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A Slave Mother, March 15
Exodus 2:1-10
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not
depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
.
Jochebed was a woman and a slave. Her lot in life was humble, her burden
heavy. But through no other woman, save Mary of Nazareth, has the world
received greater blessing. Knowing that her child [Moses] must soon pass
beyond her care, to the guardianship of those who knew not God, she the more
earnestly endeavored to link his soul with heaven
She endeavored to imbue his mind with the fear of God and the love of
truth and justice, and earnestly prayed that he might be preserved from every
corrupting influence. She showed him the folly and sin of idolatry, and early
taught him to bow down and pray to the living God, who alone could hear him
and help him in every emergency.
She kept the boy as long as she could, but was obliged to give him up when
he was about twelve years old. From his humble cabin home he was taken to
the royal palace, to the daughter of Pharaoh, “and he became her son.” Yet even
here he did not lose the impressions received in childhood. The lessons learned
at his mother’s side could not be forgotten. They were a shield from the pride,
the infidelity, and the vice that flourished amid the splendor of the court.
How far-reaching in its results was the influence of that one Hebrew woman,
and she an exile and a slave! The whole future life of Moses, the great mission
which he fulfilled as the leader of Israel, testifies to the importance of the work
of the Christian mother. There is no other work that can equal this. To a very
great extent the mother holds in her own hands the destiny of her children.... She
is sowing seed that will spring up and bear fruit, either for good or for evil. She
has not to paint a form of beauty upon canvas or to chisel it from marble, but to
impress upon a human soul the image of the divine....
Let every mother feel that her moments are priceless; her work will be tested
in the solemn day of accounts
[81]
23
Education, 61
.
24
Patriarchs and Prophets, 243, 244
.
82