[Editor: This article, about Mother’s Day, was published in The Watchman (Sydney, NSW), 20 May 1909.]
Mother’s Day
The latest from the land of the Stars and Stripes is “Mother’s Day,” and is an innovation to be highly commended. That one day should be set apart to remember in special fashion the virtue and communal value of all good mothers is a suggestion likely to be adopted. This year quite a number of churches in Adelaide took part in the commemoration. There was a large demand for pure white carnations, and other white flowers, in the city market the previous day, and floriculturists have already made a note of being ready for the next observance of “Mother’s Day.” The value of maternal influence cannot be exaggerated, and history is crowded with instances of the reality and beneficence of the power exerted by the mothers of great men. It is, however, in the ordinary family life that mothers do the best work of the nation, and anything that will cheer and inspire them in the ever-increasing difficulty of moulding the lives of their children is of value.
What the Commonwealth sorely needs just now is that Protestant mothers should instil into the minds of the young people those great principles associated with the name of Protestantism. In these perilous days of latitudinarianism on the one hand, and sacerdotalism on the other, special attention should be paid to the Protestant education of children, and mothers have unique opportunity of rendering this great service to their families, and, through them, to the nation. In this connection they should know there is an ample and cheap literature available, some of which we are able to supply. The average child-mind nowadays is filled with no small amount of what is mere rubbish, and these fine, simply-told, Protestant stories, make not only entrancing reading, but provide history in a form likely to strengthen the character and shape the life in the right direction.
We are not sure but that “fathers” need a day, or perhaps a week. It is deplorable that so many evade their responsibility to their children in this matter of personally instructing their offspring. Of course, in the nature of things, mothers are associated with the home-life more closely, but every sensible Protestant father should seize his opportunity to give his child the benefit of experience, and the advantage of a contagious enthusiasm for the cause of Protestantism. God-speed “Mother’s Day” throughout Australia!
Source:
The Watchman (Sydney, NSW), 20 May 1909, p. 4
Editor’s notes:
Commonwealth = the Commonwealth of Australia; the Australian nation, federated on 1 January 1901
land of the Stars and Stripes = the United States of America (the national flag of the USA is known as “the Stars and Stripes”)
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