But it was in the earlier period of his life that her
example and instruction made the deepest impression upon his mind,
and determined his future character.
There are many similar instances of early impressions made upon a
child's mind, springing up into good acts late in life, after an
intervening period of selfishness and vice. Parents may do all
that they can to develope an upright and virtuous character in
their children, and apparently in vain. It seems like bread cast
upon the waters and lost. And yet sometimes it happens that long
after the parents have gone to their Rest--it may be twenty years
or more--the good precept, the good example set before their sons
and daughters in childhood, at length springs up and bears fruit.
One of the most remarkable of such instances was that of the
Reverend John Newton of Olney, the friend of Cowper the poet. It
was long subsequent to the death of both his parents, and after
leading a vicious life as a youth and as a seaman, that he became
suddenly awakened to a sense of his depravity; and then it was
that the lessons which his mother had given him when a child
sprang up vividly in his memory. Her voice came to him as it were
from the dead, and led him gently back to virtue and goodness.
Another instance is that of John Randolph, the American statesman,
who once said: "I should have been an atheist if it had not been
for one recollection--and that was the memory of the time when my
departed mother used to take my little hand in hers, and cause me
on my knees to say, 'Our Father who art in heaven!'"
But such instance must, on the whole, be regarded as exceptional.
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