"IS THAT YOU MOTHER?"

Evening Star, Issue 16263, 4 November 1916, Page 2

"IS THAT YOU MOTHER?"

■ $Ve have' referred in a former .article to the songs of soldiers. We found two main notes struck in* these songs—Home and Mother. We wrote this day week of 'Home. Wo want in this article to deal with the other" prominent note in these songs:—Mother. It has a very poignant and pointed lesson for us. ******* j* .Many years ago James Russell Lowell sang: To learn this lesson need we go To Paris or-to Rome: That the- many make the household* But only one the home. That is very true. There is usually someone, when wc think of Home, tluit stands out prominently there, aud gives sweetness and sacredness to tire name. Sometimes it is a father, or sister, or child; or brother—most often it is Mother. Sho is the i-eal maker of the home. Shemakes it heaven—or hell. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that in the supremo moments of life, even when reason is reeling on its throne, the mind turns to her. There is no end of illustrations of this in the battlefields of to-day. equally with those of yesterday. A chaplain teljs how in one of the base hospitals in France he camo upon a lad mortally wounded, and asked if there was anything ho could xio for lum. He'said that ho would like a drink. When the chaplain returned with it the soldier's mind was wandering. After a little he recovered Jiimself and said: "Arc you still there, sir?" "Yes, lad." "I do hope my Mother is not "worrying about me, sir. I do wish she " was here, for I want her so badly." Then the sea drew him under again. The chaplain laid his hand on the brow of the lad, and the latter said: "Is that you,' " Mother. I have been wanting you so " badly." Then he oommenoed to say : '".Here's a friend for little children. " Again he recovered himself and said: "Are you still there, sir?" "Yes." "Do "you think my mother would come if I "asked her, sir?" "Of course she would, my lad." "Then will you bring her, sir?" " I told him that if he would promise to go to sleep I would do what I could to bring her. Ho closed his eyes and said ' Good" night, Mater.' And when lie woke again 'ho had another morn than ours.'" ******* The above incident recalls one or two other similar stories. In the .American War, a soldier in one of the southern hospitals lay desperately wounded—both eyes shot away, delirious, cursing the men who shot him, and altogether uncontrollable. The chaplain noticed a small Bible sticking out of his pocket. He took it, and found on the flyleaf "Wade Golsley, from his -Mother." Putting his band on the lad's head, the chaplain said: "Wade, my boy." Immediately ho stretched out his arms and said: "Mother, is that you?" Then he began to sob. The mention of his Mother's name made him rational, softened and sobered him as he thought of her thinking of him and praying for her only boy away in the old home. And on that thought he died. ******* An old Crimean veteran relates how in the Balaclava fight he fell wounded and lay on the ground, with the snow gradually covering him up in its shroud. Then he heard a piteous voice crying " Mother! Mother! Mother!" It was a, little drummer chap, with his face half shot away. By and by a light appeared, coming nearer and neai-er. It was a woman. It was Florence Nightingale. She had heard the cry, and v. as making straight for the lad. Sho knelt down by him in the snow, ami put her arm imder his poor head. Ho heard the boy say: "O Mother, I knew you'd come." And then fast folded in her loving arms, his bleeding face on her breast ho died. The boy's trust recalls Kiplin«*s lines; If ,J ,Y el ' e longed on the highest hill, .Mother o mine, mother o' mine I know whose love would follow me still Mother o mine, 0 mother o' mine. * * * * * * # Perhaps one of the most touching stories of this sort is one told of President Lincoln. After the battle of "Bull's Run," Lincoln hurried away down to visit the wounded. Going round the wards, he came upon a lad, not more than 18, who was dying. Ho stopped and spoke to him. " Is there anything I can do for you, my b °y ? " (( " Yes/' said the latter. " What is it?" "Would you mind writing a letter "to my Mother. Sho little thinks I am "hero to-day."" So Lincoln sat down, wrote tho letter, signed his own name on the corner of it, and handed it to the boy. The latter did not know it was Lincoln who had been talking to him, and when he saw the name ho looked up in amazement and said: "Are you—President Lincoln?" "Yes," said Lincoln, "I am." "Well, sir," said the boy, "I did the best I could for you and my country." "Yes," said Lincoln, "I hear you have "been a good soldier. Is there anything "else I could do for you?' "Yesj sir," answered tho boy. ""What is' it?" " Would you mind taking Mother's place "and holding my hand till I am through. " I won't be very long." And the President sat down, took the boy's hand in his, and held it from 4 o'clock to 5. "And then the boy's spirit passed to "where the war "drum throbs no longer and the battle " flags are furled." ******* Curious, this longing at death to have the hands held by others. A writer in the 'Manchester Guardian' writes: "I stopped for a few minutes by "the side of a German who was dying. " He was in great pain. And when I 'asked "him what I could do for him he said, in "a pathetic tone that went to my heart: '"Nothing, unless you would bo so good " as to hold my hand till it is all over.' 1 "gave him my hand, and .stayed to the " end. It seemed to comfort the poor " chap a lot." Is this desire to have a stronger hand than our own grasping us at tho last a reversion to childhood's days? In his lovely hook, 'The Invisible Playmate,' William Canton writes: 'When a baby is restless and fretful, hold its hands! That steadies it. It is not used to the speed at which the earth revolves and the solar system whirls towards the starry aspect of Hercules (half a million mile's a day '.). Or it may be that;, coming out of* the vortex of atoms, it is subconscious of some sense of falling through the void. The gigantic paternal hands close round tho warm, tiny, twitching fists, soft as grass, firm as the everlasting hills. 1 wonder if those worthy old Hebrews had any notion of this when they prayed: "Hold Thou my hand"? And readers of George Macdonald's great novel, ' Robert Falconer,' will remember how Dr Anderson died. Robert and he had been talking about tho end. Then thero was silence for a bit. And after a while Robert heard: "Father, Father, "I'm gaen' doon. Haud a grupo' my "hands." And the author writes : "When " they hurried to the bedside all was over. "The thin right hand lay partly closed "*as if it had been grasping a larger hand." And why not? The answer would lead us away from our main subject, so we come back to it. We may quote one or two more incidents to show the place

