--_Cumming._

1402

FUNERAL OF A MOTHER.

The Rev. George Crabbe when describing the funeral of "The Mother," in
his passing glance at the half-interested spectators, says:--

Curious and sad, upon the fresh-dug hill
The village lads stood, melancholy still.

and in his description of the return to the house:--

Arrived at home, how then they gazed around.
In every place where she no more was found;
The seat at table she was wont to fill;
The fireside chair, still set, but vacant still;
The garden walks, a labor all her own;
The latticed bower, with trailing shrubs o'ergrown:
The Sunday pew she filled with all her race--
Each place of hers, was now a sacred place,
That while it called up sorrows in the eyes,
Pierced the full heart, and forced them still to rise.

--_From the Eclectic Magazine._

1403

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

Children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice the
feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle
hand. Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all good
gifts, a loving mother. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the
kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain.

In after-life you may have friends, fond, dear, kind friends; but never
will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon
you which none but a mother bestows. Often do I sigh in my struggles
with hard, uncaring world, for the sweet, deep security I felt when, of
an evening nestling in her bosom, I listened to some quiet tale,
suitable to my age, read in her tender and untiring voice. Never can I
forget her sweet glances cast upon me when I appeared asleep, never her
kiss of peace at night. Years have passed away since we laid her beside
my father in the old church yard; yet still her voice whispers from the
grave, and her eye watches over me, as I visit spots long since hallowed
to the memory of my mother.

1404

The mother's heart is the child's school-room.

1405

He who takes the child by the hand, takes the mother by the heart.

1406

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.

1407

Each mother is a historian; she writes not the history of empires or of
nations on paper, but she writes her own history on the im