"Who are these mothers for whom we have decorated our school room and ourselves with these beautiful flowers? [Draw, in black outline the carnation blossom; add the stem in solid green, and place the lettering in purple, red or blue, [Fig. 56].]
"Surely these mothers must be of great importance or we would not be having a special service for them today. I have been reading a little about mothers, to see if they are really of much value to the world, and I want to repeat some of the things I have read. [It is well to have all of these quotations in note form to be read with accuracy.]
"I find that John Randolph, one of America's greatest statesmen, said, 'I should have been an atheist if it had not been for one recollection—and that was the memory of the time when my departed mother used to take my little hand in hers and cause me on my knees to say, "Our Father who art in heaven."'
"I find that Abraham Lincoln said of his mother, 'All that I am and all that I hope to be I owe to my mother. Blessings on her memory!'
"I find that George Herbert said, 'One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.'
"I find that Oliver Wendell Holmes said,
"'Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother's secret hope outlives them all.'
"I find that Coleridge said,