AMERICAN WAR MOTHERS - FAYETTE COUNTY, KENTUCKY CHAPTER
'Mother of Mine'
By Dr. James I. Vance
Men or largely what their mothers make them. This is said to be true of their physiques; it is certainly true of their characters. The mother is the first priest of the soul. In her face is our earliest vision of heaven, and in her love do we find our sweetest and most comforting revelation of God.
He is a strange man who must be urged to honor the memory of his mother; a cheap man who tries to excuse his own shortcomings by reflecting on his mother's training, and a brute who is every anything but thoughtful and considerate of her who placed her own life in jeopardy to give him being.
How the memory of mother steals over us! It sings itself like a song unto the tired heart. It falls like a benediction from heaven on human need. It changes gray to gold in the cold cloud of a stormy sky, and packs the night of disappointment with stars of hope.
In this changing and restless life there is one thing that is as steady as the shining of the sun. A mother's love knows no variableness, neither shadow of turning. It will pay any price, endure any sacrifice, face any peril, bear any shame, and die without a murmur, for a child.
A man can always be sure of one friend-his mother. The world may turn him down, but she stands by him. Society may lose faith in him, but in the face of all the doubts that may blacken his name, she believes in him. When there is nothing left of his palace of hope but the ashes, his mother comes and sits with him there in the gloom, and whispers hope, and bids him play the man, and heartens his very soul until before he knows it he is building castles in the air again.
She may have crossed the silent river, but he is sure she has not forgotten. If the dead can think of us, mother is thinking of her children; if the dead can pray, she is keeping the old vigil. In the hallowed silence of memory we can see her dear face, and heaven is never so near as when the radiant mantle of a mother's influence falls about our life.
Here's to the Blue of the wind-swept North!
As they meet on the fields of France;
May the spirit of Grant be with them all
As the sons of the North advance.
Here's to the Grey of the sun-kissed South!
As they meet on the fields of France;
May the spirit of Lee be with them all
As the sons of the South advance.
Here's to the Blue and Grey as one!
As they meet on the fields of France;
May the Spirit of God be with them all
As the sons of the Flag advance.