females is systemati- 
cally opposed. With the exception of those 
women of ill-fame who are priestesses of 
the temples, and whose business it is to 
sing the most obscene songs within these 
temples, no females are taught to read. The 
following are some of the alleged objections 
to their education. 

1. Females ought not to be educated, for 
if the many unlettered men were to have 
educated females for wives they would not 
be subject to them. 

2. Adultery is certainly to be expected 
from education given to females. 

3. Custom is opposed to it. 

4. Bread is not procurable by the educa 
tion of females. 

5. Education is not required to teach a fe- 
male how to perform her duties, as it has 
nothing to do with cookery. 

6. If a woman be educated, she will become 
a widow, or some other misfortune will follow. 

^h. IWoth. 3 



34 AN APPEAL 

7. A wife is married to a Hindoo, not for 
the purpose of sitting down and conversing 
with him on any subject, but that she may 
be the confidential servant in domestic 
drudgery. 

8. A woman can obtain salvation even 
without worshipping the gods, for a husband 
is to a wife greater than a god : the husband 
is her god, and priest, and religion and its 
services : wherefore abandoning every thing 
else, she ought chiefly to worship her husband. 

Their marriages are marriages neither of 
choice nor affection, and consequently are 
prolific sources of misery. Before a girl 
reaches the age of seven or ten years, the 
parents are bound to give her in marriage. 
Both husbands and wives are often dissa- 
tisfied with the choice of the parents. The 
husband proves unfaithful to the wife, and 
she utters many curses against her parents, 
who married her to such a vicious and pro- 
fligate husband. She grows hard-hearted 
and thinks of breaking her marriage ties, or of 
committing suicide. Look also at their treat- 
ment after marriage. 

After the ceremonies are performed, the 
bride remains with her mother, or goes to 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 36 

her husband's house, where she is under the 
control of her mother-in-law. As she is gene- 
rally very young, great pains are taken in 
teaching her how to dress rice, make curry, 
&c. for if she is not skilful in the manage- 
ment of cookery, her mother-in-law kicks 
her, spits upon her, cuffs her, and beats her 
with a stick or any thing which may be at 
hand. The ill-treatment which she receives 
from her mother-in-law sours her mind to a 
dreadful degree against her. She stores up 
her troubles in her heart, and waits with 
patience to take a double vengeance upon 
her when opportunity shall offer. To this 
must be added the manifold grievances 
which the sisters of her husband inflict upon 
her. They beat her, and torture her feelings 
by heart-rending rebukes and reproachful 
epithets. 

The relation of a wife to a husband is thai 
of a slave to a tyrant. She is bound to be 
entirely subject to him. She is at the mercy 
of his will. See how the character, duties 
and position of heathen wives are defined 
by INIanu, the greatest of Indian legislators 
and philosophers. 

*' Women," says he, <'have no business 



36 AN APPEAL 

with the texts of the Veda or Sacred books 
having therefore no evidence of law and no 
knowledge of expiatory texts, sinful woman 
must be as foul as falsehood itself.'' Again : 
*' Infidelity, violence, deceit, envy, extreme 
avariciousness, a total want of good quali- 
ties, with impurity, are the innate faults of 
woman kind." 

" With regard to their duties," he says, 
*' though enamored of another woman, or 
devoid of good qualities, yet a husband must 
be constantly revered as a god by a virtuous 
wife." It would be a difficult thinsr for some 
of the wives of the heathen to revere their 
wicked and cruel husbands, who, to quote 
again from the r^^tive, "use their wives in a 
most desperate wa\ , and that at times when 
there is not a particle of guilt, as if they were 
puppets of iron, and who ruthlessly visit 
them should they happen to sneeze or cough 
in their presence." 

*' Widows," says Manu, " can never be 
mnrried." Dreadful are the consequences 
which result from this restriction. Again this 
lawgiver says, " A woman who has no chil- 
dren may be cast off by her husband, and 
another taken in the eighth year ; she whose 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 37 

children are all dead, in the tenth ; she who 
has daughters only, in the eleventh ; and she 
who speaks unkindly, without delay." I will 
mention a few of the laws by which women 
are bound by Hindoo customs. 

