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True Motherhood

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 6, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 32.

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True Motherhood

By MRS. C. M. SNOW

MRS. C. M. SNOW
HAPPY the lot of the child who finds perfect confidence and enjoyable companionship in mother's society. And happy the lot and prospect of the mother who brings about such a blessed relationship. Her example and teaching will, more than any other influence, mold the character of the one so dear to her. There is no stronger force than love, and example is that force in action.
By beholding we become changed. See 2 Cor. 3:18. The story is told that in the market place of an Italian city a beautiful statue once stood. It was the statue of a Greek slave girl, representing the slave as tidy and well-dressed. A ragged, uncombed little street child, while at play one day, discovered the statue. She stopped and gazed in admiration. She was captivated by its beauty, and looked long and lovingly. Moved by a sudden impulse, she went home and washed her face and combed her hair. Another day she sought out the statue, and stood before it in admiring silence. A new idea came to her. Her own tattered garments were washed and carefully mended next day. Each time she looked at the statue she found in its beautiful purity something to admire and to copy. And thus she became a transformed child.
You have heard of the peasant boy whose cottage door faced the mountain side on which a face was outlined on the granite wall in majestic proportions. The legend had come down the ages that some day a ruler would come to them with features like the face upon the mountain side. The gentle-minded youth sat often upon the doorsill, gazing in quiet thought upon the face. Day after day, for years, he sat thus. Then, lo, his own face had grown into a likeness of that graven in the rock!
The lesson is plain. The mother must be what she wants her child to be. No pretensions will count. The child is quick to detect the false from the true, and many a child has learned deception from his mother's unconscious example. The mother must possess in truth and actuality the qualities which she wishes to develop in her children.
Memory turns backward to youth-time days. A hallowed presence graced our home. Even in youth's thoughtless days, she was prized as the greatest gift that a kind Father could have bestowed on us. Early left a widow, when the land was darkened with the thunder clouds of war, it was no easy task for our mother to support her large family of children. Herself frail, she had, unaided, cared for her husband during his long illness, for her oldest son and her son-in-law were in their country's service. Yet never once did a murmur escape her lips. She had the happiness of a contented spirit. She possessed the calm rapture of being able to accept life's crosses without bitterness, greeting each new day with cheer, believing in the Father's house at the end of the road, and in his rewarding smile. This was our mother's beatitude.
She gained her strength at the Saviour's feet, and in the many comforting, beautiful texts repeated at our twilight devotions, and the inspiring hymns that were our lullabies. Can we forget them? Did we not recognize in our infancy that they were no mere form, but her life, her love?
“O sweet, calm face that seemed to wear The look of sins forgiven! O voice of prayer that seemed to bear Our own needs up to heaven!
“How reverent in our midst she stood, Or knelt in grateful praise! What grace of Christian womanhood Was in her household ways!
“For still her holy living meant No duty left undone; The heavenly and the human blent Their kindred loves in one.
“And if her life small leisure found For feasting ear and eye, And Pleasure, on her daily round, She passed unpausing by,
“Yet with her went a secret sense Of all things sweet and fair, And Beauty's gracious providence Refreshed her unaware.
“She kept her line of rectitude With love's unconscious ease; Her kindly instincts understood All gentle courtesies.
“An inborn charm of graciousness Made sweet her smile and tone, And glorified her farm-wife dress With beauty not its own.
“The dear Lord's best interpreters Are humble human souls; The gospel of a life like hers Is more than books or scrolls.
“From scheme and creed the light goes out, The saintly fact survives; The blessed Master none can doubt Revealed in holy lives.”
Takoma Park, D. C.