Mother occupies in the supreme crises of life. A soldier writes that "it would cheer "many a Mother to hear her boy out here "singing the old'Gpspel hymns she taught "him in his childhood days." Here is a significant extract from another soldier's letter: ' On Sunday the parson held a service on the battlefield very near the trenches. Three hundred of us stood up. The parson said prayers. We. had hymns. We were all singing away in fine style till wc came to the lines: "Can a woman's 'tender care Cease toward the child she bare?" Funny thing, but, do yon know, we couldn't go on singing it. We had to leave that verse out.- *#*#**# : This turning to Mother has a philosophical as well as a psychological interest. It js found in every land and among all races. Sir Richard Burton mentions that in East Africa a common exclamation of the natives in fear or wonder is "Mama! Mama!" In Western Africa it is the same. When a Burnian is terrified or excited he cries out " Ameh"—i.e., Mother. And so in almost every country. (By the way, it is curious that it is nearly always the son who turns to the Mother. The instances of the daughter doing it are rare," or, at any rate, far less frequent.) It is this same instinct of Motherhood that has placed the Virgin Mother on a throne hardly subordinate to that of her Divine Son. The worship of the Virgin, it is argued by many, grows out of the -desire of the human lieart to have a Mother-sido in the Eternal Father. When we speak of God now as " He" all educated persons -understand tliat He is a pronoun, not of sex, but of personality. When this is forgotten wo get crude, gross ideas of the Deity. Thus, an old woman said to an parson not long ago that there were four Persons in the Godhead. She called the fourth " God, the Mother." for she argued we must have the Mother in God. IJer theology was a bit mixed, but her religious instinct was right. It was this instinct that led to the introduction of a female object of worship into the pagan religions. But we must not pursue this aspect of the subject further. We must, like the preacher, come to the conclusion. ******* The conclusion is supposed to be practical. And ours is 'very much so. In the face of the foregoing facts, which might bo multiplied indefinitely, Mothers may lift up their heads. They give new emphasis to the old saying, " The hand that rocks the cradle rules the World." We are hearing a great deal of talk just now about organising trade and commerce after the war is over. Meetings are being held everywhere tp discuss theories and elaborate plans. That is all right, no doubt: but the greatest industry that any nation can undertake is the production of Mothers—Mothers of the right kind. There is need that this should be insisted on and planned for. Many influences are working in an opposite direction. In one of Stevenson's books there is a doctor who says to his wife that children are the last word'of imperfection. They are a bit of a nuisance. " They demand " to be fed, to be washed, to be educated, "to have their noses blowed. ... A " pair of professed egoists like you and "mo should avoid offspring like an "infidelity." That is a blunt expression of sentiments that are simmering in the minds of multitudes. That way lie individual and national ruin. But philosophy of this kind is the trend of modern life. Its passion, its pleasure, its profit are all threatening to push society over the precipice. They who can arrest that fatal push deserve the name of saviours. Among these history will give a high place to Dr Truby King and his Plunket Nurses. The blood shed in this war will not have been wholly in vain if it stains in upon the national consciousness the value, as it has done the suffering, of Mothers. Among all our manufactures thero is none to be compared with the manufacture of good Mothers. The Jewish proverb hardly exaggerated, when it affirmed " that God could not be everywliere, so he made Mothers." Sir J. M. Barrie once said that a man may learn more at his Mother's knee than swaggering about on three continents. He was speaking out of his own happy experience. In the beautiful tribute which ho pays to his Mother in ' Margaret Ogilvy' he says of her eyes : In them I have read all I know or would ever care to write. For when you looked into my Mother's eyes vou know as if she had told you why God sent her into the world. It was to open the minds of all who looked to beautiful thoughts. . . . Those eyes, that I could not see till I was six years old, have guided me through life, and. I pray God they may remain my onlv earthly judge to the last. The nation that can produce Mothers who will win testimonies like that from their sons makes history and holds the future in fee.