Wives and Mothers
and sisters and daughters, attend to the thousand sweet offices of home.
When at last we come to calculate the forces that decided the destiny of nations, it will be found that the mightiest and grandest influence came from home, where the wife cheered up despondency and fatigue and sorrow by her own sympathy, and the mother trained her child for heaven, starting the little feet on the path to the celestial city; and the sisters by their gentleness refined the manners of the brother; and the daughters were diligent in their kindness to the aged, throwing wreaths of blessing on the road that leads father and mother down the steep of years. Need I go into history to find you illustrations? Ah no; in your own memory there was at least one such! When I come to speak of womanly influence, my mind always wanders off to