The Redwood gazette., 1918-04-03
MOTHER.

~ 0RIVATE Harold R. Peat, Third Battalion
- First Canadians, who had been long in the
Flanders trenches, in one OF his letters &c
,is family in the dominion, writes:
"In the trenches the boys compare the mer-
its of their mothers. 1t is wonderful thing
that spirit of motherhood that surrounds
us, blesses US and leads us to higher things.
We gather in the trench and we talk Of moth
er, mother, mother! Those of US who have
home courage of which we talk-how we
boast Mother is mighty factor in the win
wing of this war!
Home the scene-mother the heroine! A.
But mile away an officer orders "Fire"
and in the twinkling of an eye that trench
scene changes-it is War, with Death hold
ing the center of the stage. The air is filled
with dirt splinters and fragments of steel
that hiss and kill. Three of those sons of
mother writhe horribly-victims of poison
gas! Another is topping through the smoke
-headless! fifth, torn and ood-spattered,
has just strength to fall upon his knees,
stretch his mutilated hands toward heaven
and cry "Mother! Mother!' ere the lights go
out and the plunge into eternity is taken.
In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth Then He made light. Then
created He the armament, the seas and the
land, the grass, the flowers, the trees, the
grains and the seeds thereof, the stars and
the seasons, the and the moon, the fishes,
the birds and all manner of living animals
And He looked upon these things and He said
they were good. And on the sixth day, God
created man in His own image and gave him
dominion over all things. Then God rested;
and as he rested, looked over creation-his
handiwork. Warm zephyrs chased snowy
f1ecks of clouds across the blue skies. The
birds sang. The flowers smiled with their
dimpled faces. The lamb played in peace
about the leopard. The fishes leaped above
the surface of their pools to taste the SUM-
shine. Adams dominion was that of love
/. and peace-and the world was very beauti-
full. But it was not yet complete, God saw,
and
He created Motherhood!
Mother The part that constitutes the
whole-the all of everything!
Infancy, enfolded in her arms, looks up
into the light of her face and sees hope love
and safety. Old age on its deathbed, hun
grily searches the Hereafter with fast-glaz-
ing eyes for her face; and, seeing, knows
that God keeps his promises of heaven in full
frlSOnS oXcluu6 uoT uOC I1eT SplTlt SlCS
beside the cell cot even when the hangman
demands the penalty.
In business crashes, when ruin puts white
on the head and burrows on the face over
night, the man is still cher boy;" and he re-
turns to her and once again is she the gal
vanic cell of new hope, of another inspiration.
When the pale, loved wife is moved, all
in CHASTITY white, into the surgeons room,
it is mothers arms that go round ones
shoulders mothers eye that looks confidence
across the Valley of the Shadow of Death
into the face of the Creator of Mothers.
Life holds no wreck no despair, no test,
no climax that turns her back. Into the
depths of the pit itself she goes, trying to
persuade and comfort and save. Devotion,
loyalty, courage is she-and all the successes
of such.
And in those muddy trenches-the gift of
Prussis, the heritage of an autocracy that
scorns the aim of the Divine Creator and
laughs brutishly at the institution of moth
erhood-with the breath of death settling
down over them, the boys talk of mother,
mother, mother. These are boasts-little
heart ebullitions that are forced out as the
! mental picure grips-My Mother All, my
mother is the best on earth! My mother
said this, said that, which sustains me now.
My mother-such hair, such eyes; and the