The Placer herald., 1874-10-10
MOTHER.
BY MATTHEW BRAMBLE.


What flood of recollections comes sweep.
ing across the mind at the mention of that
sacred name, "Mo,her" How it causes the
heart 10 pulsate with emotion deep and last
ing. Sacred above all others, save the name
Of Deity-in humble alteration, we pay rev.
erence at its shrine. and in and through it
to the One God Eternal.
Mother--from earliest childhood, maturer
manhood. to old age, when the frosts of many
winters shall have whtened our locks-she it
is, ever has been. and ever will be. the guild
ing star of our existence. 1t was she that
formed our first impressions; moulded our
character. as the clay in the hands Of the
potter; taught our young minds the first
principles of honor, truth and virtue, justice
10 our neighbors, respect to ourselves, and
reverence 10 God. From earliest morn TO
latest eve she watches our footsteps, chidelh
gently our errings, and gladdenelh the heart
with concentrations for merted acts.
In the dark days Of despair, when the
soul is enveloped in the mantle Of the shades
Of moral night, what like a mothers hand
can rend the veil assunder and let the glad
rays Of joyousness into the darkened cham
bers Of the heart, turning despair into hope,
sadness into joy, darkness into light?
They tell us of an Indian tree,
Which howsoe' er the sun and sky,
| May tempt its boughs to wander free,
| And shoot. and blossom wild and high
For better loves to bend its arms ',~-4s. ?
| Downward again to that dear earth,
From which the life that fills and warns
1t grateful being first had birth.
'Tis thus, though wooed by Aattering friends,
And fed by fame + fame it be),
This heart my own dear mother, bends,
With loves true instinct back to thee.
4" Can mother forget ?" Not a morning,
noon, or night but she looks into the corner
of the kitchen where we read Robinson
Crnsoe, and thinks of us as yet children.
Mothers rarely become conscious that their
children are grown, and of their childhood
they think of them, advise them, write to
them, as if not full fourteen years of age.
They cannot forget the child. Three times
day she thinks who are absent from the table,
and hopes thatnext year, at the fart lhest, she
may have just her own family there. Did
Hannah forget Samuel? A short sentence,
full of household history and running over
with genuine motherly love, is telling beau
tiful. " Moreover his mother made him n
little coat. and brought it to him from
year to year. when she came up with her
husband to yearly sacrifice.
A mother mourning at her first -born's grave,
or closing the dying eye Of child after child,
displays a grief whose very sacredness is
sublime. But bilterer. heavier, than the
death stroke is the desperation of son, who
rushes over a crushed heart into vices and
the society Of the abandoned and the vile.
Napoleon once asked n lady what France
needed for the education Of her youth? And
the short, profound reply was, Moihers!'
Mothar-ihy teachings direct in the path
Of virtue, and help US to shun the paths Of
vice. Thy example ennobles and helps to
make the man. In the years yet allotted,
where er the wanderers footsteps may stray.
or his lot be cast, the holy memories that
clusters around that one sacred shrine, is The
buckler and shield that guard and guides the
wanderer from the parental roof and father
land. And when our travel upon the ''level
of time" shall he brought to close, whether
abruptly in early manhood Or in old age.
when tie sands Of three score years and tn
shall have all run out, the pous teachings Of
tDOtuer VIII euOO'n tne pIiIOW OF uehVH ana
brighten our hopes Of the Immortality be-
yond.
Cursed be tie man or woman who would
with their nefarious doctrines dispel the holy
charm that surrounds this one being on earth,
whom we hold in reverence a little lower
than the angels. We say cursed be the
wretches who would dethrone our idol, and
make her an amazon, a street babbler, po-
itical dabLler, a haranguer Of mobs. wo-
man no longer save in name Cursed be the
wretch that would despoiI our homes Of this
one holy star Of hope, by Transforming the
nigel which presides over the hear,hstone
into a roisy political demagogue. Wien The
time shall come, If come it ever does, when
woman ehall step down from her exalted
sphere, then woe is man. The last restraint
will be broken; there will be no more happy
ZONES with their sacred memories; moral
lhorns and thistles will grow up on the
hearthstone; childhood will be dreary
waste to look back upon; and life made des-
olate for hobby.
LIE. us keep our mothers and our sacred
memories @ti