And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child, and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.
—Matt. 10:21
3614 What Is Happiness?
Historian Will Durant searched for happiness in study and learning. But he discovered that knowledge alone did not bring happiness.
He tried travel and found only weariness. He tried wealth and found only worry and discord. He sought to immerse himself in his writing but found only fatigue.
Then one day he noticed a woman sitting in a small car clasping a sleeping child in her arms. He watched while a man got off a train and came over and kissed the woman and baby gently, so as not to waken him. As he saw the family drive away together, Durant suddenly realized that what he had just seen was happiness.
3615 Longest-Lasting Fragrance
It is said that an angel strolled out of heaven one beautiful day and found his way to this old world. He roamed through field and city beholding the varied scenes of nature and art, and just at sunset he plumed his golden wings and said, “I must return to the world of light; shall I not take with me some mementos of my visit here?
“How beautiful and fragrant those flowers are! I will pluck of them a choice bouquet.” Passing a country home where he saw through the open door a rosy, little crib into its mother’s face, he said, “The smile of that baby is prettier than these roses; I will take that too.” Just then he looked beyond the cradle and saw a devout mother pouring out her love like the gush of a perpetual fountain, as she stopped to kiss “Good-night” her precious baby. “Oh,” said he, “that mother’s love is the prettiest thing I have seen in all the world; I will take that too!”
With these three treasures he winged his way toward the pearly gates, but just before entering he decided to examine his mementos, and to his astonishment the flowers had withered until they were no longer things of beauty, the baby’s smile had changed into a frown, but the mother’s love retained all its pristine beauty and fragrance. He threw aside the withered roses and the departed smile, and, passing through the gates, was welcomed by the hosts of heaven that gathered about him to see what he had.
“Here,” said he, “is the only thing I found on earth that would retain its fragrance and beauty all the way to heaven. The sweetest thing in all the world is a mother’s love.”
—O. A. Newlin
3616 Mother As Greatest Preacher
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan had four sons. They all became ministers. At a family reunion, a friend asked one of the sons, “Which Morgan is the greatest preacher?” While the son looked at the father, he replied, “Mother!”
3617 To Mother
You painted no Madonnas
On chapel walls in Rome,
But with a touch diviner
You lived one in your home.
You wrote no lofty poems
That critics counted art,
But with a nobler vision
You lived them in your heart.
You carved no shapeless marble
To some high-souled design,
But with a finer sculpture
You shaped this soul of mine.
You built no great cathedrals
That centuries applaud,
But with a grace exquisite
Your life cathedraled God.
Had I the gift of Raphael,
Or Michelangelo,
Oh, what a rare Madonna
My mother’s life would show!
—Thomas W. Fessenden
3618 That Precious Name!
Mother! That precious name,
Forever more the same,
Earth’s greatest word.
Though ages past have flown,
No sound was ever known,
Like that dear name alone,
Or ever heard.
From childhood’s earliest day,
She guarded all our way
With tenderest care.
She shared our every woe,
Each cherished hope did know,
Heard every whisper low
Of childish prayer.
Our Mother! God to Thee
In deep humility
We lift our praise:
Keep those we love the best
Through every trial and test,
And may they ever rest
Safe in thy care.
—Selected
3619 God’s Helpers
God could not be in every place
With loving hands to help erase
The teardrops from each baby’s face,
And so He thought of mother.
He could not send us here alone
And leave us to a fate unknown;
Without providing for His own,
The outstretched arms of mother.
God could not watch us night and day
And kneel beside our crib to pray,
Or kiss our little aches away;
And so He sent us mother.
And when our childhood days began,
He simply could not take command.
That’s why He placed our tiny hand
Securely into mother’s.
The days of youth slipped quickly by,
Life’s sun rose higher in the sky.
Full grown were we, yet ever nigh
To love us still, was mother.
And when life’s span of years shall end,
I know that God will gladly send,
To welcome home her child again,
That ever-faithful mother.
—George W. Wiseman
3620 Dedication Of A Book
Howard A. Kelly, M. D., thus dedicates his book, A Scientific Man and the Bible:
To
My First and Best Friend
Guide of My Youth
Inspiration and Strength of My Maturer Years
And Crown of My Approaching
Three Score Years and Ten
My Mother
3621 The Statue Of Liberty
For the past ninety years the majestic statue “Liberty Enlightening the World” has towered above Bedlow Island, near the entrance to New York Harbor, as a symbol of the freedom which we enjoy here in America.
The famous sculptor, Bartholdi, gave twenty years of devoted effort to the work, personally superintending the raising of the subscription of $4,000,000 with which the French nation gave the statue to the United States. When the subscriptions lagged, Bartholdi pledged his own private fortune to defray the running expenses and practically impoverished himself over the work.
At the start, when Bartholdi looked for a model whose form and features he could reproduce as “Liberty,” he received much contradictory counsel. One of the leading art authorities advised him that the statue should depict “figures of thought which are grand in themselves.” After examining outstanding heroes, Bartholdi chose as a model for the colossal masterpiece—his own mother.
—Christian Victory
3622 The Will Of Henry Heinz
When the will of Henry J. Heinz, wealthy distributor of the famous “57 Varieties” line, was read it was found to contain the following confession:
“Looking forward to the time when my earthly career will end, I desire to set forth at the very beginning of this will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Saviour. I also desire to bear witness to the fact that throughout my life, in which there were unusual joys and sorrows, I have been wonderfully sustained by my faith in God through Jesus Christ. This legacy was left me by my consecrated mother, a woman of strong faith, and to it I attribute any success I have attained.”
—Evangelistic Illustration
3623 Story of Mother Goose
“Old Mother Goose” was a real person whose maiden name was Foster. Born near Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1665, she married Isaac Goose, who died years later, leaving her a widow with ten children. For the entertainment of her large brood, she wrote a great number of nursery rhymes, which were collected and published by her son-in-law, Thomas Fleet. When Old Mother Goose died at the age of 92, she was buried in Old Granary Cemetery, Boston, where her grave may still be seen.
3624 “I Sit And Rock Alone”
Just yesterday it seems my children
Played upon the floor
And I wiped countless fingerprints
From windowpane and door.
I kissed away a thousand tears
And darned sock after sock
And tried to keep pace with the hands
That raced around the clock.
And often when at end of day,
Too tired to sleep, in bed I lay,
I’d think how nice when, children grown,
My time again should be my own.
So now I sit and rock alone,
My hands at rest, the work all done;
No little tots upon the floor,
No fingerprints upon the door,
Ah me! How could I know I’d miss
The very things I grudged to do
Dear God, if only there might be
Someone again who needed me!
—Author Unknown
3625 Two Religions
I
“A woman sat by a hearthside place
Reading a book with a pleasant face,
Till a child came up with a childish frown
And pushed the book saying, “Put it down.”
Then the mother, slapping his curly head,
Said, “Troublesome child, go off to bed;
A great deal of God’s book I must know
To train you up as a child should go.”
And the child went off to bed to cry
And denounce religion—by and by.
II
“Another woman bent o’er a book
With a smile of joy and an intent look,
Till a child came up and joggled her knee,
And said of the book, “Put it down—take me.”
Then the mother sighed as she stroked his head,
Saying softly, “I never shall get it read;
But I’ll try by loving to learn His will,
And His love into my child instill.”
That child went to bed without a sigh
And will love religion—by and by.
