Milford chronicle., 1905-11-17
EnIorr nf nInthera.


Cannot we all say that our mother
have broken for us the alabaster bO,
of ointment Of spikenard very pre-
cious upon our heads, and that the,
did what they could? Cannot we be Al
eulOgistic of our mothers as Sir Thorn
as More was of his? When Thomas
More was very little boy his mother
went off on a visit. He wrote to hel
his first letter and ended it thus:
Your absence all but i'll 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 We're found over 1000 letters
penned to 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 to her with these beautiful
words written upon the fly leaf: For
her who was the critic Of my first in
FAINT productions I have transcribed
the few little essays that follow The
critic praises from the head-the moth
er praises from the heart. With one it
is a tribute of judgment-with the 9TH
er it is a gift from the soul" Was
not that tribute of Englands great
statesman to his mother most beauti-
ful? 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 a tribute to her for what she did
for us? A great cave, like the Nam
moth cave of Kentucky, has lately been
discovered in Tasmania. Travellers
tell us that after the torches have been
put out some of the caverns 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 at the cradle; we see them bril- (
liant at the sick bed; we see them at
college hail and afterward in the strug-
giles Of our professional and mercan-
tile careers. Wherever we went, as
long as our mothers were alive, we
knew that they We're doing for us the
best they could. All, many and many
Is the time they broke for US the ala
Jaster box of ointment of spikenard
very preciousl Today we lay our gar
ands Of tribute upon the graves of the
beloved mothers who cheerfully did
'or 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
Jent over our cradle | would now say
/ few words in reference to the wives
Who have stood by us so faithfully
md nobly during our struggles of
-oUng manhood and middle age and, l
iope, will continue so to do in our old
ge if God will let them live until their
air is whitened and their step becomes
nfrm. When l look into the past /
ee how awful might have been the
esults if we had had bad mother in
tead of a good mother. III the same
ray l shudder as / think of what our ;
yes would have been if our wives had
cen selfish or lazy or unworthy in
tead of being the self sacrificing, de- y
Oted women whom God has given us.
influence of Wives. J
The older l grow and the more l see S
T men the more I believe that they /
re, TO a great extent, the outgrowths J
what their wives have done for G
iem Every husband, as rule, ap- /
ears to me the representative Of a !
ife whom perhaps l have never seen. i
hen Victor Hugo reached his seven b
eth birthday his friends from all over i
e world sent to him gifts of flowers. f
is home was simply deluged with b
EN-. Showing one Of his rooms filled v
it'll flowers to friend, he turne and f
id: "Flowers to me have an individ- c
i flavor They speak the peculiar
nguage Of the people who send them. s.
NV, most Of the donors of these flow n
s / have never seen, and yet from t.
e flowers themselves I can tell who p
= friends are. That magnificent lily L
me from a French florists green h
use The friend who sent me that Il
lst have been a well to do Partisan. tC
lis bunch Of herbs could only grow b
the GarOnne, and that blue star al
wer can be found nowhere but in st
Thus he went on, giving Il
, history Of the different baskets and NJ
lquets and collections Of wild flow hC
which had been sent to him as bt
thday gifts. As Victor Hugo read IA
characters Of his unseen friends 81