1. A wife must not sleep longer than her 
husband. She must awake by break of day, 
and be ready for his commands. 

2. She must prepare her husband's food, 
and wait for his coming home before she 
can put any thing into her mouth. Though 
pressed with hunger, she cannot eat until he 
has taken his food. 

3. Though the husband abuse, beat, or 
cut the throat of his wife, yet it is spoken of 
as the truest law for a chaste wife to remain 
as silent as a dead person. 

4. At night she must not go to bed before 
her husband. 

5. A woman, whether old or young, at the 
sight of a man, of whatever age he may be, 
must instantly rise, if she is sitting. 

In all the wretchedness I have now been 
describing the degraded females of India 
live ; and they die like the beasts of the 
field. Many of them are destroyed, as you 
have heard, by their own hands. Tens oi 



38 AN APPEAL 

thousands have perished on the funeral pile, 
and in many parts of Hindoostan they yet 
continue to be thus immolated. To give one 
instance. Not lona: since the kino^ of Edur 
died. On the morning of the burning of his 
corpse no less than fourteen living persons 
(of whom I think five or seven were queens) 
were burnt to death with it before all the 
assembled population of Edur. 

A few remarks on this subject must close 
the details of misery which I am relating. 
The holy books of the Hindoos recommend 
voluntary religious suicide. The following 
is a quotation from one of them. " There 
is no virtue greater than a virtuous wo- 
man's burning herself with her husband ; 
no other effectual duty is known for virtuous 
women at any time, after the death of their 
lords, than casting themselves into the same 
fire. There are 35,000,000 of hairs on the 
human body. The woman who ascends the 
pile with her husband will remain so many 
years in heaven. If the husband be a mur- 
derer of his own friend, the wife by burning 
with him purges away all his sins." 

Encouraged by such doctrines, the wretch- 
ed widow ascends the pile of wood on which 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 39 

is Stretched the corpse of her husband. 
Around this pile stand the helpless children, 
and for what? To put out the fire with their 
tears ? No ! but in the name of their gods to 
apply the torch which in a few minutes is to 
leave them motherless orphans in a friend- 
less world. " Can the policy of hell," says 
one, " prevail further than this. Why is it 
that in circumstances so powerfully calcula- 
ted to summon forth all the tenderness and 
sympathy of a mother's heart, we behold 
the unhappy creature pillowed on putres- 
cence and ashes, curtained with blazing 
flames, and overcanopied with volumes of 
smoke?" Ah ! christian mothers, it is because 
the religion of Jesus has never reached her 
heart. This is the way by which she believes 
she is to obtain heaven. 

I have thus exhibited to you a picture of 
female existence in India. There is not a 
bright color nor a be utiful shading in this 
picture. You have foil, wed me as 1 have re- 
hearsed the woes of your own sex. You have 
seen that from before their birth to the hour 
of their death their life is a life of shame, and 
contempt, and sorrowful treatment, enough 
to break the heart of a christian mother. 



40 AN APPEAL 

CHAPTER VI. 

Condition of Chistian Females contrasted vntli that oj 
the Heathen. 

Are you pained and wearied with the 
mournful picture of wretchedness which has 
just been drawn ? I am glad if you are, for 
I desire now to turn your attention to a 

BRIGHT CHAPTER OF BLESSINGS. 1 alludc tO 

your station, and your history, from the time 
that a christian mother rocked your cradle, 
while she lulled your wakefulness with some 
sweet song of Zion. Look back a moment, 
and let your past hfe unroll itself to your 
scrutiny. Stern looks did not greet your en- 
trance into this world. You were not shun- 
ned as a painful appendage to the house- 
hold circle, nor visited with cold neglect. 
No. Kind hands fondled your tender form. 
Many eyes glistened at the sight of you, 
and affection exhausted itself in contriving 
for your comfort. You were watched and 
cherished with unvarying tenderness. Your 
birth was not hid as a disgraceful thing. It 
was told with joy. Complacent smiles sat 
upon parental lips as they spake of you. 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 41 

There was no line of demarcation between 
you and your brothers. No superstitious par- 
tialities hedged you about with a wall of 
shame. No Cain's mark was put upon your 
brow. No mother wept away her lonely 
hours, grieving that she had given birth to a 
daughter— to you. No ! You were born under 
the shadow of the blessed Gospel — and you 
were welcomed with much gladness, and 
guarded with deep solicitude and sleepless 
assiduity. And as you grew in stature, and 
passed on through the changing scenes of 
childhood, blessed influences sprang up 
around your path to form your character in 
accordance with pure and elevating stand- 
ards. Your home was not a den of pollution, 
where the very air, burdened with impuri- 
ties, communicated its foul taint to your sus- 
ceptible heart. Your mother was no quarrel- 
some, swearing virago, to nurture you into a 
'/retched conformity to herself. 

