Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1869-07-06
The Winter of the Heart.

Let it never come upon you. Live so that
good angels may protect you from this most
terrible evil-the winter of the heart.
Let no chilling influence freeze up the foun-
tains OF sympathy and happiness in its depths;
no cold burden settle over it's withered hopes
like snow on the faded flowers, no rude blasts
| OF discomfort moan and shrek through it's de-
solated chambers.
Your lite path may lead you through trials
which for time seem utterly to impede your
progress, and shut out the very light of heaven
from your anxious gaze.
Penury may take the place of ease and
plenty your luxurious room may be cxchang
ed for single lowly home-the soft couch for
the coarse food of the poor. Summer friends
may f1rsake you, and the Implying world pass
you with scarcely word or look of compassion.
You may be forced to toll YEARLY, steadily
on, to earn livelihood; you may encounter
fraud aud the base ayarlce that would extort
the last farthing, till you well nigh turn In dis
gust from your fellow beings
Death may sever the dear ties that bind you
to earth, and leave you in fearful darkness.
That noble, manly boy, the sole hope ofyour
declining years, may be taken from you while
your spirit cings to him with wild tenacity,
which even the shadow of the tomb cannot
wholly subdue.
But amid all these sorrows, do not come to
the conclusion that nobody was ever so deeply
afflicted as you are, and abandon every anticipa-
tion of better days in the unknown future.
Do not lose your faith in human excellence,
because your confidence has been sometimes
betrayed, nor believe that friendship Is only
delusion, and love a bright phantom which
glldes away from your grasp.
Do not think that you are fated to be mIsera
bic because you are disappointed in your ex-
pectations, and batf1ed III your pursuit.
declare q
when your way is hedged about with thorns, or
repine sighfully, when he calls your dear ones
| to that land beyond the grave.
| Keep holy trust in heaven through every
| trial bear adversely with fortltude.
The Duty OF PARENTs.-It is given but to
very few OF us to hand down to posterity name
| made great and famous in the worlds strife.
We are most of us plodding, unnteresting folks,
| who seem to leave no mark on the world: his
| tory will never know us. But the capacity for
| producing either misery or happiness Is heredl-
| tary, and does not stop with u.s. The children
| OF captlous, exacting parents are often them
selves captious and exacting while the memory
Of loving sympathy bestowed upon ourselves in
our young days begets In US the like sympathy
| toward others.
| In this way we can all do a good work in the
world, and leave behind us loving gremembrances.
What is it man dwells upon in the memory
of parents away? We fancy it is the games play
ed and races run together, rather than the mon
ey lett behind them. 1t is the parents who must
really educate the child the schoolmaster will
never do it. He may cram certain amount
of Greek and Latin into boys head, but there
he stops. He will never supply the place of a
father. 1t is for the latter to rouse In child
a taste for what is noble and beautiful Above
| all, youth should be time for love, and peace.
and happiness, for none can say what shall come
after? Who does not creep with pain at the
cry of child? Let the little ones, at all events
have happy childhood to look back upon, ano
then let fate do her worst, it cannot rob then
Of the remembrance of the past joys which arr
their inheritance forever