nd carried them clean across the wilderness. And he made
possible an Isaiah and a Jeremiah and a David. And he made possible
the birth of Jesus Christ. And he became the blesser and enricher of
all the nations of the earth. And this mother, whose name is not well
known in the annals of men, but whose name is known in Heaven to-day,
had the rich reward of knowing that she mothered a man who fathered a
nation and blessed a world.

Oh, it is a blessed reward, the reward of success in the high
enterprise of motherhood. I know of no joy that can come to a father's
or a mother's heart that is comparable to the joy that their own
children can give them. I have seen sweet-faced mothers look upon
their children when there was enough joy in those faces to have raised
the temperature of Heaven.

But while it is true that none can bring us so much joy, it is also
true that none can so utterly break our hearts. To see disease take
our children in hand and wreck their bodies is painful, but it is as
joy in comparison to seeing sin steal the moral rose from their cheek
and the sparkle of innocence and purity from their eyes. But the
deepest of all damning griefs is that grief that comes to us when we
realize that we failed, and that their ruin is due to sin and
unfaithfulness in ourselves.

Do you hear the wild outcry from that broken-hearted king named David?
There he stands upon the wall and looks away across the wistful plain.
A lone runner is coming. He knows he is a messenger from the
battlefield. "Good tidings," he shouts. But the king has no ear for
good tidings. His one question is this, "Is the young man Absalom
safe?" And the runner does not rightly answer his question. Then the
second messenger comes with the news of his son's death. And there is
no more pathetic cry in literature than that that breaks from the lips
of this pathetic king. "O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!"
He is sobbing over his lost boy. But there is an added pang to his
grief. It is the awful pang that comes from the torturing fear that he
himself is in large measure responsible for the loss of his boy. And
there is no more bitter agony than that.

Oh, men and women, let us who are fathers and mothers spare ourselves
David's terrible agony. Let us spare our children Absalom's tragic
ruin. Let us give ourselves the joys of this old time mother. While
our children are about us, may we hear the very voice of God speaking