MOTHERS' DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24569, 13 May 1935, Page 12

MOTHERS' DAY

SERVICE IN TRINITY CHURCH Special services were held in many of the city churches last evening to commemorate Mothers’ Day, and the significance of the occasion was appropriately expressed in the addresses that were delivered. . , , . , The annual service of the combined branches of the League of Mothers was held in Trinity Methodist Church. The Rev. C. H. Olds welcomed all the members present, and read the aims and objects of the league, combining them with his text, which was taken from 2 Timothy, 1-5 and 3-15. ‘ Mr Olds said that right down the centuries there had been a recognition of the power of religion in the home. Mr Lloyd George had .-ipoken of the need to guard the homes and altars, and to remember that mothers had a power that was enormous to build or destroy these homes. The unconscious influences of home were greater than children could recognise at the time, and even when men grew up reckless and reprobate the last cable to be cut was the thought of a virtuous home. In Benjamin Kidd’s book, “ The Science of Power,” he asserted that any reform could be achieved in a single generation by the influence of mothers. Hearths could only be firmly established, continued Mr Olds, by religion in the home. They should be able to make it impossible for the children to doubt they should be able to make them know that God was a reality. The subtle atmosphere vas iu the mother’s power to create. The history of kings in Scripture showed the mother’s power for good or evil. Reference was made by the preacher to the influence of John Wesley’s mother on his life and to hie words to her in a letter that he often longed for a few moments of quiet counsel from her. The mother had exceptional opportunities in her early contact with her children to mould their characters, and she was endowed with peculiar gifts to do so. Sacrifice was at the heart of motherhood. The speaker made an appeal to the mothers of co-day not to let the hearths and altars be swept away in these days of rush and worry, but to seek the vital things of life and by God’s grace to use their powers to the utmost. The service was closed with the league hymn, “ O Happy Home.”