whose peculiar care we have the happiness to be; and the closest resemblance we find in reality to this consoling and delightful thought, is the influence of a mother, often felt more powerfully when absent, than when under the inspection of her ever-watchful eye. Nor can change of scene or lapse of time obliterate the impression, simply because it was the first, and made at a time when the heart was a tender and willing recipient to the impress of affection. Thus it visits the rude sailor on the stormy deep, in the long watches of the night; it travels with the pilgrim through the desert, and cheers him in the stranger's home; and if it does not check the man of worldly calculations when tempted to defraud, it sometimes brings him, on his couch of nightly rest, to question whether he has done right. It gives music to the voice of fame, when it echoes on a mother's ear; sweetness to the bridal wreath, when a mother binds it on a daughter's brow; honor to the dignity, a mother showed us how to wear; and value to the wealth, a mother taught us how to use.
I speak not from experience, for to me the precious link was broken before I felt its power, or could appreciate its worth; but if an aching want of that which nature pines for, if a dim vision of unseen beauty haunting perpetually the path of life, if a standard of perfect though unknown excellence imparting stability and form to the hope of its existence on earth;—if all these give a title to describe the value of a mother's influence, then, from the recollections of a desolate childhood, uncherished by maternal tenderness, surely I may speak, and not in vain.
