Mother's Day Proclamation

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

MOTHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION
Julia Ward Howe
27 May 1819 to 17 October 1910.

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water
or of fears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant
agencies,
"Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage, for caresses
and applause.
"Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been
able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
"We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
 From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It
says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe
out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest
day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby
the great human family can live in peace,
And each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.