—Aquilla Webb
3626 Send Them To Bed With A Kiss
O mothers, so weary, discouraged,
Worn out with the cares of the day,
You often grow cross and impatient,
Complain of the noise and the play;
For the day brings so many vexations,
For many things go amiss;
But mothers, whatever may vex you,
Send the children to bed with a kiss!
The dear little feet wander often,
Perhaps from the pathway of right,
The dear little hands find new mischief
To try you from morning till night;
But think of the desolate mothers
Who’d give all the world for your bliss,
And, as thanks for your infinite blessings,
Send the children to bed with a kiss!
For some day their noise will not vex you.
The silence will hurt you far more;
You will long for their sweet, childish voices,
For a sweet, childish face at the door;
And to press a child’s face to your bosom,
You’d give all the world for just this!
For the comfort ’twill bring you in sorrow,
Send the children to bed with a kiss!
—New Orleans Picayune
3627 On Daughter’s Wedding Day
It’s your wedding day, dear daughter,
And the pastor has just begun
To say the words that will make the two of you one.
O God, she’s still my little girl, and I have to let her go.
She’s been such fun to have around.
I lack the words to tell her so.
Today’s her wedding day, but the service is yet to start.
“Till death do us part” seems like a long, long time.
Guide her and bless her and give her an understanding heart.
Show her forgiveness—she will need a lot of that.
Help their love to grow.
May they face whatever comes together.
He looks like such a nice young man—
May he hold her always in his heart as he does today.
May he go ahead of her and help to show the way.
Bless their home, may it be a place where love abides.
Build them a strong foundation, one not made of clay
And through the years that lie ahead it will not decay and fall away.
—Joyce Hollender
3628 Baby’s Footprints Toward Church
Near a church in Kansas, there can be seen in a cement sidewalk the prints of two baby feet with the toes pointing toward the Church. It was said that 20 years ago, when the sidewalk was being laid, a mother secured permission to stand her baby boy on the wet cement. The tracks are seen today plainly. The Mother had wanted her little boy to start aright.
3629 Epigram On Mother
• Epitaph in a churchyard, inscribed by a husband after sixty years of wedded life: “She always made home happy.”
• The future destiny of a child is the work of a mother.
—Napoleon Bonaparte
• Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
—Thackeray
• God could not be everywhere, and so he made mothers.
—Jewish Proverb
HER INFLUENCE
3630 Millet’s Grandmother
Millet, whose “Angelus” captivated the art-loving world, had a godly grandmother. Just as he was leaving home for Paris to be a student, she said, “I would rather see you dead than unfaithful to God’s commands.”
Just as he was coming to be known as one of the greatest painters of his day, her influence could be seen in every picture he put on canvas. She kept reminding him, “Remember, you were a Christian before you became a painter.”
3631 Survey Of French Kings
“Of sixty-nine monarchs who have worn the French crown,” a French writer says, “only three have loved the people, and all those three were reared by their mothers without the intervention of pedagogues.
“St. Louis was trained by Blanche, Louis XII was trained by Maria of Cleves, and Henry IV was trained by Jae of Albret; and these were really the fathers of their people.”
—Walter Baxendale
3632 Mother Whipped Herself
Leland Wang, the Chinese evangelist, told of an incident of his childhood which vividly illustrates the substitutionary work of Christ. On one occasion he had been very naughty and his mother, with a stick in her hand, called him to her to be punished. But he ran off, taunting his mother because she could not catch him. She had little chance of catching her small, lively son.
So she stood still and said, “I feel ashamed of myself that I have brought up a boy who is not willing to be disciplined by his mother when he does wrong, so I must punish myself,” and she began to whip her bare arm. This so touched Leland’s heart that he ran back to his mother, threw himself into her arms, and pleaded with her not to hurt herself but to punish him. But no further punishment was necessary.
Mr. Wang says that, as he grew older, the memory of this incident helped him to understand the great love of the Lord Jesus Christ who willingly took our place on the cross.
—Sunday School Times
3633 Mother’s Influence
I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day;
And as my fingers pressed it still,
It moved and yielded at my will.
I came again when days were past,
The form I gave it still it bore,
And as my fingers pressed it still,
I could change that form no more.
I took a piece of living clay,
And gently formed it day by day,
And molded with my power and art,
A young child’s soft and yielding heart.
I came again when days were gone;
It was a man I looked upon,
He still that early impress bore,
And I could change it never more.
—The Bible Friend
3634 More Honorable Than Any Profession
When all is said, it is the mother, and the mother only, who is a better citizen than the soldier who fights for his country. The successful mother, the mother who does her part in rearing and training aright the boys and girls, who are to be the men and women of the next generation, is of greater use to the community, and occupies, if she only would realize it, a more honorable as well as more important position than any man in it. The mother is the one supreme asset of the national life. She is more important, by far, than the successful statesman, or businessman, or artist, or scientist.
—Theodore Roosevelt
3635 Edison’s Tribute To His Mother
I did not have my mother long, but she cast over me an influence which has lasted all my life. The good effects of her early training I can never lose. If it had not been for her appreciation and her faith in me at a critical time in my experience, I should never likely have become an inventor. I was always a careless boy, and with a mother of different mental calibre, I should have turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, her goodness, were potent powers to keep me in the right path. My mother was the making of me. The memory of her will always be a blessing to me.
—Thomas A. Edison
3636 Mother Kept Him From Embezzlement
A distinguished public man of Indiana told how in his youth, he was entrusted with $22,000 to take to Cincinnati, by horseback. He rode for days, and then one day, “there was a moment, a supreme and critical one, when the voice of the tempter penetrated my ear. It was when I reached the crown of those imperial hills that overlook the Ohio River when approaching Lawrenceburg from the interior. What a gay spectacle it pre sented, flashing in the bright sunlight, covered with flatboats, and gay-painted steamers. I had but to sell my horse and go aboard one of these with my treasure, and I was absolutely beyond the reach of pursuit. The world was before me, and I was in possession of a fortune for those early days.
“I recall the fact that this thought was a tenant in my mind for a moment, and for a moment only. Bless God, it found no hospitable lodgement any longer. And what think you, were associate thoughts that came to my rescue? Away over rivers and mountains, a thousand miles distant, in a humble farmhouse, on a bench, an aged mother reading to her boy from the oracles of God.” At this point his voice choked, his emotions overcame him, and he said to his daughter, “We will finish this at another time,” laid his back on his chair, and died.
—J. H. Bomberger
3637 “You’ll Be Great, My Boy”
As a boy, he worked long hours in a factory in Naples. He yearned to be a singer. When ten years old, he took his first lesson in voice. “You can’t sing. You haven’t any voice at all. Your voice sounds like the wind in the shutters,” said his teacher.
The boy’s mother, however, had visions of greatness for her son. She believed that he had a talent to sing. She was very poor. Putting her arms around him, she encouragingly said, “My boy, I am going to make every sacrifice to pay for your voice lessons.”
Her confidence in him and constant encouragement paid off! That boy became one of the world’s greatest singers—Enrico Caruso!
3638 He Became A Scientist Through Mother
Isidor Isaac Rabi, one of America’s outstanding physicists, became a scientist, he says, for one overpowering reason: “I couldn’t help it.” Brought to this country as an infant, he has never forgotten his mother’s daily query when he came home from public school on Manhattan’s Lower East Side: “Did you ask any good questions today?”
