Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/358

 tears upon the time when, by, or on, a mother's knee, they listened to the virtuous precept, or lisped the ihfant prayer. Memory has gone back to the period of innocence, and many a returning prodigal has been first awakened to a sense of his condition by those instructions which originated in a mother's love. There is, by the good providence of the Lord, a treasured remnant of early truth preserved, which, though apparently lost or suffocated in the lust of evil and error, and covered over with almost innumerable folds of wickedness, requires only a spark from the fire of love, at the proper time, to penetrate that hidden remnant; and by falling on and softening the pride of self, prepare the soul for the operations of the Spirit of Truth, which is ever near and brooding over it with the yearnings of unutterable love: "O that there were such an heart within us, that we might fear the Lord always, and keep His commandments!"

The remains of virtuous principles once implanted, the seeds of pure truth once sown, how ever long they appear unproductive through evil, or obscured by folly, may yet, for aught we know, be still alive; and the tender tale devised by a mother's love, or the interesting truths deduced from a father's wisdom, may have had some points within them which may reach the sinner in his midnight career of crime, or even stay his hand when lifted to do a deed of blood. The burning lusts which constituted the sin of Sodom, the love of self and power which connect themselves with Gomorrah, yet burn fiercely in many; and but for the remains of good and truth, how many would have been as Sodom! how many like unto Gomorrah!