No ! Maternal example shone around you 
like a light from heaven. Its brightness and 
purity beamed across your young heart 
with softening, purifying influence. As the 
Almighty Spirit brooded over the unformed 
earth and fashioned its chaotic materials 



42 AN APPEAL 

into a world of beauty, so youi mother's 
spirit brooded over your heart when it was 
as yet " without form and void," and so 
moulded its elements that your character 
became full of sweet harmonies. How bless- 
ed were the days of your infancy ! And 
when you became older, you were not shut 
out from an education. There was no flaming 
sword at the gate of this Eden, turning every 
way to keep you from the walks of learning. 
You were not trained under the workings of 
a religious system which proclaims you to 
be an unworthy and dangerous subject of 
intellectual culture. The arrangements of 
your early life were not so adjusted by 
others as to shroud you in midnight igno- 
rance and give cultivation only to the pas- 
sionate parts of your nature. Oh no ! Every 
thing was done to furnish each chamber and 
recess of your mind with useful knowledge. 
And you were not betrothed in infancy to 
9ne whom you had never seen, and married 
to one whom you did not love. You enjoyed 
the high and excellent privilege of personal 
choice, and were wedded to one who had 
gained your affections by his worthiness and 
love. No cruel mother-in-law was enthroned 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 43 

over you in your husband's house, to rule 
you with a rod of iron, to spit in your face 
while you were yet a young bride, and beat 
you with merciless passion. Your husband's 
house was your house, and home, and gov- 
erning sphere. The keys and the sway were 
given to you. And your husband was not a 
tyrant who gloried in trampling you under 
his feet, and made you the convenient ob- 
ject upon which to vent his fierceness, so as 
to visit you ferociously if you did but sneeze 
or cough in his presence. 

Oh no ! What endearing courtesies have 
you constantly received instead of such 
heart-rending treatment ! Your duties were 
never defined to be those of an abject and 
degraded slave, nor your husband placed 
before you in the attitude of a god. Your 
place has been in his heart, and not at his 
feet. You were never goaded to despair 
and suicide by the cruel and systematized 
oppression of himself and his relations, or 
maddened to a wild and fearful revensfe 
upon them. 

Your lines have fallen in pleasant places, 
your heritage is in a goodly land, a land 
gladdened with the disenthralling influences 



44 AN APPEAL 

of the Gospel of peace and joy. Your station 
in society is an honorable one. There is no 
Manu among christian legislators to stamp 
the character of your sex with ignominy, 
and associate the idea of woman with every 
thing that is foul and despicable. There is 
in this free land no legislation that aims to 
degrade you and set you forth in the eyes of 
men as basely inferior to them. You occupy 
an honorable position. High esteem is set 
upon you. The gentlest courtesies are ren- 
dered to you as your right. The hardened 
wretch lowers his tone till it savors of 
blandness, if he speaks to you. If you travel 
through the land, acts of kindness and pre- 
ference will be shown to you at every step. 
Public opinion frowns on the man who can 
treat a woman cruelly. You give character 
to the circle in which yoa move, and men ac- 
commodate themselves much to your stand- 
ards. The softest and sweetest words are 
spoken to you. Man, iron-handed man, 
fashions himself to a gentle bearing in your 
presence, and the lion-hearted learn to act as 
lambs. Truly your station is honorable and 
your privileges are great. The hours of 
your gladsome infancy, the sunny bridal 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 45 

days, comforts, and joys of your matronly 
life, all testify that your position has been 
and is replete with blessings. 

