"Help Those Women"
If the womanhood of America had been no better than its manhood, the
devil would have had the country fenced in long ago.--BILLY SUNDAY.
The average American is somewhat of a sentimentalist. "Home, Sweet
Home," is an American song. No people, except possibly the Irish,
respond more readily to the note of "Mother" than the Americans. No
other nation honors womanhood so greatly. We are really a chivalrous
people.
In this respect, as in so many others, Sunday is true to type. His
sermons abound with passages which express the best American sentiment
toward womanhood. It is good for succeeding generations that such words
as the following should be uttered in the ears of tens and hundreds
of thousands of young people, and reprinted in scores and hundreds of
newspapers.
"MOTHER"
The story of Moses is one of the most beautiful and fascinating in all
the world. It takes a hold on us and never for an instant does it lose
its interest, for it is so graphically told that once heard it is never
forgotten.
I have often imagined the anxiety with which that child was born, for
he came into the world with the sentence of death hanging over him,
for Pharaoh had decreed that the male children should die. The mother
defied even the command of the king and determined that the child
should live, and right from the beginning the battle of right against
might was fought at the cradle.
Moses' mother was a slave. She had to work in the brickyards or labor
in the field, but God was on her side and she won, as the mother
always wins with God on her side. Before going to work she had to
choose some hiding place for her child, and she put his little sister,
Miriam, on guard while she kept herself from being seen by the soldiers
of Pharaoh, who were seeking everywhere to murder the Jewish male
children. For three months she kept him hidden, possibly finding a
new hiding place every few days. It is hard to imagine anything more
difficult than to hide a healthy, growing baby, and he was hidden for
three months. Now he was grown larger and more full of life and a more
secure hiding place had to be found, and I can imagine this mother
giving up her rest and sleep to prepare an ark for the saving of her
child.
I believe the plan must have been formulated in heaven. I have often
thought God must have been as much interested in that work as was
the mother of Moses, for you can't make me believe that an event so
important as that, and so far-reaching in its results, ever happened
by luck or chance. Possibly God whispered the plan to the mother when
she went to him in prayer and in her grief because she was afraid the
sword of Pharaoh would murder her child. And how carefully the material
out of which the ark was made had to be selected! I think every twig
was carefully scrutinized in order that nothing poor might get into its
composition, and the weaving of that ark, the mother's heart, her soul,
her prayers, her tears, were interwoven.
Oh, if you mothers would exercise as much care over the company your
children keep, over the books they read and the places they go, there
would not be so many girls feeding the red-light district, nor so many
boys growing up to lead criminal lives. And with what thanksgiving she
must have poured out her heart when at last the work was done and the
ark was ready to carry its precious cargo, more precious than if it was
to hold the crown jewels of Egypt. And I can imagine the last night
that baby was in the home. Probably some of you can remember when the
last night came when baby was alive; you can remember the last night
the coffin stayed, and the next day the pall-bearers and the hearse
came. The others may have slept soundly, but there was no sleep for
you, and I can imagine there was no sleep for Moses' mother.
"There are whips and tops and pieces of string
And shoes that no little feet ever wear;
There are bits of ribbon and broken wings
And tresses of golden hair.
"There are dainty jackets that never are worn
There are toys and models of ships;
There are books and pictures all faded and torn
And marked by finger tips
Of dimpled hands that have fallen to dust--
Yet we strive to think that the Lord is just.
"Yet a feeling of bitterness fills our soul;
Sometimes we try to pray,
That the Reaper has spared so many flowers
And taken ours away.
And we sometimes doubt if the Lord can know
How our riven hearts did love them so.
"But we think of our dear ones dead,
Our children who never grow old,
And how they are waiting and watching for us
In the city with streets of gold;
And how they are safe through all the years
From sickness and want and war.
We thank the great God, with falling tears,
For the things in the cabinet drawer."
A Mother's Watchfulness
Others in the house might have slept, but not a moment could she spare
of the precious time allotted her with her little one, and all through
the night she must have prayed that God would shield and protect her
baby and bless the work she had done and the step she was about to take.
Some people often say to me: "I wonder what the angels do; how they
employ their time?" I think I know what some of them did that night.
You can bet they were not out to some bridge-whist party. They guarded
that house so carefully that not a soldier of old Pharaoh ever crossed
the threshold. They saw to it that not one of them harmed that baby.
