process, the Mother. Her functions are complex, subtle, powerful, of
measureless value.

Her first duty is to grow nobly for her mighty purpose. Her next is to
select, with inexorable high standard, the fit assistant for her work.
The third--to fitly bear, bring forth, and nurse the child. Following
these, last and highest of all, comes our great race-process of social
parentage, which transmits to each new generation the gathered
knowledge, the accumulated advantages of the past.

When mother and father labor and save for years to give their children
the "advantages" of civilization; when a whole state taxes itself to
teach its children; that is the Life Force even more than the direct
impulse of personal passion. The pressure of progress, the resistless
demand of better conditions for our children, is life's largest
imperative, the fullest expression of motherhood.

But even if we confine ourselves for the time being to the plane of mere
replenishment, to that general law under which animals continue in
existence upon earth, even here the brief period of pre-paternal
excitement is but a passing hour compared to the weeks and months, yes,
years, in the higher species, of maternal service, love and care. The
human father, too, toils for his family; but the love, the power, the
pride of fatherhood are not symbolized by the mischievous butterfly baby
we have elected to worship.

Cupid has nothing to do with either motherhood or fatherhood in the
large human sense. His range is far short of the mark, he suggests
nothing of the great work to which he is but the pleasing preliminary.
Even for marriage we must bring in another god little heard of--Master