A mother's double worth

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 37, sermon number 2,215, "Young man! A prayer for you."

"Oh, you who have no experience, and little discretion, hear the voice of warning!"

Satan has cunning servants about him, that hunt for the precious life with double diligence. Our Lord Jesus has about him servants who too often slumber; but the devil’s servants are not slothful in their dreadful business.

You will find them waylay you in the streets without, and press around you in the haunts of pleasure within. They are everywhere, and they leave no stone unturned that they may entrap the unwary. And what if this blind young man is put down in the midst of all these blood-suckers?

They will devour him if they can: what if he is left to be their victim? It is like turning out a sheep among a pack of wolves. “Lord, open the eyes of the young man, that he may see!” We pray this prayer for some of you, because you are going away from those who have hitherto watched over you, and this is a dangerous change for you.

Your mother—ah! we can never tell what a blessing a godly mother is to a young man—your mother parts from you with great anxiety. Will you ever forget her tender words? Our fathers are all very well—God bless them!—and a father’s godly influence and earnest prayers are of untold value to his children; but the mothers are worth two of them, mostly, as to the moral training and religious bent of their sons and daughters.

Well, I say, you are going right away from your mother’s holy influence, and from your father’s restraining admonitions. You will now have nobody to encourage you in the right way. You will miss your sister’s holy kiss, and your grandmother’s loving persuasions.

You are going out of the hothouse into a night’s frost: well may we pray concerning you, that you may carry with you well-opened eyes, to see your way, and look before you leap. The young man is now to walk alone: “Lord, open his eyes, that he may see!” If he does not look before he leaps, he will soon be in the ditch; and who shall pull him out?

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