Mother

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 30, 1915

MOTHER was a little woman, and never very strong. She had many severe illnesses, and was often at death's door, but she recovered and lived on. She had sorrows, but she survived them. She saw her friends depart, and she mourned them; but she dried her tears, sought out some comforting word in the Book, took up her duty, and continued to live.

Mother became a grandmother, and then a great-grandmother; she even lived to be a great-great-grandmother. She died at the age of ninety-six, and she had seen the blessing of God on her children's children and on their children.

She spent her years as mothers do, caring for her home and loving her children, and teaching them to pray, and day and night lifting up her own prayer to God to help her to be a good mother.

In her old age she lived in the home of her son-in-law. He was in business, but his joy in life was the cultivation of flowers. She sat in the window and watched the flowers he planted; and she saw the world go by her window, and smiled serenely as it passed. Her son came out from the city to see her every week. He was employed by a great railway, and he rose step by step to be its president.

Mother did not know how to run a railway, but she had a few simple maxims that directed her own life, and constantly guided the judgment of others who had more conspicuous places to fill. “Remember this, my son,” she would say, in her calm, even voice, “nothing really counts but character,” and, “Remember that duty never calls us to be in more than one place at one time.”

At last she passed away, with a verse of Scripture on her lips. Hers was a quiet funeral. The minister read from her own Bible, and paid a simple tribute to her memory. It was dignified, old-fashioned, and very beautiful. And although there was no publicity, the house overflowed with friends who came to pay their tribute to the memory of mother.

Mother was little and frail; at her death she weighed only eighty pounds; but two special trains were needed to carry her and those who loved her to the cemetery, and the traffic of a great railway system kept out of their way.

In his private car the railway president sat with the minister, and said, “I have tried to carry into my business the ideals I learned of my mother. I hope I have not failed to do so.”—Youth’s Companion.