Weekly American. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1858-1858, 1858-05-15
LOVE FOR LOVE:


| OR THE DEBTS OF CHILDREN TO PARENTS.
Filial love may be shown by patience and for
bearance with parents, when they aredesccnd-
ing the vale of years. 1t is one of the beautiful
orders of Divine Providence that we may pass
through successive stages of growth and de-
cline, before we are suffered to complete the
pilgrimage of life, and thus the parents who
| tended us in infancy become dependent on us
for the same tenderness when they are feeble
| by sickness or old age. Sometimes God calls
parents out of the world while their children
| are yet in youth. But he does bless and
honor that house in which he spares the aged
sire and venerable mother, to be the glory of
their children; to counsel them, to pray with
and for them, and to receive their gentle min
istries of filal love.
1t is privilege for which we should be un-
speakably thankful, to be permitted to smooth
| the passage to the grave Of those who led us by
the hand along the path of life in the morning
| of our days! To shield them from the storms
of pitilcss world, by giving them pleasant
resting. place by our own freside in the midst
of our children, in whom they may live over
| again the scenes of their former days when we
were sporting on their knees! We owe them
| this retreat-we owe them more than this and
more than all e can ever give. To make them
return in kind or in degree, is beyond our
power. If we make it a matter of debt and
credit with our parents, we shall be bankrupt
always. You may load them with riches, the
fruit of your own life's long toll; you may
carry them in your arms to their nightly couch,
and watch them till the morn returns; you
may whisper words of kindness in their ears,
and smile lovingly on them as their eyes grow
dim with age; you may hold their dying head
upon your breast, and wipe the death sweat
from their brows and kiss away their expiring
breath, and lay them softly in the grave-al
| this is what parent most DESIRES when he
knows that he is about to die but all this and
a thousand fold more will never repay the debt
Of gratitude you owe for parental love and care
when you were an unconscious infant, wailing
in mothers arms.
While you were in the cradle, you had a fit
Of sickness. You knew not that one whose
heart was almost breaking with anxious fear
was hanging over you, watching with intense
solicitude your breathing through the long,
long night, kissing you to sleep when in fever
ish drains you started from your slumbers and
screamed in fright; singing through her tears,
and soothing you with such tender pressures
as only mothers arms can give, when fold
ing a sick babe to her own sick heart. Had
you died in her arms, she would have been
paid when she foundyou again an angel among
the angels.
"0hl when mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day Of woe, the watchful night
For all her sorrows, all her tears,
An over.payment of delight"
But you lived; and now tho debt is upon
you, increased by years Of such days and
nights, through which your parents have fol
lowed you with anxious hearts and watchfu
eyes, to keep you from falling, to help you in
trouble to lead you in the ways Of usefulness
and point you to the gates Of eternal life
The strength of parents love has been
tested in a thousand cases, and it has never
F failed The story of Jacob and Joseph is or
the great chart of Old Testament history, to bt
studied, age after age, as one Of the most touch
ing and beautiful passages in the annals Of hu
man love. Yet every parent whose heart has
not been hardened by vice, is Jacob in affec
ton for the children that God has given him.
The tie is tender but strong, and often i
seems to fasten itself on objects that have NJ
loveiness save in the eyes of parental regard
How frequently do we observe with deligh
that the least favored child in the group is tn
/ favoritc in the arental heart Perhaps it i
deformed, or helpless; perhaps deficient in in
tellect yet its very infirmites, that make j
less attractive to others, secure for it such ,
place in fond father or mothers love, that its
| loss Of beauty, or Of limbs or Of intellect is q
gain Of love to the child When death has
, come into the family circle, and taken away
, this child, the neighbors and friends have said
{ that it was a mercy to have it removed, fol
they thought it no comfort to its parents; but
, those parents have grieved more over its death
than they would over any other one Of theil
r little flock. It's heplessness won upon thei
{ sympathies. Because others cared less for !
. they cared more for it. And have heard sucl