Invincible Because of the Mothers

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1164, 3 November 1917, Page 10 (Supplement)

Invincible Because of the Mothers

[Much has been written of the debt that we owe Britain's daughters. Harold Begbie adds a I word for the mothers.] j L OW the trumpet of Miss J as loud as you like, dec, i>re to all Hie world that without her aid England must have broken under the strain of war; but do not forget the invisible Mother who is the background of all the efforts of this great England. I wonder if there is a nobler figure in the eyes of the angels than the Mother whose son is fighting, whose daughter is making shells, and whose husband is hammering steel plates in the shipyards. Her work is hard, though it gain no war bonus. It is essential, though it earn no praise. She has no one to help her with the younger children, no one to help her with the bed-making and the scrubbing, no one to help her with the shopping and the cooking, no one to help her with the washing-up, the dusting, the sweeping, the mending and the darning. The whole destinies of the home arc in her hands. Remember that the character of the soldier, whose deeds thrill our feelings, is of her making. Round every soldier facing the legions of Germany is the nimbus of a woman's love and self-sacrifice. Remember, too, that the character of the girl in the factory, whose endurance and loyalty have saved the world from despotism, is also of her making. Remember, too, that the character of the man in the shipyard, without whose labour we should have perished long ago, is also largely of her making. It is the Home that makes us in-

vincible, and it is the Mother who is the maker of this Home. Her Drab Surroundings. She lives for the most part in depressing streets, occupying houses built, it might seem, to crush domestic pride, with no space for flowers but a smut-grimed window-sill, and with no flash of grass, no break of trees, to challange the grim monotony of bricks and slates. But by her service she makes the little rooms of those houses so dear and delightful that they become Home to I her husband and her children. The magic of her love transforms the slum into a kingdom of enchantment. She faces up to a condition of things which would break the hearts* of other people, and by her cheerfulness, her wit, her determination, and her utter unselfishness, bonds that condition to the happiness of an English home. It is for this English home that her son is fighting and her daughter is toiling. She is splendid wherever you find her. In the suburbs, with her sons at the war, her daughters in the bank and her one little general servant gone to work in the Tube, she still keeps (lying the flag of the English home. In more exalted quarters she has given up her line houses for hospitals, does the honour of English hospitality to our Dominion soldiers, subscribes with inexhaustible bounty to every charity, and day by day writes the letter to France which strengthens the courage of the young officer on whose shoulder rests in great measure the fair fame of English valour. And it is this English mother who has made our gallant soldiery, who has given an army of women to our industries, and who quietly, loyally, and unnoticed, goes on with the work of the home, having nothing but her ememories for companionship and nothing but her prayers for hope.