The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1859-08-27
8. sEMPORIA, KANSAS, AUGUST 81 1859
Love For Love:
OR THE DEBTS OF CHILDREN 10 PARENTS.

!: Or TIE DEBTS oF CHILDREN TO PARENTS.
Filial love may be shown by patience and
forbearance with parents, when they are de-
ascending the vale Of years. 1t is one of the
beautiful orders of Divine Providence, that
we may pass through successive stages of
growth and decline, 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 vet in youth
But he doesebless and honor that house in
which he spares the aged sire and the ven
cradle mother, to be the glory of their chill
tdren; toscounsel them. to pray with and for
them, andsto receive their gentle ministries
| of filial love. b. $50
It is a privilege for which we should be
unspeakably 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 pitiless world,
by giving them pleasant resting place by
our own fre-side in the midst of our chill
dren, 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 we can ever give. 70
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 loving
ly 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-all 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 In
FAINT, wailing In mothers arms. 80
While you were in the cradle, you had
fit of sickness. You knew not that one
whose heart was almost breaking with anx-
ious fear was hanging over you, watching
with intense solicitude your breathing thro'
the long, long night, kissing you to sleep
when in feverish dreams you started from
your slumbers and screamed in fright sing
ing through her tears, and sooting you with
such tender pressures as only mothers
arms can give, when folding a sick babe to
her own sick heart. Had you died in her
arms. she would have been paid when she
found you again an angel among the an
gels. at
ooh 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 oyer-payment of deEght?
But you lived; and now the debt is upon
you, increased by years of such days and
nights, through which your parents have
followed you with anxious hearts and watch
full 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 thousand cases, and it has never
failed. The story of Jacob and Joseph is
on the great chart of Old Testament history,
to be studied, age after age, as one of the
most touching and beautiful passages in the
ANIMALS of human love. Yet every parent.
whose heart has not been hardened by vice,
is Jacob in affection for the children that
God has given him.
The tie is tender but strong, and often it
seems to fasten itself on objects that have
no loneliness save in the eyes of parental
regard. How frequently do we observe
with delight that the least favored child in
the group is the favorite in the parental
heart. Perhaps it is deformed, or hel pless;
perhaps deficient in intellect; yet its very
infrmities, that make it 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
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 mercy to have 1t removed,
for they thought it no comfort to its pa
rents; but those parents have grieved more
over its death than they would over any 9TH
er one OF their little flock. It's helplessness
won upon their sympathies. Because 9TH
ers cared less for it, they cared more for it.
And I have heard such parents say that
their little blind daughter was more comfort
to them than all the rest of their children.
This is no strange thing. that the parents
should so cling to their children. The won
der is that in all the world there can be
found one son or daughter so ungrateful
and cruel as to make parent feel @
How sharper than q serpent's tooth it is
To have q thankless child
" r Observer.
A mans force in the world. other things