SUNDAY READING

Hutt News, Volume 6, Issue 50, 23 May 1934, Page 2

SUNDAY READING

MOTHER. Sunday was "Mothers' Day.". S*rely it was a God given special idea that framed this term and sent it forth to centre tho thoughs of millions people on her who gave them birth, and nursed and cared for them through those early years when young humanity is as absolutely dependent upon some one who cares I Mother 1 what a world of thoughtful reminiscense is awakened by that wonderful word which has been named- in company with the word j | God, as the greatest word in any language. It has no worthy definition, no real substitute. We have so long been burdened by such words as mater, ma and mamma, which are such poor substitutes for the grandest word in the world that wo have como to delight in the simple word Mum, as used toy little children, and if at all developing becoming pure Mother as the years roll on. Words are the recallers of facts and incidents closely associated with them. What word can possibly rival Mother, in sending us away back to remember the sights, the incidents, the facts, yea the very, voice that filled us with abounding love in these seeming- _ ly forgotten days I Has not that great £ word, still power to bring that strange lump in the hroatj and those warm tears to our eyes! They are not now tears of | sorrow but of wondrous joy, the prduct of love, aroused by the influence of the name of her who was to us the most wonderful being on earth. Most assuredly death cannot sever that tie which binds us to her who ever proved to be kind and thoughtful and loving, and as Jane Taylor so beautifully puts it, "Who ran to help me when I fell, And would some [pretty story tell, Or kiss the place to make it well? My Mother." ' \ One finds it difficult to express in words, many of those acts of mother, seemingly simple at the time, yet the passing years have proved them to have been acts of astonishing sacrifice. This word sacrifice leads us on to the great thought that a muther's life has been one of almost continuous sacrifice. From the birth of her child onward through life she is eve? giving up something for her offspring, and she has proved in many and varied instances that a mother places hes child's life before her own. How frequently have we learned of mothers giving their own lives to save those* of the : r children. She has rushed into the raging furnace of her burning homo to endeavour to save the young life, often without avail. She has faced the murderous savage in her and lias braved the terrors of wild beasts, of storin, of hunger, of the sandy desert and the great sea, that her child might be saved. These may be and are great sneril'ces, but there are daily, even hourly sacrifices which aie rarely mentioned and ever made with j tho utmost love. Ouly when we become parents can we in any real sense understand the sacrifices made by our mothers* We sometimes speak of the astonishing sacrifices made by our pioneer mothers when life was not so easy as it can bo to-day, and our love forces us to recognise the greatness of their physical and mental efforts on our behalf. 1 yet rarely hear those mothers say one word' regarding their hardships undertaken on behalf of their children. During a pleasant evening's quiet talk, one may hear those mothers telling what wonderful things God did for them when thay were seemingly beyond all human aid; always do they emphasize their Father's loving kindness to them, but their own sacrifice is as nothing, not worthy even to be mentioned in the same evening. One cannot help wondering if the lives of those children have proved worthy of the great sacrifices. What splendid examples those mothers have been during the long years, and how I they stood so firm, loyal and true, when I the Great War demanded those children, many of whom mp.de the supreme S3.cn* fice. One cannot help asking himself: Did those grand women who gave their sons to death, consider that mother s double sacrifice wa? met by the son's gallant fight and gloiious death for the 1 Country and King they both loved f Those quiet, deep and noble sacrifices, point us to the noblest of all sacrifices, when Christ gave Himself as a sacrifice not for relatives and friends but for HIS ENFMILS. Our glorious mothers by their great sacrifices, lead us to Calvary, where we see the greatest sacrifice onei which has drawn the eyes of the whol world toward it. May their hearts also he drawn by the Saviour ; Who was and is the "Tremendous > Lover.'' ; "A! MEMOBYi RECALLED BY ! MOTHER'S PORTRAIT." \ "My mother 1 when, I learned that thou 1 wast dead, I Say, wast thou conscious of the tears | I shedf | Hovered thy spirit; b'er thy sorrowing son, | Watch even tlien'j life's journey just begunt Perhaps thou gai T st me, though unfelt. a kiss, Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in blisß— ' Ah, that maternal smile 1 It answersYes. I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day I saw the heaise that bore thee slow away. And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long uigh', and kept a last adieu! But was iii such? It was.—Where thou art gone Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown." (William .Cowper) QUOTATIONS. "A! inotfier is a mother still Thei holiest thing alive." ,1 "Where yet was ever found a mother

Who'd give"her baby for anotherV (Gay). Happy he with such a mother;faith in womenkind