Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-07-15
A Mothers Sorrow.
BY III. ". BEECHER.

As the waters roll in on the shore with
inccssant throbs, night and day, and al
ways. not alone when storms prevail, but
in calms as well, so it is with mothers
heart bereaved of her children There is
no grief like unto it-Rachel weeping for
her children and refusing to be comforted
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 remembered no
more the anguish for Joy that a man is
born into the world.
Who can read. or, if he saw, could ut
ter the thoughts of u 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 things 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 stranger, sends light
and gladness to the mothers heart Won
derful 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 delight
ed in.
But the days come when the little feet
are weary: when the night brings no rest :;
when the cheek is scarlet, the eye changed,
and the smile no longer knows how to
shine All day, all night, it is the moth
er's watch Her very sleep is but yelled
waking JOY; the child is coming back
to health. Woe; it is drifting out again,
away from consciousness and pain are
never more known. 1t is far, far out TO
ward wilight-toward darkness. 1t dis
appears.
The mothers heart was like heaven
while it lived; now it has ascended 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
! thOughtlessness. She sees hundred wavs
| in which the child would have lived but
| for her! All love is turned into selfcrim-
! nation, Tears come at length to quench
the fire of purgatory. But grief 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 a hundred times. When the
| sharpness is over. and the dullness of an
over spent 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 medicines.
A new thought is slowly preparing. 1t is
that immovable constancy and strength
which sorrow gives when it has wrought
| the divine intent.
Now no Christening for the present seemeth TO be
nevertheless afterwards yield
eth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto then
which are exercised thereby-HEB- XIII IL