The Republican journal., 1874-06-11

A Mothers Sorrow.
BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.

As the waters roll in on the shore with
incessant throbs, night and day, and al
ways not alone when storms prevail but
in calms as we'll, SO is it with a mother
heart bereaved of her children There is
no grief like unto it-Rachel weeping for
her children and refusing to be comtorted
because they are not With what long
patience, what burden and suffering does
the mother wait until the child of her hope
is placed in her arms and under the sight
of her eyes. She remembereth no more
the anguish for JOY that a man is born into
the world
Who can read, OF, if he saw, could utter
the thoughts of mother during all the
days and nights in which she broods the
helpless thing. Every true mother takes
home the full meaning of the angels
word that holy thing which shall be born
of thee shall be called the Son of God.
The mother does not even whisper what
she thinks, and the whole air is full of
gentle pictures, every one on the back
ground of the blue heavens
The child grows; grows in favor OF God
and man-and every admiring look cast
upon it, even by strangers heart.
Wonderful child. The sun is brighter for
it The whole earth is blessed by its
presence! Sorrows, pains, WEAKNESS,
self-denials, for its sake are eagerly sought
and delighted in.
But the days come when the little feet
are weary; when night brings no rest
when the cheek is scarlet, the eyes
changed and the smile no longer knows
how to shine All day, all night, it is the
mothers watch Her very sleep is but a
yelled waking JOY: the child is coming
back to health. Woe: it is drifting out
again, away from consciousness, from life
here, toward the shores beyond, where
sickness and pain are never more known.
1t is far, far out, toward ight--toward
darkness 1t disappears.
The mothers heart was like heaven
while it lived; now it has assembled to
Gods heaven and the mothers heart is as
| the gloom of midnight. Wild words of
self-reproach at length break out, as when
frozen torrent is set loose by spring
days. She that has lavished her life force
| upon the child turns upon herself with
fierce charges Of carelessness, Of unskill,
of thOuohtiessneSS. She sees a hundred
WAYS in which the child would have lived
but for her. All love is turned into self
elimination. Tears come at length to
quench the fire Of purgatory. But griet
takes new shapes every hour, till the
nerve has lost its sensibility, and then she
coldly hates her unnatural and inhuman
heart that will not feel
A child dying, dies but once; but the
mother dies hundred times. When the
sharpness is over, and the dulness Of an
overspent brain is passed, and she must
take up the shuttle again and weave the
web Of daily life, pity her not that she
must work, must join again the discordant
voices, and be forced to duties irksome
and hateful. These all are kindly medi-
eines; A new thought is slowly preparing.
It's thatlmmovable constancy and strength
which sorrow gives when it has wrought
| the divine intent
HEB. xii. II. ''Now no Christening for the
present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous !;
nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peacea-
bic fruit of Righteousness unto them which are
exercised thereby