11. BLESSING THE FAMILY GROUP.--No young man or young woman can by industry and care reach an eminence in study or art or character, without blessing the entire family group. We have all seen that the father and mother feel that all life's care and labor were at last perfectly rewarded in the success of their child. But had the child been reckless or indolent, all this domestic joy--the joy of a large group--would have been blighted forever. 12. AN HONORED CHILD.--There have been triumphs at old Rome, where victors marched along with many a chariot, many an elephant, and many spoils of the East; and in all times money has been lavished in the efforts of States to tell their pleasure in the name of some general; but more numerous and wide-spread and beyond expression, by chariot or cannon or drum, have been those triumphal {20} hours, when some son or daughter has returned to the parental hearth beautiful in the wreaths of some confessed excellence, bearing a good name. 13. RICH CRIMINALS.--We looked at the utter wretchedness of the men who threw away reputation, and would rather be rich criminals in exile than be loved friends and persons at home. 14. AN EMPTY, OR AN EVIL NAME.--Young and old cannot afford to bear the burden of an empty or an evil name. A good name is a motive of life. It is a reason for that great encampment we call an existence. While you are building the home of to-morrow, build up also that kind of soul that can sleep sweetly on home's pillow, and can feel that God is not near as an avenger of wrong, but as the Father not only of the verdure and the seasons, but of you. Live a pure life and bear a good name, and your reward will be sure and great. * * * * * {21} The Mother's Influence. Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you, Many a Summer the grass has grown green, Blossomed and faded, our faces between; Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain, Long I to-night for your presence again.--_Elizabeth Akers Allen._ A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive.--_Coleridge._ There is none, In all this cold and hollow world, no fount Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within A mother's heart.--_Mrs. Hemans._ And all my mother came into mine eyes, And gave me up to tears.--_Shakespeare._ * * * * * [Illustration: A PRAYERFUL AND DEVOTED MOTHER.] 1. HER INFLUENCE.--It is true to nature, although it be expressed in a figurative form, that a mother is both the morning and the evening star of life. The light of her eye is always the first to rise, and often the last to set upon man's day of trial. She wields a power more decisive far than syllogisms in argument or courts of last appeal in authority.