I was once preaching for Dr. G. in St. Louis, and when I got through
he said that he wanted to tell me a story. There was a boy who was
very bad. He had a very bad father, who seemed to take delight in
teaching his son everything that was bad. The father died, and the boy
went on from bad to worse until he was arrested for murder.
When he was on trial, it came out that he had murdered five other
people, and from one end of the city to the other there was a
universal cry going up against him. During his trial they had to guard
the court-house, the indignation was so intense.
The white-haired mother got just as near her son as she could, and
every witness that went into the court and said anything against him
seemed to hurt her more than her son. When the jury brought in a
verdict of guilty a great shout went up, but the old mother nearly
fainted away; and when the judge pronounced the sentence of death they
thought she would faint away.
After it was over she threw her arms around him and kissed him, and
there in the court they had to tear him from her embrace. She then
went the length and breadth of the city trying to get men to sign a
petition for his pardon. And when he was hanged, she begged the
governor to let her have the body of her son, that she might bury it.
They say that death has torn down everything in this world, everything
but a mother's love. That is stronger than death itself. The governor
refused to let her have the body, but she cherished the memory of that
boy as long as she lived.
A few months later she followed her boy, and when she was dying she
sent word to the governor, and begged that her body might be laid
close to her son. That is a mother's love! She wasn't ashamed to have
her grave pointed out for all time as the grave of the mother of the
most noted criminal the State of Vermont ever had.
The prophet takes hold of that very idea. He says: "Can a mother
forget her child?" But a mother's love is not to be compared to the
love of God.