"
What a purifying and restraining influence does the memory of a pious
parent's love, exert upon the wayward child! When he bends in mournful
recollection over the grave of a sainted mother, how must every
heart-string break, and with what remorse he reviews his past life of
wickedness and filial disobedience. The memory of that mother's love and
kindness to him, haunts him in all his revels, and draws him back, as if by
magnetic force, from scenes of riot and of ruin. Can he think of that
mother's prayers and teachings and tears of solicitude, and not feel
deeply, and often savingly, his own guilt and ingratitude? If there is a
memory of home-life which allures him to heaven, it is the recollection of
her love and pious efforts to save him.
The child who lives in exile from his country and his home, is soothed in
the midst of his cares and disappointments, by the stirring imagery of his
far-distant friends and home. And oh, if he has been unfaithful to the
ministrations of that home; if he has trodden under foot the proffered love
of his parents, and repulsed all the overtures of their pious solicitude,
will not the memory of their anguish haunt his soul, and plough deep
furrows of remorse in his conscience? The sense of past filial ingratitude,
and the recollection of a parent's injured love and disappointed hope,
constitute one of the most powerful incentives to repentance and
reformation.
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