--woman's
gracious influence has counteracted against the pernicious example of
the father. And, on the other hand, we have a long list of vile and
idolatrous kings, whose fathers were either comparatively worthy, or
full of downright godliness, and then, invariably, there is some
evil-minded royal consort at the back of it. Whenever we can get into
the secrets of court life, we find that the character of the wife
determines the moral weight and form of the royal children. It is her
training that shapes the men. How could it be otherwise indeed? What
time had those kings to spend on home matters, what with their
fighting, judging, governing, and attending to all the affairs of
empire? How could they do a father's work and watch the training of
the future kings? It was left to the mothers, and unhappy they who had
mothers like Ahaziah's.

And is not this an everlasting story, true to-day as it was in those
old days? It is the mother's hand mainly that shapes men for good or
evil. Women more than men make the atmosphere of home--the atmosphere
which young lives breathe, and breathing never lose. The wise woman
buildeth her house--the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. What
time does a father spend in disciplining the moral and spiritual nature
of his children? That has to be done in the hours when he is toiling
in the warehouse, or resting wearily after the labours of the day, or
surely it is not done at all. From a mother the child receives all its
early religious thoughts. By her the Bible stories are taught, and
through her lips the good book comes to be loved. None can do it
except her. It is her eyes that watch every moral movement in the
young life--every sign of change--every incipient error--every
beginning of good and evil habit. No eyes can detect these things as
quickly and as surely as hers. And if she is too careless to discover
them, they will go unobserved and unchecked. Unhappy is the mother who
gives to society, or to friendship, or to pleasure the time which she
owes to her sons and daughters, for she will have to reap in vain
regrets the penalty of her neglect. How rarely do good and true women
and men go forth from a home in which a mother has been too busy with
the giddy affairs of the pleasurable world to teach and pray with her
children. Still more rarely do permanently evil and incorrigible lives
go forth from a home in which a noble and religious mother has made it
the