At dawn the mother must have kissed him good-bye, placed him in the
ark and hid him among the reeds and rushes, and with an aching heart
and tear-dimmed eyes turned back again to the field and back to the
brickyards to labor and wait to see what God would do. She had done
her prayerful best, and when you have done that you can bank on God
to give the needed help. If we only believed that with God all things
are possible no matter how improbable, what unexpected answers the
Lord would give to our prayers! She knew God would help her some way,
but I don't think she ever dreamed that God would help her by sending
Pharaoh's daughter to care for the child. It was no harder for God to
send the princess than it was to get the mother to prepare the ark.
What was impossible from her standpoint was easy for God.
Pharaoh's daughter came down to the water to bathe, and the ark was
discovered, just as God wanted it to be, and one of her maids was sent
to fetch it. You often wonder what the angels are doing. I think some
of the angels herded the crocodiles on the other side of the Nile to
keep them from finding Moses and eating him up. You can bank on it, all
heaven was interested to see that not one hair of that baby's head was
injured. There weren't devils enough in hell to pull one hair out of
its head. The ark was brought and with feminine curiosity the daughter
of Pharaoh had to look into it to see what was there, and when they
removed the cover, there was lying a strong, healthy baby boy, kicking
up his heels and sucking his thumbs, as probably most of us did when
we were boys, and probably as you did when you were a girl. The baby
looks up and weeps, and those tears blotted out all that was against it
and gave it a chance for its life. I don't know, but I think an angel
stood there and pinched it to make it cry, for it cried at the right
time. Just as God plans. God always does things at the right time. Give
God a chance; he may be a little slow at times, but he will always get
around in time.
The tears of that baby were the jewels with which Israel was ransomed
from Egyptian bondage. The princess had a woman's heart and when a
woman's heart and a baby's tears meet, something happens that gives the
devil cold feet. Perhaps the princess had a baby that had died, and the
sight of Moses may have torn the wound open and made it bleed afresh.
But she had a woman's heart, and that made her forget she was the
daughter of Pharaoh and she was determined to give protection to that
baby. Faithful Miriam (the Lord be praised for Miriam) saw the heart of
the princess reflected in her face. Miriam had studied faces so much
that she could read the princess' heart as plainly as if written in an
open book, and she said to her: "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew
women to nurse the child for you?" and the princess said, "Go."
I see her little feet and legs fly as she runs down the hot, dusty
road, and her mother must have seen her coming a mile away, and she
ran to meet her own baby put back in her arms. And she was being paid
Egyptian gold to take care of her own baby. See how the Lord does
things? "Now you take this child and nurse it for me and I will pay you
your wages." It was a joke on Pharaoh's daughter, paying Moses' mother
for doing what she wanted to do more than anything else--nurse her own
baby.
How quickly the mother was paid for these long hours of anxiety and
alarm and grief, and if the angels know what is going on what a
hilarious time there must have been in heaven when they saw Moses and
Miriam back at home, under the protection of the daughter of Pharaoh. I
imagine she dropped on her knees and poured out her heart to God, who
had helped her so gloriously. She must have said: "Well, Lord, I knew
you would help me. I knew you would take care of my baby when I made
the ark and put him in it and put it in the water, but I never dreamed
that you would put him back into my arms to take care of, so I would
not have to work and slave in the field and make brick and be tortured
almost to death for fear that the soldiers of Pharaoh would find my
baby and kill him. I never thought you would soften the stony heart of
Pharaoh and make him pay me for what I would rather do than anything
else in this world." I expect to meet Moses' mother in heaven, and I am
going to ask her how much old Pharaoh had to pay her for that job. I
think that's one of the best jokes, that old sinner having to pay the
mother to take care of her own baby. But I tell you, if you give God a
chance, he will fill your heart to overflowing. Just give him a chance.
A Mother's Bravery
This mother had remarkable pluck. Everything was against her but she
would not give up. Her heart never failed. She made as brave a fight as
any man ever made at the sound of the cannon or the roar of musketry.
"The bravest battle that was ever fought,
Shall I tell you where and when?
On the maps of the world you'll find it not--
'Twas fought by the mothers of men.
"Nay, not with cannon or battle shot,
With sword or noble pen,
Nay, not with the eloquent word or thought,
From the mouths of wonderful men.
"But deep in the walled-up woman's heart--
Of women that would not yield.
But, bravely, silently bore their part--
Lo, there is the battle-field.
"No marshaling troops, no bivouac song,
No banner to gleam and wave;
But oh, these battles they last so long--
From babyhood to the grave."