—Time
3639 Only Fulton’s Mother Understood
He was only three years old when his father died. “So that,” he said, “I grew up under the care of my blessed mother. She developed my early talent for drawing, and encouraged me in my visits to the machine-shops of the town.” Robert was a poor pupil at school, however, and the teacher complained to his mother. Whereupon Mrs. Fulton replied proudly: “My boy’s head, sir, is so full of original notions that there is no vacant chamber in which to store the contents of your musty books.” “I was only ten years old at that time,” said Fulton, “and my mother seemed to be the only human being who understood my natural bent for mechanics.”
3640 Mother’s Dying Request Of Son
The mother of Christian Schwartz died as he was born. Before her death she exacted this promise from her husband: “When my baby becomes a man and God calls him to be a missionary, promise me that you will not stand in his way!” In those days, foreign missionary enterprise was almost unknown.
Years passed. One day a brilliant young man came from the university and said, “Father, God has called me to be a missionary!” Tears filled the father’s eyes as he recalled the promise he gave to his dying wife. “Answer the call, my son, and may God’s blessings be continually upon you,” said the father.
Christian Schwartz went to India, a pioneer missionary in the generation before William Carey.
—Selected
3641 Simpson’s Reluctance Unwarranted
Waiting for God’s leading, Bishop Simpson went once to a prayer meeting, thinking in his heart that he ought to speak at the meeting. To his surprise his uncle said to him, “Don’t you think you could speak to the people tonight?” That night he made his first Christian address. At once men saw his ability, and he was invited to preach; but still he declined. He was restrained partly by the consideration that he was the only one at home with his widowed mother, and he could not bear the thought of leaving her.
But one day he ventured to introduce the subject to his mother. With a smile on her face, and tears in her eyes, his mother said, “My son, I have been looking for this hour ever since you were born.”
Simpson used to relate this incident, and always with moving and telling effect, when he was at the height of his fame as a minister.
3642 Mother’s Song Awakened Stolen Daughter
Whoever paid a visit to the Exhibition of 1862 will remember seeing that beautiful statue of the “Wept of Wishton Wish.” Wishton Wish is the name of a valley in which the old Puritans settled. “The wept one” was stolen by Indians from her parents when scarcely out of her infancy.
After living long amongst savages, she shared their enmity against the whites, carrying the bow, using the scalping-knife, until at last, taken captive, she was brought to the home of her parents, but she knew them not.
Presently the mother happened to sing the song she had sung to her children in infancy. The wistful eye of the maiden filled with wonder; the song fell familiarly on her ears, and awoke the memories of forgotten days.
—Walter Baxendale
3643 Mother And Son
A little boy looks up at you,
With eyes opened wide.
He puts his trusting hand in yours,
And something stirs inside
He leads you to the window,
Where you stand and stare …
A robin hops out on the lawn,
But you didn’t see it there.
Your mind is deep in thought;
The years are racing past.
A small hand moves in yours …
“Why do they grow so fast?”
Soon you’ll watch him go off to school,
So full of promise and hope;
And suddenly you can’t speak,
For the lump that’s in your throat.
Time will pass so quickly;
The days will turn to years.
You’ll treasure every moment;
All the laughter and the tears.
One day he’ll meet that special girl,
And want her for his wife.
He’ll take her hand in his,
And build a brand-new life.
Suddenly … your thoughts come back,
To all the living he’s not yet done.
You whisper a grateful prayer …
And embrace your tiny son.
—Patricia J. White
3644 Precepts From Jackson’s Mother
In 1781 Andrew Jackson, then a boy of fourteen, enlisted in the American Army. Before long he was captured by the enemy and thrown into prison, where he contracted smallpox. His mother, Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, arranged for his release and nursed him back to health.
When he had recovered, she responded to urgent appeals from some neighbors to go to Charleston and nurse the sick on board a British hospital ship. This errand of mercy cost Elizabeth Jackson her life, for she contracted yellow fever in Charleston and died.
Before leaving her home, she spoke these words to her son, Andrew:
“Andrew, if I should not see you again, I wish you to remember and treasure up some things I have learned in life: In this world you will have to make your own way. To do that, you must have friends. You can make friends by being honest, and you can keep them by being steadfast. You must keep in mind that friends worth having will in the long run expect as much from you as they give to you.
“To forget an obligation or to be ungrateful for a kindness is a base crime—not merely a fault or a sin, but an actual crime. Men guilty of it sooner or later must suffer the penalty. In personal conduct always be polite, but never fawning. None will respect you more than you respect yourself.
“Avoid quarrels as long as you can without yielding to imposition, but sustain your manhood always. Never bring a suit in law for assault and battery, or for defamation. The law affords no remedy for such outrages that can satisfy the feelings of a true man.
“Never wound the feelings of others. Never brook wanton outrage upon your own feelings. If you ever have to vindicate your feelings, or defend your honor, do it calmly. If angry at first, wait till your wrath cools before you proceed.
—Sunshine Magazine
LOVE OF MOTHER
3645 Hardest To Kill
In the Press Scimitar:
What is the hardest thing to kill? What about mother’s love?
Perhaps you remember the Ways of Brooklyn—how Henry Way took his mother’s $13,000 out of his safe deposit box, then bet and lost it on Native Dancer in the Kentucky Derby. The 43-year- old son was indicted for grand larceny.
When trial time neared Mrs. Lillian Way, 71, and a widow, refused to prosecute. She said: “I haven’t long to live. I hope God will forgive my sins and I want to forgive my son’s.”
Then Henry, 43, who has three children and one grandchild, wept and said: “I’ll sign my house over; she can live with me for the rest of my life.”
3646 Court Decides Mother Drowned First
In a New Orleans cemetery is a monument which has created much interest. It represents a ship in the midst of a storm- tossed sea, a mother and child clinging together on the vessel. On the base is an inscription saying they were drowned on July 4, 1900.
They were sole survivors of a large estate, and the question was under whose name should the estate be administered—the name of the mother or the daughter. The Court decided it should be in the name of the child, reckoning she went down last, because the mother would hold her in a place of safety to the end. A wonderful tribute to mother’s love!
3647 “Mama, Kiss Me!”
William Gladstone, in announcing the death of Princess Alice to the House of Commons, told a touching story. The little daughter of the Princess was seriously ill with diphtheria. The doctors told the Princess not to kiss her little daughter and endanger her life by breathing the child’s breath.
Once when the child was struggling to breathe, the mother, forgetting herself entirely, took the little one into her arms to keep her from choking to death. Gasping and struggling for her life, the child said, “Mamma, kiss me!” Without thinking of herself, the mother tenderly kissed her daughter. She got diphteria and some days thereafter she went to be with the Lord.
3648 Mother’s Death In Snowstorm
Years ago, a young mother was making her way across the hills of South Wales, carrying her tiny babe in her arms, when she was overtaken by a blinding blizzard. She never reached her destination alive, and when the blizzard had subsided her body was found beneath the snow. But the searchers discovered that before her death she had taken off all her outer clothing and wrapped it about her baby.
And when they unwrapped the child, to their great surprise and joy, they found he was alive and well. She had given her life for her child, proving the depth of her mother-love. Years later that child, David Lloyd George, grown to manhood, became prime minister of Great Britain, and without doubt one of England’s greatest statesmen.
—G. Franklin Allee
3649 Mother Dies Of Shame
A pitiful scene took place in a cell in a Philadelphia jail when a mother died of a broken heart on seeing her son in such a place. With two children clinging to her dress she entered the cell and offered her son some food. “Here, Harry,” she said, “I thought perhaps, they wouldn’t give you good meals, so I brought you something.” Then she began to cry and, overcome with a poignant sense of shame because of her son’s arrest, fell to the floor in convulsions. A few hours later she died.
