Now the strongest human love that we know of is a mother’s love . Many things will separate a man from his wife. A father may turn his back on his child; brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies; husbands may desert their wives; wives, their husbands. But a mother’s love endures through all. In good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world’s condemnation, a mother loves on, and hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways and repent. She remembers the infant smiles, the merry laugh of childhood, the promise of youth; and she can never be brought to think him unworthy. Death cannot quench a mother’s love; it is stronger than death.
You have seen a mother watching over her sick child. How willingly she would take the disease into her own body if she could thus relieve her child!
Week after week she will keep watch; she will let no one else take care of that sick child.
A friend of mine, some time ago, was visiting in a beautiful home where he met a number of friends. After they had all gone away, having left something behind, he went back to get it.
There he found the lady of the house, a wealthy lady, sitting behind a poor fellow who looked like a tramp. He was her own son.
Like the prodigal, he had wandered far away: yet the mother said, “This is my boy; I love him still.”
Take a mother with nine or ten children, if one goes astray, she seems to love that one more than any of the rest.
A leading minister in the state of New York once told me of a father who was a very bad character. The mother did all she could to prevent the contamination of the boy; but the influence of the father was stronger, and he led his son into all