MOTHER
"All that I am or hope to be," said Lincoln, after he had become
President, "I owe to my angel mother."
"My mother was the making of me," said Thomas Edison, recently. "She
was so true, so sure of me; and I felt that I had some one to live for;
some one I must not disappoint."
"All that I have ever accomplished in life," declared Dwight L. Moody,
the great evangelist, "I owe to my mother."
"To the man who has had a good mother, all women are sacred for her
sake," said Jean Paul Richter.
The testimony of great men in acknowledgment of the boundless debt they
owe to their mothers would make a record stretching from the dawn of
history to to-day. Few men, indeed, become great who do not owe their
greatness to a mother's love and inspiration.
How often we hear people in every walk of life say, "I never could have
done this thing but for my mother. She believed in me, encouraged me
when others saw nothing in me."
"A kiss from my mother made me a painter," said Benjamin West.
A distinguished man of to-day says: "I never could have reached my
present position had I not known that my mother expected me to reach
it. From a child she made me feel that this was the position she
expected me to fill; and her faith spurred me on and gave me the power
to attain it."
Everything that a man has and is he owes to his mother. From her he
gets health, brain, encouragement, moral character, and all his chances
of success.
"In the shadow of every great man's fame walks his mother," says
Dorothy Dix. "She has paid the price of his success. She went down
into the Valley of the Shadow to give him life, and every day for years
and years thereafter she toiled incessantly to push him on toward his
goal.
"She gave the labor of her hands for his support; she poured into him
ambition when he grew discouraged; she supplemented his weakness with
her strength; she filled him with her hope and faith when his own
failed.
"At last he did the Big Thing, and people praised him, and acclaimed
him, and nobody thought of the quiet, insignificant little woman in the
background, who had been the real power behind the throne. Sometimes
even the king himself forgets who was the kingmaker."
Many a man is enjoying a fame which is really due to a self-effacing,
sacrificing mother. People hurrah for the governor, or mayor, or
congressman, but the real secret of his success is often tucked away in
that little unknown, unappreciated, unheralded mother. His education
and his chance to rise may have been due to her sacrifices.
It is a strange fact that our mothers, the molders of the world, should
get so little credit and should be so seldom mentioned among the
world's achievers. The world sees only the successful son; the mother
is but a round in the ladder upon which he has climbed. Her name or
face is seldom seen in the papers; only her son is lauded and held up
to our admiration. Yet it was that sweet, pathetic figure in the
background that made his success possible.
The woman who merits the greatest fame is the woman who gives a
brilliant mind to the world. The mothers of great men and women
deserve just as much honor as the great men and women themselves, and
they will receive it from the better understanding of the coming days.
"A wife may do much toward polishing up a man and boosting him up the
ladder, but unless his mother first gave him the intellect to
scintillate and the muscles to climb with, the wife labors in vain,"
continues Dorothy Dix, in the _Evening Journal_.
"You can not make a clod shine. You can not make a mollusk aspire.
You must have the material to work with, to produce results.
"By the time a man is married his character is formed, and he changes
very little. His mother has made him; and no matter how hard she
tries, there is very little that his wife can do toward altering him.
"It is not the philosophies, the theories, the code of ethics that a
man acquires in his older years that really influence him. It is the
things that he learned at his mother's knee, the principles that she
instilled in him in his very cradle, the taste and habits that she
formed, the strength and courage that she breathed into him.
"It is the childish impressions that count. It is the memory of
whispered prayers, of bedtime stories, of old ideals held unfalteringly
before a boy's gaze; it is half-forgotten songs, and dim visions of
heroes that a mother taught her child to worship, that make the very
warp and woof of the soul.
"It is the pennies, that a mother teaches a boy to save and the
self-denial that she inculcates in doing it, that form the real
foundation of the fortune of the millionaire.
"It is the mother that loves books, and who gives her sons her love of
learning, who bestows the great scholars, the writers, and orators, on
the world.
"It is the mother that worships science, who turns the eyes of the
child upon her breast up to the wonder of the stars, and who teaches
the little toddler at her side to observe the marvel of beast, and
bird, and flower, and all created things, whose sons become the great
astronomers and naturalists, and biologists."
The very atmosphere that radiates from and surrounds the mother is the
inspiration and constitutes the holy of holies of family life.
"In my mother's presence," said a prominent man, "I become for the time
transformed into another person."
How many of us have felt the truth of this statement! How ashamed we
feel when we meet her eyes, that we have ever harbored an unholy
thought, or dishonorable suggestion! It seems impossible to do wrong
while under that magic influence. What revengeful plans, what thoughts
of hatred and jealousy, have been scattered to the four winds while in
the mother's presence! Her children go out from communion with her
resolved to be better men, nobler women, truer citizens.
