that appears in his book: Chappell, Clovis G. Chappell's Special Day Sermons. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983. Print.
I included short editorial comments, such as giving chapter and verse of the Bible verses cited in Chappell's sermon, between square brackets [] I enclosed longer discursive comments, such as poem titles of verses Chappell quoted, between scissor snips ✂️---------------------------------------
IV MOTHER OSTRICH
(MOTHER'S DAY)
"The daughter of my people is become cruel like the ostriches in the wilderness."
LAMENTATIONS 4:3
My text, you see, is from Lamentations. It is quite at home in the book of which it is a part. It is a lament. It staggers under a weight of grief. Every word is baptized with tears. But this text is more than a lament. It is a sharp and cutting rebuke. It is full of hot indignation. The prophet wields it in honest anger, as if it were a scourge. The terrible wrongs that are being perpetrated before his eyes, while breaking his heart, arouse his soul to battle. He cannot look on without a protest.
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However, as "Zoo Clues" Animal Legends points out in a clip debunking the myth that ostriches bury their heads in the sand when scared, that such behavior is really ostriches ensuring their eggs are properly incubated in the ground.
Contrary to the bad rap the author of Lamentations ascribed to the poor ostrich, the much maligned bird apparently is a very attentive and protective mother to her eggs. Hence, comparing bad human mothers to the ostrich might be an insult to the ostrich.
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I
Who is it that has thus stirred the prophet's grief and indignation?
Strange to say, it is not some worthless father. In those distant days, the father had quite an assured place in the family. Of course he has lost it with the passing of the years. Today he is the family joke. Here is a story that is typical: Little Johnnie had a dearly loved dog named Laddie. One day, while Johnnie was at school, Laddie got in the way of a passing car and paid the penalty. Johnnie's mother was distressed. She hardly dared tell her son of his sad loss. She thought once of telling him that the dog had strayed off. But she made up her mind that the truth must be told. So, when he came in from school, she said quite timidly: "Johnnie, Laddie was killed today." To her surprise he said, "He was?" and then went on upstairs to his play. Now, it so happened that Nurse was upstairs. She undertook to give Johnnie some details of the tragedy. At once there was a loud wail, and Johnnie came hurrying downstairs, sobbing as if his heart would break. Naturally his mother was puzzled. "Why," she asked, "are you weeping so over what Nurse said when you did not seem to mind at all when I told you that Laddie was dead?" As Johnnie struggled with his sobs, he answered, "I thought you said 'Daddy.'"
But here is a rebuke directed not against the fathers of that day, but against the mothers. Surely this prophet was quite a daring man! It takes all the courage that I can muster even to repeat his words. For this is Mother's Day. It is the day that we have set apart to honor her whose love is about the most beautiful and enriching something that this world knows. To this end we have come together, wearing red carnations for the living, and white carnations for the dead.
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I never heard of this tradition of wearing carnations on Mother's Day. From Bentley, Rosalind. “Whether Flower Is Red or White, Color Signifies Love of Mom.” Ajc, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 28 Sept. 2016, www.ajc.com/news/local/whether-flower-red-white-color-signifies-love-mom/DtH3C70x5eFQHkVnpoWPWJ/.
"It is a Mother’s Day custom born a century ago that for many people, endures. Those whose mothers are dead commemorate by wearing white flowers; those whose mothers are alive celebrate with buds of red.
They passed out white carnations 102 years ago at this country’s first official Mother’s Day observance, in a little church in the West Virginia hamlet of Grafton, home of the holiday’s founder. Humble and sturdy, back then the white bloom honored mothers both living and dead. It’s said that florists later introduced red flowers as a symbol for the living."
