Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/38

Rh trials, temptations, sufferings, and enjoyment, experienced in a degree far beyond what man is either fitted for, or capable of affording.

It is of the highest importance, too, that this sympathy should be exhibited through the medium of tenderness, so as to inspire a confidence on the part of the young, in the mother's undeviating desire to promote their happiness. A single suspicion that she prefers her own good to that of others—but, above all, that she prefers giving pain to giving pleasure, or finding fault to expressing approbation, is just so much weight taken from her good influence—just so much impulse given to rebellion qr contempt.

How beautiful, then, in its adaptation to the situation in which she is placed, and the duties she has to perform, is that instinct of maternal love, which, from its intensity and depth, its all-pervading and inextinguishable vitality, so lives and breathes through every act, thought, word, and look of the fond mother, that sooner would her infant doubt its own existence, than question that of her untiring love! And, thanks be to the Author of all our blessings! this unbounded supply, which no reasoning and no power of mere human agency could create, is never wanting in the mother's hour of need. That she has her hour of need, none can dispute, who know anything of the care of infancy and childhood. Yes; she has it in sickness, when her feeble strength is exhausted, and yet she watches on. She has it in poverty, when hunger craves the bread she is breaking into little eager hands. She has it when, night after night, she is called up from her downy pillow to still the impatient cry. She has it when, in after years, there comes not the full measure of affection which she had expended, back into her own bosom. And she has it when disease has crushed the beauty of her opening flower, or when she looks into the casket of her infant's mind, and finds that the gem is wanting there. Yet, under all these circumstances, when money can not bribe attention, when friendship can not purchase care, when entreaties can not ensure the necessary aid, the mother is rich in resources and untiring in effort, simply because her love is of that kind which can not fail.