A cluster of young girls stood about the door of the school-room one afternoon when a little girl joined them, and asked what they were doing.
“I am telling the girls a secret, Kate, and we will let you know, if you will promise not to tell anyone as long as you live,” was the reply.
“I won’t tell any one but my mother,” replied Kate. “I tell her everything, for she is my best friend.”
“No, not even your mother, no our in the world.”
“Well, then I can’t hear it; for what I can’t tell my mother, is not fit for me to hear.”
After speaking these words, Kate walked away slowly, and perhaps sadly, yet with a quiet conscience, while her companions went on with their secret conversation.
I am sure that if Kate continued to act on that principle, she became a virtuous, useful woman. No child of a pious mother will be likely to take a sinful course, if Kate’s reply is taken for a rule of conduct.
As soon as a boy listens to conversation at school or on the playground which he would fear or blush to repeat to his mother, he is in the way of temptation, and no one can tell where he will stop. Many a man dying in disgrace, in prison, or on the scaffold, has looked back with bitter, remorse to the time when first a sinful companion gained his ear, and came between him and a pious mother.
Boys and girls, if you will lead a Christian life, and die a Christain death, make Kate’s reply your rule:
“What I cannot tell my mother, is out fit for me to know”; for a pious mother is your best friend.
If you have no mother, do as the diiples did; go and tell Jesus. He loves you better than. the most tender parent.
ML 02/13/1944