Mother!

Great writers and great artists as well have paid homage to the glory of motherhood. Scores of famous Madonnas have come down to us, along with hundreds of lesser note. And a chain of tributes to mothers, like a necklace of jewels, adorn the pages of literature. "Search the long annals of proud Rome and Greece, the tombs of war, the chronicles of peace; ransack the old and modern rolls of fame; the name above all names is Mother." That is the name above all earthly names. No other human name is enshrined in such affection and honor.

The glory of motherhood is abundantly recognized in the Bible. One of the most beautiful stories in the Old Testament is that of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. We see the character of this devoted mother reflected in the life of her great son.

Paul, speaking of Timothy's faith, reminds him that it "dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and in his mother Eunice." And never was the glory of motherhood more vividly portrayed than in that simple little phrase so freighted with pathos and meaning, "And there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother."

The greatest human influence that ever enters into a human life, is that of the example and teaching of a good mother. There is nothing in all this wide world comparable to a mother's love and devotion. Mother will love and cherish you when everyone else gets tired of you, and she will cling to you with deathless devotion when everybody else gives you up.

Kipling expressed the height and depth of a mother's devotion in those haunting, oft-quoted lines: "If I were hanged on the highest hill, mother o' mine, O mother o' mine, I know whose love would follow me still. If I were drowned in the deepest sea ... I know whose tears would come down to me . . If I were damned of body and soul ... know whose prayers would make me whole, mother o' mine, O mother o' mine".

If today you should happen to meet some prodigal, abandoned by friends and shunned by men, I ask you to remember that "No matter how wayward his footsteps have been, no matter how deeply he's sunken in sin, no matter how low is his standard of joy, through drunken and loathsome--he's some mother's boy."

To any young man who may read these lines, I make this appeal: Be true to your mother. Let your right hand forget its cunning and your left hand lose its strength before you let your mother's hope in you die. Let it be your ambition to be worthy of her love and devotion.