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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 47. The Superlative Degree of Woman.
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The Superlative Degree of Woman.
And why talk about mothers, when all the world unites in their praise! Woman's faithfulness in home and church, the two crisis points of life, stands out big and clear. In the grammar of experience the superlative degree of man is woman, and the superlative degree of woman is mother. In the scheme of life a larger part of the holy tasks of home is entrusted to the mother hands. While the father must be breadwinner, her time is allotted to home duties. And her character well fits her for such delicate, difficult work.
The fine blending of strength and brain with the tempering heart-traits, native to her woman genius, reveals the wisdom that assigns this part in the plan of life to her care. It was such a woman who inspired the pen that wrote
"No clever, brilliant thinker she,
With college record and degree;
She has not known the paths of fame;
The world has never heard her name;
She walks in old long-trodden ways,
The valleys of the yesterdays.
"Home is her kingdom, love her dower;
She seeks no other wand of power
To make home sweet, bring heaven near,
To win a smile and wipe a tear
And do her duty day by day,
In her own quiet place and way.
"Around her childish hearts are twined,
As round some reverend saint enshrined,
And following hers the childish feet
Are led to ideals true and sweet.
And find all purity and good
In her divinest motherhood.
"She keeps her faith unshadowed still;
God rules the world in good and ill;
Men in her creed are brave and true
And women pure as pearls of dew,
And life for her is high and grand
By work and glad endeavour spanned.
"This sad old earth's a brighter place
All for the sunshine of her face;
Her very smile a blessing throws,
And hearts are happier where she goes;
A gentle, clear-eyed messenger,
To whisper love—thank God for her!" (L.) M.) Montgomery.)
Yet the collegian, and the clever brilliant thinker, whose service has been heralded afar from home, have had sweet victories here, too. Such training and gifts cannot of themselves make a mother, and neither can they hinder motherhood, but may immensely enrich the life and simple home service when the heart guides and controls.
And how can we talk of mothers tenderly enough to come home to any heart that really knows a real mother! And yet the skilled artist continually keeps his eye up to tone by keeping at hand the primary colours in their purity. The Master Himself spent time off daily with the Father, and sometimes all day, and long nights, that He might keep the tone of His life up to the concert pitch of the upper-world standards. And so, we may well talk a bit further together of true motherhood, both for those who are mothers, and for those whose coming years hold that responsible joy in reserve for them.
Need it be said, that motherhood, through which the race comes to birth, comes only to its own birth out of the womb of sacrifice? Sacrifice is the low undertone to all the music of a mother's life, for months before the birth-time, and through the long years after. It is a living sacrifice, too. "I would die for you," said an earnest young wife to her husband. "Yes," he replied tenderly. "I know you would; but there's something more than that that I need from you, that will cost you far more. I need you to live for me."
The noble martydom of men whose lives went painfully out at the stake, may, with all due reverence for their fidelity and courage, be called easy, when compared with the daily giving out of the life through the years by thousands of mothers. The giving of the life up to the flames has more sharp pain, intenser suffering, in it. The giving of it out just as really and fully, but slowly, gradually, year in and year out, in the same old round, but with an ever new smile, until the calendar's work is done, is a vastly more severe test.
"So he died for his faith. That is fine.
More than the most of us do.
But stay. Can you add to that line
That he lived for it, too?
"It is easy to die. Men have died
For a wish or a whim—
From bravado or passion or pride.
Was it hard for him?
"But to live: every day to live out
All the truth that he dreamt,
While his friends met his conduct with doubt,
And the world with contempt.
"Was it thus that he plodded ahead,
Never turning aside?
Then we'll talk of the life that he led.
Never mind how he died."
And yet a far keener word about sacrifice remains to be said. Those who talk most about their sacrifices, or even who think about them, may be making real sacrifice, but they usually know least of what sacrifice means. Those who sacrifice most think less, and talk not at all, about their sacrifices. There are two definitions of sacrifice; the cheaper one in commoner use; and the other, the real one, that like the trailing arbutus, hides its sweet fragrance away out of sight.
In the cheaper meaning sacrifice is giving up; it is suffering, maybe suffering real pain for someone or something. And this is sacrifice, let it be said. In the deeper, richer meaning there is suffering, too; but that is only part; and, however keen and cutting, still the smaller part. Sacrifice is love purposely giving itself, regardless of the privation or pain involved, that so more of life's sweets may come to another. Sacrifice is love meeting an emergency, and singing because you are able to meet and to grip it.
The sweets of sacrifice sweep your spirit with their quiet ecstasy, even while the knife cuts deepest, and the pain tugs hardest. Love knows there will be the pain, and thinks of it, and deliberately decides to endure it, because so will come some great boon to another. And the joy of victory makes sweetest music, of which the sacrifice is the subdued minor under-chording.
A lady was calling upon a friend whose two children were brought in during the call. As they talked together the caller said eagerly, and yet with evidently no thought of the meaning of her words, "Oh! I'd give my life to have two such children." And the mother replied, with a subdued earnestness whose quiet told of the depth of experience out of which her words came, "That's exactly what it costs!"
Yet there was a gleam of light in her eye, and a something in her manner, that told more plainly than words that though she had given much, she had gotten more, both in the possession of the children, and in the rare enrichment of her spirit.
All life is made sacred by the deep red tingeing of sacrifice that runs through every bit of it.
"I could not at the first be born,
But by another's bitter, wailing pain;
Another's loss must be my greatest gain.
And love, only to gain what I might be,
Must wet her couch forlorn
With tears of blood, and sweat of agony
"Since then I cannot live a week
But some fair thing must leave the daisied dells,
The joys of pastures, bubbling springs and wells,
And grassy murmurs of its peaceful days,
To bleed in pain and reek,
And die, for me to tread life's pleasant ways.
"Naked I cannot clothed be,
But worms must patient weave their satin shroud:
The sheep must shiver to the April cloud,
Yielding his one white coat to keep me warm;
In shop and factory
For me must weary, toiling beings swarm.
"I fall not on my knees and pray,
But God must come from heaven to fetch that sigh,
And pierced hands must take it back on high,
And through His broken heart and cloven side,
Love makes an open way
For me, who could not live but that He died.
"Oh! awful, sweetest life of mine,
That man and God both serve in blood and tears.
If on myself I dare to spend
This sacred thing in pleasure, lapped and reared,
What am I but a hideous idol smeared
With human blood?"