WOMAN IN ART
dignity a grateful people could offer. Having been unanimously elected the first president of the new nation, and before his inaugural, George Washington hastened to his mother for her blessing and a God-speed. And he added, "So soon as business, which must necessarily be encountered in arranging a new government, has been disposed of, I shall hasten to Virginia and—" She gently interrupted him, saying, "You will see me no more. My great age and the disease that is rapidly approaching my vitals warn me that I shall not be long in this world. I trust in God. I am prepared for a better. But go, George, and fulfill the high destiny which heaven appears to assign you. Go, my son, and may that Heaven and your mother's blessing be always with you."
Her forebodings were fulfilled, for she passed into that better world August 25, 1789.
History tells us that Mary Washington became indeed the head of the family when George was eleven years of age, and the four remaining children were all younger. By will and wish the father left all his estate to be administered by the mother, to be divided to each as they came of age, and she was equal to the trust. Destiny marked the son of Mary Washington for the Father of his Country, rather than the father of a family. It may well be said of her as it was said of the mother of Queen Victoria, a devoted mother gave the nation a devoted ruler. In her life-time she could not realize her part in the uplift of the new nation, for the world, and for Time.
The Good Book tells us there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. We notice such times and seasons in the peopling and developing of the New World. From 1492 to 1620; again to 1776, thence to 1865. Those four periods we can name. Columbus, Discovery. Pilgrims, Freedom. Washington, Independence. Lincoln, Emancipation. Those periods not only had the leaders named, but the surprising number of efficient helpers in various ways, who fitted into the work to be done when and where they least expected it. This is not the prelude of history, rather of art which could not take root and flourish till the time and season were ripe, that is, after warfare, and commerce and crops had had time to replenish the depleted exchequer of the new nation. The one hundred and fifty years from the landing of the Pilgrims had been such a strenuous time between life and death, the establishing of home, churches, and colleges, that the inhabitants did not realize the growth and development of character springing to life and strength in the
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