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Some one has finely said: "It is related of Phidias that in constructing the statue of Minerva at Athens, he so wrought his own image into her shield, that it could not be removed without destroying the statue itself. Thus ineffaceably does the mother engrave her mental likeness, her moral character, upon the soul of the child. Not until that soul shall be annihilated will the maternal image be removed."

It is a beautiful tribute to the influence of motherhood to observe how the greatest and purest minds recur with ever increasing satisfaction to the maternal influence and training in their early life, and attribute all their successes to her gentle teachings. The excitable temperament and passionate nature of the brilliant yet unhappy John Randolph was soothed by the remembrance of his mother, and he said: "I would have been an atheist if it had not been for one recollection; and that was the memory of the time when my departed mother used to take my little hands in hers, and cause me, on my knees, to say, 'Our Father, which art in heaven.'" His mother died when only thirty

six years of age, and in the bloom of her womanhood,

and he always retained a vivid remembrance of her person, her charms, and her virtues, and often did he shed tears over her grave by whose side it was the last wish of his heart to be buried. "I am a fatalist," said he; "I am all but friendless; only one human being ever knew me-my mother.'

The celebrated Benjamin West related that his

mother once kissed him eagerly, when he showed her a likeness he had sketched of his baby sister; and he adds: "That kiss made me a painter."

That sturdy and independent representative of western manhood,-Thomas H. Benton,-attributed his success to the influence of his mother, and in a speech made in New York thus spoke of her: "My mother asked me never to use tobacco, and I have never used it from that time until the present day. She asked me not to game, and I have never gamed. She admonished me, too, against strong drink, and whatever capacity for endurance I may have at present, and whatever usefulness I may attain in life, I attribute to having complied with her highest and earnest wishes."

That silver-voiced orator, Henry Clay, who seemed to wake at will the chords of human sympathy, and to reach the hearts of men by his wondrous personal magnetism, always spoke of his mother in terms which denoted the most devoted affection and profound veneration. It is said that habitual correspondence existed between them to the last hour of life. He ever mentioned her as a model of maternal character and female excellence, and it is said that he never met his constituents after her death, without some allusion to her, which deeply affected both himself and his audience. And when the great statesman came to die, nearly his last words were, "Mother, mother, mother." One of the strongest characteristics of the poet, Pope,

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