3650 Tillie Scrubbed On
A newsman of the Chicago Daily Times saw a story when he read this advertisement: “$5000 reward for whoever can help me find the murderer of Officer _____.” The reporter located the advertiser—an old woman living alone in a poorhouse.
The story was that her son Joe was in prison for life, accused of killing a police officer. But where did she get the reward money? From scrubbing floors. For 11 years—8 hours a day, 6 days a week, 3,500 nights, miles of floor, years of backache.
The reporter went and dug up the facts which proved that Tillie’s son was not at the scene of the crime. The Supreme Court reopened the case, and on August 15, 1945, Tillie’s son was set free.
That evening at home, Tillie had baked a cake and she did not eat but watched her son eat in the kitchen with the joy and tears which only mothers can have.
3651 Her Sons Equally Great
An aged, white-haired mother sat with a smile on her face, waiting for her famous son, Dwight Eisenhower, to arrive. Someone said to her, “You must be very proud of your great and illustrious son.” Upon which she asked, “Which son?” Each one was equally great to that noble mother.
Said Dwight Eisenhower: “My sainted mother taught me a devotion to God and a love of country which have ever sustained me in my many lonely and bitter moments of decision in distant and hostile lands. To her, I yield a son’s reverent thanks.”
—Selected
3652 Awful Powers Of Mother-Love
No one ever read Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame without being moved and purified and cleansed in heart at that marvelous scene where the demented mother, who has been searching over all Europe for her child, long years before stolen by the gypsies, matches the shoe she carries with the shoe the maid has carried all the years about her neck, and discovers her long-lost child. The heavenliness of her joy, and the terribleness of her anger and grief when her daughter is again dragged from her, exhibit perhaps as well as anything that was ever written the strange and awful powers of mother’s love.
—C. E. Macartney
3653 Susanna Wesley’s Rules
Susanna Wesley, wife of a pastor and mother of 19 children, has gone down in Christian history as the ideal mother. In spite of poverty, sickness, disappointment, she managed her household well. She early drew up for herself some rules and observed them:
(1) No child was to be given a thing because he cried for it. If a child wanted to cry, “cry softly!” In her house was rarely heard loud cries by children.
(2) No eating and drinking between meals, except when sick.
(3) Sleeping was also regulated. When very small, a child was given three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. This was shortened until no sleeping was allowed during the daytime.
(4) Punctually, the little ones were laid in the cradle and rocked to sleep. At 7 PM, each child was put to bed; at 8 PM she left the room. She never allowed herself to sit by the bed until the child sleeps.
(5) The little ones had their own tables near the main table. When they could handle fork and knife, they were “promoted” to the family table.
(6) Each one must eat and drink everything before him.
(7) Children must address each other as “Sister ___” or “Brother ___.”
(8) She never allowed herself to show through her ill-temper or by scolding. She would always explain and explain.
Thus, when John Wesley was in college, he wrote asking his Mother what books to read. And her recommendation influenced his life.
3654 Dying Mother’s Last Words
Worth more than all her personal belongings, says the Literary Digest, was the compact of love, piety, faith, and com mon sense which a New York woman left her family. Like all the great things of life, the message is simple, and valuable enough as an item of interest to the public at large to find space in the newspapers. The letter was written by Mrs. Lydia Harding Hammond, widow of the Rev. John Dennis Hammond, a Methodist minister, to be read by the children after her death. It run as follows:
“Dear Children: I’ve just made my will, and this is to tell you what I want done with my little personal belongings. Don’t keep anything just because it was mine! They are just things, and worn and shabby at that: love doesn’t need such things for remembrance.
“Most of my books are old, and many of them I haven’t looked into for years. I have loved and kept them because they have enlarged my life. Henry is to have them, and my Bible, typewriter and Verdun vase.
“I won’t be separated from any of you, dear children. I’ll just be closer to God, and will understand better the ways in which prayers and faith can open ways through which God can help you, and I’ll be able at least to love you with all mv heart and without anything in that love that will make you feel as if I wanted to control you or bother you.
“Bury my body as cheaply as you can and forget it! Don’t wear mourning, unless, of course, “Lynx” wants to. And think of me as alive, alive beyond your farthest thought, and near, and loving you, and well at last, far as the winds of heaven and learning more and more the things I want to know, and growing more toward what God wants me to become.
“Love one another! Hold fast to that whether you understand one another or not, and remember nothing really matters except being kind to one another and to all the world as far as you can reach!” “Your Lovingest Mother.”
3655 Mother’s Kiss Did It
Dr. Joseph Parker once said that when Robert Moffat was added to the Kingdom of God, a whole continent was added with him. A mother’s kiss did it. He was leaving home, and his mother was going with him part of the way.
At last she could walk no farther, and she stopped. “Robert,” she said, “promise me something.” “What?” asked the boy. “Promise me something,” she said again, and he replied, “You will have to tell me before I will promise.” “It is something you can easily do,” she said. “Promise your mother.” He looked into her face, and said, “Very well, Mother, I will do anything you wish.”
She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled his face down to hers, and said, “Robert, you are going out into a wicked world. Begin every day with God. Close every day with God.” Then she kissed him, and Robert Moffat said it was that kiss that made him a missionary.
—Methodist Recorder
3656 Two Who Sought Him
An old woman tripped and fell from the top of a stone stairway in Boston as she was coming out of the police station. They called the patrol and carried her to the hospital and the doctor examining her said to the nurse, “She will not live more than a day.”
When the nurse had won her confidence the old woman said, “I have traveled from California, stopping at every city of importance between San Francisco and Boston, visiting two places always—the police station and the hospital. My boy went away from me and did not tell me where he was going, so I have sold all my property and made this journey to seek him out. Someday, he may come into this hospital, and if he does tell him that there were two who never gave him up.”
When the night came and the doctor standing beside her said, “It is now but a question of a few minutes,” the nurse bent over her to say, “Tell me the names of the two and I will tell your son if I see him.” With trembling lips and eyes overflowing with tears she said, “Tell him that the two were God and his mother,” and she was gone.
—J. Wilbur Chapman
3657 Not Believing Telegram
For many years the mother of Tom Carter prayed that God would save her boy and make a preacher out of him. Her boy was a wicked sinner. He landed in prison, but the mother still prayed for him, believing that God would answer her prayers. One day she received a telegram from the prison, saying that her son was dead.
The mother was stunned for a few minutes. Then she went to her room. There she prayed with her open Bible before her. She said to the Lord, “O God, I have believed the promises Thou didst give me in Thy Word. I have believed that I would live to see Tom saved and preaching the gospel. Now, a telegram says he is dead. Lord, which is true, this telegram or Thy Word?”
She rose from her knees and wired the prison: “There must be some mistake. My boy is not dead.” And there was a mistake. Tom Carter was alive! Not long afterward he was saved. When he was released from prison, he became a mighty soul-winner and preacher.
—Dawn
3658 Mothers Make Preachers
Campbell Morgan says: “My dedication to the preaching of the Word was maternal. Mother never told it to the baby or the boy, but waited. When but eight years old I preached to my little sister and to her dolls arrayed in orderly form before me. My sermons were Bible stories which I had first heard from my mother.”
