Let your mind go back to the time when you were ill. Did your mother
neglect you? When a neighbor came in and said, "Now, mother, you go
and lie down; you have been up for a week; I will take your place for
a night"--did she do it? No; and if the poor worn body forced her to
it at last, she lay watching, and if she heard your voice, she was at
your side directly, anticipating all your wants, wiping the
perspiration away from your brow. If you wanted water, how soon you
got it! She would gladly have taken the disease into her own body to
save you. Her love for you would drive her to any lengths. No matter
to what depths of vice and misery you have sunk, no matter how
profligate you have grown, she has not turned you out of her heart.
Perhaps she loves you all the more because you are wayward. She would
draw you back by the bands of a love that never dies.