The Mothering Heart is a silent drama film that tells the story of a couple who navigate the complexities of marriage and parenthood. The film explores themes of adultery, the death of a child, and the struggles of a married couple trying to hold onto their relationship. As they face the challenges that parenthood brings, the couple must confront their own vulnerabilities and the impact of their choices on their family.

When the son of a leader of a Paris underworld family known as The Apaches is arrested and tried in court, the boy's mother asks the judge for mercy, but he refuses. In retaliation, the family kidnaps the judge's young daughter, and raises her to be one of their own, schooling her in the ways of crime.

Buck, who is preparing to enter a theological seminary, aids his brother and some friends who are fleeing from justice, and thus implicated he is sent to prison for 2 years. There he meets again Hope Standish, a Salvation Army girl who had interested him. Returning home, he meets the old district circuit rider and promises to continue the circuit rider's work when he dies. The brother escapes from prison and is converted by Buck, who falls in love with Hope.

Young Theresa was thought to be much favored in the love of Guido, the leader of the Italian colony. Then Angelo came. Theresa, though aroused by her first real love, strove to keep her vows to Guido, but life's big law overcame her. Guido prepared a death feast for himself, then summoned Angelo. Why should he die for another's happiness? But Angelo lived.

What will become of the Children in a home divided....

A 1917 filmd riected by Chester Withey.

May and Annie work in a fashionable millinery store, where the buyer, struck by May's beauty, advances her to a position among the models. She gets a little money, but finds that she is obliged to wear better clothes, which she has a hard time getting.

Terry Dunniva, a retired sea-captain living in Marblehead, Massachusetts, adopts two children, Chrystal and Ned. As the girl grows to womanhood, Terry realizes his fatherly-love had grown to something stronger. He asks her to become his wife. Chrystal, who is in love with her foster-brother, consents rather than destroy Terry's happiness. On the day of their marriage, Ned returns from a long voyage with the intent of making Chrysal his wife. And, he, too, rather than destroy the happiness of his adopted-father, leaves to embark on an Artic voyage that might mean his death. When Terry learns of the sacrifice both Chrystal and Ned are making on behalf of his happiness, he takes Ned's place on the voyage and gets both to pledge that if he does not return, they will marry each other.

On a steamboat heading North, where his brother has struck gold, Mike Dane falls in love with Estelle MacDonald. When he arrives at the Canadian trading post, Dane learns that his brother has been murdered and his partner sentenced to death as the killer.

A 1917 film directed by Chester Withey.

The hardship of earning an existence for the family made it impossible for the mother to approve the little pretty things which her daughter liked. Lack of attention made her son dissolute, but later the sturdy stock of his mother showed in him and the cozy home he provided for dad and sister made them forget the past.

When Dorothy's Southern, aristocratic father Colonel Raleigh refuses to let her marry Forbes Stewart, a Northern gambler, the couple elopes. When Dorothy soon thereafter becomes pregnant, Forbes vows to reform, but authorities arrest him on a gambling charge, and he serves a year in prison. During that time, and just before the birth of the baby, a woman comes to Dorothy and claims to be Forbes' wife. Stunned, Dorothy returns to her father, but the colonel throws her out, and so, on her own, she has her baby, whom the community believes to be illegitimate. Convinced that she has sinned, Dorothy is about to kill herself when Forbes, just out of jail, finds her and explains that the other woman simply had been an ex-sweetheart trying to win him back.

A 1917 film directed by Elmer Clifton, Joseph Henabery, and Dorothy Gish.

The orthodox mother's indomitable will dwarfed the child's individuality, defeating the very purpose it would attain. The girl ran away with an actor and the fearful prayer, "If I ever speak to that man again, may God strike my mother blind," was fulfilled, but in the end the woman was saved from herself.

Universal star Laura LaPlante stars in this lighthearted comedy based on Sophie Kerr's magazine story, Relative Values. Octavia Lowden (LaPlante) has virtually become a drudge in order to support her sponging relatives -- flapper sister Eloise (Lucille Ricksen), hypochondriac Aunt Minnie (Lydia Yeamans Titus), and storytelling Uncle Eph (James O. Barrows). Only Octavia's frail grandmother (Jennie Lee) really needs help. When Octavia's sweetheart, photographer Pritchett Spence (T. Roy Barnes), discovers the toll these bloodsuckers are exacting, he plots with the family doctor to rescue her.

The young authoress had come to the edge of the desert for her mother's sake. There she met the two young prospectors and a romance began. But the men were about to go across the desert, where they had heard rumors of gold. They decided to play square and before going determined to let the coin decide who should ask the young authoress the all-important question. The flip of the coin decided the older should try his luck first. He learned the girl did not love him. But the other she promised to marry when he should return from the gold lands, and the care of her sick mother, who would then be restored to health, should no longer interfere with her happiness. The young partners soon reached the other side of the desert, where success came to them far beyond their expectations.

Molly Kite, the neglected child of a drunken father, rouses the sympathy of the minister, Mr. Shipton, who also teaches the school at Dead Tree. The minister-school-master persuades some of his parishioners to give the girl decent clothes, and he coaxes her into attending school. At first unruly and sullen, she gradually comes to feel that the minister is her best friend. One day she happens to see him meet a strange girl on the street. Apparently overjoyed, he kisses the stranger. Molly rushes into the house, tears off her new clothes, and vows she will never go to school again.

Jan Saxe and Peter Harlingen, two young men from Holland, arrive in America with little orphan Bertha Kruger whom they have befriended during the trip and whom they both love. Bertha has come to live with her blind Aunt Sophie, and when Jan secretly raises $500 for an operation to restore her aunt's sight, Bertha marries Peter, believing that he was the donor of the "secret gift."

Lillian Vale is the naïve and unworldly daughter of minister Josiah Vale. Swept off her feet by handsome Robert Powers, Lillian marries him, unaware that he is constitutionally incapable of fidelity. Led astray by vampish Hattie Lee, Powers follows his new paramour to the Big City -- the first of several bad decisions which culminate in disaster for the errant hero.

Nina, a blind girl, lives with her grandmother, who has taught her to make artificial flowers, which she sells at a flower-stand. Nina, and Jimmie, a crippled newsboy who sells papers on the same corner, are sweethearts. Nina's grandmother dies, and she turns to Jimmie. One day Jimmie has a fight with another newsboy, whom he thinks is hanging about Nina's stand too much, and the other boy is soon begging for mercy. Miss Fifi Chandler, an artist, happens to be passing, and becoming interested, she accompanies Nina and Jimmie to their rooms, and is surprised to find that Jimmie is an artist, having made a beautiful plaster cast of Nina. Fifi brings Jimmie and his protégé to the notice of her fellow artist, Fred Townsend, who falls in love with Nina.