—The Voice
3659 Everyone Out Of Step Except Son
During World War One there was a popular song about a rookie named Jim. The mother of this soldier is telling a friend how she stood on the sidewalk and watched her son’s regiment march by. Oh, how proud she was of him. But as Jim came along she noticed something. All the other young men were putting down their right foot when Jim was putting down his left. When all the others were going right-left, Jim was marching left-right. To what conclusion did Jim’s mother jump? You guessed it. She thought they were all out of step but her boy. Here is what she says in the song:
“Were you there?
And tell me did you notice?”
“They were all out of step
But Jim?”
3660 Mother Of Luther
Everybody has heard of Martin Luther; but who knows the name of his mother, the wife of a coal miner who often went hungry so that little Martin might attend school?
—W. G. Montgomery
3661 Mother’s Credibility
When Carter L. Burgess resigned as Assistant Secretary of Defense to become president of Trans-World Airlines, he was awarded an exceptional civilian service medal by the Army. After listening to the long and glowing tribute paid him by Army Secretary Brucker, Burgess said: “I am sorry my mother is not here. She not only would have enjoyed this ceremony, but she would have believed every word of it.”
—Walter Trohan
3662 Mothers And Arithmetic
A teacher in one of our public schools put this question to little James in the arithmetic class, “James, suppose your mother made a peach pie, and there were ten of you at the table—your mother and father and eight children—how much of the pie would you get?” “A ninth, ma’am,” was the prompt answer. “No, no, James. Now pay attention,” said the teacher. “There are ten of you. Ten, remember. Don’t you know your fractions?” “Yes, ma’am,” was the swift reply of little James, “I know my fractions, but I know my mother, too. She’d say that she didn’t want any pie.”
—Presbyterian National
3663 “Are You Hurt, My Son?”
A daring story has been told of a young Frenchman who loved a courtesan. This woman hated her lover’s mother, and when, in his passion, he offered her any gift in return for her love, she answered: “Bring me then your mother’s bleeding heart.”
And he, in his madness, killed his mother and, plucking out her heart, hurried by night through the streets, carrying it to the cruel woman to whom he had given his soul. But as he went he stumbled and fell, and from the bleeding heart came an anxious voice, “My son, are you hurt?” Not even murder could kill that mother’s love; it lived on in the torn heart.
—Ministers’ Research Service
3664 Mother’s Pride In Spite Of …
A broken-hearted mother of World War II, whose soldier-son had deserted after serving in Italy where he was wounded at the Battle of Cassino, pleaded that she be allowed to serve sentence for him. Mrs. DeBartolo sent a telegram to the President in which she said, “May I serve the long life sentence given my son for dishonorable discharge in Italy. …
“But there is one honor I have. That is the wounds he received at the Battle of Cassino which put him in the hospital for four months. … As long as he has those wounds I will still call my son an American hero of World War II.”
—G. Franklin Allee
3665 “Muvver, I Love You”
The story of an English home in World War I concerns a widowed mother whose only son had died on the fields of Flanders. Her bitterness was the more acute because her neighbor with five sons had been spared any loss, while she had lost both husband and son. Continuously mourning the death of her boy, she refused to be reconciled.
One night she dreamed that an angel appeared and said to her, “You may have your dear son for ten minutes. At what period of his life do you wish him to return to you? As a cooing babe upon your breasts, as a little chubby-fisted, starry-eyed toddler about your feet, or as a little lad starting school, a youth just completing his course in school, or the young soldier in his brave new uniform with the shining brass buttons, journeying away to the battlefield?”
The mother meditated a bit, then replied: “I want him back, but on none of these occasions. I think I would like best his return when once I denied his request and remained firm in spite of his insistence. He, in a fit of anger, cried out, “I hate you—I don’t like you any more, and I won’t stay with you,” then rushed away into the garden. When his anger had abated, he came back to me, his grimy, wistful face stained with tears, and, holding out his little arms, with quivering lip he said: “Muvver, I’m so sorry I was naughty boy, I won’t be bad any more ever. I love you and want you to hug me again.” Give him back to me and let me feel him clinging close to me while he sobs his little heart out in sorrow and love. That’s when I loved him best.”
—C. Roy Angell
3666 Her Mother’s Beautiful Hands
The home of an English family was discovered on fire. They thought everybody was out but the baby. Then mother saved her. For years as the child grew up the mother went about the house with her hands covered. The eldest of the servants had never seen her hands uncovered. But the daughter came into her room one day unexpectedly, and the mother sat there with her hands uncovered. They were torn and scarred and disfigured.
Instantly the mother tried to cover them as the girl came forward, but she said, “I had better tell you about it. It was when the fire was in the house and you were in your cradle. I fought my way through the flames to get you. I wrapped you in a blanket and dropped you through the window, and somebody caught you. I could not go down the stairway, so I climbed out of the window. My hands were burnt, and I slipped and caught on the trellis work. When I fell, my hands were torn. The doctor did his best, but, my dear, these hands were torn for you.”
And the girl, who had grown to womanhood, sprang toward her mother, took one hand and then the other, and buried her face in those hands, as she kept saying, “They are beautiful hands, beautiful hands.”
—J. Wilbur Chapman
3667 Mother Of Mencius
Most Chinese schoolchildren know that the mother of the scholar Mencius thrice moved her residence for her son’s sake.
Living at first near a cemetery, the child Mencius amused himself by imitating the mourners. “This is no place for my son,” observed his mother. So she moved to a house in the market place. Here, however, he took to playing the shopkeeper, vaunting his wares and quarreling with customers. Dissatisfied with the influence of the location on her son’s character, the thoughtful parent moved again.
This time, the mother of Mencius moved close to a school. Here the observant, imitative child took to copying the subject matters taught to the scholars. “This is the proper place for my son,” said the mother. And there they remained.
—Chinese Classical Literature
3668 Epigram On Mother (Love Of)
• All women are mothers of great men—it isn’t their fault if life disappoints them later.
—Boris Pasternak
• The death of a mother is the first sorrow wept without her.
HER PRAYERS
3669 One Glimpse Of Her In Prayer
Once I suddenly opened the door of mother’s room, and saw her on her knees beside her chair, and heard her speak my name in prayer. I quickly and quietly withdrew, with a feeling of awe and reverence in my heart. Soon I went away from home to school, then to college, then into life’s sterner duties.
But I never forgot that one glimpse of my mother at prayer, nor the one word—my name—which I heard her utter. Well did I know what I had seen that day was but a glimpse of what was going on every day in that sacred closet of prayer and the consciousness strengthened me a thousand times in duty, in danger, and in struggle. And when death came, at length and sealed those lips, the sorest sense of loss that I felt was the knowledge that no more would my mother be praying for me.
—J. R. Miller
3670 This Mother Prayed 60 Years
Dr. John F. Walvoord, in the chapel of Dallas Theological Seminary, one day told of a mother who prayed for her son for 60 years to be saved. One week before her death, the mother received a long-distance call from her son saying that he was saved.
3671 Prayer’s Chain Reaction
Picture an old woman with a halo of silvered hair—the hot tears flowing down her furrowed cheeks—her worn hands busy over a washboard in a room of poverty—praying—for her son John—John who ran away from home in his teens to become a sailor—John of whom it was now reported that he had become a very wicked man—praying, praying always, that her son might be of service to God. The mother believed in two things, the power of prayer and the reformation of her son. God answered the prayer by working a miracle in the heart of John Newton.
