“I find everywhere the great men of the world paying loving tribute to these mothers, and after all there is only one real perfect, true and faultless mother in all the world and that is our own mother, whether she be gone before or whether she be still with us.  I am sure that every one of us older ones will find ourselves in tune with the expressive words of George Griffith Fetter, who wrote: 

      “’The noblest thoughts my soul can claim,
        The holiest words my tongue can frame,
        Unworthy are to praise the name
          More sacred than all other. 
        An infant, when her love first came—­
        A man, I find it just the same;
        Reverently, I breathe her name,
          The blessed name of mother.’

“And so, I answer the question that I asked at the beginning, who are these mothers?  Really, it seems to me that the mothers of the world are the power which keeps it moving toward all that is good and high and holy.  Mother love has been a power in the world since history commenced, and the scriptures are filled with beautiful demonstrations of it.  How we love to read the story of the mother of Moses who hid her child in the bullrushes and then succeeded in being engaged as his nurse.  How often has the heart thrilled at the hearing of the story of Samuel and his mother!  How strongly the mother love manifested itself at the time of the judgment of Solomon who was called to determine the possession of the child claimed by two women.  And what could be more beautiful than the pictures of the devotion of the mother of Jesus to Him who was to be the Savior of the world?

“Verily, ’the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world,’ through the love of good which the mother hopes for her child.  The mother of today in America has a greater problem than ever before.  The boys of today are the men of tomorrow.  The boys will be what the mothers make them; and with this thought, I want to change our drawing slightly to indicate the ever-present problem which is never safe except in the hands of the right kind of mothers of the boys of today and of the future generations. [Add the words to complete Fig. 57.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 57]

“May God bless you, mothers, and help you to help these boys and these girls to meet the great problems which are before them.  You must help them.  Without you, they are on unsafe ground, treading perilous paths.”

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
    —­New Year’s Day
    —­Watchfulness

Most of Them May be Rolled into One—­“Hold Fast to That Which Is
Good.”

THE LESSON—­That the positive life, rather than the negative life, knows true happiness.

While this talk is planned for the special application to the opening of the fiscal or the school or church year, it may be revised very easily to fit many other occasions.

The Talk.