"How many of us have stood and watched with admiration the returning
victor of some petty battle, cheering until we were hoarse, exhausting
ourselves with the vehemence of our enthusiasm," says a writer, "when
right beside us, possibly touching our hand, was one greater than he?
One whose battle has not been petty--whose conflict has not been of
short duration, but has for us fought many a severe fight.
"When we had the scarlet fever or diphtheria and not one would come
near us, who held the cup of cold water to our fever-parched lips? Who
bent over us day and night and fought away with almost supernatural
strength the greatest of all enemies--death? The world's greatest
heroine--Mother! Who is it that each Sunday dinner-time chose the neck
of the chicken that we might have the juicy wing or breast or leg? Who
is it stays home from the concert, the social, the play, that we may go
with the others and not be stinted for small change? Who is it
crucifies her love of pretty clothes, her desire for good things, her
longing for pleasure that we may have all these? Who is it? Mother!"
The greatest heroine in the world is the mother. No one else makes
such sacrifices, or endures anything like the suffering that she
uncomplainingly endures for her children.
What is the giving of one's life in battle or in a wreck at sea to save
another, in comparison with the perpetual sacrifice of many mothers of
a living death lasting for half a century or more? How the world's
heroes dwindle in comparison with the mother heroine! There is no one
in the average family, the value of whose services begins to compare
with those of the mother, and yet there is no one who is more generally
neglected or taken advantage of. She must remain at home evenings, and
look after the children, when the others are out having a good time.
Her cares never cease. She is responsible for the housework, for the
preparation of meals; she has the children's clothes to make or mend,
there is company to be entertained, darning to be done, and a score of
little duties which must often be attended to at odd moments, snatched
from her busy days, and she is often up working at night, long after
every one else in the house is asleep.
No matter how loving or thoughtful the father may be, the heavier
burdens, the greater anxieties, the weightier responsibilities of the
home, of the children, usually fall on the mother. Indeed, the very
virtues of the good mother are a constant temptation to the other
members of the family, especially the selfish ones, to take advantage
of her. They seem to take it for granted that they can put all their
burdens on the patient, uncomplaining mother; that she will always do
anything to help out, and to enable the children to have a good time;
and in many homes, sad to say, the mother, just because of her
goodness, is shamefully imposed upon and neglected. "Oh, mother won't
mind, mother will stay at home." How often we hear remarks like this
from thoughtless children!
It is always the poor mother on whom the burden falls; and the pathetic
thing is that she rarely gets much credit or praise.
Many mothers in the poor and working classes practically sacrifice all
that most people hold dearest in life for their children. They
deliberately impair their health, wear themselves out, make all sorts
of sacrifices, to send a worthless boy to college. They take in
washing, go out house-cleaning, do the hardest and most menial work, in
order to give their boys and girls an education and the benefit of
priceless opportunities that they never had; yet, how often, they are
rewarded only with total indifference and neglect!
Some time ago I heard of a young girl, beautiful, gay, full of spirit
and vigor, who married and had four children. Her husband died
penniless, and the mother made the most heroic efforts to educate the
children. By dint of unremitting toil and unheard of sacrifices and
privations she succeeded in sending the boys to college and the girls
to a boarding-school. When they came home, pretty, refined girls and
strong young men, abreast with all the new ideas and tastes of their
times, she was a worn-out, commonplace old woman. They had their own
pursuits and companions. She lingered unappreciated among them for two
or three years, and then died, of some sudden failure of the brain.
The shock of her fatal illness woke them to consciousness of the truth.
They hung over her, as she lay prostrate, in an agony of grief. The
oldest son, as he held her in his arms, cried: "You have been a good
mother to us!" Her face brightened, her eyes kindled into a smile, and
she whispered: "You never said so before, John." Then the light died
out, and she was gone.
Many men spend more money on expensive caskets, flowers, and emblems of
mourning than they ever spent on their poor, loving, self-sacrificing
mothers for many years while alive. Men who, perhaps, never thought of
carrying flowers to their mothers in life, pile them high on their
coffins.
Who can ever depict the tragedies that have been enacted in the hearts
of American mothers, who have suffered untold tortures from neglect,
indifference, and lack of appreciation?
What a pathetic story of neglect many a mother's letters from her
grown-up children could tell! A few scraggy lines, a few sentences now
and then, hurriedly written and mailed--often to ease a troubled
conscience--mere apologies for letters, which chill the mother heart.
I know men who owe their success in life to their mother; who have
become prosperous and influential, because of the splendid training of
the self-sacrificing mother, and whose education was secured at an
inestimable cost to her, and yet they seldom think of carrying to her
flowers, confectionery, or little delicacies, or of taking her to a
place of amusement, or of giving her a vacation or bestowing upon her
any of the little attentions and favors so dear to a woman's heart.
