ing, mothering, fathering, witnessing, believing. It is the
mother-word, from out whose warm womb all these others come, warm, too,
and full of gentle strong life. Its mother quality is so strong that we
are apt to think of it only in connection with actual mothers, mothers
among animals and birds and of our human kind.

But this is only one meaning, really a surface meaning, though such a
fine deep meaning in itself. Its real heart meaning lies much deeper.
_Brooding is the mother of all love._ It is its warmth that draws out
that fine feeling that makes and marks friendship. It is its tender
warmth that draws out that finest degree of friendship which knits with
unbreakable bonds two lives into one.

It reaches out most subtly to knit up again the ends that have ravelled
out under the sore stress of life. It bends compassionately over those
hurt in body, and hurt yet more in their spirit by the greedy rivalry of
life, and nurses into newness of life the shivering shredded hurt parts.
In the more familiar use of the word it fathers and mothers the newly
minted morsels of precious humanity, coming into life with big wondering
eyes.

And it warms into highest life that highest love that, through the
process of hearing, assenting, trusting, risking, giving the heart's
devotion, comes to know God as a tender Father, and Christ as a precious
personal Saviour. Whether in close friend, or ardent lover, gracious
philanthropist, devoted parent, or earnest witness, it is the same warm
thing underneath, at its fine task--brooding.

We think of it most in the mother. For it comes to its highest human
perfection there. The true thoughtful mother is first and chiefest a
brooder. She broods in spirit till her child looks into her eyes,
bearing the image, in face and mental impress and spirit, which the
brooding months have given. She broods over the inarticulate days when
the babe cannot tell the felt needs except to a brooding mother's keen
insight.

She broods over the baby-talk days; over the struggling days when the
child would tell its awakening thoughts out in words, but doesn't know
how yet; over the wilful days which come so early when the first battles
come that decide the whole future.

With a warmth of tenderness and patience, and a strength of gentle wise
insistence, more than human, she broods. It takes the very strength of
her life, far far more than in prenatal days. So there comes, slowly,
but as she keeps true