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The Mother

EACH century has its peculiar tide of thought; the highest Wave bearing onwards, as ocean tides bear the tossed bark to land, the human race into the promised harbour of Millennial Peace, “The ninth wave of the nineteenth century is the Destiny of Woman.” Like all moral and social changes, the one now going on in the public mind has its absurdities and errors. But ‘ the face of truth is not less fair and beautiful for all the counterfeit vizards which may he put upon her.” Of the many interesting aspects under which are may regard the female character, there is none more striking and beautiful than that of the mother. “The excellent woman,” says Goethe, “is she who, if the husband dies, can be a father to their children.” And no less excellent is she when, blessed in her husband’s support, she trains her children with instinctive love in the ways of purity and happiness. Upon her devolves, under almost all circumstances, the early training of the young, and it is a mother’s chief praise to see to her house and tend her children. An old Christian writer, paying a tribute of filial affection, says: “My mother’s lips were those of truth itself; but she would rather conceal the good that was known of her than publish that which, being unknown, might have done her honour.5’“The fate of a child,” said the first Napoleon, t’ is always the work of his mother.” However silenced or neglected, the mysterious workings of a mother’s love will one day re-assert the influence of bygone years—

“My mother’s voice! how often troops Its cadence on my lonely hours
Like healing sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flower.
I ran forgot her melting prayer,
While leaping pulses madly fly;
lint inc ties still unbroken air,
Her gentle louse tones stealing by
And years and sin and manhood floe,
And leave me at my mother’s knee.”

“Depart in peace,” said Ambrose, to the weeping mother of the then dissolute Chrysostom; “it is impossible that the son of these tears should perish!’

“There is none
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within
A mother’s heart.”

Hannah More very beautifully describes the passion—

— “A tender mother lives
In many lives; through many a nerve she feels;
From child to child the quick affection spreads,
For ever wandering, yet for over fixed.
Nor does division weaken, nor the force
Of constant operation o’er exhaust
Parental love. All other passions change
With changing circumstances; rise or fall
Dependent on their object; claim returns;
Live on reciprocations, and expire
Unfed by hope. A mother’s fondness reigns
Without a rival and without an end.”

Lady Morgan pays, “That which the woman is, the mother will be, and her personal qualities will direct and govern her maternal instinct as her taste will influence her appetite * * The perfection of motherhood lies in the harmonious blending of a happy instinct with those qualities which make the good member of society—with good sense and information, with subdued or regulated passion, and that abnegation which lays every selfish consideration at the feet of duty. To make a good mother, it is not enough to seek the happiness Of the child, but to seek it with forethought and effect, Her actions must be regulated by long-sighted views, and steadily and perseveringly directed to that health of the body and the mind, which can alone enable the objects of her solicitude to meet the shocks and rubs of life with firmness, and to maintain that independence in practice and principle, which sets the vicissitudes of fortune at defiance, fitting its possessor to fill the various stations, whether of wealth or poverty, of honour or obscurity, to which chance may conduct him.”
There is much care, therefore, devolving upon a mother, and much responsibility. The children at their mother’s knee may
seem, in the language of Mary Howitt, to say—

“Raise us by your Christian knowledge,
Consecrate to man our powers;
Let us take our proper station;
We, the rising generation,
Let no stamp the age in ours.
We shall be what you will make us,
Make us wise and make us good;
Make us strong for time of trial,
Teach us temperance, self-denial,
Patience, kindness, fortitude.”

The education of the young is one of the most important duties of woman—one of the chief sources of her happiness, and
-her mightiest power for good. The stronger sex may occupy the more conspicuous positions—may receive the loftiest praises and
the highest rewards; but who first moulded the plastic clay of the mind of the illustrious statesman or invincible warrior? who
first directed its thoughts and passions? was it not a mother?

‘Be satisfied.
Something thou hast to bear through womanhood— Peculiar suffering annexed to sin;
Some pang paid down for some new human life,
Some weariness in guarding such a life— Some coldness from the guarded; some mistrust
From those thou hast too well served; from those beloved
Too loyally, some treason; feebleness
Within thine heart and cruelty without
And pressure of an alien tyranny
With its dynastic reasons of larger bones,
And stronger sinews. But go to, thy love
Shall chant itself its own beatitudes,
After its own life working. A child’s kiss
Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad.”