From, "The Royal Path Of Life" written by: T.L. Haines A.N. and M.W. Yaggy M.S. 1876
(Please see previous post for explanation)
"Mother"
It is true to nature, although it be expressed in a figurative form, that a mother is both the morning and the evening star of life. The light of her eye is always the first to rise, and often the last to set upon man's day of trial. She wields a power more decisive far than the syllogisms in argument, or courts of last appeal in authority. Nay, in cases not a few, where there has been no fear of God before the eyes of the young--where His love has been unfelt and His law outraged, a mother's affection or her tremulous tenderness has held transgressors by the heart-strings, and been the means of them back to virtue and to God.
Women's charms are certainly many and powerful. The expanding rose, just bursting into beauty, has an irresistible bewitchingness;--the blooming bride, led triumphantly to the hymeneal altar, awakens admiration and interest, and the blush of her cheek fills with delight;--but the charm of maternity is more sublime that all these.
Heaven has imprinted in the mother's face something beyond this world, something which claims kindred with the skies-- the angelic smile, the tender look, the waking, watchful eye, which keeps its fond vigil over her slumbering babe.
Mother! ecstatic sound so twined round our hearts that they must cease to throb ere we forget it! 'tis our first love; 'tis part of religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and arms first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost worship it in old age. He who can enter an apartment and behold the tender babe feeding on it's mother's beauty--nourished by the tide of life which flows through her generous veins, without a pantng bosom and a grateful eye, is no man, but a monster.
"Can a mother's love be supplied ?" No! a thousand times no! By the deep, earnest yearning of my spirit for a mother's love; by the weary, aching void in my heart; by restless, unsatisfied wanderings of my affections, ever seeking an object on which to rest; by our instinctive discernment of the true maternal love from the false-- as we would discern between a lifeless statue and a breathing man; by the hallowed emotions with which we cherish the depths of our hearts the vision of a grass-grown mound in a quiet graveyard among the mountains; by the reverence. the holy love, the feeling akin to idolatry with which our thoughts hover about an angel form among the serphs of Heaven- by all these, we answer, no!
Often do I sigh in my struggles with the hard, uncertain 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 glance cast upon me when I appeared asleep; never her kiss of peace at night. Years have passed away since we have laid her beside my father in the old church yard; yet, still her voice whispers from the grave, her eye watches over me, as I visit spots long since hallowed to the memory of my mother.
Oh! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to her son that transcends all the other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weaken by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity; and if misfortune overtake him, he will be dearer to her from misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.
To be continued in the next post!
blessings to you dear ones!
Sarah
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