John Quincy Adams, even when his eloquence thundered through
our legislative halls, and caused a nation to startle from her slumber,
bent his aged form before God, and repeated the prayer of his childhood.
"How often in old age," says Bishop Hall, "have I valued those divine
passages of experimental divinity that I heard from the lips of a mother!"
Dr. Doddridge ever lived under the influence of those scripture
instructions his mother gave him from the Dutch tiles of her fireside. He
says, "these lessons were the instruments of my conversion." "Generally,"
says Dr. Cumming, "when, there is a Sarah in the house, there will be an
Isaac in the cradle; wherever there is a Eunice teaching a Timothy the
scriptures from a child, there will be a Timothy teaching the gospel to the
rest of mankind." By the force of this same influence, the pious wife may
win over to Christ her ungodly husband, and the godly child may save the
unbelieving parent. "Well," said a mother one day weeping, "I will resist
no longer! How can I bear to see my dear child love and read the
scriptures, while I never look into the bible,--to see her retire and seek
God, while I never pray,--to see her going to the Lord's table, while His
death is nothing to me! I know she is right, and I am wrong. I ought to
have taught her; but I am sure she has taught me. How can I bear to see her
joining the church of God, and leaving me behind--perhaps forever!"
The Christian home has its influence also upon the state.
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