As you review these things, Christian 
mothers, remember that you are indebted to 
Christ for them. It is the law of Christ that 
distinguishes your condition so greatly from 
the condition of Hindoo women. You are 
under especial obligations to the Redeemer. 
Wherever he is not worshipped females 
are degraded and oppressed with a despot- 
ism fierce and unrelenting. Wherever he is 
obeyed and loved, there you are loved and 
honored. Every thing around you is a wit- 
^ness to the truth of this. Every thing that 
makes you to differ from heathen mothers 
proves it. 

Go to Gethsemane and Calvary, and see 
the Almighty Savior bowed beneath the 
burden of unutterable agony. With his own 
blood he purchased for you these earthly 
benefits, and hitherto I have mainly had 
these in view ; but stop here a moment and 
think that Christ not only gives you these 
temporal blessings, but also redemption from 
eternal wo. Think of the precious hopes of 
salvation which illumine the way of your 



46 AN APPEAL 

pilgrimage. Think of the holy consolations 
that sustain you in hours of trial. Oh think 
of the heaven towards which you are jour- 
neying ; and from these heights of earthly 
and heavenly felicity on which you stand, 
look down, I beseech you, into those depths 
of degradation which I have described. 
There lie many benighted and languishing 
spirits, groaning over their own earthly 
wretchedness, and shut out from one com- 
forting ray of a joyful rest beyond the grave. 
And remember, oh remember ! that these 
depraved mothers will give shape to all the 
unborn millions who shall swarm upon that 
soil, so long as they are under the degraded 
religion which makes them what they are. 
Let me entreat you to look forward and try 
to conceive of the abominations and miseries 
which are to make India, and I would add 
all that Eastern world, accursed, until the 
latest generation shall have passed from 
their beautiful shores into hell, unless the 
religion which makes these mothers a chan- 
nel of pollution and wretchedness is broken 
from off their necks, and they be set free 
with the liberty wherewith Christ maketh 
free. 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 47 

Oh the Gospel, the glorious Gospel. What 
transforming powers does it possess ! Yes, 
for by it those heathen mothers who are now 
a torment to themselves, a curse to their 
posterity, and a dishonor to Jehovah, who 
are now training their offspring for endless 
misery, can be made a glory and delight 
unto Christ. Those heathen mothers, now 
sunk in the depths of degradation, with 
hearts bruised and bowed down by constant 
and systematized tyranny, and with minds 
darkened by benighted superstition, can be 
restored to their right position, and be made 
a blessing in all their relations. Those hea- 
then mothers now in ignorance and dark- 
ness, living in misery and hastening on to 
the realms of eternal wretchedness, who 
stand even now on the confines of hell, and 
manifest in their conduct the temper of the 
spirits that dwell in that fathomless pit, can 
be reclaimed by the omnipotent and saving 
influence of the glorious Gospel. Yes, and 
every family may, by it, become a minia- 
ture of the church of God. Every husband 
may be like the bridegroom Christ, and 
every wife like the Lamb's bride, the church. 
Their sons may become as plants grown up 



48 



AN APPEAL 



*"*in their youth, and their daughters as corner 
stones pohshed after the similitude of a pa- 
lace. But alas ! there are none to carry this 
Gospel to them ; none who will go and 
preach salvation on every mountain of sin, 
and tell the wondrous story of a crucified 
Redeemer in every valley and by the banks 
of every stream. 

Christian mothers, do you care for the 
temporal comfort of the heathen ? Have you 
any compassion for their perishing souls ? 
Have you any gratitude to the Son of God, 
who has so abundantly blessed you ? Have 
you any desire to honor him, any delight in 
his glory, any burnings of heart to carry out 
the great purpose of his death? Then I be- 
seech you, by each and all of these conside- 
rations, to train your sons for Christ ; to edu- 
cate them from infancy for him ; for minis- 
ters or missionaries, as he shall call them to 
his service. 

