The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1918-03-14
THE FACTOR or FACTORS

Private Harold T. Peat, Third Battalion, First
Canadians, long in the Flanders trenches has a
relief from the nerve-tearing strain and writes
thus on trench life to his folks in the Dominion:
"In the trenches the boys compare the merits
of their mothers
1T is a wonderful thing, that spirit Of mother
hood that surrounds u.s. blesses us and leads US
to higher things We gather in the trench and
we talk of mother-mother- mother.
"Those of us who have a home courage Of
which we tak-how we boast! Mother is a
mighty factor in the winning of this war;
Home the scene-nother the heroine! But, a
mile away, an officer orders "Fire!" and, in an
instant, that trench scene 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 mothers writhe
horribly-gassed! Another is topping through
the smoke headless: fourth, torn and blood
spattered has just strength to fall upon his knees,
stretch his mutilated hands toward heaven, and
cry, Mother! Motherv' before all becomes black
to him.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and
the earth. Then He made light. Then created He
the armament, the seas and land, the grass, the
flowers, the trees, the grains and the seeds there
Of, the stars and the seasons, the sun and the
moon, the fishes, the birds and all manner of living
animals, created He them
And God saw it was good.
And on the sixth day, God created man, in His
own image, and gave him dominion over all things.
And behold God saw it was better
Then God rested and, as He rested, looked over
Creation, Warm zephyrs chased snowy flecks of
clouds across the blue sky. The birds sang. The
flowers smiled with their lovely faces. The lamb
played in peace about the leopard. The fishes
.leaped above the surface Of their pools to taste
the sunshine. Adams dominion was that of love
and peace, and Creation was very beautiful. And
after resting and studying His Work, God created
motherhood.
And He saw it was finished, perfect.
Mother! The part that constitutes the whole.
The all of everything!
Infancy, enfclded in her arms, looks up into
the light of her face and hope love and safety
Old age on its death-bed, hungrily searches the
hereafter with fast glazing eyes for her face and,
seeing, knows that God keeps all His promises of
heaven, in full.
Prisons exclude her not. Her spirit sits beside
the cell cot even when the hangman demands the
penalty
In business crash, when ruin puts white in the
,ead and scars in the face, over night, the man is
still her boy" and youth returns to her and once
she the galvanc cell of hope and inspira-
vnen the pale, loved wife is moved, all in
CHASTITY white, into the surgeons room, it's moth
er's arms that go round ones shoulders, mothers
eyes that look with confidence across the Valley
of the Shadow Of Death into the face of the Crea-
tor of mothers.
Life holds no wreck, no despair, no test, no
climax that turns her back Into the depths of the
pit itself =she reaches, ito tryoto lift and save.
Devotion yaltyj courage is she, and all the sue
cesses Of such. tei ttttl ,llii
Yes in the trenches, as if the runwaysl Of
human rats, with mud at their feet and the breath
-.- ess s-,.s--