RESPONSIBILITY OF MOTHERHOOD.
By Kate A. Wilcox
In every true woman is placed the motherly instinct. It was given her by her Creator, and is as noble and pure as the source from which it came. It was designed of God, when properly developed, to be a source of great mental and spiritual blessing; and, if mothers could only realize the privilege and possibilities intrusted to them by this bestowal of His love, they would take up their responsibility with feelings of gratitude to Him who has so highly exalted woman as to make her the mother of all mankind. If mothers could only be educated to appreciate their own power and great privilege in the sphere where God has placed them, they would never be led to clamor for political power in the state. Woman, in her proper sphere, has all the power that a truly unselfish heart could ever desire. Especially is this true of a mother. No queen on her throne, clothed in her royal robes, has a more glorious or responsible reign than a mother in her home, with her little ones around her. In the present agitation of woman's rights and woman's suffrage, one can but think that there is something painfully wrong in the education of those individuals who feel that this is the end to be reached before woman shall find her proper place. If worldly honor and fame are what is so eagerly sought, we have but to read history to learn that much that has already been achieved belongs to woman. Have not all our great men had mothers? Have not their mothers moulded them, and made them in a measure, what they are? To whom, then, is much of the honor due? Is it not largely to the mother? But it is not worldly fame and honor that the truest, noblest, and greatest women are seeking, and most emphatically should it not be the end sought for by Christian mothers. This reaches but the surface. It is not soul satisfying, nor fruitful of good. It is the question of duty that we must face. It is the fulfilment of duty to the satisfaction of an enlightened conscience, that will bring us strength and happiness. O, that we might work for that which lies beneath the surface, that we might help exalt woman, especially the mother, to the sphere where God has placed her, and help her to understand that her duty faithfully performed will bring her honor beyond anything earth can give! Mothers, do you sometimes feel that your field of usefulness is small—that your life is narrow and unimportant? O let me beg of you to banish those feelings15at once! In a little poem from the Woman's Journal I find these lines, which may comfort some tired, burdened mother's heart: "She had little of earthly beauty,
She had less of earthly lore;
She climbed by a path so narrow,
Such wearisome burdens bore;
And she came, with heart a-tremble,
To the warder at heaven's door,
"And said, 'There were hearts of heroes;'
She said, 'There were hands of might;
I had only my little children,
That called to me day and night;
I could only soothe their sorrows,
Their childish hearts make light.'
"And she bowed her head in silence,
She hid her face in shame,
When, out from a blaze of glory,
A form majestic came,
And, sweeter than all heaven's music,
Lo, someone called her name!
"'Dear heart that hath self forgotten,
That never its own hath sought,
Who keepeth the weak from falling,
To the King hath jewels brought,
Lo, what thou hast done for the children,
For the Lord Himself hast wrought!'" Some of the greatest and noblest of all the characters of earth are those of whom the world has known the least, who have lived and died unknown to few, except those most intimately connected with them. I feel sure that among these the judgment will reveal some of the patient, self-sacrificing, toiling mothers who, themselves may have been laid away, but whose influence may live on through all eternity.