to be remembered in thanksgiving. Rest Cottage, Evanston.""

It was the going from life of such a mother that made earth empty and the heart of the daughter forever bereaved. Ever after, her spirit drooped; a part of Miss Willard's deeper spiritual self reached out toward that universe to which from the moment of her mother's departure she felt she too belonged. In her journal we find the ever-recurring eloquent question, "Where is my mother?" A question that was to persistently reiterate itself until, like a tired child, she had been restored to her mother's arms. Not otherwise than Monica and Saint Augustine did these two, "Saint Courageous" and her daughter Frances, sit in the open window and gaze into the open sky into which the mother was soon to take her flight; they saw the heavens open and those who once had dwelt within their home, standing by the throne of God. If in the supreme hour of entrance upon the life with God, the mother ascending sent benediction down upon her daughter and upon all the world, the daughter, gazing into the open sky, cried out, "I give thee joy, my mother! All hail, but not farewell. Our faces are set the same way, blessed mother. I shall follow after -it will not be long."

In the sunset years of her mother's life Miss Willard had centralized her work in the beloved home, now adorned by countless kindnesses of comrades and friends. Picturing the busy hours in the cozy " den " when, shut in with that serene and benignant being "Saint Courageous," Miss Willard was lifted above

her former toilsome life, we are reminded of her journal note, written when, as a young teacher in Kankakee, she mused on the home faces of her "Four ":

“I thank God for my mother as for no other gift of His bestowing. My nature is so woven into hers that I almost think it would be death for me to have the bond severed and one so much myself gone over the river. She does not know, they do not any of them, the Four,' how much my mother is to me, for, as I verily believe, I cling to her more than ever did any other of her children. Perhaps because I am to need her more."

Surely, she who could bear and train such a daughter was worthy to be what she always remainedher inspiration and her ideal.

At the close of the Buffalo convention of the World's Christian Temperance Union, in 1897, Miss Willard went to Churchville, N. Y., her birthplace, for a Sunday with beloved relatives. The morning was spent with the only surviving relative of her mother's generation, "Aunt Sarah," and in the afternoon she met the white-ribboners in the Methodist church. After the service, two by two they walked to the house where Miss Willard was born. Seeking out the very room into which the little stranger came, standing closely about their leader they heard her talk of motherhood and of the great home to which she was looking, now that her mother's ear would never again hear her returning footsteps. It was in that room the mother-love had hung over the cradle of the child Frances, as the star hung over the babe in the manger of Bethlehem.

It was her birth that called forth these words of Mrs. Willard in the last year of her earthly life:

"Motherhood is life's richest and most delicious romance. And sitting now in the sunshine calm and sweet, with all my precious ones on the other side save only the daughter who so faithfully cherishes me here, I thank God that he ever said to me 'Bring up this child for me in the love of humanity and the expectation of immortal life.' My life could not have held more joy, if some white-robed messenger of the skies had come to me and said, 'I will send a spiritual being into your arms and home. It is a momentous charge, potent for good or evil, but I will help you. Do not fear. Therefore, mother, step softly. Joy shall be the accepted creed of this young immortal in all the coming years. This child shall herald your example and counsels when you are resting from your labors." "

Miss Willard lived six years after her mother's death. These years were spent in America, and in England with her friend Lady Henry Somerset. The friendship of these two meant so much to both women personally as well as to the cause they represented and to womanhood in the mother country and the home land. Miss Willard as the Founder and President of The World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union was greeted with great ovations. At a meeting at Exeter Hall at which at least five thousand people were present Lady Henry in an eloquent address of welcome presented the woman and the work they had gathered to honor. Among her words are these: "Sacrifice is the foundation of all real success, and

it was a crucial moment in Miss Willard's life when she deliberately relinquished the brilliant position of dean of the first woman's college connected with a university in America, to go out penniless, alone, and and unheralded, because her spirit had caught the rhythm of the women's footsteps as they bridged the distance between the home and the saloon in the Pentecostal days of the temperance crusade. She has relinquished that which women hold the dearest - the sacred, sheltered life of home. For her no children wait around the Christmas hearth, but she has lost that life only to find it again ten thousand fold. She has understood the mystery of the wider circle of love and loyalty, and the world is her home as truly as it was John Wesley's 'parish.' She has understood the divine motherhood that claims the orphaned hearts of humanity for her heritage, and a chorus of children's voices around the world hail her as mother, for organized mother-love is the best definition of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union."

Frances Willard died as triumphant as she had lived. From the first of her illness she felt she might not recover, but her physician was hopeful and assured her that her earthly work was not done. She was resting after talking on her last afternoon on earth and seemed to be unconscious when a friend came into the room. As her hand was quietly touched she looked up, and recognizing the kind face of her comrade, said with a faint smile, "I've crept in with mother and it is the same beautiful world and the same people; remember that it's just the same."

On Sunday afternoon, April tenth, 1898, amid the Easter sunshine, a hushed and reverent company gathered at the Willard lot in Rosehill cemetery. The grave of Miss Willard's mother was opened, the sides lined with evergreens, the mound of earth also hidden by green boughs. As the sacred ashes were literally committed to the precious dust beneath them, they mingled with white roses, above which were placed sprays of evergreen, sent from the birthplaces of Miss Willard's parents, of her brother and sister, and of herself, and from Forest Home and Rest Cottage; then all was made radiant with bright blossoms, emblems of the glorious springtime. A moss-covered box, fragrant with lilies of the valley and pansies, and which had held a precious inner box of purest white, was placed over the mother's heart. Surrounding the whole, in beauty and fragrance, were the floral tributes of friends, and thus Frances Willard, that great woman who had never lost her childhood, at last " crept in with mother."

From "The Life of Frances E. Willard," by Anna A. Gordon, published by National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Evanston, Ill.

THE MOTHER OF EUGENE FIELD

BY IDA COMSTOCK BELOW

Eugene Field's mother (Frances Reed) was a handsome woman, possessed of great strength of character, which was accompanied by rare sweetness and gentleness. Although only a boy of six when he lost his mother, he said: "I have carried the remembrance of her gentle voice and soothing touch all through my