A number of years ago a young woman left her home in the country to occupy a situation in a large town. Her widowed mother was very unwilling to part with her. She could not bear the thought of her daughter being separated from her, in the midst of strangers, surrounded by innumerable temptations, with no friends at hand to sympathize or advise. At last she consented, though with many misgivings and fears, and Mary left the home of her childhood and girlhood, to enter upon her duties in her new sphere of labor. Week after week warm and affectionate letters were interchanged, and anxiously and eagerly read again and again.
Time passed on, and the mother began to notice that her daughter’s letters were not so satisfactory as formerly. They began to get shorter and less affectionate, until eventually she stopped writing altogether. The poor widow’s heart sank within her. She did not know what to do, and, in her strait, cast her burden upon her “Burden Bearer.” Day after day she prayed that He would guard and protect her girl.
Sad tidings reached the mother’s ears from the distant city: she heard that her daughter had forsaken the paths of virtue and purity and was leading a life of sin and shame.
On receipt of this mournful intelligence, she determined to seek her prodigal child and bring her back. She at once set out to the scene of her daughter’s degradation. On reaching it, she endeavored to ascertain where she lived, but this was a difficult matter, as she had left her former lodgings.
Day and night into every conceivable place did the poor, heart-broken mother go in search of her erring child.
The language of her heart was:
“Come Home! Come Home! from the sorrow and blame,
From the sin and the shame and the tempter that smiled,
Ο prodigal child, Come Home! Ο Come Home!”
After a number of days of fruitless search, she purposed returning, when a new thought flashed across her mind. She went to a photographer’s find got her portrait taken. Having secured a number of copies, she went to the principal public-houses and asked permission to hang them on the walls. It was considered a very strange request, but seeing she was a respectable person, permission was granted. Sometime after the daughter with a dissolute companion walked into one of them. Her attention was attracted to the likeness on the wall. She said, “That looks like my mother.” She went nearer and examined it more closely. “It’s just my mother,” she exclaimed in amazement. At the foot of it she perceived that there was something written. She looked at it and at once recognized the familiar handwriting, but was not prepared for the thought expressed in the words:
“Mary, I love thee still!”
She could not stand this. She was prepared for up-braidings and reproaches, and expected nothing else; but to think that her mother had actually been searching for her in her haunts of sin and folly, and was willing to receive her back to the home of her childhood, just as she was—she could not understand it—and as she thought over the words, “ Mary, I Love Theo Still,” the days of her childhood and innocency came up before her, all the hallowed home associations; her mother’s prayers, tears, and loving counsels; and as she reflected on the difference between what she then was, and what she now was, she completely broke down. The awful folly and sin of her evil ways were clearly and vividly brought up before her, and she at once determined to leave her companions in sin and go back to her mother. When she arrived great was the joy of the widow at the unexpected arrival of the long-lost daughter; and better far, there was “joy in the presence of the angels of God;” for she became a humble follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dear, unsaved reader, you cannot help feeling interested in this touching story of a mother’s love, and the manifestations of it, in her desire to rescue her daughter from sin and degradation. A mother “may forget” her offspring, but God cannot forget poor lost sinners on their way to eternal destruction. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16). —Evangelist, New York, May.