AN OLD-FASHIONED MOTHER.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1480, 7 November 1874, Page 6 (Supplement)

AN OLD-FASHIONED MOTHER.

Thank God some of us had an oldfashioned mother. Not a woman of the period enammelled and painted, with her great chignon, lie cuffs and bustles, whose white jewelled hand never felt the clasp of baby fingei\s ; but a dear, old-fashioned, sweet-voiced mother, with eyes in whose clear depths the love-light shone, and brown hair just threaded with. silver, lying smooth upon her faded cheek. Those dear hands, worn withtoij, gently guided our tottering steps in childhood and smoothed our pillow in sickness; even reaching out to us in yearing tenderness when her sweet spirit was baptized in the pearly spray of the river. Blessed is the memory of an old-fashioned mother. It floats to us now like the beautiful perfume from woodland blossoms. The music of other voices may be lost, but the entrancing memory of her echoes to our soul forever. Other faces may fade away and be forgotten, but her's will shine on until the light from heaven's portals ■ will glorify our own. When the fitful pauses of busy feet wander backto the old home-

stead, and. crossing the well-worn threshold, stand once more in the low, quaint room, so hallowed by her presence, how the feeling of childish innocence and dependence come over us, and we kneel down in the molten sunshine streaming in the western window, just where long years ago we knelt by our mother's knee, lisping "Our Father." How many times, when the tempter lures us on, has the memory of those sacred hours, that mother's words, her faith and her prayers, saved us from plunging into the deep abyss of sin. Years have filled great drifts between her and us, but they have not hidden from our sight the glory of her pure, unselfish love.