Mother Country

“ A mother country has much of the same responsibility as a natural mother, herself, since its opinions and example are apt to be quoted in the one case by the dependant, in justification of its own opinions and conduct, as it is by the natural offspring in the other. ”

“ It is to our country we owe those laws, which protect us in our lives, our liberties, our properties, and our religion. Our country produced us into the world, and continues to nourish us, so that it is usually called our mother ”

“ But after all what was in men’s minds, when the American colonies began their contest for The analogy of family life in the case of a mother country and its colonies. independence was, speaking broadly, the feeling, right or wrong, that a mother country ought to pay and colonies ought not. Men argued then, and they still argue, from the analogy of a family. The head of the family should provide, as long as the children remain part of the household. ”

“ And de Luchet ends with this despairing appeal to the powers of Europe:
Masters of the world, cast your eyes on a desolated multitude, listen to their cries, their tears, their hopes. A mother asks you to restore her son, a wife her husband, your cities for the fine arts that have fled from them, the country for citizens, the fields for cultivators, religion for forms of worship, and Nature for beings of which she is worthy. ”

“ In this sense, when a country which has sent out colonies is termed the mother country, the expression is analogical, signifying that the colonies of a country stand in the same relation to her in which children stand to their parents. ”

“ No wonder men were staunch when their mothers exerted an influence which after the lapse of sixty odd years draws forth from a former Son of Liberty-Chasseur: “I was vigorous and strong in those days, and from my mother inherited an ardent love for the country in which I was born. ”

“ No one could live a busier life than Mother. She's president of ever so many societies and guilds! She looks after poor girls, and finds employment for them, and sends them to the country when they need holidays. Then, in our own village there are the Orphanage and the Cottage Hospital to visit, and the district nurse and the deaconess to help, and clothing clubs and local charities to manage. ”

“ I was delighted with the idea, partly because I liked the notion of seeing life in a new country, partly because I was very desirous of doing something to help my mother. I thought that by working a few years with my grandfather, I should learn how to manage a farm, so that in time, I could take a piece of land of my own, and make a home for my mother and the other children. ”

“ With them as a force, our beloved country may succeed in casting off the curse of neo-paganism and truly have a rebirth, a revival of family life in homes where the mother is literally the queen, guiding her children in the paths of righteousness and rejoicing in them as she watches them grow toward God. ”

“ From the first moment to the last, in all the roaring cities, in the remote valleys, in the deep woods, on the country hill-sides, on the open prairie, wherever there were wives, mothers, sisters, lovers, there were the busy fingers which, by day and by night, for four long years, like the great forces of spring-time and harvest, never failed. The mother paused only to bless her sons, eager for the battle; the wife to kiss her children's father, as he went ”

“ It surpasses all the rest in the fertility of the soil, and the industry of the colonists. They have given this adopted mother the name of their old country, which they still love, though it has treated them so hardly. ”

“ We have no national Church; moreover, the calling of a clergyman in this country lacks the social picturesqueness which goes far, or did go far, to reconcile the British younger son to accept the living which fell to his lot through family influence. Then again, would the American mother, like the conventional mother of the older civilizations, as represented in biography and fiction, if asked which of all vocations she would prefer [131] to have her son adopt, reply promptly and fervidly, “the ministry?” ”

“ Those responsible for some of the institutes realize very keenly the significance of the problem, and impress upon the children they meet their great interest in the Old-World background of the parents, their appreciation of the mother's being able to speak another language besides English, their pleasure in old-country dances, costumes, and songs. They try in every way possible to maintain the respect of the daughter for her foreign-born mother. ”

“ And even those who were without mother or sister at home received through the Sanitary or Christian commissions many evidences that their devotion to their country’s cause was lovingly remembered by the patriotic women of the North. ”

“ The children obtain situations in the families of the wealthy colonists, still remaining in connection with the mother-school which sent them out; and their letters to the teachers and their friends, about the country and the people of that new world to which they have removed, diffuse the utmost pleasure and excite the deepest interest in the old home. ”

“ But the more she talked, the less was I reassured, and I stopped her by asking: "Well, mother, am I white? Are you white?" She answered tremblingly: "No, I am not white, but you—your father is one of the greatest men in the country—the best blood of the South is in you—" This suddenly opened up in my heart a fresh chasm of misgiving and fear, and I almost fiercely demanded: "Who is my father? ”

“ Children catch the fire which burns in the parent heart; and where the father rushes eagerly to the salvation of his country, and the mother—concealing her sadness and fears, puts on a hopeful countenance, speaking the ennobling sentiments of patriotism—it may well be credited that the boys were not cowards. ”

“ We doubt not the destiny of our country—that she is to accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points. ”

“ No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those devils there had got hold of her to-day!" ”

“ And now, standing here upon the border-land of two centuries, over-shadowed by the dear old flag, re-baptized with the blood of my beloved as of yours—standing here, a native-born citizen, as a woman to whom the honor, purity, peace and freedom of native land is dear as life; as a wife vitally interested in the interests of manhood; as a mother responsible for the best development of her children; as a human being, responsible to her Creator for the highest possible usefulness, I claim equality before the law. ”

