Years ago I saw an outdoor picture which I have never forgotten. A little lamb had been born very late in the season, and, after all the rest of the flock had been removed, it remained with its mother the only occupants of a field. As soon as it was old enough, it showed all the ordinary tendencies of its kind, and began to skip and frolic about the field. But it had no playfellows, and would soon return, quiet and disheartened, to its mother’s side. The ewe rose to the occasion. She still carried her winter coat which made active movements somewhat difficult, but in spite of this, she joined in a game at romps with her little one. Anything funnier, more ungainly than her efforts at skipping and prancing round, I never expect to see, but she persevered to the delight of her lamb, so long as the two remained in the field. She left in my memory one of the sweetest pictures of motherly sympathy I ever witnessed. It is not possible to do more than touch on the duties as well as the glory of motherhood, for the subject is equally vast and important. In all our talks in the twilight our object has been rather to suggest future thought on matters of importance, than to exhaust the subject during a sitting. You, my dear ones, if spared to be mothers, will have to study many things, if you are to be worthy of such a sacred trust. You will need loving and sympathetic natures, great self-control and constant watchfulness over self, in order that your example may be good for the little ones to follow. You will need tender, enlightened consciences to keep Duty ever to the front, and Inclination subservient to its call. You will find that you must unlearn as well as learn many things in order that you may only teach what is best. You will have to study the parts that others fill in the environment of your children so that they may have pure companionship, friends and teachers whose influence shall be second only to your own in doing them good. You will have to plan in ways small and great for the growth, health and general well-being of their bodies, but above and beyond all you must never forget that something more precious than all the world has been entrusted to you—an immortal soul with each child. I need not say that if you realise the vastness of this trust, you will be a prayerful mother. Very conscious of your own weakness and inability rightly to fulfil your God-given work, you will constantly seek the grace which is sufficient for you and for all: the strength which is made perfect in the weakness of His believing servants. “For the weakness of God is stronger than men.” You will be ever prayerfully striving after greater nearness to the Source of strength, and so, taking your little ones in your arms or by the hand, you will lead them into the Presence, and as you lift up heart and voice in supplication and prayer, teach them to realise from their earliest days the Divine Fatherhood, and the saving love of God in Christ Jesus.