John Newton, the sailor-preacher. Among the thousands of men and women he brought to Christ was Thomas Scott, cultured, selfish, and self-satisfied. Because of the washtub prayers another miracle was worked, and Thomas Scott used both his pen and voice to lead thousands of unbelieving hearts to Christ, among them a dyspeptic, melancholic young man, William Cowper by name. He, too, was washed in the cleansing blood and in a moment of inspiration wrote “There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood.” And these song has brought countless thousands to the Man who died on Calvary. All this resulted because a mother took God at His word and prayed that her son’s heart might become as white as the soapsuds in the washtub.
—Springs in the Valley
3672 Prayer Chain Started by Mother
When David Talmage, the father of the famous preacher, T. DeWitt Talmage, was an eighteen-year-old boy still living at home with his brother Jacob and his sister, one night the three of them were going to a party.
Their mother, who was an invalid, just before they left, called them to her bedside and said, “You are going out to a gay party; but I want you to know that I shall be on my knees praying for you until you return.”
They went, and on their return passed their mother’s door at two o’clock, catching a glimpse of her still kneeling by her bed.
Early the next morning, Mother Talmage wakened her husband and asked him to get up and see what was the matter, for she heard someone weeping.
Going hastily down to the living room Father Talmage found his daughter on her knees weeping, but when he undertook to speak to her, she said, “Go to the barn, father, for David is in worse need of you than I am. I shall be all right.”
Going to the barn the old gentleman found David weeping his heart out from the mighty conviction that had seized him. However, when Mr. Talmage had prayed a short time with him, David said, “Go to Jacob, he needs you more than I do now, I presume. He’s in the wagon shed.”
So it turned out that the Lord saved all three of the Talmage children that morning, in answer to the determined and definite praying of their mother.
David had a sweetheart living down the lane, and rising from his knees, he went right down to her home and told her the wonderful news about himself and his brother and sister being saved, urging her to give her heart to God.
In the prayer there they had together she, too, was added to the host of the redeemed. The news reaching the church produced a tremendous sensation, and a gracious and widespread revival followed!
This sweetheart of David’s later became the mother of T. DeWitt Talmage. Some years afterwards she made a solemn covenant with four other women to meet with them every Wednesday afternoon and pray for their children, until every child in the five homes was saved.
The covenant was kept until every child in the five families was converted.
—Herald of His Coming
3673 The Bible Was Pawned
When 17-year-old W. P. L. Mackay left his humble Scottish home to attend college, his mother gave him a Bible in which she wrote his name, and a verse of Scripture.
College was only the beginning of the lifestyle which saddened his godly mother. At one point he sank so low he pawned the Bible to get money for whiskey. His mother prayed for him until she died.
Eventually, Mackay became a doctor in a city hospital. One day a dying patient asked for his “book.” After the man died, Mackay was curious to know what book could be so precious, so he searched the hospital room. He was surprised to find the very Bible he had pawned years before.
He went to his office and gazed again at the familiar writing, noticing many pages with underscored verses his mother had hoped he would read. After many hours in that office, Mackay knelt and prayed to God for mercy.
W. P. Mackay, the physician, later became a minister. The Book he once treated so lightly became his most precious possession.
—Moody Monthly
3674 Two Praying Mothers
Billy Sunday tells of a minister who was making calls. He came to a certain home and asked for the mother but the child opening the door answered, “You cannot see mother for she prays from nine to ten.” He waited forty minutes to see that mother, and when she came out of her prayer closet the light of glory was on her face, and he knew why that home was so bright; he knew why her two sons were in the ministry and her daughter a missionary. “All hell cannot tear a boy or girl away from a praying mother,” comments Mr. Sunday.
Susanna Wesley, with seventeen children, spent one hour each day shut up with God alone in her room, praying for them—and her two sons, under God, brought revival to England while France weltered in the blood of a ghastly revolution.
—Baptist Standard
3675 “Wes!”
Wesley L. Gustafson once related that as a boy his mother would never go to bed until he came home. Even if it were dawn—he would creep up the stairs, but she would still have her light on and he knew she was praying for him. After he was in bed, she would come into his room.
He would pretend to be asleep and would not answer her. “Wes!” she would call his name softly again and again, but he would not let her know he heard. Then she would stand there—he could see her against the windowpane—and pray audibly, “O God, save my boy.” Gustafson said, “I myself am quite sure that the prayers of a good mother never die.”
—Christian Digest
3676 Fulfilling Her Responsibilities
Charles Spurgeon’s father once told Dr. Ford, an American minister, how when he had been away from home a good deal trying to build up congregations, there came a conviction that he was neglecting the religious training of his own children, and he had almost decided to preach less. On returning home he opened the door and was surprised to find none of the children about the hall.
Ascending the stairs he heard his wife’s voice and knew that she was engaged in prayer. One by one, she named the children.
When she had finished her petition and instruction, the elder Spurgeon said, “I will go on with my work; the children are well cared for.”
—Minister’s Research Service
3677 Her Wise Remarks Officially Proclaimed
When Governor Brewer was elected to his high office someone conveyed the news to his mother. “Isn’t this the proudest day of your life?” they asked her. “Yes, I’m happy,” she answered, “but I was just as happy when my boy joined the church.”
The story of the mother’s remark got in the papers. On the day the legislature convened, a representative arose and address ing the body said: “Gentlemen, I have been investigating the truth of this little story that has been going the rounds, and find that it is true and I arise to move a resolution commending that wise remark of the honored mother of our Governor to the young men of this commonwealth.”
—Aquilla Webb
3678 The Long-Postponed Prayer
Dr. McCosh, president of Princeton, had a custom of praying with members of the senior class before he bade them farewell as they went out into the world. When he asked a certain young man to kneel and pray with him, the man responded that he did not believe in God and did not believe in prayer. Hurt and astonished, the president shook hands with him and bade him farewell.
Some years afterward, Dr. McCosh was delivering a course of lectures in Cincinnati. Before going to the lecture hall he was sitting in the lobby of the hotel. A man came and sat down beside him, the man then gave the history of the student who had refused to pray with Dr. McCosh, saying that he had advanced to an important post in the schools of Cincinatti, and that everywhere he was sowing the seeds of unbelief and infidelity. “But,” the man added, “he has a godly, praying mother, and I believe that in the end she will win.”
A year or two later Dr. McCosh was in his study at Princeton when a young man appeared with his wife. He said to Dr. McCosh: “You do not remember me, but I am the student who refused to let you pray with him. I thought that I was an unbeliever, and wherever I could I sowed the seeds of unbelief; but all the time my godly mother was praying for me. Her prayers have won. I am here in Princeton to enter the theological seminary, and before I go I want you to kneel down with me and offer that long-postponed prayer.”
—C. E. Macartney
3679 Scofield’s Mother’s Prayer
She and her husband were believing Christians and worshipped in the Protestant Episcopal church. From the dying mother’s lips came a prayer, heard by the husband and other members of the family, that the new arrival might become a preacher of the gospel. Her dying request was kept a secret, and only after Cyrus had become a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and had received a definite call to devote his life to the Christian ministry was he told of this touching prayer which was so graciously answered. He remembered from his earliest childhood that his father read the Bible to him and to the family. Thus in his young life was sown the precious seed of the Word of God.
—Moody Monthly
3680 Her Sleepless Nights Did It
“Have You Spent Sleepless Nights Praying for Them?”
It happened in the country in the home of a deacon. Three children had been born to the family, two of them boys who had come to the years of accountability. A preacher who was holding a meeting in the country church, was stopping in this home.
One afternoon, when the fires of evangelism had been burning, the mother in this home said to the preacher, “Why are not my boys saved? The children of other homes are being converted by the score. My boys are interested, but I see no tears; I see no evidences of conviction. Tell me why.”