In case you wondered who the founder of Mother's Day in the USA, it was Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis introduced the idea of handing out carnations from an article that appeared on the ProFlowers website that doesn't seem to be available any more but here's a screenshot
Tradition of Red & White Flowers on Mother’s Day. ProFlowers, 14 Apr. 2014, https://www.proflowers.com/blog/red-white-flowers-mothers-day. This is Google's cache of https://www.proflowers.com/blog/red-white-flowers-mothers-day. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on May 5, 2018 10:11:50 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime
"American Tradition: Julia Ward Howe first introduced the idea of setting aside one day a year to honor mothers in the hope that the tribute might extend a mood of peace to the country. In 1870, distraught by the loss of lives in the Civil War, Howe called on the country’s leaders to confirm an official Mother’s Day proclamation. Many local municipalities embraced her ideas, though the United States government didn’t officially mark the day for mothers until 1908.
Carnations: Anna Jarvis took up the cause after Howe’s death. Following her passing, Jarvis’ daughter Anna continued the battle and handed out carnations to mothers at church services throughout her campaign. Jarvis became indignant when retailers jumped on her carnation giveaways and began selling white carnations to consumers as the official Mother’s Day flower. She protested the florist industry to try to get them to stop taking advantage of the occasion — to no avail."
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We feel deliciously sentimental. Tears are waiting just out of sight, to rush eagerly upon the scene as soon as they receive their cue. Naturally, in an atmosphere like this, these rude words of the prophet seem strikingly out of place. They jar and disappoint us. They arouse our antagonism, and leave upon our tongues a tang of the downright sacrilegious.
Now, with your resentment I have no slightest quarrel. In fact, it does you honor. It is an indication of your love and loyalty to your own mother; to her whose living presence is now perhaps your dearest joy; or whose home-going has left you your most precious memories. We all agree, I am sure, that there is no crown too resplendent to be placed upon the brow of motherhood at its best. But this prophet is daring to remind us of what we are very prone to forget on an occasion like this, and that is that motherhood in itself is not of necessity a badge of either goodness or greatness. A thoughtless, flippant, and self-centered woman is not necessarily transformed into a saint the moment she becomes a mother. There are those who remain vain, and selfish, and heartless to the end of the chapter. There are those who live and die without any realization that, in becoming mothers, one of the deepest and sweetest secrets of human blessedness has whispered itself to them, without ever being heard, It is against this type of mother that the prophet brought his bitter accusation.
II
What is the charge that he made against the mothers of that far-off day? He did not charge them with unfaithfulness to their marriage vows. He did not charge them with being mere giddy, gossiping gadabouts. He did not accuse them of spending one half of their time at the beauty parlor and the movies and the other half at the card table. He did not accuse them of blowing cigarette smoke into the tender eyes of their babies, or of keeping them awake at night by the loud hilarity of cocktail parties. He brought against them an accusation big enough to include all these, and more. He charged them with the ugly crime of cruelty. "The daughter of my people is become cruel like the ostriches of the wilderness." Cruelty, at its best, is indifference to suffering and pain [ I would think that's "apathy". At it worst, it is a positive delight in these [ I would think that's "sadism"] .
Now, we realize at once that the crime here charged is one that is exceedingly ugly. Cruelty has never been beautiful, but it is a sin against which we of today are peculiarly hostile, especially in its cruder forms. We hate it, perhaps more than any generation that the world has ever seen. There are a good many vices that we view with indifference. There are quite a few that we have learned at once to endure, to fondle, and embrace; but cruelty is not one of them. Thanks to the Gospel of the tender Christ, the human heart has grown more sensitive with the passing years, till today the sight of crass cruelty makes almost all of us to burn with indignation.
For instance, in our city a few weeks ago, some men were being pestered by a mangy dog that haunted their filling station. The dog was masterless and homeless, with nobody to take his part. Therefore, partly to be rid of him, and partly out of sheer cruelty, these men dashed a bit of gasoline on him and struck a match to him. But, in spite of the fact that the dog had no master, the perpetrators of this cruel deed did not escape. The people of the community were so aroused that they had them arrested; and if I am not mistaken, they spent a few days in jail. If they did not, they deserved to do so, for they were needlessly cruel. Now, it is with the crime of cruelty that these mothers are charged, a cruelty infinitely worse than that of these thoughtless men. They are accused of being cruel to their own children.
