---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Grace Ingles Frost
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 7
number: 9
published: 1904-07
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Grace Ingles Frost, "His Mother," *Improvement Era* 7, no. 9 (July 1904): 698.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0709unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0709unse
start_page: 698
end_page: 698
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1904-07)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0709unse
  publication_year: 1904
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1904, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# His Mother

<!-- page:698 -->

——

698                        IMPROVEMENT ERA.

when exposed to sunlight, and give         off   the light when removed to
a dark room.     Calcium sulphide, fluorite,      and certain dolomites be-
                                —
come luminous when heated the effect of heat here appearing as
light. Numerous substances, when electrified, become sources of
light.   Doubtless there are forces operating around us the charac-
teristics   of which    we have -not yet learned; and these unknown
forces may be convertible into the     commoner manifestations with
which we are familiar.    Is it not reasonable to infer, in the ab-

sence of definite knowledge, that radium possesses the property of
absorbing energy in forms known or unknown, and of radiating or
emitting such as light, heat, Becquerel rays, and the like?             The
discovery of the Roentgen rays        made certain        that' hitherto un-
known forces, or hitherto unrecognized manifestations of energy,
are operating, and certain bodies may be responsive to such forces,
thus producing phenomena inexplicable to us because of our ignor-
ance of the nature of the forces themselves.

                              HIS   MOTHER.
                        {For the Improvement Era.)

                Her form was bent, her eyes were dim,
                But beamed with lustrous light on him.
                  He held her hand within his own,
                  Saying, "For thee I've worked alone.
                              My mother."
                Her boy,   —no longer boy but man,
                Although like boy's, his laugh still rang,
                  Told of the strife to carve his name
                  Within the halls of living fame,
                To cheer the heart of her he loved
                            His mother.

                How he had longed for this glad day.
                When he could go to her and say:
                  "A man's success is ne'er so sweet.
                  As when he lays it at the feet
                Of her who's been his guiding star.
                            His mother!"             —Grace Ingles Frost.
      Salt Lake City.