For ages, of his empire: which in peace
Unstained he holds, while many a league to sea,
He wings his course and preys in distant isles.”
Such is the nature of affection in general; but in a daughter it is so powerful, that it never quits her.
According to the old adage—
“My son is my son, ’till he gets him a wife;
My daughter’s my daughter, the whole of her life.”
The pious excellent Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England, convinced of the unlawfulness of the King’s marriage, resigned the Great Seal, and resolved to pass the remainder of his life amidst the charities of home and the consolations of religion.—Erasmus, speaking of his friend says, “there is not any man living so affectionate to his children; you would say there was in that place Plato’s academy,—I should rather call his house a school or university of Christian religion, for their special care is piety and virtue.” Upon his refusal to take the oath of supremacy, he was tried for high treason and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, and his head to be stuck on a pole on London bridge. He was executed July 5th, 1535. His body was begged by his daughter Margaret, and deposited in the church of Chelsea; where a monument, with an inscription written by himself had been erected some time before. She found means also to procure his head, after it had remained upon London bridge fourteen days: this she carefully preserved in a leaden chest, till she conveyed it to Canterbury, and placed it under a chapel adjoining to St. Dunstan’s church in that city; where, after having survived her father sixteen years, she according to her desire was buried in the same vault with her father’s head in her arms.
MOTHER.
Of the love of a mother it is scarcely possible to give any adequate description. All that can be said of Charity, is most true if it be said of a mother’s love, which hopeth, believeth, endureth all things. As the spirit of God brooded over the creation, while it was yet in the womb of the morning,—with such heavenly love does the pure spirit of the mother, cherish her infant yet unborn. With silent and thankful tears, she hears the first sound of its little voice, and straightway forgets all her pain and travail! When she looks upon it, no matter how homely in the eyes of another, she thinks that the world contains nothing fairer. Who can number her prayers for her infant, or her fond anticipations of his future advancement?—she remembers that the greatest men have once been helpless children, and trusts that her little helpless child will one day be a great man; she treasures his first words in her heart, and in all his little sayings discovers seeds of wisdom and goodness; and if after all, she is doomed to find him deformed in limb, or weak in intellect, she dwells upon the sweetness of his disposition, and the strength of his affections, and clings to him with a warmer love, because others think him crippled and unsightly. If her child grows up, in the fear and nurture of God, and is deserving of her love, life has no joy like her joy; and should all her care prove fruitless, and the misguided youth make her heart sad, and steep her bread in tears, though all desert him she clings to him to the last: in poverty, in sickness, in the punishment of his crimes—she, is there: the fond mother in the loathsome convict-ship,—in the cell of the condemned,—at the foot of the scaffold! All, all, have deserted him,—save He who died for him, and she who gave him birth.