A DAILY MESSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1929, Page 8

A DAILY MESSAGE

THE SPIRIT OF MOTHER'S DAY

Somkwueke deep in the heart of Australia is an Altar, upon which hums with splendid radiance a Great White Light—a Light which illumines all the land and which is a beacon to far-off coasts and a pledge to all her sons. It is the steadfast light of Mother Love—the radium of human emotion—shining down through all ages to our own. To-day Australia lays upon the Altar of Motherhood a sprig of rosemary in remembrance.

To-day a thousand mother’s sons, good and had, proud and humble, wise and foolish, turn to her shrine, for it is

Her day. 'lhe memories which cluster around this day are the most tcnTler and cxquisite in the human treasury of remembrance.

No poem, no discourse, no eloquence can express’ mother love. No artist can tell it; but all humanity has climbed upward upon it, and has learnt from her love its richest lessons.

The world owes much to the love of every type and kind, to love of brother ■for brother, sister for sister, father for child, man for his fellow man, patriot for the land of his birth. Hut what the world owes to that idealized, spiritualized, radiant force which we call mother love, no tongue can ever tell.

Some of you may say that, after all. it is just love. But what kind of love?

Love sublimated by suffering, enriched by sacrifice, ennobled by sorrow, combining the song of the tenderesr nestling with the wondrous music ol the most majestic organ. It is the most potent, evergreen, irresistible force in this world. The mothers of the world have writleu great and enduring things on the tablets of human character. The best the world has known, they have taught.

And yet it can lie claimed that the mother who hears and rears her child and sends it forth into a world so full of evils, dangers, pitfalls, and mantraps, that one or two out of every ten of her children become criminals, drunkards, or derelicts, ending tlieii lives in gaol, gutter, or asylum—can it be claimed that that mother has done her whole duty?

The homes of the world have failed and mothers have failed, too, while tin lives and characters of thousands of their children are wrecked and devastated by social evils which are preventable, and which it is their duty to prevent. It is as much the duty of a mother to sweep evil from the path her children must tread as it is to cure their coldand rub away their pains. A mother should not only be a love architect, blit a life-architect, b Tidin', for each generation of her soils the safety-devices over which they shall pass in security to nobler conceptions of life and duty.

Who hut she, seeing and “ fearing ” as she does the morasses, the quag mires, the quicksands, the holes and traps on the Highway of Life, should get them filled in, cleaned out, or bridged, so that her sons shall not sink in their infamies—so that they shall walk in safety?

Until she has done this, she has not done her Whole duty. Somebody has said: “God could not he everywhere, and so He gave us mothers ” —a very beautiful conception of the ideal role of the human mother. But would God consider that a mother had done her duty when she had reared a beautiful hoy to eighteen years of age and had neglected to fight for the removal of the evil which subsequently brought him to the prison, the scrap-heap, or the dishonoured grave ? Would He hold you guiltless? Would you be guiltless? Bare you hear sons for the prison, the madhouse, the human scrap-heap the dishonoured grave? You mothers, to whom Nature has entrusted the lamp off life, the round planet is in your hands. The load where your sons and daughters walk must lie made safe by you. Else has motherhood, for all it: beauty and wondrous sacrifice, 'Sailed 1

You mothers may know the evils o' the road; you may know every hole and every trap in it, but what of the stream of youth behind you? Perhaps your own sons are grown and safe, perhaps they have passed away, and are silent, perhaps they have done their duty gloriously and have gone “ west.” But every hoy and every girl in that great stream behind you is the son or daughter of some mother. And no mother’s son is safe until every mother’s son is safe. It is the supreme duty of the mothers of the race to clean up the road where their hoys and girls must walk. There is a miracle of fighting ability in motherhood, but—is motherhood ready for the fight? Is motherhood armed? Is motherhood mobilized? One generation off great mothers would make a great new world, lor the cradle-rockers have power enough, in their great wise hearts, to rock the world into a great spiritual renaissance, if only they were conscious of their power. (treat mothers are those who would fight for peace, so that to-day’s cradles should not fill to-morrow’s trenches. Great mothers are those who would fight for the national teaching of mothercralt. so that the priceless lives of thousands of their own little ones, which now are wasted, should he saved. To-day we do not conserve the human asset; wo bury it; and graves are not a good investment for a nation. Groat mothers are those who would fight for the segregation of flu* mentally’ defective and thus prevent the propagation of degenerate human stocks lrom which are recruited, with each

generation, a new army of paupers and criminal descendants, destined to /ill our hospitals, gaols, and asylums, and irresponsible lor llioir actions by reason of their mental defect. If the mothers of'the community would, without- regard to party, class, or creed, mobilize and build these safety devices, making the. highway ol civilization sale for (heir sons, what a wonderful new world it would be! Around me on every band I see noble and enduring types of mothers—mothers on the rungs of whose souls their soils have climbed upwards. To them, and others like- them, and to millions long silent, Mother’s Day is dedicated.

Sacred, indeed, are the memories which will ever surround it.

A white (lower is tlie symbol of res mcmbrance for Mother’s Day. Hut many there be who will bring to her shrine this day a llowcr which will not he a white flower. Her sons come hearing flowers of many colours; some are white, some are red, some are purple, and some are black.

'flic hearers of the white flowers are those into whose heart she crept and hid so long ago that her spirit lives within them and will live with them while life lasts.

The red are brought by those who have wandered long among life’s scarlet passion (lowers; the purple by those who have eaten of the husks ; the black by those who have played with the flowers of death, the deadly nightshades of life.

J>ity—oh, pity!—that the sons of woman could not all lay a white flower, the symbol of a blameless life, upon her shrine to-day! Hut black or white, red. or purple, she reaches out to take them, lor are they not hers, the offering of her erring sons ?

Has she not ever embosomed them—|lcn)—ingrate—recreant ? Has she not always faced anguish, crucifixion, death, lor the Inst of llieni;' Has she not worn sorrow’s crown of sorrow for the worst of them i

And now, enfolding her blossoms oi many colours, she bends to tend the light which has burned through all the ages upon her Altar—a beacon to kelsons, and a pledge which will outlast time.

And silently she takes her place above the shrine—deep-eyed, det'phosonied, vigilant, the embodiment of eternity, Love, and power, ark and cradle of the race, the spirit ol -Mother’s Day.

—M. PRESTON STANLEY