Part 76 (1/2)
”'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 ain and bitter loss!
I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn To kiss the cross, Sweet heart, To kiss the cross'”
No ets his e, 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 co a h she lives with her son's fareat hoh she lived in her own house Every son should be ambitious to see his reat 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 ardener in a little French village A writer on one occasion, describing abetween 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 ave her his ar over her a large u weather, he seated hiether”
I once saw a splendid young college graduate introduce his poor, plainly dressed old nity as though she was a queen Her form was bent, her hands were calloused, she was prematurely old, and ery to help her boy to pay his college expenses
I have seen other college men whose mothers had made similar sacrifices, and ere asha exercises, ashamed to introduce them to their class of the slave e fanify her little hoive her children an education, when she realizes that she is losing ground intellectually, yet has no ti, or self-culture, no opportunity for broadening herwith the world! But this is nothing couish 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 asharound
Froht 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 theyand syrateful a son may be, no matter ho he may sink in vice or crime, he is always sure of his mother's love, always sure of one ill follow hiet there; of one ill 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 knohose 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 knohose 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 knohose prayer's would make me whole!
Mother o' hts I have ever seen was that of a poor, old, broken-downa long journey to the penitentiary to visit her boy, who had been abandoned by everybody but herself Poor old mother! It did not raced 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 hu 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 frorave, never once abandons, never once forsakes hienerate he ly said a New Yorksuicide ”Who was she?”
Without raising his eyes, the unfortunate victim burst into tears and replied, ”She was istrate's face and, with tears in his eyes, he said, ”Young ood edy ly condemn!