Pours itself forth and yet is never less,

Still spending and unspent-like mother's love!

EDMOND ROstand.

Number thy lamps of love, and tell me, now,
How many canst thou relight at the stars

And blush not at their burning? One-one onlyLit while your pulses by one heart kept time,

And fed with faithful fondness to your grave(Tho' sometimes with a hand stretch'd back from heaven),

Steadfast through all things near, when most forgot

And with its fingers of unerring truth

Pointing the lost way in the darkest hour

One lamp thy mother's love-amid the stars
Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before
The throne of God, burn through eternity

Oh! when a mother meets on high

The Babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,

An over-payment of delight?

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Earth held no symbol, had no living sign
To image forth the mother's deathless love.

MRS. HALE.

The love of a mother is never exhausted, it never changes, it never tires. A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condemnation, a mother still loves on, and still hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways, and repent; still she remembers the infant smiles that once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful shout of his childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and she can never be brought to think him all unworthy. WASHINGTON IRVING.

A mother's love!

If there be one thing pure,

Where all beside is sullied,

That can endure,

When all else passes away;

If there be aught

Surpassing human deed or word, or thought,

It is a mother's love.

MARCHIONESS DE SPADARA.

Poor George Somers had known what it was to be in sickness, and none to soothe - lonely and in prison, and none to visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight; if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed, watching him as he slept. Sometimes he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until he saw her bending over him, when he would

take her hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tranquillity of a child. In this way he died. WASHINGTON IRVING.

TRANSFIGURATION

BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT

On the death of her mother

Mysterious death! who in a single hour

Life's gold can so refine,

And by thy art divine

Change mortal weakness to immortal power!

Bending beneath the weight of eighty years,
Spent with the noblest strife

Of a victorious life,

We watched her fading heavenward, through our tears.

But ere the sense of loss our hearts had wrung,
A miracle was wrought;

And swift as happy thought

She lived again,- brave, beautiful, and young.

Age, pain, and sorrow dropped the veils they wore And showed the tender eyes

Of angels in disguise,

Whose discipline so patiently she bore.

The past years brought their harvest rich and fair; While memory and love,

Together, fondly wove

A golden garland for the silver hair.

How could we mourn like those who are bereft, When every pang of grief

Found balm for its relief

In counting up the treasures she had left?

Faith that withstood the shocks of toil and time; Hope that defied despair;

Patience that conquered care;

And loyalty, whose courage was sublime;

The great deep heart that was a home for all, Just, eloquent, and strong

In protest against wrong;

Wide charity, that knew no sin, no fall;

The Spartan spirit that made life so grand,

Mating poor daily needs

With high, heroic deeds,

That wrested happiness from Fate's hard hand.

We thought to weep, but sing for joy instead, Full of the grateful peace

That follows her release;

For nothing but the weary dust lies dead.

Oh, noble woman! never more a queen
Than in the laying down

Of scepter and of crown

To win a greater kingdom, yet unseen:

Teaching us how to seek the highest goal,

To earn the true success,

To live, to love, to bless,

And make death proud to take a royal soul.

THE MOTHER IN FICTION

BY STEPHEN WILLIAMS

Written for Mothers' Day

In the world of imaginative literature, as in actual life, the mother is a supreme figure. All sorts of women lend their enchantment to the pages of books, from the unscrupulous Becky Sharp to the sweet, pure, lovely heroines of Waverley. In the Waverley Novels womanhood approaches perfection. Di Vernon and the Jewess Rebecca are my favorite heroines in all fiction. Scott's women, however, are mostly free from exacting family obligations.

Jane Austen's characters and situations are always interesting, but her mothers are the most contemptible in English fiction. How we have wished that we could free them from their mercenary matrimonial pursuits! There is scarcely any variety of types, but Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice is the weakest and most lacking in sense. Mrs. Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, and Lady Bertram in Mansfield Park, are so lifelike that they appear as old acquaintances, and will live as long as books are read. Few and simple were the incidents of Miss Austen's brief life, but she has described the society she knew with great