What an enterprise is here for you ! Look 
not upon it coldly, for it is blessed. I call 
on you to arise and gird up yourselves for 
this Avork. I call upon you to use your ut- 
most endeavors to impress the hearts of 
your infant sons during the first four or five 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 49 

years of their lives, with such truths as will 
ultimately, through God's grace, make them 
fountains of joy to distant and heathen lands. 
Oh ! it is no time-service that I ask of you. 
It is labor that shall garnish the throne of 
God with bright jewels, even redeemed 
souls. It is labor that shall polish the crown 
of Christ and make it resplendent with gems 
dug from heathen mines, and cleansed from 
heathenish stains. It is labor that shall swell 
into a louder shout that anthem of redemp- 
tion which at the last day shall echo among 
the vaulted roofs of the upper temple. I call 
on you to furnish soldiery for Immanuel, as 
he urges his legions on to the great battle- 
grounds of paganism and hohness. I ask 
3^our sons for God's honor, for Jehovah's 
glory. I ask you to do all in your power to 
save them from worldly Hves, and devote 
them to the cause of the glorious Redeemer. 
Reproach has been gathering for ages on 
the name of Christ. The church has not 
obeyed her Lord. She has lived in disobe- 
dience to her Uving head. Here is an oppor- 
tunity for you to wipe away this accumu- 
lated reproach, by laying, through grace, the 
foundations of a missionary church in the 

Ch. Molh. A 



50 AN APPEAL 

cradles of your nurseries. Here is an oppor- 
tunity for you to be preaching the Gospel 
through the lips of your own offspring, even 
when you stand on the battlements of hea- 
ven and look down upon this earth to see 
how goeth the contest between hell and the 
Lord of Hosts. Oh ! will you not consecrate 
your children to this work ? Would you have 
one harp in heaven unstrung for the want 
of such a consecration ? 



CHAPTER Vn. 

Means to he used by Christian Mathers. 

Let me now give an answer to the ques- 
tion which I hope has arisen, " How 
SHALL I DO THIS WORK ?" I will make some 
remarks which may form a connected an- 
swer to this inquiry. And, 

1. Dedicate your new-born son to God.- 
Make an honest and entire consecration of 
him, and let him be ever to you as a sacred 
vessel for God's sanctuary, which may not 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 61 

be put to a profane use without provoking 
Divine judgement. Say as Hannah did, with 
weeping heart, " I will give him unto the 
Lord all the days of his life. As long as he 
liveth he shall be lent to the Lord." I would 
that there were more such mothers as was 
Hannah, who would dedicate their children, 
if sons, to the sanctuary of God even before 
their birth. I do believe that if the church 
abounded with such mothers there would 
not be so many tears shed over ungodly 
sons as we are now obliged to witness. 

2. Pray that your son may he led by God's 
Sjririt into the ministry. Let this be the ear- 
nest desire of your heart. Plead at the 
throne of grace, that this petition may be 
offered in heaven's courts before the Father 
by the great Intercessor. Day after day and 
year after year, let this supplication be re- 
corded in the book of Divine remembrance. 
Show that this is the main anxiety of your 
soul for your son, that he may be a watch- 
man on some watch-tower of Redemption 
erected amid pagan or other desolations. 
You may have power with God and prevail. 
He will hear persevering prayer. Then ne- 
ver be faint nor be weary, but with the same 



52 AN APPEAL 

purpose in view, untiringly at God's feet, 
press your suit and plead his gracious pro- 
mises until the desire of your heart is ful- 
filled, even with a crown of rejoicing. 

3. Begin to labor with your child before he 
is fo7ir years old. Attention to this is of the 
greatest importance. Many mothers are 
skeptical respecting the formative power 
and permanent influence of impressions 
made so early. But I have already endea- 
vored to show the truth in regard to this 
subject. *' Give me the first five years of a 
child's life," said a celebrated French infidel 
philosopher, " and I will teach it to break 
every law of God and man." Give me the 
first five years of my child's life, you may 
say, and I will, through the Holy Spirit, 
make such an impression upon his mind 
that he will grow up with but one thought 
and one design, which will be to live and 
labor for a dying world. I have heard of a 
case in a family where there were two sons, 
the one four and the other twelve years of 
age. On the younger lad a most vivid and 
powerful impression in regard to the hea- 
then was made, while the other was un- 
moved. The ground was preoccupied in the 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 53 

elder; the field was clear for impressions in 
the heart of the younger. 

