Part 2

But the American boy has imagination, if our War Department has not. And he is coming, in his thousands and tens of thousands.

Nothing can hold him back,—not danger, not inadequate preparation, not anything under the blue sky where once he sailed his kites and sent up his Fourth-of-July rockets. Not even the mother he loves.

What are we going to do, then, we mothers, when the tumult and the shouting have died, and the long wait comes? We will pray. The churches of France are full of kneeling women. And we will work.

There is no spectacular work for mothers in a war. They cannot drive ambulances, or guide aeroplanes, although they are capable of doing both. There will be no need of the wig-wagging that some women are so painfully learning! But they will work for the Red Cross, and they will make up such little packets as only mothers can make,—toothbrushes and chocolates and fresh socks and gingerbread, and a Bible and playing-cards and cigarettes.

And in between times, they will wait, in that quiet that is not peace.

That is what millions of women are doing just now, while you are reading this.

There are two wars being waged to-day. One is the war of hate, and one is the war of love. And this last is the bitter war, because it is being fought in women’s hearts, between their fears and their patriotism. I know.

And because fear is evil, it will go down to defeat. Women are brave, and mothers are the bravest of all women, for they have faced the Gethsemane of child-bearing. They will not weaken now.

Napoleon said, “Give me the mothers of France, and I will make France.”

* * * * *

So this is how I see the situation to-day, as it affects me and others like me. If I believe in my country, as God knows I do, if I love it, and that too He knows, I must do my little part, my bit.

This the country must know: that women are ready to do their part. Else we are not free women, but slaves. And this the country must know, too: that the women demand that it do its part.

The best of preparation, of skill, of guidance, of every sort of provision, is what we require and will have.

We will not fail America. Let it not fail us.

But she will not. America, last stand of the humanities on earth, realization of a dream and fulfillment of an ideal, our home, our native land, we mothers stand ready.

* * * * *

More than fifty-two years ago an American woman received this letter. It was written to one mother, but it belongs to all mothers, everywhere in the world, who have seen their sons go forth to war and leave behind them those empty places in the heart that are never filled:—

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _November 21, 1864_.

DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

(Signed) ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

THE END

_The Riverside Press_

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS

U . S . A.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[The end of _The Altar of Freedom_ by Mary Roberts Rinehart]

End of Project Gutenberg's The Altar of Freedom, by Mary Roberts Rinehart