The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-07-11
IMPORTANT HOME SUGGESTIONS.
Mother and Daughter.
BY MARY LOWE DICKINSON,
General Secretary of the Society Kings Daughters
SPECIAL ARTICLE.

essential nobleness of character when
there comes into it deceit in action, in
thought, in speech, or any plan or scheme
that must be hidden from the highest
home love of which the world can know.
In that subtle separation of heart and
thought that comes between parents
and children, especially when it comes
between mother and daughter, lie the
beginnings Of the ultimate destruction
of all that high and noble sentiment
whose presence makes the home, and
without which no true home exists. A
disintegrating and deteriorating process
begins with the first separation; and yet
the mothers into whose faces we look
today, if their eyes gave back the true
answer of their souls, would reveal by
their looks, though the trembling lips
might refuse to utter the word, the
awful fact that in innumerable homes
this process has long been going on.
The contrast between this state of
things and the life where the confidence
still remains, is one of the things not
only recognized, but felt us one of the
strong factors in the beauty of manly
and womanly nature. The question of
this loss of our children out OF our inner
most hearts really underlies many an
other problem that we are trying to solve
from the outside, when the true secret of
its solution lies in this inward situation of
which we do not like to speak. If mothers
hearts were not often too sad to speak,
or If we did not guard our family life by
that pride that keeps our home hurts
from other women-if the veil we're once
lifted from the experience of mothers in
this particular. we should find ourselves
at once transformed into a conference,
in which we should be most eager to
discuss the question, "How shall we find
and win back again the little ones that
we have lost, the children out of whose
hearts has departed the loving, clinginG
sense of childhood, the clear eyed frank
ness that speaks out the hope and long
ing and thought and aspirations and
desires. in full confidence that all these
things will be welcomed and shared by
the heart of the mother?"
Women, recognizing what they have
lost, gladly study the problem of how to
win back this most precious treasure of
confidence and love. They would be
ready to ask to what extent they them.
selves are responsible for the lack of it,
and to see what influences they can
bring to bear toward a gathering up of
their own scattered treasures. Com
pared to this treasure of absolute, trust
full affection, nothing else that the world
has given or can give counts for a mo-
ment with the true mother. Her daugh-
ter's life is her own domain, and how to
find her way back into it, if once she
finds herself excluded from it, is prob
lem worthy most strenuous and thought
full study. Her experience in finding
her way back into the land of these
younger lives, having found herself out
side, cannot fail to be helpful to other
mothers. and that experience is invited
by the author OF these words.
Answer for us the following questions:
Are you acquainted with your own
daughter?
Is it true that you know her, and she
is glad to have you know her?
To what extent are you allowed to
share the inner life of her thought and
feeling and purpose?
II you have lost her, how are you go.
ing to win her back?
If you have her still, how are you 60
ing to keep her?
For the sake Of other mothers mourn
ing for their children while yet no grave
sod covers their dead faces, let US all
profit by that which you have learned;
and the result of this conference of
mothers" may be the finding of more
than one child now as truly lost as if
the young face were under the daisies
and the dear name were cut in stone.
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