“ Nevertheless, I will say that Matanzas is lovely,—with the fair harbor on one hand and the fair hills on the other, sitting like a mother between two beautiful daughters, who looks from one to the other and wonders which she loves best. The air from the water is cool and refreshing, the sky is clear and open, and the country around seems to beckon one to the green bosom of its shades. ”

“ Hail to the Northland that cradles a nation,
⁠Lusty and strong as the masts of her pines,
Queen of her own, she reigns in her station,
⁠Mother of freemen she sits in her lines.
⁠God save the land we love,
⁠Make her forever prove
Mother of men, and a home of the free. ”

“ 'What about the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld?' my mother asked, 'where is she?' 'She's on the stairs, ma'am, getting her breath,' said the young servant, who had not been long up from the country, where my mother had the excellent habit of getting all her servants. Often she had seen them born. That's the only way to get really good ones. ”

“ The Imperial mother may virtually go to sleep, until aroused at this stage of her children's and her grandchildren's growth by a call to adjudicate, as the supreme parent, upon the impending and, perhaps, contentious question of separation, while she finds at the same moment that a forty-fifth or a fiftieth member is about to be added to the world-wide colonial family. ”

“ Old and young, rich and poor, every woman with some soul that was dear to her in that inferno at the front—the Motherhood of France was there to pray to the Mother of all living to ask God for the triumph of the right. ”

“ Home and mother reign supreme in the American heart, and the American is not ashamed to own it. And, therefore, since the American boy in camp to-day is often undoubtedly and frankly home-sick—a condition which the more reticent Englishman but rarely admits the whole motherhood of America to-day is, mobilizing to set the matter right. ”

“ The lonelier the cabin, the more secluded the settlement, the sharper seem to grow the mother's eyes, and the more profound this intuitive faculty. It is the mother who first discerns the native bent and endowments of her child, and she too is the quickest to encourage and draw them out. How many eminent and useful men whose childhood was passed in the outlying settlements have been able to trace their success to a mother's insight into their capabilities. ”

“ One has only to read history for proof of the statement that when the mothers of a nation are strong and courageous, the nation is strong and spirited. A fair gauge of a nation's strength—that is, of its moral strength, which in the final reckoning is the only kind that really matters—is the regard, or lack of regard, that its people have for the Christian concept of motherhood as ennobled by the Mother of God. ”

“ Here and there incidents and anecdotes scattered through a thousand tomes give us glimpses of the wife, the mother, or the daughter as a heroine or as an angel of kindness and goodness, but most of her story is a blank which never will be filled up. And yet it is precisely in her position as a pioneer and colonizer that her influence is the most potent and her life story most interesting.
The glory of a nation consists in its migrations and the colonies it plants as well as in its wars of conquest. ”

“ Their sphere of action limited to the bosom of their own families, the influence wrought quietly and unmarked, yet sent forth an impulse and an energy, like the life blood propelled from the heart, through our whole national system. The mothers, who through years of adverse fortune were true to American principles, and who kept them pure in their homes in the season of prosperity, although no brilliant acts illustrate their simple history, rendered real service to the country. ”

“ He who would have reformed France was taught that he must begin his work by training mothers. And thus the ancient patriarch foresaw that the great nation that was to descend from him, like to the stars of heaven for multitude, would long bear the impress of the character of the mother who rocked it in the first [74] cradle of its existence, and his wisdom was manifested in the pains which he took to secure a good lineage and right habits and principles. ”

“ As her young people grow up, they part off eagerly from the old farm,—one into a southern city, another into the western forest, a third to a prairie in a new territory; and the daughters marry, and go over the mountains too. The mother may have sighs to conceal, but she does conceal them; and the sons, so far from lingering,—are impatient till they are gone. Their idea of national honour,—both their patriotic and their personal ambition,—is concerned; and they welcome the hour of dispersion as the first step towards the great objects of their life. ”

“ The venerable Mother of the Republics is scarce a fit subject for flippant speech or the idle gossipping of tourists. It seems a sort of sacrilege to disturb the glamour of old romance that pictures her to us softly from afar off as through a tinted mist, and curtains her ruin and her desolation from our view. ”

“ In the United States, even in Canada, hardly has the pioneer made a home in the wilderness when his sons and his daughters are allured by the distant gleam of cities beyond the plains. In England the countryside has almost ceased to be the mother of men—at least a fruitful mother. ”

“ Our eyes grow moist with emotion as we speak of our mothers—our own mothers—and what they have done for us. Our voices thrill and tremble with pathos and veneration as we speak of "the mothers of great men—" mother of Abraham Lincoln! ”

“ The old settlers and the settlers that are coming in, must be dealt with on the principles of fairness and justice as well as yourselves. Your Great Mother knows no difference between any of her people. Another thing I want you to think over is this: in laying aside these reserves, and in everything else that the Queen shall do for you, you must understand that she can do for you no more than she has done for her red children in the East. ”

“ England, father and mother in one,
See the wealth of your son.
Forests primeval, and virginal sod,
Wheat-fields golden and splendid:
Riches of nature and opulent God
For the use of his children intended.
A courage that dares, and a hope that endures,
And a soul all yours.
p. 4England, father and mother in one,
Hear the cry of your son.
Little cares he for the glories of earth
Lying around and above him,
Yearning is he for the rights of his birth,
And the heart of his mother to love him. ”