p. 13 | A Mother’s Wisdom and Power

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 5, 1916

A Mother’s Wisdom and Power

LATE one evening the telephone rang, and I was informed that a very dear friend was dying. Hurrying to her home, I found her already unconscious. The family had gathered, and were silently waiting the end. How my heart went out to her fourteen-year-old daughter, to whose side I instinctively went, and put my arms about her as if to shield her—the world is so hard for a motherless child! Neither of us spoke. Not a sound was heard in the room but the rapid breathing of the dying woman. Presently the child’s arm stole round my waist, and so we stood, our arms about each other, our eyes always on the face of the one we loved.

After a long time the wild beating of the heart and the rapid breathing, which seemed determined to keep life in the wasted body, halted a little. The girl at my side disengaged herself, and softly left the room. She returned at once with her Bible—her mother’s gift. Turning to the ninety-first psalm, and taking her place again under my sheltering arm, she whispered, “Mamma said to read this.” She began in a low, controlled voice, and I joined her, and in unison we read the psalm through to the end, as the life was going out.

I shall never forget the scene. Knowing for a long time that the separation must come, that mother had prepared her daughter for the change without in the least exciting apprehension. When other mothers died, she said what she would like her girl to do and to feel if it had been her girl’s mother who was taken; and so she gently and quietly led her up to the supreme moment without shock or terror or fear of the change.

And so much had she made her Bible and her God a part of her daughter’s very being, her guide in all the things of life, her refuge in every trouble, that she passed safely by the pitfalls of the years of youth to a womanhood of fine character and usefulness.

The power of motherhood! that can project itself across the chasm of death, and lead her lonely child in paths of righteousness and peace.—Youth’s Companion.