Mothers are always brave when the safety of their children is concerned.
[Illustration: "DON'T GIVE A PUG-NOSED BULLDOG THE LOVE A BABY OUGHT TO
BE GETTING."]
This incident happened out West. A mother was working in a garden
and the little one was sitting under a tree in the yard playing. The
mother heard the child scream; she ran, and a huge snake was wrapping
its coils about the baby, and as its head swung around she leaped and
grabbed it by the neck and tore it from her baby and hurled it against
a tree.
Fathers often give up. The old man often goes to boozing, becomes
dissipated, takes a dose of poison and commits suicide; but the mother
will stand by the home and keep the little band together if she has to
manicure her finger nails over a washboard to do it. If men had half as
much grit as the women there would be different stories written about
a good many homes. Look at her work! It is the greatest in the world;
in its far-reaching importance it is transcendently above everything
in the universe--her task in molding hearts and lives and shaping
character. If you want to find greatness don't go to the throne, go to
the cradle; and the nearer you get to the cradle the nearer you get to
greatness. Now, when Jesus wanted to give his disciples an impressive
object lesson he called in a college professor, did he? Not much. He
brought in a little child and said: "Except ye become as one of these,
ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of God." The work is so important
that God will not trust anybody with it but a mother. The launching of
a boy or a girl to live for Christ is greater work than the launching
of a battleship.
Moses was a chosen vessel of the Lord and God wanted him to get the
right kind of a start, so he gave him a good mother. There wasn't a
college professor in all Egypt that God would trust with that baby! so
he put the child back in its mother's arms. He knew the best one on
earth to trust with that baby was its own mother. When God sends us
great men he wants to have them get the right kind of a start. So he
sees to it that they have a good mother. Most any old stick will do
for a daddy. God is particular about the mothers.
Good Mothers Needed
And so the great need of this country, or any other country, is good
mothers, and I believe we have more good mothers in America than any
other nation on earth. If Washington's mother had been like a Happy
Hooligan's mother, Washington would have been a Happy Hooligan.
Somebody has said: "God could not be everywhere, so he gave us
mothers." Now there may be poetry in it, but it's true "that the hand
that rocks the cradle rules the world," and if every cradle was rocked
by a good mother, the world would be full of good men, as sure as you
breathe. If every boy and every girl today had a good mother, the
saloons and disreputable houses would go out of business tomorrow.
A young man one time joined a church and the preacher asked him: "What
was it I said that induced you to be a Christian?"
Said the young man: "Nothing that I ever heard you say, but it is the
way my mother lived." I tell you an ounce of example outweighs forty
million tons of theory and speculation. If the mothers would live as
they should, we preachers would have little to do. Keep the devil out
of the boys and girls and he will get out of the world. The old sinners
will die off if we keep the young ones clean.
The biggest place in the world is that which is being filled by the
people who are closely in touch with youth. Being a king, an emperor or
a president is mighty small potatoes compared to being a mother or the
teacher of children, whether in a public school or in a Sunday school,
and they fill places so great that there isn't an angel in heaven that
wouldn't be glad to give a bushel of diamonds to boot to come down here
and take their places. Commanding an army is little more than sweeping
a street or pounding an anvil compared with the training of a boy or
girl. The mother of Moses did more for the world than all the kings
that Egypt ever had. To teach a child to love truth and hate a lie, to
love purity and hate vice, is greater than inventing a flying machine
that will take you to the moon before breakfast. Unconsciously you set
in motion influences that will damn or bless the old universe and bring
new worlds out of chaos and transform them for God.
God's Hall of Fame
A man sent a friend of mine some crystals and said: "One of these
crystals as large as a pin point will give a distinguishable green hue
to sixteen hogsheads of water." Think of it! Power enough in an atom to
tincture sixteen hogsheads of water. There is power in a word or act to
blight a boy and, through him, curse a community. There is power enough
in a word to tincture the life of that child so that it will become a
power to lift the world to Jesus Christ. The mothers will put in motion
influences that will either touch heaven or hell. Talk about greatness!
Oh, you wait until you reach the mountains of eternity, then read the
mothers' names in God's hall of fame, and see what they have been in
this world. Wait until you see God's hall of fame; you will see women
bent over the washtub.
I want to tell you women that fooling away your time hugging and
kissing a poodle dog, caressing a "Spitz," drinking society brandy-mash
and a cocktail, and playing cards, is mighty small business compared to
molding the life of a child.
