" As this evening I left
the room with their innocent benedictions sounding in my ears, a
sense of personal weakness, induced by the events of the day,
moved me to fervently respond "Amen!"
Mothers of American boys, accept from me a tribute of respect,
which no words can fitly express--of wonder greater than any of
the great things of the world ever inspired--of adoration as
earnest and devout as the Catholic pays to the Virgin. In a single
day, I, a strong man, with nothing else to occupy my mind, am
reduced to physical and mental worthlessness by the necessities of
two boys not overmischievous or bad. And you--Heaven only knows
how--have unbroken weeks, months, years, yes, lifetimes of just
such experiences, and with them the burden of household cares, of
physical ills and depressions, of mental anxieties that pierce
your hearts with as many sorrows as grieved the Holy Mother of
old. Compared with thy endurance, that of the young man, the
athlete, is as weakness; the secret of thy nerves, wonderful even
in their weakness, is as great as that of the power of the winds.
To display decision, thy opportunities are more frequent than
those of the greatest statesman; thy heroism laughs into
insignificance that of fort and field; thou art trained in a
school of diplomacy such as the most experienced court cannot
furnish.
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