The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1864-03-31

From that to sixty each stroke told
of the warm hearted grandmother,
living over again her own joys and sor-
rows, in those of her children and
and children's children. Every family
of all the group wanted grandmother
then, and the only strife was who
should secure the prize. But hark !!
the bells on! Seventy-one-two-
three-four. 80 Aht"
She now begins to grow feeble, re-
quires some care, is not always patient
or satisfied she goes from one child's
house to another, so that no place
seems like home. She murmurs in
plaintive tones, that after all her toll
and WEAKNESS, it is hard she cannot be
allowed home to die in; that she
must be sent rather than invited from
house to house. Eighty-one-two-
three-four-ah she is now a second
ehild-now "she has outlived her use
fulness, she has ceased to be comfort
to herself or any,body;" that is, she
has ceased to be profitable to her earth
craving and money-grasping children.
Now sounds out, reverberating
through lovely forests, and eehoing
back from our chill of the dead"
eighty-six there she lies now in the
coffin, cold and still-she makes no
trouble now, demands no love, no soft
words, no tender little offices. A look
of patient endurance Il fancied also
an expression of grief for unrequited
love, sat on her marble features. Her
children were there clad in weeds of
woe, and in irony remembered the
strong mans words, ga mother is a
great loss in general but she had out
lived her usefulness"
From a little child had honored the
aged was taught by pious, good pa
rents, the respect due them from all
those in the morning of life but never
so fully realized the love and sympathy
due this class as when saw the NOR
tai frame of this mother of more than
four score years sink into the bosom of
kind mother earth. "Dust to dust %
said the clergyman, as be threw earth
upon the coffin of this mother who for
long years toiled as only mothers can
toll /; and for what7 Was it for her
self, that she might lay up for herself
treasures on earth? No, no! But that
her children, whom she had in the full
ness and love of womanly pride reared
to maturity, might be happy and fully
prepared for this life and that which is
to come. Yea, clad in the weeds of
widowhood she dwelt among her child
ren, and while health and vigor en-
dured, she labored but for her descen-
dants, and her dying words to them
were the simple, kind, yet comprehen-
sible and forcible injunction, "be faith
full" God forbid that conscience
should accuse any of intentional in-
gratitude or murmuring on account of
the care she had been of late; but
may the words "she had outlived her
usefulness" never reach the ears of
children, for the fruit of such saying
may be repeated by those who utter it,
when they themselves shall totter on
the brink of the grave.
Never, never! mother cannot live
so long as that! No, when she can no
longer labor for her children, nor yet
care for herself, she can fall like pre-
clous weight on their bosoms, and call
forth, by her helplessness, all the noble,
generous feeling of their natures.
| Adieu, then, poor toll worn mother ;
there are no more days of pain for
thee Undying vigor and everlasting
.
usefulness are part of the inheritance
of the redeemed. Feeble as thou vert
on earth, thou wilt be no burden on
the bosom Of Infinite Love, but there
thou shall find thy longed for rest, and
receive glorious sympathy from Jesus
and his ransomed fold. "The eternal
God shall be the everlasting arms"
e"What is the use of living p
asked Jack Simmonds the other day.
f ave are f1ogged for crying when we
are babies !; fogged because the master
is cross when we are boys obliged tc
toll, sick or we'll, or starve when We
q are men; to work still harder when We
are husbands; and after exhaustine
life and strength in the service of Other
people, die and leave our children tC
lquarrel about the possession of father'l
Z watch, and our wives to catch some
body else" e4@ie 2e5 '.'is -Q 3
y h. Nor BAD.-Uneducated persons anG
! leven the rutiest.. often succeed in illus