[quote] Just as a mother's good disposition, good actions, and good words represent the cornerstone of her child's subsequent good disposition, actions, and words, so her bad disposition, actions, and words sow the destructive seeds of her child's subsequent bad disposition, actions, and words. As a mother is, so the child will be. If the mother's soul is ugly, unkempt, black, corrupted, hardened, and rough; if her inclinations are evil, her ways scandalous and irreverent; if she descends into impiety, rage, or dizzying passions and hatred, then the shoots of these unseemly vices will quickly spring up in her child. Conversely, if the mother's soul is godly, pure, radiant, innocent, full of the fear of God; if her inclinations are kind and holy, her disposition peaceful, pious and philanthropic, then the child's soul, reflecting this as in a mirror and faithfully imitating it, will be like unto it, and, with the passage of time, will show forth the sprouts of good seed. This is why, when Napoleon the Great asked an eminent pedagogue, Henriette Campan', what was needed in order for France to produce noble and good men, that famous woman answered the monarch, saying simply, "Mothers." "Then," said the great man, "raise up such women that this great national aim might be fulfilled."[/quote]

[color=silver][indent][indent]— Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis, [i]For Mind and Heart: Saint Nektarios as Teacher [/i][/indent][/indent][/color]