Tell me, where did Moses get his faith? From his mother. Where did
Moses get his backbone to say: "I won't be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter?" He got it from his mother. Where did Moses get the nerve to
say, "Excuse me, please," to the pleasures of Egypt? He got it from his
mother. You can bank on it he didn't inhale it from his dad. Many a boy
would have turned out better if his old dad had died before the kid
was born. You tell your boy to keep out of bad company. Sometimes when
he walks down the street with his father he's in the worst company in
town. His dad smokes, drinks and chews. Moses got it from his mother.
He was learned in all the wisdom of Egypt, but that didn't give him the
swelled head.
When God wants to throw a world out into space, he is not concerned
about it. The first mile that world takes settles its course for
eternity. When God throws a child out into the world he is mighty
anxious that it gets a good start. The Catholics are right when they
say: "Give us the children until they are ten years old and we don't
care who has them after that." The Catholics are not losing any sleep
about losing men and women from their church membership. It is the
only church that has ever shown us the only sensible way to reach the
masses--that is, by getting hold of the children. That's the only way
on God's earth that you will ever solve the problem of reaching the
masses. You get the boys and girls started right, and the devil will
hang a crape on his door, bank his fires, and hell will be for rent
before the Fourth of July.
A friend of mine has a little girl that she was compelled to take to
the hospital for an operation. They thought she would be frightened,
but she said: "I don't care if mama will be there and hold my hand."
They prepared her for the operation, led her into the room, put her on
the table, put the cone over her face and saturated it with ether, and
she said: "Now, mama, take me by the hand and hold it and I'll not be
afraid." And the mother stood there and held her hand. The operation
was performed, and when she regained consciousness, they said: "Bessie,
weren't you afraid when they put you on the table?" She said: "No, mama
stood there and held my hand. I wasn't afraid."
There is a mighty power in a mother's hand. There's more power in a
woman's hand than there is in a king's scepter.
And there is a mighty power in a mother's kiss--inspiration, courage,
hope, ambition, in a mother's kiss. One kiss made Benjamin West a
painter, and the memory of it clung to him through life. One kiss will
drive away the fear in the dark and make the little one brave. It will
give strength where there is weakness.
I was in a town one day and saw a mother out with her boy, and he had
great steel braces on both legs, to his hips, and when I got near
enough to them I learned by their conversation that that wasn't the
first time the mother had had him out for a walk. She had him out
exercising him so he would get the use of his limbs. He was struggling
and she smiled and said: "You are doing finely today; better than
you did yesterday." And she stooped and kissed him, and the kiss of
encouragement made him work all the harder, and she said: "You are
doing nobly, son." And he said: "Mama, I'm going to run; look at me."
And he started, and one of his toes caught on the steel brace on the
other leg and he stumbled, but she caught him and kissed him, and said:
"That was fine, son; how well you did it!" Now, he did it because his
mother had encouraged him with a kiss. He didn't do it to show off.
There is nothing that will help and inspire life like a mother's kiss.
"If we knew the baby fingers pressed against the window pane,
Would be cold and still tomorrow, never trouble us again,
Would the bright eyes of our darling catch the frown upon our brow?
"Let us gather up the sunbeams lying all around our path,
Let us keep the wheat and roses, casting out the thorns and chaff!
We shall find our sweetest comforts in the blessings of today,
With a patient hand removing all the briars from our way."
A Mother's Song
There is power in a mother's song, too. It's the best music the world
has ever heard. The best music in the world is like biscuits--it's the
kind mother makes. There is no brass band or pipe organ that can hold a
candle to mother's song. Calve, Melba, Nordica, Eames, SchumannHeinck,
they are cheap skates, compared to mother. They can't sing at all.
They don't know the rudiments of the kind of music mother sings. The
kind she sings gets tangled up in your heart strings. There would be a
disappointment in the music of heaven to me if there were no mothers
there to sing. The song of an angel or a seraph would not have much
charm for me. What would you care for an angel's song if there were no
mother's song?
The song of a mother is sweeter than that ever sung by minstrel or
written by poet. Talk about sonnets! You ought to hear the mother sing
when her babe is on her breast, when her heart is filled with emotion.
Her voice may not please an artist, but it will please any one who
has a heart in him. The songs that have moved the world are not the
songs written by the great masters. The best music, in my judgment,
is not the faultless rendition of these high-priced opera singers.
