These are qualities which in human character are
worth all the wisdom of the market-place many million times
multiplied. They are the qualities which, in spite of itself, keep the
world young and tolerable.
The young man comes to the world fresh from his mother's knee. The
Lord's Prayer is still in his mind; his mother taught it to him. The
glorious fable of Washington and the cherry-tree is still in his
heart; his mother taught it to him. A beautiful honor that makes him
very foolish on the stock exchange and causes the shrewd ones to say,
"He will know more after a while"--the splendid honor that makes him
throw over what the world calls "advantages"--still glorifies his
soul; his mother taught him that honor. The confidence that God is
just, and that success is surely his if he will but do right, still
beautifies him like the rose-tinted clouds of morning; it is the
influence of his mother's teaching.
Let the world understand that these qualities with which the mother
labors to endow her child, from the time the blessing of maternity is
hers to the time the bright-eyed young fellow steps out from the old
home, are more valuable to the world itself than all its gold-mines,
all its scientific discoveries, all its electric railroads, all its
games of politics, all its commerce.
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