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I'm not certain how I would go about fact checking Chappell's dog on fire anecdote. Since Chappell's book was printed in Nashville, Tennessee, I presumed that was the "our city" to which he referred in his sermon. I did a search for the years 1935-1936 in newspapers.com and came up with over 100 hits so there were possibly a large number of people setting dogs on fire during the Depression for some weird reason.
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III
What is the nature of their cruelty?
It is not the aggressive type. These mothers were not accused of inflicting any positive wrong upon their children. They were not thrusting them into some dark coal pit to do a man's work with their undeveloped bodies. They were not inflicting on them any physical harm. Had you accused them of doing so, they would have doubtless told you that they had never laid the weight of their hands upon one of their children. Their children knew nothing of kicks and cuffs. there are very few maimed bodies today because of aggressively cruel mothers. That has always been the case. These mothers of the long ago would no more have thought of inflicting positive bodily harm upon their children than the mothers of today.
What form then, did this cruelty take? it was a cruelty, the Prophet tells, like that practices by the ostrich. The writers of the Bible do not think highly of this bird. She is, to them, a symbol of cruelty and forgetfulness. Job describes her in this graphic fashion: "She leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers." [ Job 39:14-16]
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At Vandenberg AFB, people would get fined if they disturbed the nests of snowy plover birds. Sounds like there wasn't an Endangered Species Act to protect the poor ostrich's nesting sites during Job's times.
.@politico Why do leftists want the government to protect unborn Snowy Plover babies but not human babies? #prolife pic.twitter.com/f1Sj5TFoDx— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) July 15, 2016
From Jacobson, Willis. “Plover Restrictions Back in Effect at Lompoc Valley Beaches.” Lompoc Record, 5 Mar. 2018, lompocrecord.com/news/local/plover-restrictions-back-in-effect-at-lompoc-valley-beaches/article_141932c3-d6f7-5a10-a94a-74b281a8d4c6.html.
The Western snowy plover is listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The closures, according to base officials, are meant to protect the birds, as well as their nesting habitats.
"We protect the snowy plover by closing specific areas of the beaches, managing predators and restoring plover habitat to compensate for the effects of recreational beach use during the breeding season," said Samantha Kaisersatt, 30th Civil Engineer Squadron biological scientist. "Beach closures also include a prohibition on dogs, horses and kites."
"Violations of the Endangered Species Act, like crushing eggs or chicks, can lead to fines of up to $50,000 in federal court and imprisonment for up to one year."
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That is, the cruelty of the mother that so enrages the prophet is the cruelty of neglect. She cannot be bothered. She is too busy having a good time, has too many social engagements, belongs to too many clubs, to be worried by such small matters as her own children. Sometimes she is so absorbed in saving the world that she has no time for the saving of her own home.
Once, such a mother was my next-door neighbor. She never missed an opportunity to lecture on the importance of the right training of children, but she left her own largely to the nurture of the street. A cartoon of a few years ago draws her picture. A forlorn rooster is standing beside a hen's nest. The nest is full of eggs that are just beginning to hatch. Some of the chicks are half out of the shell. But the hen is nowhere in sight. A friend passes and asks the rooster as to the whereabouts of his wife. As the big tears run down his face, he answers:"She's down at the Mother's Club giving a lecture on 'How to Hatch Eggs!'" This type is with us still, but thank God, she is in the minority.
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I couldn't find the cartoon to which Chappell referred, but here's something close:
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IV
Why were these mothers so cruelly neglecting their children? Their neglect, I am sure, was not born of ill will. Not a mother among them ever set out deliberately to make her child a menace to himself and a menace to society. Nor was their cruelty born of utter indifference. It is a rare mother indeed who does not yearn for the best for her child. What, then, lies back of this neglect? There were doubtless a number of reasons. I am going to mention only three:
1. These mothers failed to recognize the fact that the child is of supreme value. They were, therefore, taking the fine gold of childhood, the Prophet charges, and treating it as if it were but commonplace earthenware. A recent historian has charged the downfall of Rome to the failure of her mothers.
