Of all God's creatures, I know no happier one than a young mother with a good husband and a healthy baby. I say a healthy baby, for that implies healthy parents, especially a healthy mother. She may justly feel proud that God has intrusted a young immortal to her care, and she should at all times bear in mind that it is His gift. While it is on all hands considered honorable to hold a commission from the President, and to fill a high office, contributing to the welfare of many people, a mother may feel her office at least as honorable, seeing she has intrusted to her the rearing and training of an immortal being, and that she holds her commission direct from the King of Kings. For, recollect, it is only by God's blessing that she becomes a mother; for such is the present state of society that many very worthy married people have not the privilege of offspring, although they are intensely fond of children and seem to have no other earthly want. They may, nevertheless, be very useful, and therefore happy, in a different sphere, by the adoption of nephews and nieces or in some similar way.
AT THE BIRTH OF HER FIRST CHILD
there is opened in the mother's heart a new well of love, such as she had not known before; and although she may fancy that this is all spent upon her babe, it is not so, for she loves her God, her husband, and everybody else better than ever. The father, too, is similarly affected; he also has a warmer love for his wife and for all his connections.
A similar idea is well expressed by Möhler, a German writer, who says: “The power of selfishness, which is inwoven with our whole being, is altogether broken by marriage, and by degrees love, becoming more and more pure, takes its place.” When a man marries he gives himself up entirely to another being; in this affair of life he first goes out of himself, and inflicts the first deadly wound on his egotism. By every child with which his marriage is blessed, nature renews the same attack on his selfhood, causes him to live less for himself, and more—even without being distinctly conscious of it—for others; his heart expands in proportion as the claimants upon it increase, and, bursting the bonds of its former narrow exclusiveness, it eventually extends its sympathies to all around.
Whenever a mother is supplying her baby with the food which God has so wisely provided for it, or is ministering to any other of its numerous and increasing wants, she may feel that everything she does for it is pleasing to her Heavenly Father and has its immediate reward in the delight she experiences in the act.
I can fancy that when a mother has washed her baby, and before she dresses it has a good romp with it, smothering it with kisses, calling it all the beauties and darlings and pets and jewels she can think of, and talking any amount of nonsense at the top of her voice—the baby all the while cooing, chirping, or even screaming with delight—at such a time, I say, I can easily fancy that the angels are looking on approvingly and enjoying the scene. And why not? “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
From the time that an infant first becomes conscious of its wants, and long afterwards, it looks to its mother to supply them all, fully believing her able to do so. She is, in fact, in place of God to it, and it would be well for many of us if we trusted our Heavenly Father as simply and as fully as the infant does its earthly mother.
Those who know no better, when they see a mother patiently watching her sleeping babe, might wonder that she does not feel the want of company. She has, however, company that they know not of, and of which even she herself may not be conscious. If only our eyes were open, we might see that she is not the only one that is so engaged—that angels are also occupied in watching the babe and in supporting her. I entirely agree with Dr. Watts, where, in his “Cradle Hymn,” he makes the mother say:
“Hush! my babe, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed.”
You probably know the beautiful Irish superstition that when a baby smiles in its sleep the angels are whispering to it.