The preacher said, “Can you stand a little plain talk?” The mother said, “I can,” and the preacher said, “Your boys are dry-eyed and unconcerned because their mother is. Did you ever take either of them aside and talk with him about his salvation?” The mother answered, “Never.” “Have you spent sleepless nights weeping over their lost condition?” The mother, sobbing, said, “Never.” Then the preacher said, “The boys are unsaved because their mother has no burden for them!”
That night was a momentous night in that home. Next morning, at the breakfast table, with sad and tearful face, the mother refused to eat, saying, “All night long I walked the floor and prayed for my boys. My boys are on my heart and I cannot live unless they are saved!” Both boys that very day were born-again into God’s family. Said the boys, “Mother, we heard you when you prayed for us last night, and we are saved now in answer to your prayers!”
—L. R. Scarborough
MOTHER’S DAY
3681 Execution for Disobedient Children
In 1971, President BoKassa of the Central African Republic celebrated Mother’s Day by ordering the execution of all men jailed for crimes against their mothers.
3682 Origin Of Mother’s Day
The “Mother’s Day” concept has a long history of religious connections which in modern times seem to have been predominantly Christian.
In ancient Greece, the idea of paying tribute to motherhood was given expression with a regular festival tantamount to mother-worship. Formal ceremonies to Cybele, or Rhea, the “Great Mother of the Gods,” were performed on the Ides of March throughout Asia Minor.
For Christianity, the concept seems to date back to establishment of England’s “Mothering Sunday,” a custom of the people which provided that one attend the mother church in which he was baptized on Mid-Lent Sunday. Gifts were to be offered at the altar to the church and to worshippers’ mothers. The concept was divorced of any “mother worship,” but nevertheless perpetuated its religious association.
U. S. observance of Mother’s Day, too, has been characterized by church ties from the start. The first general observance of the occasion was in the churches of Philadelphia after Miss Anne Jarvis campaigned for a holiday for mothers more than 50 years ago.
—Christianity Todoy
3683 He Wrote Mother Every Day
Every Day Was Mother’s Day!
Richard Burdon, British War Secretary and Lord High Chancellor, wrote a letter to his mother every day for forty-eight years. Beginning in 1877 when his father died and continuing until 1925 when his mother passed on, at the age of 100 years and 6 weeks, Lord Haldane never missed writing a letter to her—a single day.
This statesman and philosopher is the only British Cabinet member who was simultaneously a member of the German Cabinet for one day. The appointment was made by Kaiser Wilhelm II to enable Haldane to take part in one meeting of the German Cabinet of Ministers.
—Selected
3684 He Saw Or Telegraphed Her Daily
Survived by seven sons and three daughters, Mrs. Harmsworth, dying at eighty-six, survived her most famous son, Lord Northcliffe, by almost three years. Lord Northcliffe’s attitude toward his mother was one of thoughtful affection. Said the British Weekly, in commenting upon the rare devotion of the celebrated publisher to his mother:
“He saw or telegraphed Mrs. Harmsworth every day. I remember that during one of the fiercest moments of the war, he broke off a very important conference to telephone to his secretary in the country to ask what kind of a day it was, and upon hearing that it was warm and sunny gave instructions, in his imperious way, that his mother should at once be taken out for a drive. ’She is wonderful! ’ he exclaimed, as he banged down the telephone receiver.
“I heard a beautiful story about Mrs. Harmsworth. When her son was at the height of his fame, he visited her in Ireland. Almost the first thing she said to him was: “I want you to go into the little church here and thank God for your success.” He went.”
3685 Epigram On Mother’s Day
• On Mother’s Day a minister gave this perfect tribute: “My mother practices what I preach.”
—Capper’s Weekly
LOVE FOR MOTHER
3686 A Bouquet Just In Time
Dr. Arnot Walker, when a student in the Jefferson Medical College, heard Dr. Clarence E. Macartney preach a sermon on the text, “Do thy diligence to come before winter” (II Tim. 4:21). The text continued to linger in his thoughts as he sat in his room. He decided, “I had better write a letter now to my mother. Perhaps the winter of death is near for her.” He wrote to her and expressed gratitude for her exemplary Christian life.
Two days later while he sat in class a telegram was given to him. It read, “Come at once. Your mother is critically ill!” Hurriedly he went to the country home. His mother was still living. A smile of recognition and satisfaction was on her face. Under her pillow lay a treasured possession—the loving letter her son had written her after the Sunday service. It had cheered and comforted her as she entered “the valley of the shadow of death!”
3687 Lincoln’s Love For Mother
When Abraham Lincoln received the telegram announcing his nomination for President of the United States, he arose, put on his hat and coat, and said to his friends: “There is a little woman at home who would like to hear this.” And he went off to spend the evening with her. Dark days when death had entered their home came in after-years, and it was this sympathy between them that helped them to bear what God’s providence had sent.
—H. F. Sayles
3688 Webster Remembered His Mother
Daniel Webster was not one of the most religious men, to be sure, but he had great confidence in the piety and religion of his mother. One day in Boston, after a great address, flowers were showered upon the orator. He looked at them and enjoyed their sweet odor, but as he was passing out with a friend, a little girl stepped up and handed him two or three garden pinks.
The great orator took them in his hand and wept as he thought of the past. “That is the flower my mother loved above every other flower in the garden,” and the sight of the old familiar pink brought before him the sincerity and power of the mother’s character.
3689 Give It Now!
If you have a smile for Mother,
Give it now.
If you have a kindly word,
Speak it now,
She’ll not need it when the angels
Greet her at the golden gate;
Give the smiles while she is living,
If you wait ’twill be too late.
If you have a flower for Mother,
Pluck it now.
Place it gently on her bosom.
Print a kiss upon her brow.
What cares she when life is over,
For the flowers that bloom below.
She will have her share up yonder,
Scattered at her feet galore.
—Akron Baptist Journal
3690 Everything Willed To Mother
An American marine, dying in Guadalcanal, called his nurse. He whispered that he wanted to make a will. She had no elaborate writing materials available, but she gave him a well-chewed stub of a pencil and told him to write his will on the cuff of her uniform. He scrawled on her cuff, “I bequeath everything to mother.” After his death the piece of uniform was sent back to the Western state where he lived. The courts accepted it as a valid will, and in due time the mother received all her son’s estate.
—Christian Victory
3691 A Love Cake For Mother
1 can of “obedience”
Several pounds of “affection”
1 pint of “neatness”
Some holiday, birthday, and every-day surprises
1 can of running errands (the willing brand)
1 box of powdered “Get up when I should”
1 bottle of “Keep sunny all day long”
1 can of pure “Thanksgiving”
Mix well, bake in a hearty, warm oven and serve to mother everyday. She ought to have it in BIG SLICES.
—Selected
3692 Refreshed By Being With Mother
In 1886, the New England Society held a dinner in New York. Among the speakers was a young man on the staff of the Atlanta Constitution who arose to speak. In simple pathos he described the Confederate soldier as he came back, ragged and wasted, in his faded gray uniform, to his ruined and desolate home in the South. The next morning Henry W. Grady awoke to find himself famous. Everybody wanted to hear him speak. Eulogy and flattery poured in on him like a flood from all parts of the nation.
