KISS MY EYELIDS DOWN TO-NIGHT. ISS me, mother, kiss me gently, KIS Kiss my eyelids down to-night, I'm so lonely, and without you Cannot say my prayers aright. Kiss my eyelids, loving mother, As you did in days long gone When I slept upon your bosom, Kiss them, mother, just once more. Sing to me, my darling mother, Sing your softest lullaby; Let me dream that I am sitting Let my dreams be all about you, Kiss my eyelids down at night. NIGHT. WE GENERAL GARFIELD'S MOTHER. HEN James A. Garfield was a child, when he was a grown-up boy, and when he was a young man, his mother's love prompted her to toil and care for him, and to lead him in the ways of truthfulness and uprightIn return for her faithful toil and love and care, he labored to make her happy, and to do her honor. ness. When Garfield was inaugurated President of the United States, on the 4th of March, 1881, after he had taken the oath of office in the presence of many thousand people, he kissed the Holy Bible, and then turned and kissed his aged mother, and his wife. No artist can do justice to that event. He knew how proud his mother was to see him installed in the highest office in the gift of the American people, and in that hour of exaltation his heart turned to her. Months rolled by, and he was assassinated; and during all the long, weary weeks of terrible suffering that followed, he wrote but one letter, and that was to his mother. He knew she was weeping for him, and that her thoughts were all of her "dear afflicted son." He knew well the depths of his mother's love, that she longed and prayed for his recovery every hour of the long and weary days; and in answer to this love, he wrote only to her during those dreadful weeks. He was surrounded by men of state, attended by the leading physicians of the country, and anxiously inquired after and sympathized with by all civilized nations on earth; he was watched over and cared for by many good friends, and by a devoted and faithful wife; yet in the midst of all this, his thoughts turned to his old home. "Mother! dear mother! my heart calls for you." "I must write to mother;" and calling for pen and ink, he wrote the only letter penned by him after the assassin struck him down. When Garfield's mother heard of his assassination, she exclaimed: "Oh! why did they shoot my baby?" He was her youngest child, and her thoughts went back through the years of toil and care, and he was again at her knee. My baby," was the dearest name, and the depths of a mother's love, surpassed alone by the love of God for the world, was awakened in her heart, and found expression in words that were dear to her when the President of the United States was a child in her arms. HE parental love which fills a woman's heart when THE she holds her little child in her arms, as even we childless ones must see, is something so divine, so pure from all selfishness, where it is felt aright, that every care and fatigue and sacrifice comes to the mother as a matter of course.-Frances Power Cobbe. AL LL that I am my mother made me.-John Quincy THE mother's yearning, that complete type of life in another's life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the base, degraded man.-George Eliot. WHERE'S MY BABY? RE'S HERE'S my baby? Where's my baby? In my arms I held one fondly, And each pink and chubby toe. Where's my baby? I remember And the bright curls on his head; Of the little teeth so pearly, And the first sweet words he said. Where's my baby? Ask that urchin, Let me hear what he will say; "Where's your baby, ma?" he questioned, With a roguish look and way; "Guess he's grown to be a boy, now, Big enough to work and play." |