Children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice the
feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle
hand. Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all good
gifts, a loving mother. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the
kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain.
In after-life you may have friends, fond, dear, kind friends; but never
will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon
you which none but a mother bestows. Often do I sigh in my struggles
with hard, uncaring world, for the sweet, deep security I felt when, of
an evening nestling in her bosom, I listened to some quiet tale,
suitable to my age, read in her tender and untiring voice. Never can I
forget her sweet glances cast upon me when I appeared asleep, never her
kiss of peace at night. Years have passed away since we laid her beside
my father in the old church yard; yet still her voice whispers from the
grave, and her eye watches over me, as I visit spots long since hallowed
to the memory of my mother.
1404
The mother's heart is the child's school-room.
1405
He who takes the child by the hand, takes the mother by the heart.
1406
Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.
1407
Each mother is a historian; she writes not the history of empires or of
nations on paper, but she writes her own history on the imperishable
mind of her child. That tablet and that history will remain indelible
when time shall be no more. That history each mother shall meet again,
and read, with eternal joy, or unutterable grief, in the coming ages of
eternity.
1408