One day he closed his desk at the office of the Constitution and, telling his associates that he was not sure when he would be back, disappeared. No one saw him or heard of him for a week. He had gone to the Georgia farm where his mother still lived. When she met him at the door, he said, “Mother, I have come back to spend some time with you. I have been losing my ideals out in the world where I am living. I am forgetting the things I learned here in the old home, and God is getting away from me. I have come back to you, Mother, to live for a little while.” The famous orator was a boy again with his mother, the two wandering together over the fields, talking, praying, singing together. Then he went back to the city, refreshed and strengthened, ready to face the temptations of life.
—C. E. Macartney
3693 Seated Next To Butcher
In the Talmud, the rabbis tell of the time when …
Rabbi Joshia, a pious teacher of the Law, was sleeping. A voice came to him in a dream. “Joshia, rejoice! It had been decided that you shall sit next to Nenes the Butcher in Paradise.”
Rabbi Joshia awoke in tears. “How terrible! So this is to be my reward for a lifetime in the Lord’s service. I have not ceased to study the Torah. I have enlightened 80 disciples. Yet, I am reckoned to be no better than Nenes the Butcher. Rabbi Joshia vowed not to return to the House of Study until he had found Nenes the Butcher and discover what was behind this startling revelation.
After searching through many towns, Rabbi Joshia finally came to the small village in which Nenes lived. When he asked about Nenes the Butcher, the people were surprised. “How is it that a learned and eminent man like you should come searching for such an ignorant and insignificant person?” But he persisted in questioning “What sort of man is this Nenes the Butcher?” They replied that there was nothing to tell. “You must see him for yourself.”
Messengers were sent to the house of Nenes. “No,” replied the Butcher, “a great man such as Rabbi Joshia would not want to see me. You must be mocking me. I cannot come with you.”
Greatly embarrassed, the messengers returned to tell Rabbi Joshia what Nenes had said. “But I have vowed not to set foot again in the House of Study until I have talked with Nenes the Butcher. If he will not come to me, I shall go to him.”
Nenes the Butcher was frightened when he saw him approaching. “Why do you wish to see me?” “I must ask you a question—what good have you done in your life?”
“I am no one of importance. I am just an ordinary butcher. I have no time for study or for performing good deeds, for I care for my weak and aged mother and father.”
When he heard this, Rabbi Joshia embraced him and kissed him on the forehead. “Blessed are you, my son, and blessed are your deeds. I am exceedingly happy that I have been considered worthy of being your companion in Paradise.”
Rabbi Joshia knew that, in God’s sight, the insignificant deeds done for Him are as precious (and equal) as the great works done publicly.
—Selected
3694 Marion Anderson’s Greatest Moment
Billy Rose recalls how Sol Hurok told him a story about Marion Anderson, the famous Negro contralto. “A few years ago,” he said, “a reporter interviewed Miss Anderson and asked her to name the greatest moment in her life. I knew she had many big moments to choose from. There was the private concert she gave at the White House for the Roosevelts and the King and Queen of England. There was the night she received the ten-thousand-dollar Bok Award as the person who had done most for her hometown, Philadelphia. “But,” she told the reporter, “the greatest moment in my life was the day I went home and told my mother she wouldn’t have to take in washing any more.”
—J. A. Clark
3695 Mother Thanks Son In Will
I read in the papers one day a curious will in which the mother left to her son chiefly good advice and counsel. At the end of the will she said that she wanted to thank him for his kindness and affection, because his love had made the last twen ty-five years of her life well worth living. Contemplating the end of this earthly life, the woman testified that the love of her son had made life worth living.
—Selected
3696 Beheaded Queen Gets Costly Burial
Among the royal tombs of Westminster there is one tomb of unusual interest. It is the costly sarcophagus of Mary, Queen of Scotts, of tragic memories. When her son James—James I of England and James VI of Scotland—came to the throne, one of the first acts of his was to unearth his beheaded mother and give it the resting place of a queen among the tombs of the Abbey.
3697 How Washington Got Blessed
George Washington, when quite young, was about to go to sea as a midshipman. Everything was in readiness. His truck had been taken on board the boat; and he went to bid his mother farewell, when he saw tears filling her eyes. Seeing her distress, he turned to the servant, and said, “Go and tell them to fetch my trunk back. I will not go away to break my mother’s heart.” His mother, struck with his decision said to him, “George, God has promised to bless the children that honor their parents; and I believe he will bless you.”
—Reuter
3698 Loving Memory Of Filial Son
Living near my home was a boy fifteen years of age who went to his work late one morning. He would have been on time had he not remembered, as he was running to catch the last car that could bring him to the town, that he had forgotten to kiss his mother good-bye. He let that car go, went home again and tenderly kissed his mother.
In the awful fire on Lincoln street, he was killed. When she looked into his face a few hours afterward, and kissed his cold lips, there was no response. But there was a sweet memory that softened the deep sorrow. It was the recollection of the last kiss upon which his affectionate heart had put such a premium. And all through the lingering years of that mother’s life, her boy will return to her every morning and kiss her again. The broken heart will be healed, and by-and-by she will look forward and wait and long and pray, for the first kiss in “the far-away home of the soul,” where the good-bye is never spoken. There is a lesson in this for you, dear friend. Take it to your heart.
—W. J. Hart
3699 Epigram On Mother (Love For)
• The best monument that a child can raise to his mother’s memory is that of a clean, upright life, such as she would have rejoiced to see her son live.
EVIL MOTHERS
3700 A Mother Influenced Huguenot Massacre
Charles IX of France, in his youth, had humane and tender sensibilities. The demon who tempted him was his mother. God have mercy on a mother who so forgets the sacred bond of motherhood that she does not throw all the power of her influence and life for the good of her child and the safety of his soul!
It is said that when at first this unnatural mother proposed to Charles the massacre of the Huguenots, he shrank from it in horror. “No, no, madame! They are my loyal subjects.” That was the critical hour of his life.
As Professor Phelps so well said, had he cherished that natural sensitivity to bloodshed, St. Bartholomew’s Eve would never have disgraced the history of his kingdom, and he himself would have escaped the fearful remorse which crazed him on his death-bed. To his physician he said in his last hour, “Asleep or awake, I see the mangled forms of the Huguenots passing before me.”
—Louis Banks
3701 Ada Take’s Descendants
A woman was born in 1740 named Ada Take. True to her name, she took everything there was to be had in the way of liberties and licenses. She died a confirmed drunkard, and altogether she had 700 descendants. Among them were 100 children born out of wedlock, 181 women of the street, 142 beggars, 46 work-house inmates, and 76 criminals. This woman cost the country an estimated $1,200,000,
—Presbyterian Record
3702 Mother Shoots Son By Mistake
Hollywood, Calif. (AP)—A 16-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded before dawn Friday by his mother who told police she mistook him for a prowler on the porch of their home.
Mrs. Karlotta Llano, 45-year-old divorcee, became hysterical when she discovered the mistake. Her son, struck in the head by one of three bullets, is in General Hospital, not expected to live.
“I wish they’d shoot me in the head,” she told neighbors. She was not held.
Louis Llano, the son, recently was graduated from Le Conte Junior High School.
Police said there have been several reports of prowlers in the area of the Llano home in the past three months.
3703 Mother Kills Twins
Mexico City (AFP)—A Mexican mother killed her two-year-old twin sons, born blind and mentally retarded, by poisoning their baby bottles.
The mother, who then tried to kill herself by drinking some of the same poison, was in serious condition. Her desperate act followed confirmation from doctors that the blindness and mental troubles of her children were incurable.
See also: Children ; Family ; Father ; Juvenile Delinquency ; Parental Responsibility.