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Show MOTHER'S DAY lly P. I). SpUsbury, Guest KditoruU Writer It was in 1908 that Miss Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia arranged a memorial service for her mother, who had been a very public-spirited worker in the community in which she lived. The object was two-fold. The first was to permit friends and neighbors who had been recipients of her mother's moth-er's kindness to pay their debt of respect and gratitude at the memorial service. The second was to combat the growing grow-ing lack of consideration for mothers by worldly-minded children, to remove the lack of deference and respect to parents, and to remind everyone of the deep debt of gratitude grati-tude to the gracious being who gave him or her birth. The response to this service was so great that it became the custom in that section to observe a day of respect and love for Mothers once a year. This led Miss Jarvis to see the . possibilities of this as a national day in which to honor the mothers of the nation. In 1913, the observance of Mother's Day was given national na-tional significance by a resolution of Congress. The second Sunday in May was set apart to be called "Mother's Day". Because of the tender associations and the sweet and fragrant frag-rant memories that cling to the name of "Mother", this day has become one of the happiest days of the year. It has for its object the fostering of the well-being and honor of the horrfe, where mother reigns as Queen. Mother's Day has a universal appeal. Its proper obser-ance obser-ance calls for some act of kindness, some gift or tribute of remembrance that shall make the home more hallowed and sacred and bring satifaction, gladness and love to father and mother alike. It is not a day for expensive gifts with which to salve our guilty consciences nor yet for one of almsgiving. almsgiv-ing. Rather it is a day which should be more and more widely observed until every mother is t,he recipient of some token of love and affection. Perhaps no true man ever lived who did not acknowledge acknowl-edge a deep debt of gratitude to the mother who gave him birth. "My Mother," said Thomas A. Edison, "was the making mak-ing of me. She was so true, so sure of me. I felt that I had some one to live for, some one whom I must not disappoint. disap-point. The memory of her will always be a blessing to me". Mother love is as measureless as the universe. There is no height, no depth or breadth which can compass or chart the love of mother for her offspring. There is no greater affinity, no higher sentiment. Every day we see accounts ac-counts where husbands forsake their wives and wives turn against their husbands, children repudiate their parents and fathers disown their sons. We never see where a mother rejects her own son. Mother love endures forever. Walter Dean Howells says, "There is no man who sees ail his mother is to him until too late for him to let her know it." The good is often observed, but seldom acclaimed. There is no pang more exacting than regret for that which might have been. The statement has been made that every great nation is founded on good homes, but every good home is founded on a good mother. Great men invariably have great mothers. When Lincoln's Lin-coln's mother was dying she said to him, "I want you to live a$ I have taught you, and to love your heavenly Father." Fath-er." When Lincoln was a man he was proud to say, "All that' I am, all that I hope to be, I owe to my mother." |