There is nothing in art that can put into melody the happiness which
associations and memories bring. I think when we reach heaven it will
be found that some of the best songs we will sing there will be those
we learned at mother's knee.
A Mother's Love
There is power in a mother's love. A mother's love must be like God's
love. How God could ever tell the world that he loved it without a
mother's help has often puzzled me. If the devils in hell ever turned
pale, it was the day mother's love flamed up for the first time in a
woman's heart. If the devil ever got "cold feet" it was that day, in my
judgment.
You know a mother has to love her babe before it is born. Like God,
she has to go into the shadows of the valley of death to bring it into
the world, and she will love her child, suffer for it, and it can grow
up and become vile and yet she will love it. Nothing will make her
blame it, and I think, women, that one of the awful things in hell
will be that there will be no mother's love there. Nothing but black,
bottomless, endless, eternal hate in hell--no mother's love.
"And though he creep through the vilest caves of sin,
And crouch perhaps, with bleared and bloodshot eyes,
Under the hangman's rope--a mother's lips
Will kiss him in his last bed of disgrace,
And love him e'en for what she hoped of him."
I thank God for what mother's love has done for the world.
Oh, there is power in a mother's trust. Surely as Moses was put in
his mother's arms by the princess, so God put the babes in your arms,
as a charge from him to raise and care for. Every child is put in a
mother's arms as a trust from God, and she has to answer to God for the
way she deals with that child. No mother on God's earth has any right
to raise her children for pleasure. She has no right to send them to
dancing school and haunts of sin. You have no right to do those things
that will curse your children. That babe is put in your arms to train
for the Lord. No mother has any more right to raise her children for
pleasure than I have to pick your pockets or throw red pepper in your
eyes. She has no more right to do that than a bank cashier has to rifle
the vaults and take the savings of the people. One of the worst sins
you can commit is to be unfaithful to your trust.
A Mother's Responsibility
"Take this child and nurse it for me." That is all the business you
have with it. That is a jewel that belongs to God and he gives it to
you to polish for him so he can set it in a crown. Who knows but that
Judas became the godless, good-for-nothing wretch he was because he had
a godless, good-for-nothing mother? Do you know? I don't. What is more
to blame for the crowded prisons than mothers? Who is more to blame for
the crowded disreputable houses than you are, who let your children
gad the streets, with every Tom, Dick and Harry, or keep company with
some little jack rabbit whose character would make a black mark on a
piece of tar paper? I have talked with men in prisons who have damned
their mothers to my face. Why? They blame their mothers for their being
where they are.
"Take the child and nurse it for me, and I will pay you your wages."
God pays in joy that is fireproof, famine-proof and devil-proof. He
will pay you, don't you worry. So get your name on God's pay-roll.
"Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay you your wages."
If you haven't been doing that, then get your name on God's pay-roll.
"Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay you your wages."
Then your responsibility! It is so great that I don't see how any
woman can fail to be a Christian and serve God. What do you think God
will do if the mother fails? I stagger under it. What, if through your
unfaithfulness, your boy becomes a curse and your daughter a blight?
What, if through your neglect, that boy becomes a Judas when he might
have been a John or Paul?
Down in Cincinnati some years ago a mother went to the zoological
garden and stood leaning over the bear pit, watching the bears and
dropping crumbs and peanuts to them. In her arms she held her babe, a
year and three months old. She was so interested in the bears that the
baby wriggled itself out of her arms and fell into the bear pit, and
she watched those huge monsters rip it to shreds. What a veritable hell
it will be through all her life to know that her little one was lost
through her own carelessness and neglect!
"Take this child and raise it for me, and I will pay you your wages."
Will you promise and covenant with God, and with me, and with one
another, that from now on you will try, with God's help, to do better
than you ever have done to raise your children for God?
[Illustration: "THE IDEAL MOTHER IS THE PRODUCT OF A CIVILIZATION THAT
ROSE FROM THE MANGER OF BETHLEHEM."]
"I once read the story of an angel who stole out of heaven and came to
this world one bright, sunshiny day; roamed through field, forest, city
and hamlet, and as the sun went down plumed his wings for the return
flight. The angel said: "Now that my visit is over, before I return
I must gather some mementos of my trip." He looked at the beautiful
flowers in the garden and said: "How lovely and fragrant," and plucked
the rarest roses, made a bouquet, and said: "I see nothing more
beautiful and fragrant than these flowers." The angel looked farther
and saw a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked child, and said: "That baby is
prettier than the flowers; I will take that, too," and looking behind
to the cradle, he saw a mother's love pouring out over her babe like
a gushing spring, and the angel said: "The mother's love is the most
beautiful thing I have seen! I will take that, too."
