The Monitor., 1890-05-02
MOTHERS AND THE FUTURE.

in Maine who received letter which ran
like this: 'Willie is sick; he is dying"
The mother read the letter, and, looking
up to her husband, said: "Father, must
go to Willie" ''No, wife; you cannot CO."
he replied. ''You know there is line of
bullets and bayonets between you and
Willie" She did what the Christian
mother always does when her boy is in
peril. She spread that letter before the
Lord and prayed all night. Next morning
she said: Father, | must go to Willie.
| must" "Well, wife," he said, 81 do
not know what will come of this, but of
course, if you will go, there's the money"
She came down here to Washington, and
the man in the Executive Mansion, who
had heart as tender as woman, while
he had strong, yalorous, achieving man.
hood-Abraham Lincoln--brushed away
tear as he wrote. and handing her paper,
said: "Madam. that will take you to the
enemy's line, but what will become of you
after you get there cannot tell"
She took the paper and came on down
to the line, and out came picket; she
handed him the pass, and he looked at it
and at her, and said: 1--WE don't take
that thing here 81 know it," she said;
'but Willie. my boy, is dying in Rich
mond prison, and am going to him. Now
shoot" He did not shoot but stood awed
and hushed in the presence of love that
is more like Gods than any other that
surges in the human soul in its deathless
unselfshness.
Tennyson says:
"Love took up the harp of life, and smote on
all the chords with might
smote the chord of self, that trembling, passed
in music out of sight
All that mother thought of as her boy.
Struggled through the lines, she went
down to the hospital The surgeon said to
her, MADAM, you must be very careful,
your boy will survive no excitement" She
crept past cot after cot, and knelt at the
foot of the one where her boy lay, and
putting up her hands prayed in smothered
tones, 80, God, spare my boy" The
sick man raised his white hands from un-
der the sheet; the sound of his mothers
voice had gone clear down into the valley
and shadow of death, where the soul of the
young man was going out in its ebbing
tide. Raising his hands he said, Mother,
! knew you would come" The boy is a
man to-day, saved by mothers love.
1t is the same deathless mothers love
that has knocked at the doors OF the
schools through State legislatures, and is
to-day knocking at the door of our national
capitol, asking that the boys may be
taught. We women lay down at the
cradle our youth, our beauty, our talents,
anything, everything, to the little bit of
humanity there. We cannot help it. 1t
is Gods providence for the child; and may
it not likew se be God IS providence for the
nation that has reused the heart of women
and called the deathless tides of mother
love to participate in this great movement?
If we save the children to-day We shall
have saved the nation tomorrow.
Little drops of dew and rain with melted
snow and ice trickling down the hillsides
and running through the valleys of the
upper half of this continent unite to form
the five great lakes We call our inland
seas. The united waters of four Of these
lakes as if d:sdainful of limitations, cut
ting their way through deep, rocky
channel, into the fifth lake, Ontario. rush
through that by the River st. Lawrence to
the sea. In the midst of this rocky chan
mel is mighty precipice over which with
mad, irresistible fury it plunges into the
frothy, seething abyss below. We call
that Niagara Falls. 1t is the grandest
scene on this globe. 1t was my fortune to
stand in its presence not long ago. The
one overmastering impression was that OF
power-irresistible, omnipotent power.
How weak seemed the boast of man in
that presence that he was the lord of crea-
ton! went over on the Canadian side
and put on that rubber suit which made
you look like an old Norseman, and then
went down the steep, winding, slippery
steps to the foot of the great Horseshoe
Falls. For awful majesty it was incom-
parable. Waiting a moment until the
wind had blown from my eyes the mist
that like incense from natures altar is
forever ascending there. the guide led me
in back of the cataract My very soul
stood still for the awfulness of the power
that enveloped, surrounded me. The sun
was shining on the outside of that mighty
torrent back of which | was clinging to
the narrow, slippery ledge and through
which | looked, where Its fretted edges
were broken by the projecting ledge above,
and behold that mighty torrent that shut
me in like the walls of a tent was only the
sum, the aggregate of those very identical
little drops of dew and rain that with
melted snow and ice had trickled down
the hillsides and run through the valleys
of the upper half of this continent, and
were massed here in such display of
power as no words in my vocabulary
could express until with bated breath |
whispered, ''God." Such, under q gov
eminent of majorities Is the uprising of
mighty people when, as one man, they de-
nounce evil. Such a ror populi is a cor