Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1910-05-10
THE DEBT WE OWE OUR
MOTHERS.

Last Sunday was Mothers Day
In many communities men and wo-
men, young and old, wore white flow
ers as testimonial to the love, the
purity and the self-sacrfficing deyo-
ton of the mothers of the land. The
sentiment is a very pretty one. it
may serve to awaken a deeper appre-
citation of what motherhood means,
it may arouse in many breasts a feel
ing of more tender affection and bring
outward evidences of the appreciation
that many fail to express in everyday
life. Unfortunately too many men and
women, too, for that matter, take it
for granted that their love is known
and only when it is too late realize
that unexpressed affection is of little
value in Frightening the pathway of
life, in scattering flowers whose fra
GRANGE will tighten the daily tolls and
lessen the monotony that bears like
a heavy weight upon many patient and
eyer-burdened souls.
Editorials appeared in many papers
of Saturday and Sunday with reference
to this observance of the day. The one
that seemed to enter most sympathet-
ically into the spirit of Mothers
Day" was the following, which ap-
peared in the Baltimore Sun:
1t is a beautiful idea, this setting
apart of tie first Sunday in May as
Mothers Day and in this age, in
which reverence for sacred things
seems to be declining, any movement
that will recall to the minds of men
the sacrifices, the toll and the heart
aches their mothers have borne for
them is good.
Gen Robt. E. Lee in a notable let
ter to his son wrote that duty was
the noblest word in the Language. The
word mother" is still nobler, for it
compasses duty and love and tender
ness and self-sacrifice, all to an in
finite degree. So let us wear white
flowers gladly, yet remembering that
the debt we owe our mothers is not
to be repaid by the wearing of a flower
on any one day The going down in
to the valley of the great shadow, the
weary nights spent beside the sick
bed in agonized prayer that the dear
ones life might be spared, the never
ending tasks, joyfully done that son
or daughter might be made glad the
struggles and burdens of her who
has had to be mother and father also.
no -faF, 4,7or
strings because all might not be well
with the absent one, the tender guild
| ance of faltering footsteps, the in
slant forgiveness and the hiding OF
the hurt caused by the thoughtless
Word-these things can only be repaid
| If repaid at all-in the coin of It's
kind-the tenderest love that lasts al
ways in the grateful heart For the
mother spends freely of her life fol
| her child, asking no return save love
and he most honors himself who give!
her this in largest measure, not on
one day only but on all the days 0
his life, remembering that "a mothe
is a mother still, the hottest thinj
alive" And as holy thing sh
should have a shrine in the heart o
each of.us before which we may burr
the incense of honor and loyalty an
true devotion.
We hear much these days of wo
mans mission. There can be non
greater. Dean Swift wrote on packe
containing one of Stella's locks: con
ly a woman's hair" Thackeray wrot
OF tits: only love, only fidelity, onl
purity, innocence, beauty" These, AT
ter all, are the greatest things il
the world, and these moral qualiti
are combined in true motherhood t
guide the steps of children into path
Of truth and duty and love and right
eousness, and through them to rails
the world into purer and higher at
mOsphere.