Christian mothers, if you would expect 
your labors to be crowned with success, you 
must begin to instruct your sons in very 
early life, — before they are four years old. 
Even before they have learned to speak, 
when the eye first begins to beam with the 
light of awakened intelligence, sing to them 
low plaintive airs concerning the wants of 
our own land and of the heathen, as well as 
the sweet hymns which tell of salvation by 
the blood of Christ. Let the first thino: that 
their minds catch be something respecting 
these wants. That first idea will thorouo;hlv 
imbue the soul and impart a savor which 
later impressions cannot wholly destroy. 
Christian mothers, at what age does your 
little boy know that a penny will supply him 
with a toy ? At that age you should endea- 
vor to make him understand that the only 
remedy for the miseries of a dying world, 
for the perishing heathen, is the Gospel. 

4. Let their nursery hdolcs be of a right 
kind. Furnish them with some simple books 
and periodical papers which direct their at- 
tention to the wants of our own land, as 



54 AN APPEAL 

well as those which show the habits and cus- 
toms and religion of the heathen* — books 
and periodicals, whose history shall not only 
delight and instruct their young minds, but 
which shall call out the earliest emotions oi 
their souls and engage their, liveliest sympa- 
thies in their behalf. Choose those books, 
which, in simple historical portraitures, dis- 
play the grand reasons of the world's 
wretchedness, and point out the cross as 
the only remedy for its woes. You will thus 
afford your sons a fund of pleasure as great 
as they would drink in from " Jack the giant 
killer," and other similarly frivolous and 
dangerous books. You will store their minds 
with truth, instead of those fictions which 
will haunt them ever afterwards. You will 
strengthen their minds with substantial food, 
instead of weakening them with airy and in- 
digestible fancies. You will make impres- 
sions which will prepare their minds to 
grasp eagerly for missionary intelligence, 
and constrain them to become deeply enga- 

* Since my return to America I have published a 
small work entitled " Letters to Sabbath-school Chil- 
dren, on the condition of the Heathen." It is printed b^ 
*.he American Sunday-school Union. 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 55 

ged in the cause of missions. Its progress 
will become dear to them. Facts in regard 
to it will be closely linked with all their ear- 
liest associations, and incorporated with their 
thoughts and affections, making the mission- 
ary life appear desirable and blessed. 

5. Tell them stories wJdch bear upon the des- 
thiies more particularly of the heathen woi'ld. 
Store your own mind with facts, and be 
guided in the selection of such facts by these 
two things, the death of Christ, and the ruin 
of earth by sin. Let them be exceedingly 
various in their general character, but let 
them all have some point which shall clear- 
ly exhibit these two subjects, or something 
which can be brought to bear upon them. 
Your little boys will often come with the re- 
quest, " Mamma, please to tell me a story," 
and if you will always have suitable stories 
at hand to tell them, j^ou will find them de- 
lighted hearers ; and while they are entirely 
unconscious of the whole matter, you will 
be planting in their budding, inquisitive 
minds, the two greatest ideas of which we 
can here form any conception, namely, that 
they must live for Christ, and live for a dy- 
ing world. 



56 AN APPEAL 

6. Teach them to contribute fo?- the support 
of the Gospel at home and among the hea- 
then. x\s soon as they can understand the 
idea (and they will miderstand it at a very 
early age) that money is needed to spread 
tlie Gospel of our Savior, teach them to 
give it, and to give it systematically. Teach 
them to give it by self-denial. Let them 
earn a penny as often as they please, b}"" 
going without some accustomed luxury, or 
what some might call comfort. Provide 
them with work, whereby they may gain 
money for the heathen. Teach them to exer- 
cise their ingenuity and their industry in 
order to gain something for this purpose. 
Furnish them with a missionary-box to hold 
their contributions, and so instruct them that 
they shall feel much happier in dropping a 
penny into it, than by spending it for candy 
or similar things. Christian mothers, we 
want children trained thus in habits of giv- 
ing, in habits of denying self, in order to fill 
ihe Lord's treasury. Would that those chris- 
tians, who now have a place in our churches 
and make money in our streets, had thus 
been trained. Then would not schools in 
heathen lands be disbanded for want of 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 57 

means to support them ,• nor would presses 
be stopped, nor missionaries at home and 
abroad I'aint and die, through overwork. 

