The Most Holy Name,—Mother
The destiny of nations lies far more in the hands of women—the mothers—than in the hands of those who possess power. We must cultivate women, who are educators of the human race, else a new generation cannot accomplish its task.
—Friedrich Froebel.
A Mother
You! You! a mother! That most holy name,
Which Heaven and Nature bless,
I may not vilely prostitute to those
Whose infants owe them less
Than the poor caterpillar owes
Its gaudy Parent Fly.
You were a mother! at your bosom fed
The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye,
Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read,
Which you yourself created. Oh, Delight!
A second time to be a Mother,
Without the Mother’s bitter groans;
Another thought, and yet another,
By touch, or taste, by look or tones,
O’er the growing Sense to roll,
The Mother of your infant’s soul!
The Angel of the Earth, who while he guides
His chariot-planet round the goal of day,
All trembling gazes on the eye of God,
A moment turned his face away;
And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet
New influences in your being rose,
Blest Intuitions and Communions fleet
With living Nature, in her joys and woes!
—S. T. Coleridge.
Alternate Reading: I Peter 3: 8-22.