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I have no idea to whom Chappell referred with this cryptic citation.
A. M. Devine of University of New England Armidale/Australia published a paper asserts that low birth rate may have contributed to the Fall of Rome, but it was published decades after Chappell's sermon, from Devine, A M. “THE LOW BIRTH-RATE IN ANCIENT ROME: A POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.” Rheinisches Museum of Philology, vol. 128, 1985, pp. 313–317., www.rhm.uni-koeln.de/128/Devine.pdf. ISSN 0035-449X publishing company Sauerland
"There is considerable evidence to show that Roman society in the late Republic and early Empire was afflicted by a low birthrate. Augustus in 18 B.C. found it necessary to pass the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus in the hope of raising the birth-rate by penalizing the unmarried and the childless. In 9 A.D. he attempted to supplement this law with the lex Papia Poppaea. The very existence of this legislation indicates that the problem of childlessness was widespread and long-Iasting, a view which is further supported by references to this subject in Latin literature)."
Don't know.— Richard Brookhiser (@RBrookhiser) April 26, 2018
Many theories of the fall of Rome, though they all end with too many barbarians, not enough legions. https://t.co/N9rr0MOuOk
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There was a time when that mother who displayed her sons as her jewels was typical of the best mothers of the empire. Those were the days of her greatness. But when they lost their sense of the supreme value of the child, then came her days of darkness and downfall. This prophet was wise enough to know that the nation that fails to give the child first place is headed for disaster. Therefore he rebukes in words hot and passionate.
But it ought to be far harder for us to fail to set a proper valuation upon the child than for those of that far-off day. Since then Jesus has come. He is the supreme champion of the child. When his disciples asked him, "Who is greatest in the kingdom?" [ Matthew 18:1 ] he did not point to any king or philosopher. He took a little child and set him in the midst. So important is the child, he tells us, that the angels that are of highest rank are the ones that have the care of children. "In heaven there are angels do always behold the face of my Father." So important is the child that he solemnly warns against despising or undervaluing this treasure. "Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones." [ Matthew 18:10 ] So important are they that he walls them in with a grim wall of millstones saying, "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." [ Matthew 18:6 ]
But why is the child so vastly important? Of course it is important as the maker of tomorrow. Soon everything that we possess is going to slip from our nerveless fingers into the hands of our children. That is worthy of consideration. But that is not the sole secret of the child's vast importance. A child is not important because of its physical strength; it has little. It is not important because it is a money-maker. In this respect it is a liability rather than an asset. A child is supreme, not simply because it is the highest and most intelligent of animals. Jesus put the child first because he recognized the supreme worth of the spiritual. And only as we share his convictions are we likely to join him in giving our boys and girls their place of supreme importance.
2. These mothers may have neglected their children because they failed to realize the terrible tragedy that is born of neglect. This is also true, I am sure, of a great many mothers today. Of course we recognize the deadlines of neglect in the realm of the physical. If there is a little baby in your home, you know that all you have to do to bring about the death of that baby is simply let it alone [that is rather a macabre thought]. Neglect of its physical needs spells disaster. That we readily recognize. Not long ago a mother was executed in Germany. Her crime was this: She received a dole from the government for the support of herself and her children. But she was a pleasure-loving woman and squandered it all upon herself. The faces of her children became more and more pinched. At last they died of starvation, and this mother was arrested, tried for murder, and executed. And we feel that the sentence was just.
