Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1905-11-16


made her n lifelong invalid"
Then you turn over another page Of
the old album. and you say: Here IL
my picture whom I was college boy.
We we're having hard time financial
IT, and I used to get awfully discour-
aged, but mother was my support.
She used to write and keep OH writing
to me. She never lost heart. no matter
how black the clouds were. And when
I think of her now can say that
noblcr. purer. better or more self sac.
rificny woman than she never lived.
All that am Is the result Of her sac
rinces made in the crises Of my early
life" oh" you say, II had a good
mother. She certainly did for me what
she could"
Eulogy Of Mothers.
Cannot we all say that our mothers
have broken for us the alabaster box
Of ointment Of spikenard very pre-
cious upon our heads and that they
did what they could? Cannot we be as
euoglstic of our mothers as Sir Thorn
rs More was of his? When Thomas
More was very little boy his mother
went off on visit. He wrote 10 her
his first letter and ended II thus:
Your absence all but III endure.
And none so i'll as Thomas More.
As he grew older and came to great
fame he still seemed to feel that he
could not do anything unless he had
first gone and told her and asked her
advice He wrote every detail of his
life to her. He wrote to her almost
every day of the week. At her death
there were found over 1000 letters
pcnned 10 her by her noble son. And
one of the last acts which he did be-
fore she died was to send one Of his
books 10 her with these beautiful
words written upon the ny leaf: For
her who was the critic of my first in.
the few little essays that follow. The
critic praises from the head-the moth
er praises from the heart With one it
is tribute Of judgment-wth the 9TH
er ii is Il gift from the soul" Was
not that tribute Of England's great
statesman to his mother most beauti-
full? Yet cannot we all give our moth
ers the same tribute? Was there in
our youth any worthy or meritorious
act that was not Of her suggesting or
inspiring?
Is not our position in the world to-
day tribute TO her for what she did
for us? a great cave. like the Mann
moth cave Of Kentucky, has lately been
discovered in Tasmania. Travellers
tell us that after the torches have been
put out some of the cavcrns of that
cave are ablaZe with light from the
millions Of glowwOrms which are kin
ding their phosphorescent lanterns up
on the walls and the roof Of rock. So
every place in the dark Corridors of the
past is ablaze with the lights of ma
ternal self sacrifice. We see these
lights Mt the cradle; we see them bril-
liant at the sick bed; we see them at
college hall and afterward i'll the strug
giles Of our professional and mercan-
tile careers. Wherever we went. as
long as our mothers were alive. we
knew that they were doing for us the
best they could. All, many and many
Is the time they broke for us the ala
baster box Of ointment of spikenard
very precious! Today we lay our gar
lands of tribute upon the graves Of the
beloved mothers who cheerfully did
for US what they could.
But next to our mothers I would
speak Of the mothers of our children.
As praise the sweet faced woman who
bent over our cradle l would now say
q few words in reference TO the wives
who have stood by us so faithfully
and nobly during our struggles Of
young manhood and middle age and,
hope. will continue so to do in our old
age il God will let them live until their
hair Is whitened and their step becomes
infirm. When l look into the past
see how awful might have been the
results II we had had a bad mother in
stead Of good mother In the same
way shudder as think Of what our
lives would have been if our wives had
been selfish or lazy or unworthy in.
stead Of being the self sacrificing de.
voted women whom God has given us.
InAuence of Wives.
The older grow and the more see
Of men the more l believe that they
are, to a great extent, the outsrowths
Of what their wives have done for
them. Every husband. as rule, ap-
pears to me the representative of
wife whom perhaps l have never seen.
When Victor Hugo reached his seven.
tleth birthday his friends from all over
the world sent to him gifts Of flowers.
His home was simply delugod with
them. Showing one Of his rooms filled
with flowers to friend, he turned and
said: "Flowers to me have an lndivid-
ual flavor. They speak the peculiar
language of the people who send them.
Now, most Of the donors of these flow
crs ! have never seen, and yet from
the flowers themselves | can tell who
my friends are. That magnificent lily
came from French florists green
house. The friend who sent me that
must have been n we'll to do Partisan.
This bunch of herbs could only grow
on the Garonne. and that blue star
flower can be- found nowhere but in
Normandy" Thus he Went on. giving
the history Of the different baskets and
bouquets and collections OF wild how-
ers which had been sent TO him as
birthday gifts. AZ Victor Hugo read
the character OF his unseen friends