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What is a mother’s love?
A noble, pure, and heavenly flame,
Descending from above,
To bless a heart of earthly mold;
A mother’s love can ne’er grow cold—
This is a mother’s love.
In a small village by the sea-shore, in the
Highlands of Scotland, lived a poor widow with her only child, an infant
boy. Hard was her lot at this time—for her rent was overdue some weeks,
and the agent threatened to dispossess her of her little farm, if it was
not paid at once.
The little village where herself and ancestors had lived for more than
three generations was about to be swept away, in order to enlarge a
sheep farm. Indeed, along the margin of the great stream which watered
the green valley, and along the shore of the lake, might even be traced
the rains of many a hamlet where happy and contented people once lived,
bnt where no sound is now heard, except the bleating of a solitary
sheep, or the scream of the eagle as he wheels his flight among the
dizzy precipices above. Earnestly did the widow desire to keep her
little home; and to enable her to do so, she determined, after due
consideration, to make known her trouble to a kinsman of her husband’s,
who, at the time of his death, promised, if she needed it, he would
assist her to pay her rentv It was a lovely morning in May, when the
widow left her home very early, that she might reach her kinsman’s house
before night, carrying her infant boy, who was not yet two years old,
upon her back. The journey was a long one. The mountain track which she
had to travel, after leaving the small village by the sea-shore, where
the widow lived, passes through a green valley, watered by a peaceful
stream which flows from the neighboring lake; it then winds along the
margin of the solitary lake, until near its farther end it suddenly
turns into an extensive copsewood of oak and birch. From this it emerges
half-way up a rugged mountain side, and, entering a dark glen, through
which a torrent gushes amidst great masses of granite, it at last
conducts the traveler by a zigzag ascent to a narrow gorge, which is
hemmed in upon every side by grand precipices. Overhead is a strip of
blue sky, while all below is dark and gloomy. It was, indeed, a wild and
lovely path, that requires the eye to behold to realize the journey and
situation of this poor widow with her fatherless babe.
From the mountain pass her home was ten miles off, and no human
habitation was nearer than her own. She had undertaken a long journey
indeed. The morning when the widow left her home gave promise of a
lovely day, but before noon a sudden change took place in the weather.
Northward the sky became black, and lowering masses of clouds rested
upon the hills, and sudden gusts of wind began to whistle among the
rocks, and to ruffle with black squalls the surface of the loch. The
wind was succeeded by rain, and the rain by sleet, and the sleet by a
heavy fall of snow. The wildest day of winter never beheld flakes of
snow falling heavier or faster, or whirling with more fury along this
the mountain pass, filling every hollow, and whitening every rock. It is
yet remembered in Scotland as the great May storm. Weary and wet,
foot-sore and cold, the widow reached this mountain pass with her child.
She knew that a mile beyond was a shieling which would afford her
shelter from the blast; but the moment she attempted to face the storm
of snow which was rushing through the narrow gorge, all hope failed of
proceeding in that direction. To return home was equally impossible. She
must find shelter. The wild cats’ or foxes’ den would be welcome. After
wandering about for some time among the huge fragments of granite which
skirted the base of the overhanging precipices, she at last found a more
sheltered rock. She crouched beneath a projecting rock, and pressed her
child to her trembling bosom. The storm continued to rage; the snow was
accumulating overhead. Hour after hour passed, and it became bitterly
cold.
The evening approached, and the widow’s heart became sick with fear and
anxiety. Her child—her only child—was all she thought of. She wrapped
him in her shawl, but the poor thing had been scantily clad, and the
shawl was thin and worn. Her own clothing was not sufficient to defend
herself from such a night as this, more piercing in its cold than had
been felt all winter. But whatever was to become of -herself, her child
must be preserved. The snow, in whirling eddies, entered the recess,
which at best afforded them but a miserable shelter. The night came on.
The wretched mother stripped off almost all her own clothing, and
wrapped it around her child, whom, at last, in despair, she pat into a
deep crevice of the rock among some dried heather and fern. And now she
resolved, at all hazards, to brave the storm, and return home, in order
to get assistance for her babe, or perish in the attempt. Clasping her
infant to her heart, and covering his face with tears and kisses, she
laid him softly down in sleep, and rushed into the snowy drift.
