“Can a mother forget her sucking child?” asks the inspired penman, in a way that it would seem to be so great an anomaly as almost to amount to an impossibility.  Yet modern luxury not only proves that such a thing can be done, but it is one even of common occurrence.  But if done, surely some great stake must be pending—­something on which life and property are concerned—­that a mother can thus forget the child of her bosom?  Alas! no; the child is neglected, that no interruption may take place in the mother’s stream of pleasure.  For the blandishments of the theatre, or the excitements of the dance, is a child left to the charge of those who have nothing of love for it—­no sympathy for its sufferings, no joyousness in sharing in its pleasures.

A woman forfeits all claim to the sacred character of a mother if she abandon her offspring to the entire care of others:  for ere she can do this, she must have stifled all the best feelings of her nature, and become “worse than the infidel”—­for she gives freely to the stranger, and neglects her own.

Therefore should a woman, if she would fulfil her duty, make her child her first care.  It is not necessary that her whole time should be spent in attending to its wants; but it is necessary that so much of the time should be spent, that nothing should be neglected which could add to the child’s comfort and happiness.  And not only is it needful that a woman should show a motherly fondness for her child, so that she should attend to its wants and be solicitous for its welfare; it is also necessary that she should know how those wants are best to be provided for, and how that welfare is best to be consulted:  for to the natural feelings which prompt animals to provide for their offspring, to humanity is added the noble gift of reason; so that thought and solicitude are not merely the effects of blind instinct, but the produce of a higher and nobler faculty.

As we have already adverted to this point, we shall only say, that without a knowledge of how the physical wants of a child are to be met in the best manner, a mother cannot be said to be performing her duty; for the kindness which is bestowed may be but the result of natural feeling, which it would be far harder to resist than to fulfil; whereas the want of knowledge may have resulted from ignorance and idleness, and the loss of this knowledge will never be made up by natural kindness and love:  it will be like trying to work without hands, or to see when the eyes are blinded.

But there is yet a higher duty devolving upon woman.  She has to attend to the mental and moral wants of her offspring, as well as to the physical.  And helpless as we are born into the world if reference be made to our physical wants, we are yet more helpless if reference be made to our mental and moral.  We come into the world with evil passions, perverted faculties, and unholy dispositions:  for let what will be said of the blandness and attractiveness of