But our children have other hungers than those of the physical. They hunger for the Bread of Life, and thirst for the Water of Life. "The tongue of the nursing child cleaveth to roof of his mouth for thirst," [ Lamentations 4:4 ] cries the indignant prophet. He knows that even children have hungers that cannot be banished by bacon and beans. Everybody ought to have wisdom enough to see that. In 1930, three thousand carefully selected leaders in child welfare met at the White House Conference for the study of the child. After the findings had been discussed, they summarized them into a Children's Charter covering nineteen points. The first was this: "For every child spiritual and moral training to help him to stand firm under the pressure of life." But that spiritual and moral training is just what is being sadly neglected today in countless homes. There are those even in the Church who, through their neglect, are rearing their children in practical paganism.
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"White House Conference for the study of the child" sounds like a big government activity that FDR versus Hoover would host. However, Hoover did host such a conference, from “Herbert Hoover: Address to the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. - November 19, 1930.” The American Presidency Project,
"The many activities which you are assembled here to represent touch a thousand points in the lives of children. The interest which they obtain in the minds and hearts of our country is a turning to the original impulse which inspired the foundation of our Nation, the impulse to secure freedom and betterment of each coming generation. The passion of the American fathers and mothers is to lift children to higher opportunities than they have themselves enjoyed. It burns like a flame in us as a people. Kindled in our country by its first pioneers, who came here to better the opportunities for their children rather than themselves, passed on from one generation to the next, it has never dimmed nor died. Indeed human progress marches only when children excel their parents. In democracy our progress is the sum of progress of the individuals--that they each individually achieve to the full capacity of their abilities and character. Their varied personalities and abilities must be brought fully to bloom. They must not be mentally regimented to a single mold or the qualities of many will be stifled. The door of opportunity must be opened to each of them."
Not surprisingly, these conferences were initiated by big government "progressive" Theodore Roosevelt in 1909 from “Children's Bureau - A Brief History & Resources.” Social Welfare History Project, 27 Feb. 2018, socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/child-welfarechild-labor/childrens-bureau-a-brief-history-resources/.
"In 1909, President Roosevelt convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children. At the conference, attendees recommended that the bill establishing a Federal Children’s Bureau be passed. Following the conference, the president sent a message encouraging Congress to pass the measure. In 1910, President Taft gave his endorsement of the proposal. He gave his support by first speaking about the Department of Agriculture and the approximately $15 million spent to support farmers and stating, '…if out of the Public Treasure at Washington we can establish a department for that purpose, it does not seem to be a long step or a stretch of logic to say we have the power to spend the money on a Bureau of Research to tell how we may develop good men and women.' The final bill was passed by the Senate on January 13, 1912 and by the House on April 2, 1912; and on April 9, 1912 it was signed into law. Congress subsequently appropriated $25,640 for the first year’s operating budget. This funded 15 positions in addition to a chief. The charge given to the Bureau and its staff was to investigate and report 'upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people.'"The specific quote Chappell cited in his sermon is from “Herbert Hoover: Message Endorsing the Children's Charter. - April 7, 1931.” The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=22593.
"For every child spiritual and moral training to help him to stand firm under the pressure of life."
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Now, the tragic cost of this cannot be estimated. I have in mind now a father and mother who are typical of all-too-many modern parents. They themselves were reared by parents who were more or less active in the Church. In their youth they attended, at least spasmodically. But now they never attend any more. Their children have never attended either Sunday school or church. On Sunday they go to the movies. They are as utterly devoid of any religious training as if their father and mother were both confirmed atheists. Yet they are the product of s so-called Christian home. And these are by no means exceptions. No wonder there is a widespread moral breakdown. Children cannot get along without religion any more than adults. A certain judge said the other day that of the more than four thousands boys under twenty-one that he had sentenced, only three of them were attendants on Sunday school. [ I don't know how I'd go about fact checking this thinly sourced anecdote]. How much longer will it take for us to realize the fact that our Dillingers and Clyde Barrows are not so much born as made; made by mothers and fathers guilty of the cruel sin of neglect?