7. Let them Icnow that they are consecrated to 
God. Christian mother, tell your child after 
you have thus instructed him, that you have 
vowed to the Lord, that if he would qualify 
him for the work of the Gospel ministry, you 
would not only relinquish your right in him, 
but do all in your power that he may preach 
among the heathen the unsearchable riches 
of Christ. Take him alone. Summon to your 
aid all the solemnities of circumstance and 
place that you can ; kneel with him ; put 
your hand upon his head, as Newton's mo- 
ther did, and pray with him. Give him 
away to God, audibly, in a form of conse- 
cration, and then tell him that you have 
thus consecrated him ; that you do not con- 
sider him your son, but God's ; and fre- 
quently admonish him of this scene. Endea- 
vor to impress him with the thought, that as 
you have relinquished all right in him that 
he may be devoted to this work, he should 
be willing to forsake all to enter upon it. 
And thus let this idea " gi'ow with his 
growth and strengthen with his strength," 



58 AN APPEAL 

thai, his business is a world's salvation. I 
have advised you, audibly to consecrate 
your sons to God, in their presence. Some 
mothers may possibly be indisposed to in- 
struct their children at the early period just 
mentioned, from the belief that they cannot 
comprehend the meaning of such instruction. 
Should you be of that number, you surely 
cannot refuse to comply with one item in 
the request just made, which is, that after 
you have consecrated your sons to God in 
private, you will take them into your closets 
and kneel with them and pray audibly with 
them, that they may hear you while you 
give expression to the desire that God will 
make them not only the trophies of his grace 
but heralds of the cross. 

8. Endeavor to kindle in the heart of your 
son the hei-oic spirit of the Gospel. Make him 
feel that of all the enterprises of the present 
day, the missionary enterprise is one of the 
noblest which can be undertaken on earth. 
Make it appear glorious. You have his affec- 
tions, and his imagination lights its torch at 
the altar fire which burns upon your heart. 
Use a sanctified and chastened hnagination 
in portraying to him the glorious results of 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 59 

this enterprise. Catch the spirit of the pro- 
phet bard : " The wolf also shall dwell with 
the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down 
with the kid, and the calf and the young 
lion and the fatling together, and a little 
child shall lead them, 4 c. They shall not hurt 
nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the 
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
Lord as the waters cover the sea.*' Set be- 
fore him the Captain of Salvation, and the 
glorious rest which is to follow the warfare ; 
that his heart may pant with the spirit of 
the Gospel, and that he may long to be one 
among Christ's soldiers. 

" We must have mothers in France," said 
Madam Campan to Bonaparte. This single 
remark, it is said, had a magical influence 
on the mind of the emperor. And what did 
he do under the influence of this thought ? 
From that moment he set the mothers of 
France to the work of education, to carry 
forward his plans. Mothers inspired their 
children with a martial spirit. They put into 
the hands of their infmt boys the little 
trumpet, sword, drum, and martial flag, 
and chanted over their cradles the sweet war 
monody. They embraced all possible oppoi 



60 AN APPEAL 

tunities to exalt the name of their illustrious 
military conqueror. Thus in a few years 
mothers infused into the minds of the chil- 
dren of France such a thirst for military ho- 
nor, that their boys panted to be men, that 
they might enter the field of military glory, 
and serve their emperor and their country. 
Truly our Lord has said, " The children of 
this world are wiser in their generation than 
the children of light." 

Christian mothers, will you not do for 
Christ what the mothers of France did for 
Bonaparte ? Let me entreat you thus to act. 
Such action on your part would, I doubt not, 
often be overruled by the Head of the church 
for the conversion of your children. Gel 
them to turn their attention to the miseries 
of others, and they will naturally be induced 
to turn their attention to their own miseries. 
Let me mention a case or two in point. 

A clergyman not long since told me, that 
when he was about five years of age he saw 
some pictures of the Tuscarora Indians, 
which had been sent by a lady who had gone 
as a missionary from his native place. This 
circumstance made an impression upon his 
mind respecting missions which he never 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 61 

forgot, and he considers this as one of the 
important means which God made use of for 
his conversion. 

Another clergyman stated, that in his boy- 
hood a colored nurse, a pious methodist, im- 
pressed it upon his mind by her simple re- 
marks that he was to become a minister. 
This impression never left him even in his 
most sinful years ; but was, he believes, a 
leadinof instrumental cause of turnins: his 
mind to the subject of religion, and finally 
of constraining him to become a preacher of 
the Gospel. 

