Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-09-10
A Word for Tender Hearts.

Take the mother-in-law. Is there
nothing sacred left for mans venera-
ton? Has it come to pass that the
divine love and the tireless zeal of
motherhood are without honor in this
land? A nation gutfawing over vile
iests at a mothers expense! Daily pa
pers, that should be the organs where
by honor and purity and prcbity are ad-
vanced, pandering to the taste that
selects q woman and mother as the
target of its ridicule! No wonder the
entire social economy is out of order,
and trickery and misrule sit in high
places in nation where reverence and
respect are out of date. Our grand
mothers tell us, as one recalls the
legends of forgotten past, of time
when children were taught to reverence
the aged, when young men were chival-
rous and old men were courtly gentle
men, yielding beautiful Difference to
woman as her right, and to motherhood
at the coronation that made woman
Queen of Heaven. But what q change the
present generation has wrought Where
is the eye that kindles when the laugh
goes round at the expense of defense
less woman, or the jest that crowns
with dishonor the sacredness of the
hoary head? Did you ever stop to think
of all that is involved in the term
"Mother?" A mother has received from
heaven heavens purest gift-a precious
baby. She has brooded over every mo-
ment of it's infant life. She has stood
next to God in its helplessness. She
has nursed it through terrible illness.
She has guided and controlled, prayed
away temptation, and interposed her
own bosom between the shafts of sor-
row and its tender heart. Her child
has grown to womanhood, dear as her
own soul, as necessary to her life as
sunshine is to the earth, when 10! up
comes dapper youth and beckons her
girl away. When love leads, young
feet will follow, and the mother heart
is robbed of it's treasure. Given
over to the care of a stranger
the lamb for whom the mothers
heart was the tender fold! I declare,
when I think Of it, wonder there is a
sane mother-in-law in the world! What
is lioness robbed of her whelps COM
pared to the mother from whom the
daughter is taken? As / write, the
vision passes before me of the youth
who shall one day come wooing my
girl. behold his smiles and his blan-
dishments. I listen to his pleadlngs,
and I am aware of q subtle change
through all my being. Ferocity springs
up where erst the pale blossom of peace
shed it's fragrance. A strange pug
nacitv asserts itself in the place of my
uniform lamblikeness, and I feel an
earnest desire to warn that young man
to bide away. It will be safer for you,
O youth Of the shadowy future, to
stay your hand from plucking the rose
that sweetens my bit Of garden. The
world is wide, and full Of roses that
CLINT and glow pray you leave mine
to me. But if, indeed, you do tarry to
take from me the blossom of my heart,
be tender of the mother you are rob-
bling, lenient with the faults that spring
from q jealousy made sacred by the
mother love that nourished it, and al
ways considerate of the heart that was
the cradle of love that is only ap-
preached in it's divine self-abnegation
by the love of God to man.-Chicago
Journal