This feeling of kinship to all that is, is beautifully expressed in the words of the dying Greek Klepht: "Do not say that I am dead, but say that I am married in the sorrowful, strange countries, that I have taken the flat stone for a mother-in-law, the black earth for my wife, and the little pebbles for brothers-in-law." (Lady Verney, _Essays_, II. 39.)
In the Trinity of Upper Egypt the second person was Mut, "Mother Nature." the others being Armin, the chief god, and their son, Khuns.
Among the Slavs, according to Mone, Ziwa is a nature-goddess, and the Wends regard her as "many-breasted Mother Nature," the producing and nourishing power of the earth. Her consort is Zibog, the god of life (125. II. 23).
Curiously reminiscent of the same train of ideas which has given to the _moderson_ of Low German the signification of "bastard," is our own equivalent term "natural son."
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.
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.