3. The final reason I mention for neglect on the part of these mothers was their failure to realize the rich rewards of the mother who is willing to pay the price that real motherhood involves. There are many fine and rewarding tasks at which a mother may work, but by far the most rewarding of all is the training of her children. What are some of the rewards of the mother who, in the fear and love of God, earnestly performs this high and sacred duty?
(1) She has the reward that comes from having to give without stint, and that is the living of a full, rich life. It is costly to be a mother. "There stood by the cross of Jesus, Mary, his mother." [ John 19:5 ] The place of motherhood at its best is always beside the cross. Hers is a daily dying to self. But for that we should not pity her. For it is this daily dying that is the open roadway to the life abundant. If you have tears to shed, keep them for the thoughtless mother who lives for herself. The woman of all others to be envied is she who, through her daily giving, compels those who know her best to rise up and call her blessed.
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From Plummer, John. The Hours of Catherine of Cleves. New York: George Braziller, 1966. Print.
HOURS OF THE CROSS - VESPERS
29. Lamentation and Anointing.
Seated below the cross, which has been made smaller to fit the composition, the Virgin [ Jesus's mother] holds the upper part of Christ's body on her lap. suggesting a Pietà. Holding Christ's feet and anointing them is Joseph of Arimathaea, his hands covered by a white cloth. Beside him kneels Nicodemus, who anoints Christ's left arm in the same way. Three jars of ointment, one with its lid removed, form a still-life in the foreground. At the Virgin's side, Saint John kneels in prayer. Behind stands the anguished Magdalene dramatically wringing her hands above her head. The simple border of small leaves and flowers differs from all others in this manuscript, but appears in other miniatures by the Cleves Master. [ G-f.70]
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(2) The second reward of the mother who is faithful to her task is that of giving to the world strong and useful sons and daughters. Here is a mother in a hard situation. She is a slave. But one day she holds a baby to her heart that is so beautiful that, though death sentence has been pronounced against him, she simply cannot let go. "By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months of his parents because they saw that he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment."[ Hebrews 11:23 ] They take a basket and line it with pitch and prayer and hide the little fellow among the rushes of the Nile. By and by in the providence of God he is back in his mother's arms again. She faithfully trains him during the few short years that he is hers. Then one day we read of him this fine word: "By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." [ Hebrews 11:24 ] That was his own faith, but he had learned it at his mother's knee.
"She shot the deathless passion in her eyesThrough him and made him hers, and laid her mindOn Him, and he believed in her belief."✂️---------------------------------------
"She sent the deathless passion" versus "shot" is from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Holy Grail". This is perhaps a caution to always fact check and consult primary sources. It seems Chappell may have read Harris, J R. Aaron's Breastplate: And Other Addresses. London: National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, 1908. Print. which includes the misprint Chappell reproduced in his sermon:
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It is to mothers such as this that humanity owes its greatest debt. It is to such that we, under God, look with hope for tomorrow.
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From Meiss, Millard, and Edith W. Kirsch. The Visconti Hours: National Library, Florence. New York: George Braziller, 1972. Print.
LF 80v. Moses Placed in Nile and Returned by Pharaoh's Daughter
Two episodes from the life of Moses are combined in this initial. In the first, his mother places him in the river to save him from Pharaoh's fatal decree against sons of Hebrew women. Then, Pharaoh's daughter, having found the child, brings him unknowingly to his mother to be nursed ( Exodus 2:3-9).
A crown and scepter distinguish the princess form her ladies in waiting. The faces of all the women, however, are Belbellesque paradigms, characterized by full cheeks and by prominent white in the eyes, along the ridge of the nose, above the mouth, and in the chin. In keeping with the predominantly mauve and blue tones of the page, the faces here are modeled with rose rather than the more orange red of the two preceding miniatures. Blue and rose also glaze silver in the doves, their scrolls, and Visconti shields.
And completely off topic, an odd rendition of "Go Down Moses" by the communist Soviet Army choir:
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