An American missionary said, ** I recol- 
lect particularly, that once my mother came 
and stood by me as I sat in the door, and 
tenderly talked to me of God and my duty 
to him, and her tears dropped upon my 
head. That made me a missionary." 

9. Teach them to j)ra\j for a ])erisldng world. 
Never should they bow their little knees at 
the throne of grace in the morning and in 
the evening, without pleading with God for 
this object. They should also attend a month- 
ly concert of prayer. Many parents do not 
feel disposed to take their children to the 
monthly concerts as now established, be- 



62 AN APPEAL 

cause they are held at night, when they can 
scarcely be kept awake. If this objection be 
valid, then by all means let a monthly con- 
cert of prayer be established exclusively for 
children, and let it be held at a season when 
their attention can be kept up. Perhaps the 
afternoon of the Sabbath would be the most 
appropriate season. Indeed I think that such 
a concert should at all events be established. 
Very frequently the nature of the missiona- 
ry intelligence communicated at our usual 
monthly concerts of prayer, and the long 
prayers which are offered are not adapted 
to children. Prayers with children should 
never exceed four or five minutes, and the 
missionary intelligence should be of the most 
simple and stirring nature. The little books 
which have been printed by our Sunday- 
school, Tract and other Societies, as well as 
the little monthly papers which are devoted 
to the publication of missionary intelhgence, 
will furnish ample means to interest juvenile 
bearers. Were I the pastor of a church, it 
would, I think, be one of my first objects to 
establish such a monthly concert of prayer. 
I can hardly think of any meeting which it 
would give me so much pleasure to attend, 



TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS. 63 

or which would, with the blessing of God, 
tell so much upon the salvation of the souls 
of the children, as well as upon the promo- 
tion, eventual^, of the Redeemer's king- 
dom. If 3^ou ever expect your children to 
become men and women of full stature in 
prayer, tltey must he educated in the missionary 
prayej'-meeting. Unless they are thus educa- 
ted, they will never pray for the heathen as 
they should pray for them. They will be no 
better in this respect than ourselves. And if 
there be not a much greater spirit of prayer, 
how is this world ever to be converted to 
Christ. 

I have said nothing to those mothers who 
profess to be christians, but who are unwill- 
ing to have their sons enter the ministry be- 
cause they may be poor, or from some other 
trivial reason. Do such mothers know what 
they do? Have they any desire that their 
sons should become converted? Even if they 
have, I know not what reason they have to 
hope (so far as they are concerned) that this 
will be the case. They may expect to weep 
over ungodly sons, and break their hearts 
over graves on whose tombstones there shall 
be no record of hope. 



64 AN APPEAL 



CONCLUSION. 

And now, christian mothers, what more 
shall I say? You are compassed about with 
a great cloud of witnesses, looking upon you 
to see what you will do — to see whether you 
will bestir yourselves in this matter or not. 
The church looks to you with deep solici- 
tude. The church of the coming genera- 
tion has its germs in your families. You are 
the guardians over Christ's nursery. Shall 
they be plants standing like green olive-trees 
in the house of God, or shall they be like 
the present dwarfish race of christians. 

The eyes of the great Head of the church 
are placed upon you. He has entrusted to 
you the great means of raising up ministers 
to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth, 
and he looks to you to see what you will do. 
And will you not awake to a sense of your 
responsibilities and rejoicingly use the in- 
strumentalities which Christ hath committed 
to your hands ? 

Oh ! for one brief moment suppose your- 
selves in the condition of those wretched 
heathen for whose sake I plead. Suppose 



TO CHRIS riAN MOTHERS. 65 

you were in their places, without God, and 
without hope in the world, and I were plead- 
ing for you in this little work with many- 
prayers and tears. How would you wish 
that they should act for you ? Say, christian 
mothers, how would you wish them to act 
for you ? So act for them, and act now. Ne- 
ver ! Oh never was there a class of females, 
from the days of Adam to this time, who 
were placed in so responsible a situation as 
you. Every act of yours will tell upon the 
destinies of souls, either for heaven or for 
hell. It is a solemn thing for you to die. How 
much more solemn and awful a thing is it 
for you to live in such a day as this. 



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