all I am to her earnest, modest and sincere piety."—Nicholas Smith, "Grant, the Man of Mystery."
(2110)
In a letter written by Grover Cleveland on the eve of his election to the governorship of New York State, he stated to his brother:
"I have just voted, and I sit here in the
office alone. If mother were alive I should
be writing to her, and I feel as if it were
time for me to write to some one who will
believe what I write. . . . I shall have no
idea of reelection or of any high political
preferment in my head, but be very thankful
and happy if I serve one term as the people's
governor. Do you know that if mother were
alive I should feel so much safer. I have
always thought her prayers had much to do
with my successes. I shall expect you to
help me in that way."
(2111)
See Truthfulness Rewarded.
MOTHERS NOT IN FICTION
A sick youth was lying in bed, watching
with quiet eyes his mother's form moving
gently about the room where for weeks she
had been ministering to him with tenderest
heart and hands. There had been stillness
there for a little while, when the boy spoke:
"I wonder why there are no mothers in
fiction." "Why, there are, dear; there must
be," the mother answered quickly, but when
she tried to name one, she found that none
came at the call. When she related me the
little incident, I too immediately said that
our memory must be strangely at fault that
it did not furnish us with examples in plenty.
Maternal love! Why, art was filled with
illustrations of it, and so was literature. And
yet, on making search, I too have failed to
find the typical mother where it seems she
would so easily be found.—Atlantic Monthly.
(2112)
Mother, The, and the Lambs—See Father's Voice.
Mother Wisdom—See Wealth and
Work.
MOTHERHOOD
We can understand how Tennyson was
preserved from the fatality of recklessness,
how it is he wore the white flower of a
blameless life, and ruled himself with
chivalrous regard for womanhood, when we
study his mother's face. What such a woman
must have been in the home, and what sort
of home it must have been where she
moved like a ministering spirit, we can
readily imagine.—W. J. Dawson, "The
Makers of English Poetry."
(2113)
Alexander the Great never wore any garments save those made by his mother. These beautiful robes he showed to the Persian princes who came to visit his court as marks of the skill of Olympia, who was the daughter of a chieftain, the wife of a sovereign and the mother of a conqueror.
Every child does not have mother-made
garments; but is it not true that
every child is mother-made? And does
he not more than continue the succession
of her royal soul?
(2114)
MOTHERHOOD, DIVINE
I remember going one day into a great
church in Paris and seeing, round back of
the altar, in a little chapel sacred to the
Virgin Mary and above a little altar in the
little chapel, a bas relief. It represented the
figure of a woman with a babe in her arms
standing on the world; and under her feet,
crusht and bleeding, was a serpent. It is
only a woman with a babe in her arms that
is going to crush the serpent after all.—Hugh
Birkhead.
(2115)
MOTHERHOOD IN ANIMALS
Louis Albert Banks tells of a man who killed a she bear and brought her young cubs home to train up as pets:
When they got to camp the motherless
pets were put in a box and given something
to eat; but eat they would not and yelp
they would, making a distressing noise. He
took a switch and whipt them, but they only
cried the louder. At first every one was
sorry for them; but by and by, as the crying
was continued, everybody began to scold on
account of the noise. He thought that on
account of the noise they made he would
have to kill them. At length, however, he
brought the mother-bearskin, and covering
this over something, he put it in a corner of
the box. The men stept back so that they
could see without being seen, and pretty
soon each little cub had smelled the mother-
