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That was a touching story of sick room ministration which Mr. Gladstone gave in Parliament, when announcing the death of the Princess Alice. Her little boy was ill with diphtheria, and the mother had been cautioned not to inhale the poisoned breath. The child was tossing in the delirium of fever. The Princess stood beside him and laid her hand on his brow to caress him. The touch cooled the fevered brain, and brought back the wandering soul from its wild delirium. He nestled a moment in his mother’s lap; then, throwing his arms around her neck, he whispered, “Mamma, kiss me.” The instinct of mother-love was stronger than all the injunctions of physicians, and she pressed her lips to the child’s. The result was death.
You say she was foolish. Yet where is the mother who would not have done the same? There may be peril in the sick room for those who minister there for Christ; but love stops at no peril, no sacrifice. There was peril in Christ’s own mission to this world. In his marvelous love for us he put his lips to the poison of our sin – and died.