They seem to think she is past the age for these things, that she no
longer cares for them, that about all she expects is enough to eat and
drink, and the simplest kind of raiment.
These men do not know the feminine heart which never changes in these
respects, except to grow more appreciative of the little attentions,
the little considerations, and thoughtful acts which meant so much to
them in their younger days.
Not long ago I heard a mother, whose sufferings and sacrifices for her
children during a long and trying struggle with poverty should have
given her a monument, say, that she guessed she'd better go to an old
ladies' home and end her days there. What a picture that was! An aged
woman with white hair and a sweet, beautiful face; with a wonderful
light in her eye; calm, serene, and patient, yet dignified, whose
children, all of whom are married and successful, made her feel as if
she were a burden! They live in luxurious homes, but have never
offered to provide a home for the poor, old rheumatic mother, who for
so many years slaved for them. They put their own homes, stocks, and
other property in their wives' names, and while they pay the rent of
their mother's meagerly furnished rooms and provide for her actual
needs, they apparently never think what joy it would give her to own
her own home, and to possess some pretty furnishings, and a few
pictures.
In many cases men through thoughtlessness do not provide generously for
their mothers even when well able to. They seem to think that a mother
can live most anywhere, and most anyway; that if she has enough to
supply her necessities she is satisfied. Just think, you prosperous
business men, how you would feel if the conditions were reversed, if
you were obliged to take the dependent, humiliating position of your
mother!
Whatever else you are obliged to neglect, take no chances of giving
your mother pain by neglecting her, and of thus making yourself
miserable in the future.
The time may come when you will stand by her bedside, in her last
sickness, or by her coffin, and wish that you had exchanged a little of
your money for more visits and more attentions and more little presents
to your mother; when you will wish that you had cultivated her more,
even at the cost of making a little less money.
There is no one else in this world who can take your mother's place in
your life. And there is no remorse like that which comes from the
remembrance of ill-treating, abusing, or being unkind to one's mother.
These things stand out with awful vividness and terrible clearness when
the mother is gone forever from sight, and you have time to contrast
your treatment with her long suffering, tenderness, and love, and her
years of sacrifice for you.
One of the most painful things I have ever witnessed was the anguish of
a son who had become wealthy and in his prosperity neglected the
mother, whose sacrifices alone had made his success possible. He did
not take the time to write to her more than twice a year, and then only
brief letters. He was too busy to send a good long letter to the poor
old lonely mother back in the country, who had risked her life and
toiled and sacrificed for years for him! Finally, when he was summoned
to her bedside in the country, in her last sickness, and realized that
his mother had been for years without the ordinary comforts of life,
while he had been living in luxury, he broke down completely. And
while he did everything possible to alleviate her suffering, in the few
last days that remained to her on earth, and gave her an imposing
burial, what torture he must have suffered, at this pitiful picture of
his mother who had sacrificed everything for him!
"The regrets for thoughtless acts and indifference to admonitions now
felt and expressed by many living sons of dead mothers will, in time,
be felt and expressed by the living sons of living mothers," says
Richard L. Metcalfe, in the "Commoner." "The boys of to-day who do not
understand the value of the mother's companionship will yet sing--with
those who already know--this song of tribute and regret:
"'The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me;
I count them over, every one apart,
My rosary.
"'Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung;
I tell each bead unto the end, and there
A cross is hung.
"'O memories that bless--and burn!
Oh mighty gain and bitter loss!
I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross,
Sweet heart,
To kiss the cross.'"
No man worthy of the name ever neglects or forgets his mother.
I have an acquaintance, of very poor parentage, who had a hard struggle
to get a start in the world; but when he became prosperous and built
his beautiful home, he finished a suite of rooms in it especially for
his mother, furnished them with all conveniences and comforts possible,
and insisted upon keeping a maid specially for her. Although she lives
with her son's family, she is made to feel that this part of the great
home is her own, and that she is as independent as though she lived in
her own house. Every son should be ambitious to see his mother as well
provided for as his wife.
Really great men have always reverenced and cared tenderly for their
mothers. President McKinley provided in his will that, first of all,
his mother should be made comfortable for life.
The first act of Garfield, after he was inaugurated President, was to
kiss his aged mother, who sat near him, and who said this was the
proudest and happiest moment of her life.
Ex-President Loubet of France, even after his elevation to the
presidency, took great pride in visiting his mother, who was a humble
market gardener in a little French village. A writer on one occasion,
describing a meeting between this mother and her son, says: "Her noted
son awaited her in the market-place, as she drove up in her little cart
loaded with vegetables. Assisting his mother to alight, the French
President gave her his arm and escorted her to her accustomed seat.
