"JOHN'S" MOTHER.


One of the oldest problems among the many seemingly contradictory
"examples" set for the student of human nature has to do with the
different positions assigned to mother and mother-in-law.

Painters, poets, divines, sages,--the inspired Word itself,--rank the
mother's office as the noblest assigned to creatures of mortal mould.
Mother-love and the love of the dear Father of us all are compared,
the one with the other. Of all human affections, this, the first that
takes root in the infant's heart, is the last to die out under the
blighting influence of vice, the deadening blows of time. "My Mother"
is spoken by the world-hardened citizen with a gentler inflection,--a
reverential cadence, as if the inner man stood with uncovered head
before a shrine.

Mother-in-law! The words call a smile that is too often a sneer to
lips in which dwells habitually the law of kindness, while lampoon,
caricature, jest and song find in them theme and catchword for mockery
and insult.

I witnessed, not long ago, the skillful impersonation of a husband who
held in his hand a letter just received from his wife. The first page
informed him that after his departure from home his wife's mother had
arrived; the second, that she intended to remain during the winter;
the third, that she had been taken suddenly and violently ill; and the
fourth, that she was dead. The reader spoke no word while perusing the
epistle, but his facial play attested his emotions better than speech