The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1924-11-12
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1924.
THE WOMAN BEHIND THE MAN

THE WOMAN BEHIND THE MAN
From Sermon by the Rev. Edward T. Sullivan,
Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, Newton
Centre, Mass.
I am taking text from President Coolidge.
l am choosing these words that he emblazoned
on the banner he flung to the breeze at North
amption, in his speech of acceptance:
"The destiny of America lies around the
Hearthstone."
That was the principle that he nailed to the
masthead The Hearthstone, the Home, the Fam
iy-that was his deep concern in that solemn
hour. To exalt and safeguard all that centers
there he pledged himself; and for it's welfare he
would appeal
eff thrift and industry taught there" he
sad eff the example ofs self-sacrifce oft ap-
pears; if honor abide there, and high ideals; if
there the building of fortune be subordinate to
the building of character, America will live in
security, rejoicing in an abundant prosperity
and good government at home, and in peace, re-
spect and confidence abroad
IF these virtues be absent" he warns us,
1'there is no power that can supply these bless
ings. Look we'll, then, to the hearthstone; there
in all hope for Ameria lies"
But the hearthstone is emblem Beside it
is enthroned the mother. 1t is the symbol of
the Empire of Motherhood. The inscription,
therefore, that President Coolidge would write
above the hearthstone of America is: "The Wo-
man Behind the Man."
This thought was expressed with great force
and tenderness in Lincoln Day proclamation
when he governor of Massachusetts,: "About
Lncolns cradle all was poor and mean save only
the source of. all great men, the love of wond-
erful woman. When she faded away in his tend
years, from her deathbed in humble poverty
she lowered her son with greatness. There
be no proper observance of birthday which for
gets the mother"
When God wants an important thing done
in this world, wrong righted, he goes about
it in very singular way. He doesn't release
his thunderbolts nor stir up his earthquakes. He
simply has tiny, helpless baby born, perhaps in
very obscure home, perhaps of very humble
mother. And he puts the idea purpose into
a mothers heart. And she puts it in the baby's
mind, and then-God waits!
The great events babies The great
facts of life mother and child
Mary of Nazareth exclaimed, "My soul doth
magnify the Lord and all generations shall call
me blessed" All generations have called her
blessed, not because she was woman, but be-
cause she was mother!
It is even more true that women make the men,
Every man is the product of what some one
two three women have made him-mother
wife, sister, daughter
Not alone upon the sweat and Drawn that
felled the trees is our great nation built, but on
the hearts that broke and gave sign; that
consumed their own smoke, and even converted
it into flame and kept their sorrow that it did
not spread; that lived the pioneers lfe though
often without the pioneers tastes call, but
for their loyalty and love bravely carried on until
God closed their wistful and longing eyes with the
merciful curtain of death.
History records the great deeds of the daunt-
less pioneers. Only between the lines of the
story does the Imagination read the hidden hero
isms of the silent and the obscure. They are
the anonymous benefactors Of the world-these
women behind the men!
President Coolidge, after taking the oath of
office in his fathers parlor, went to the little
cemetery, and stood reverently at the grave of
his mother, before taking up his journey to Wash
ington.
1t is common knowledge, but it is one of the
aforementioned facts of human life-that our hui
mainly is more in need of those special ministries
called mothering than of any other-and we need
them longer. Indeed never outgrow that
need. And the recognition of that fact is in
dicated in those ancient words which represent
God as saying: GAS one whom his mother COM
forteth so will comfort you."
Women are the soul of the nation. If the
soul falters the nation falls Women the
soul of the fighting for foothold on the bleak
shores of continent, or fighting to keep our
social and political life free from the forces of
evil.
A mother is a mother anywhere, any time.
Not long ago the newspapers told of mother
in New York state whose friends recommended
her for Carnegie medal for heroism.
This mother climbed down the slippery walls
of well fifty feet deep-not knowing how deep
the water was in the bottom-and rescued her
small son who had fallen into the well. She
pressed the water out of his lungs-threw him
over her shoulder struggled her way up from
ledge to ledge on the protruding, treacherous and
slippery stones-holding the heavy and half-con-
scious child on her back and carried him to safe
ty!
And two days later baby sister was born