immortality, which has replaced form with form and kept the stream
unbroken through the ages, we ought to understand whereof we speak.

That force is predominant. Under its ceaseless, upward pressure have all
creatures risen from the first beginning. Resistlessly it pushes
through the ages; stronger than pain or fear or anger, stronger than
selfishness or pride, stronger than death. It rises like a mighty tree,
branching and spreading through the changing seasons.

Death gnaws at it in vain. Death destroys the individual, not the race;
death plucks the leaves, the tree lives on. That tree is motherhood.

The life process replaces one generation with another, each equal to,
yes, if possible, superior to, the last. This mighty process has
enlarged and improved throughout the ages, until it has grown from a
mere division of the cell--its first step still--to the whole range of
education by which the generations are replenished socially as well as
physically. From that vague impulse which sets afloat a myriad oyster
germs, to the long patience of a brooding bird; from the sun-warmed eggs
of a reptile to the nursed and guarded young of the higher mammals; so
runs the process and the power through lengthening years of love and
service, lives by service, grows with service. The longer the period of
infancy, the greater the improvement of species.

The fish or insect, rapidly matured, reaches an early limit. He must be
competent to Iive as soon as he begins, and is no more competent at his
early ending. The higher life form, less perfect at beginning, spending
more time dependent on its mother, receives from her more power. First
from her body's shelter, the full, long upbuilding; safety while she is
safe; the circling guard of wise, mature, strong life, of conscious