That night of storm was succeeded by a peaceful morning. The sun shone
from a clear blue sky, and wreaths of mist hung along the mountain tops,
while a thousand water-falls poured down their sides. Dark figures, made
visible at a distance on the white ground, might be seen with long poles
examining every hollow near the mountain path. They are people from the
village, seeking for the widow and her son. They have reached the pass.
A cry is made by one of the shepherds as he sees a bit of tartan cloak
among the snow. They have found the widow— dead, with her arms stretched
forth as if imploring assistance. Before noon they discovered her child
by its cries. He was safe in the crevice of the rock.
The story of that woman’s affection for her child was soon read in
language which all understood. Her almost naked body revealed her love.
Many a tear was shed, many an exclamation, expressive of admiration and
affection, was uttered from enthusiastic, sorrowing Highland hearts,
when on that evening the aged pastor gathered the villagers in the
deserted house of mourning, and by prayer and fatherly exhortation,
sought to improve, for their soul’s good, an event so sorrowful.
More than half a century passed away! That aged pastor was long dead,
though his memory still lingers in many a retired glen among the
children’s children of parents whom he had baptized.
This son, whose locks are white with age, was preaching to a
congregation of Highlanders in one of our great cities. It was on a
communion Sabbath. The subject of his discourse was the love of Christ.
In illustrating the self-sacrificing nature of that love, “which seeketh
not her own,” he narrated the story of the Highland widow, whom he had
himself known in his boyhood. And he asked, “If that child were still
living, what would you think of his heart if he did not cherish the
greatest affection for his mother’s memory; and if the sight of the poor
tattered cloak, which she had wrapped around him, in order to save his
life at the cost of her own, did not fill him with gratitude and love
too deep for words? Yet what hearts have you, my hearers, if over these
memorials of your Savior’s love, in the sacrifice of himself, you do not
feel them glow with deeper love and with adoring gratitude?”
A few days after this, a message was sent by a dying man with a request
to see this clergyman. The request was speedily complied with.
The sick man seized the minister by the hand, and gazing intently on his
face, said: “You do not, you can not recognize me. But I know you, and I
knew your father before you. I have been a wanderer in many lands. I
have visited every quarter of the globe, and fought and bled for my king
and country. I came to the city a few weeks since in bad health. Last
Sabbath day, I entered your church—the church of my countrymen—where I
would once more hear, in the language of my youth and of my heart, the
blessed Gospel of the grace of God to poor, perishing, dying men. I
heard you tell the story of the widow and her son”—here the voice of the
old soldier faltered, his emotion choked his utterance, but, recovering
himself for a moment, he cried: MI am that son!” and burst into a flood
of tears. “Yes,” he continued; “I am that son! Never, never did I forget
my mother’s love. Well might you ask, what a heart should mine have been
if she had been forgotten by me? Though I never saw her, dear to me is
her memory; and my only desire now is, to lay my bones beside hers in
the old church-yard among the hills. But, sir, what breaks my heart and
covers me with shame is this: until now I never saw, with the eyes of
the soul, the love of the Savior in giving himself for me—a poor, lost,
hell-deserving sinner. I confess it, I confess it! ” he cried, looking
up to heaven, his eyes streaming with tears; and, pressing the
minister’s hand close to his breast, he added:
“It was God that made you tell that story. Praise be to his holy name
that my dear mother did not die in vain, and that the prayers which I am
told she used to offer up for me have been at last answered; for the
love of my mother has been blessed by the Holy Spirit, for making me
see, as I never saw before, the love of the Savior. I see it, I believe
it. I have found safety and deliverance in my old age, where I found it
in my infancy—"In the cleft of the rock—but now it is the Rock of
Ages.’” And, clasping his hand, he repeated with great earnestness my
text, altering the one word woman, to mother—“Can a mother forget her
sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her
womb? They may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” |
