The Monmouth inquirer. [volume] (Freehold, N.J.) 1865-1933, 1905-11-16

there. she must nave LnOugnI SOOu
deal of me to put so much work on
that dress when she had so much to do.
And there is my picture taken just aft
er my long attack of typhoid fever.
MY, l look sick there, don't /? They
tell me she never left my room for six
long weeks The doctors gave me up,
but she never did. They say l would
have died but for her. And further
more they say that it was her devotion
to me that broke down her health and
made her lifelong invalid"
Then you turn over another page of
the old album, and you say: Here is
my picture when l was college boy.
We were having a hard time financial
| ", and | used to get awfully discour-
aged. but mother was my support
She used to write and keep on writing
to me- She never lost heart, no matter
how black the clouds were. And when
think of her now / can say that
nobler. purer, better or more self sac
rificing woman than she never lived.
All that l am is the result of her sac
rifices made in the crises of my early
life.' "Oh," you say, 81 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
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 her
his first letter and ended it thus:
/ Your absence all but Ill endure,
And none so Ill as Thomas More.
/ AS he grew older and came to great
I 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
penned to her by her noble son. And
one of the last acts which he did be-
books to her with these beautiful
words written upon the fly leaf: For
her who was the critic of my first in
FAINT productions l 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 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 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 abIaze 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 hall 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 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 l would
speak of the mothers of our children.
AS L praise the sweet faced woman who
bent over our cradle l would now say
a 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 if God will let them live until their
hair is whitened and their step becomes
infirm When l look into the past l
see how awful might have been the
results if we had had a bad mother in
stead of a good mother. In the same
way l shudder as I 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.
influence of Wives.
The older l grow and the more l see
of men the more l believe that they
are, to a great extent, the outgrowths
of what their wives have done for
them. Every husband, as rule, ap-
pears to me the representative of a
wife whom perhaps have never seen.
When Victor Hugo reached his seven
tieth birthday bis friends from all over
the world sent to him gifts of flowers.
His home was simply deluged with
them. Showing one of his rooms filled
with flowers to friend, he turned and
said: FLOWERS to me have an individ-
nal flavor They sneak the Deculiar