The Mother-Heart by John T. Faris, D. D.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 22, 1916

The Mother-Heart

By John T. Faris, D. D.

THE heart of a true mother overflows. She pours out of her best for her own children, and she has something left for children less fortunate than her own, and hungering for what has been denied them.

In “Letters on an Elk-Hunt,” in which Mrs. Edna Pruitt Stuart tells of people she knew near her Wyoming home, a delightful picture is given of one of these mothers with an overflowing heart. She was plain and fat and Irish, and she had a heart of pure gold. One day she met a boy and a girl on the country road.

“Ma’s dead and pa’s gone,” the boy told her. “Baby Girl and me are with Aunt Het, an’ that’s all there is of us.”

She went to the poor home of Aunt Het, and there she saw enough to understand that, while the aunt wished to care for the children, she had little with which to do; and the aunt’s own children were abusing them.

The Irish woman went away, but she could not be content until she returned to the aunt, determined to take the children to her own little home and bring them up as her own.

To a friend she gave this wonderful explanation of her conduct: “The pangs of motherhood make us mothers, not only of our own, but of every child that needs mothering, especially if our own little children need us no longer. Fill their little places with ones who do need us. Both my Katie and Sheridan have been grown and gone these many years, and my heart has called for children. I am going to get the children this day.” . . .

So much of the glory of life comes just because there are women with the hungering mother-heart like that, the heart that is so filled with the spirit of Him who longed to gather to his arms the needy children of earth, “even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,” that they are never satisfied with the love they can give, but long to give always more, and to include in this love not only those in their own homes, but those whom love has passed by.

The mother-heart knows no measure for its tenderness. It knows no nationality. It is conscious of nothing but need, and hunger to satisfy that need, until “a white light of holiness” shall hover over and infold all the heart-hungry who come in its way.—John T. Faris, D. D.