Then holding over her a large umbrella, to shield her from the
threatening weather, he seated himself at her side, and mother and son
enjoyed a long talk together."
I once saw a splendid young college graduate introduce his poor,
plainly dressed old mother to his classmates with as much pride and
dignity as though she was a queen. Her form was bent, her hands were
calloused, she was prematurely old, and much of this deterioration was
caused by all sorts of drudgery to help her boy to pay his college
expenses.
I have seen other college men whose mothers had made similar
sacrifices, and who were ashamed to have them attend their graduating
exercises, ashamed to introduce them to their classmates.
Think of the humiliation and suffering of the slave mother, who has
given all the best of her life to a large family, battling with poverty
in her efforts to dignify her little home, and to give her children an
education, when she realizes that she is losing ground intellectually,
yet has no time or strength for reading, or self-culture, no
opportunity for broadening her mental outlook by traveling or mingling
with the world! But this is nothing compared to the anguish she
endures, when, after the flower of her youth is gone and there is
nothing left of her but the ashes of a burned-out existence, the shreds
of a former superb womanhood, she awakes to the consciousness that her
children are ashamed of her ignorance and desire to keep her in the
background.
From babyhood children should be taught to look up to, not down on
their mother. For that reason she should never appear before them in
slovenly raiment, nor conduct herself in any way that would lessen
their respect. She should keep up her intellectual culture that they
may not advance beyond her understanding and sympathies.
No matter how callous or ungrateful a son may be, no matter how low he
may sink in vice or crime, he is always sure of his mother's love,
always sure of one who will follow him even to his grave, if she is
alive and can get there; of one who will cling to him when all others
have fled.
It is forever true, as Kipling poignantly expresses it in his beautiful
verses on "Mother Love":
"'If I were hanged on highest hill,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose love would follow still,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
"'If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
"'If I were cursed of body and soul,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose prayer's would make me whole!
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!'"
One of the saddest sights I have ever seen was that of a poor, old,
broken-down mother, whose life had been poured into her children,
making a long journey to the penitentiary to visit her boy, who had
been abandoned by everybody but herself. Poor old mother! It did not
matter that he was a criminal, that he had disgraced his family, that
everybody else had forsaken him, that he had been unkind to her--the
mother's heart went out to him just the same. She did not see the
hideous human wreck that crime had made. She saw only her darling boy,
the child that God had given her, pure and innocent as in his childhood.
Oh, there is no other human love like this, which follows the child
from the cradle to the grave, never once abandons, never once forsakes
him, no matter how unfortunate or degenerate he may become.
"So your best girl is dead," sneeringly said a New York magistrate to a
young man who was arrested for attempting suicide. "Who was she?"
Without raising his eyes, the unfortunate victim burst into tears and
replied, "She was my mother!" The smile vanished from the magistrate's
face and, with tears in his eyes, he said, "Young man, go and try to be
a good man, for your mother's sake." How little we realize what
tragedy may be going on in the hearts of those whom we sneeringly
condemn!
What movement set on foot in recent years, deserves heartier support
than that for the establishment of a national Mothers' Day?
The day set apart as Mothers' Day by those who have inaugurated this
movement is _the second Sunday in May_. Let us unite in doing all we
can to make it a real Mothers' Day, by especially honoring our mothers;
in the flesh, those of us who are so fortunate as to have our mothers
with us; in the spirit, those who are not so fortunate.
If away from her, write a good, loving letter, or telephone or
telegraph to the best mother who ever lived--your mother. Send her
some flowers, an appropriate present; go and spend the day with her, or
in some other way make her heart glad. Show her that you appreciate
her, and that you give her credit for a large part of your success.
Let us do all we can to make up for past neglect of the little-known,
half-appreciated, unheralded mothers who have had so little credit in
the past, and are so seldom mentioned among the world's achievers, by
openly, and especially in our hearts, paying our own mothers every
tribute of honor, respect, devotion, and gratitude that love and a
sense of duty can suggest. Let us acknowledge to the world the great
debt we owe them by wearing, every one of us, boy and girl, man and
woman, on Mothers' Day, a white carnation--the flower chosen as the
symbol and emblem of motherhood.
Happily chosen emblem! What could more fittingly represent motherhood
with its whiteness symbolizing purity; its lasting qualities,
faithfulness; its fragrance, love; its wide field of growth, charity;
its form, beauty!
What an impressive and beautiful tribute to motherhood it would be for
a whole nation to unite one day in wearing its chosen emblem, and in
song and speech, and other appropriate exercises, to honor its mothers!