On Mothers' Day

The Woman's Word

Here is the second Sunday of May drawing near once more, bearing with it a fragrant, sweet perfume and a lovely melody that every mouth delights to sing, and whose plaintive strains stir souls!...

It is the day of "Motherhood," with all the sanctity that motherhood holds; how noble the reverence its musical ring inspires — until it is as if we stood in a temple heavy with incense!

It is the day of "Motherhood," with all the love, sacrifice, and giving in motherhood, before which the hatreds and selfishnesses of the earth dwindle... and melt away.

Is not "the Mother" an embodied symbol of all the elements of goodness, truth, and beauty — burning her vitality and her youth as an offering for the eyes of a little one who dwelt beside her inmost being for a brief span of time, that he might become, in her existence, everything, while she becomes nothing?!

What, one wonders, would have befallen this little one, and to what state would he have come, were it not for the mother's great, generous heart, wide enough to embrace the world in tenderness and compassion — and were it not for her loving hand, bringing him abundant good and warding off from him suspicion and harm?...

Had the mother's care for the darlings of her heart been limited to their childhood years, human motherhood would have had no distinction over the motherhood of animals; but a mother's devotion to her children and grandchildren goes beyond childhood, boyhood, and youth, to the whole span of life, until the flame of life is extinguished in her veins.

A mother's giving and self-sacrifice are a sacred natural law, and people depart from its rule only one day in every year — the second Sunday of May.

One day in every year, on which we bring them gifts, filling their laps with armfuls of carnations and roses, relieving them of all their tasks, volunteering to serve them and to cheer them, employing to that end all our material and moral means.

So our mother, this great and noble human being, is invited to receive respect and honor on "Mothers' Day"... and our children are invited to remember this day, to celebrate it, and to perform their duties toward their mother — each in his own way.

And let our children learn from this day a splendid lesson: that giving, at times, holds a pleasure surpassing the pleasure of receiving...