get to the fountain-hjad the clearer their recollections become. Ten thousand times ten thousand faces may have passed before their vision, and in the dim corridors of age they seem only like phantoms in a dream, but the clouds break, the sun of memory shines, and out of the past and turning it into the present there shines upon the old man or woman's vision a mother's face, blessed among women, radiant with tender grace beyond all others, and upon whose angel aspect time writes no wrinkles. Beautifully has Cowper expressed this feel- ing and vivid recollection of the heart's first love in his lines upon his mother's picture : "O that those lips had language ! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine, — thy own sweet smile I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; Voice only fail^, else how distinct they say, ♦ Grieve not, my child ; chase all thy fears away ! ' The raeek intelligence of those dear eyes (Blest be the art that can immcrtali/.e, — The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim To quench it !) here shines on me still the same." It needs no canvas to recall to us a mother's face. Dust and decay may dim and spoil a picture, but a dear mother's image is en- graven on the heart, and passes from it, or rather with it, only when it dies. As the eye recalls her looks of love, warning and consolation, so does the ear catch the sweet accents of her voice wafted on the intervening air as though it were .still speaking to us. The pictures and figures which we see evervwhere in Roman Catholic countries of the Madonna and child may symboliz.e to us, independently of their religious associations, the relation of the mother to the child-man or woman. Her arms are the everlasting arms that bear us up and on over the rough roads and through the blinding storms of life. Her eyes are alwa\-s looking down upon us with a love which no one else can feel. It is to her tender bosom that we nestle from the pitiless winds of life, and in the folds of her vesture that we bur}' our tired heads and sink to rest. 328 THE hearthstone; or, life at home. But beside the mother, who is dearest of all the memories of home, and whose sad, pleading face has often stayed the hand from violence and wrong and the feet from erring from the paths "of right, and the mind from utter atheism and disdain of life, and the heart from be- coming hard and dead to kindly feelings and affections, there are other faces that shine on us in the memories of home. Perhaps it is the aged grandfather, who in quavering tones called us his dear boy or girl, and told us wondrous stories of the days when he was young; or it is grandmother, who inspires us with awe of the reverence and duty which children showed to parents when she was a girl; or it is an aunt, who gave us pocket-money when we went to see her during the Christmas holidays; or the kind uncle, perhaps, who, having no children of his own, treated us as kindly and took as great interest in our welfare as though he had been our father. Now and then a strange face rises up before us, as that of one who had travelled over many lands and seas since he was our father's school- fellow, and whose weathen-beaten face shone with the light of happy reminiscences as he called our father by his Christian name, and talked of the old days with the books and sce

AI-modernized reading of the original text

get to the fountain-head the clearer their recollections become. Ten thousand times ten thousand faces may have passed before their vision, and in the dim corridors of age they seem only like phantoms in a dream, but the clouds break, the sun of memory shines, and out of the past and turning it into the present there shines upon the old man or woman's vision a mother's face, blessed among women, radiant with tender grace beyond all others, and upon whose angel aspect time writes no wrinkles. Beautifully has Cowper expressed this feeling and vivid recollection of the heart's first love in his lines upon his mother's picture : "O that those lips had language ! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine, — thy own sweet smile I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; Voice only fail,, else how distinct they say, ♦ Grieve not, my child ; chase all thy fears away ! ' The raeek intelligence of those dear eyes (Blest be the art that can immortalize, — The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim To quench it !) here shines on me still the same." It needs no canvas to recall to us a mother's face. Dust and decay may dim and spoil a picture, but a dear mother's image is engraven on the heart, and passes from it, or rather with it, only when it dies. As the eye recalls her looks of love, warning and consolation, so does the ear catch the sweet accents of her voice wafted on the intervening air as though it were .still speaking to us. The pictures and figures which we see everywhere in Roman Catholic countries of the Madonna and child may symbolize to us, independently of their religious associations, the relation of the mother to the child-man or woman. Her arms are the everlasting arms that bear us up and on over the rough roads and through the blinding storms of life. Her eyes are always looking down upon us with a love which no one else can feel. It is to her tender bosom that we nestle from the pitiless winds of life, and in the folds of her vesture that we bury our tired heads and sink to rest. 328 THE hearthstone; or, life at home. But beside the mother, who is dearest of all the memories of home, and whose sad, pleading face has often stayed the hand from violence and wrong and the feet from erring from the paths "of right, and the mind from utter atheism and disdain of life, and the heart from becoming hard and dead to kindly feelings and affections, there are other faces that shine on us in the memories of home. Perhaps it is the aged grandfather, who in quavering tones called us his dear boy or girl, and told us wondrous stories of the days when he was young; or it is grandmother, who inspires us with awe of the reverence and duty which children showed to parents when she was a girl; or it is an aunt, who gave us pocket-money when we went to see her during the Christmas holidays; or the kind uncle, perhaps, who, having no children of his own, treated us as kindly and took as great interest in our welfare as though he had been our father. Now and then a strange face rises up before us, as that of one who had travelled over many lands and seas since he was our father's schoolfellow, and whose weather-beaten face shone with the light of happy reminiscences as he called our father by his Christian name, and talked of the old days with the books and sce

The hearthstone; or, Life at home