And with these three treasures the heavenly messenger winged his flight
to the pearly gates, saying: "Before I go I must examine the mementos
of my trip to the earth." He looked at the flowers; they had withered.
He looked at the baby's smile, and it had faded. He looked at the
mother's love, and it shone in all its pristine beauty. Then he threw
away the withered flowers, cast aside the faded smile, and with the
mother's love pressed to his breast, swept through the gates into the
city, shouting that the only thing he had found that would retain its
fragrance from earth to heaven was a mother's love.
"Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay you your wages."
When Napoleon Bonaparte was asked, "What do you regard as the greatest
need of France?" he replied, "Mothers, mothers, mothers." You women
can make a hell of a home or a heaven of a home. Don't turn your old
Gatling-gun tongue loose and rip everybody up and rip your husbands up
and send them out of their homes. If I were going to investigate your
piety I would ask the girl who works for you.
This talk about the land of the free is discounted when the children
look like a rummage sale in a second-hand store; with uncombed hair,
ripped pants, buttons off, stockings hanging down. It doesn't take the
wisdom of truth to see that mother is too busy with her social duties,
clubs, etc., to pay much attention to the kids.
Mothers of Great Men
The mother of Nero was a murderess, and it is no wonder that he fiddled
while Rome burned. The mother of Patrick Henry was eloquent, and that
is the reason why every school boy and girl knows, "Give me liberty or
give me death." Coleridge's mother taught him Biblical stories from the
old Dutch tile of the fireplace. In the home authority is needed today
more than at any time in the history of this nation. I have met upon
the arena of the conflict every form of man and beast imaginable to
meet, and I am convinced that neither law nor gospel can make a nation
without home authority and home example. Those two things are needed.
The boy who has a wholesome home and surroundings and a judicious
control included does not often find his way into the reformatory.
Susanna Wesley was the mother of nineteen children, and she held them
for God. When asked how she did it she replied, "By getting hold of
their hearts in their youth, and never losing my grip."
If it had not been for the expostulations of the mother of George
Washington, George Washington would have become a midshipman in the
British navy, and the name of that capital yonder would have been some
other. John Randolph said in the House of Representatives, "If it had
not been for my godly mother, I, John Randolph, would have been an
infidel." Gray, who wrote the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," said
he was one of a large family of children that had the misfortune to
survive their mother. And I believe the ideal mother is the product of
a civilization that rose from the manger of Bethlehem.
I am sure there is not an angel in heaven that would not be glad to
come to earth and be honored with motherhood if God would grant that
privilege. What a grand thing it must be, at the end of your earthly
career, to look back upon a noble and godly life, knowing you did
all you could to help leave this old world to God, and made your
contributions in tears and in prayers and taught your offspring to be
God-fearing, so that when you went you would continue to produce your
noble character in your children.
I believe in blood; I believe in good blood, bad blood, honest blood,
and thieving blood; in heroic blood and cowardly blood; in virtuous
blood, in licentious blood, in drinking blood and in sober blood. The
lips of the Hapsburgs tell of licentiousness; those of the Stuarts tell
of cruelty, bigotry and sensuality, from Mary, queen of Scots, down to
Charles the First and Charles the Second, James the First--who showed
the world what your fool of a Scotchman can be when he is a fool--down
to King James the Second.
Scotch blood stands for stubbornness. They are full of
stick-to-it-iveness. I know, Mrs. Sunday is full-blooded Scotch.
English blood speaks of reverence for the English. That is shown by the
fact that England spent $50,000,000 recently to put a crown on George's
head. Danish blood tells of love of the sea. Welsh blood tells of
religious fervor and zeal for God. Jewish blood tells of love of money,
from the days of Abraham down until now.
You may have read this story: Down in New York was a woman who said to
her drunken son: "Let's go down to the police court and have the judge
send you over to the island for a few weeks. Maybe you'll straighten
up then and I can have some respect for you again." Down they went to
the police court and appeared before the judge. He asked who would make
the charge and the mother sprang forward with the words on her lips.
Then she stopped short, turned to her son and throwing her arms about
his neck cried out: "I can't! I can't! He is my son, I love him and I
can't." Then she fell at his feet dead. As dearly as she had loved her
drunken, bloated, loafing son she couldn't stand in judgment.