Poets and orators have not failed to appeal to "Mother Nature" and to sing her panegyrics, but there is perhaps nothing more sweet and noble than the words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony, and beauty may reign supreme," and the verses of Longfellow:-- "And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying, 'Here is a story-book Thy Father has--written for thee. "'Come wander with me,' she said, 'Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread, In the manuscripts of God.' "And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him, night and day, The rhymes of the universe. "And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She--would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvellous tale." Through the long centuries Nature has been the mother, nurse, and teacher of man. _Other Mother-Goddesses_. Among other "mother-goddesses" of ancient Italy we find _Maia Mater_, _Flora Mater_, both deities of growth and reproduction; _Lua Mater_, "the loosing mother," a goddess of death; _Acca Larentia_, the mother of the Lares (_Acca_ perhaps = _Atta_, a child-word for mother, as Lippert suggests); _Mater matuta_, "mother of the dawn," a goddess of child-birth, worshipped especially by married women, and to whom there was erected a temple at Cære. The mother-goddesses of Germany are quite numerous. Among those minor ones cited by Grimm and Simrock, are: Haulemutter, Mutter Holle, the Klagemütter or Klagemuhmen, Pudelmutter (a name applied to the goddess Berchta), Etelmutter, Kornmutter, Roggenmutter, Mutterkorn, and the interesting Buschgroszmutter, "bush grandmother," as the "Queen of the Wood-Folk" is called. Here the mother-feeling has been so strong as to grant to even the devil a mother and a grandmother, who figure in many proverbs and folk-locutions. When the question is asked a Mecklenburger, concerning a social gathering: "Who was there?" he may answer: "The devil and his mother (_möm_)"; when a whirlwind occurs, the saying is: "The Devil is dancing with his grandmother." In China the position of woman is very low, and, as Mr. Douglas points out: "It is only when a woman becomes a mother that she receives the respect which is by right due to her, and then the inferiority of her sex disappears before the requirements of filial love, which is the crown and glory of China" (434. 125).