I Thought It Was My Mother's Voice
“I Thought it was my Mother's Voice.” A FRIEND not long ago, told me a beautiful story about kind words. A good lady, living in one of our large cities, was passing a drinking saloon just as the keeper was thrusting a young man out into the street. He was very young and pale, but his haggard face and wild eyes told that he was very far gone in the road to ruin, as with oaths he brandished his clinched fists, threatening to be revenged upon the man who had so ill-used him. The poor young man was so excited and blinded with passion that he did not see the lady, who stood near him, until she laid her hand upon his arm and spoke in her gentle, loving voice, asking him what was the matter. At the first kind word the young man started as though a heavy blow had struck him, and turned quickly round, paler than before, and trembling from head to foot. He surveyed the lady for a moment, and then, with a sigh of relief, he said: “I thought it was my mother's voice, it sounded so strangely like it! But her voice has been hushed in death for many years.” “You had a mother, then,” said the lady, “and she loved you.” With a sudden revulsion of feeling which often comes to people of fine nervous temperaments, the young man burst into tears, sobbing out, “Oh, yes, I had an angel mother, and she loved her boy! But since she died all the world has been against me, and I am lost!—lost to good society, lost to honor, lost to decency, and lost forever!” “No, not lost forever; for God is merciful, and his pitying love can reach the chief sinner,” said the lady, in her low voice, and the timely words swept the hidden chords of feeling which had been long untouched in the young man's heart, thrilling it with magic power wakening a host of tender emotions, which had been buried very deep beneath the rubbish of sin and crime. More gentle words the lady spoke, and when she passed on her way the young man followed her. He marked the house which she entered, and wrote the name which was upon the silver door-plate in his little memorandum book. Then he walked slowly away with a deep, earnest look on his white face, and deeper, more earnest feelings in his aching heart. Years glided by, and the gentle lady had quite forgotten the incident we have related when one day a stranger sent up his card, and desired to speak with her. Wondering much who it could be, she went down to the parlor, where she found a noble-looking, well-dressed man, who rose deferentially to meet her. Holding out his hand, he said: “Pardon me, madam, for this intrusion, but I have come many miles to thank you for the great services you rendered me a few years ago,” said he, in a trembling voice. The lady was puzzled, and asked for an explanation, as she did not remember ever having seen the gentleman before. “I have changed so much,” said the man, “that you have quite forgotten me; but, though I only saw your face once, I am sure I should have recognized it anywhere. And your voice, too, is so like my mother's!” Those last words made the lady remember the poor young man she had kindly spoken to, in front of the drinking saloon so long before, and she mingled her tears with those which were falling slowly over the man's cheeks. After the first gush of emotion had subsided, the gentleman sat down and told the lady how those few gentle words had been instrumental in saving and making him what he then was. “The earnest expression of 'No, not lost forever,' followed me wherever I went,” he said, “and it always seemed that was the voice of my mother speaking to me from the tomb. I repented of my many transgressions, and resolved to live as my mother would be pleased to have me, and by the mercy and grace of God I have been enabled to resist temptation, and keep my good resolutions.” “I never dreamed there was such power in a few kind words before,” exclaimed the lady, “and surely ever after this I shall take more pains to speak them to all the sad and suffering ones I meet in the walks of life.”—Sunny Faces.