Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1878-09-05
THE TWO LEGACIES,

1t was mldWlnter among tne mountains OF
cold New England. After very brief ill.,
ness, a good man had passed away to his eter-
nal home, and left large family of little
ones. He had struggled hard and long for
them hut, as to this worlds goods left them
in extreme poverty. They had little but the
precious promises of covenant-keeping God
to fall back upon. That father had been pre-
eminentIy man Of prayer. He not only
gathered his family three times day around
their domestic altar, but as he cut down the
primitive forest trees, into the midst Of which
he had moved, he would kneel beside the
stumps to commend himself and his to that
God in prayer. For the best of reasons his
children did not inherit penny from him.
He had not one to bequeath to them; and
vet, as we have learned from the history of
that man, we have felt more and more that
he left them two such legacies as few dying
fathers have had to leave to their children.
Others have labored hard to add farm to
farm, or to roll up stocks of various kinds,
for their children to have an interest in and
to draw from when they could be with them
no longer; but this dying man could only
leave to his ali interest in his many fervent
prayers for them. Precious interest! Would
that more fathers had such an interest laid
up for their children! This fatherless family
was soon broken up. They could not be kept
together; but one went here and another
there as God opened the heart Of this one or
that one to give the fatherless child home.
Other legacies have often failed those to
whom they have been left, or are squandered
by them till the heir of thousands is left pen
niless but this never failed those to whom it
YVES left. Wherever the little wanderers went
their portion of it was sure to them. He with
whom this treasure was laid up ever kept His
eye upon them, and dealt out from it to them
as their good required him to. In answer to
those prayers of the father. blessings came
down u pom his children. One after another
they were all brought into the church, and
obtained positions of usefulness in it till they
were called away to their eternal home
We have said that this dying father could
only leave to his children an interest in his
prayers. We mistake-he left them another
legacy more valuable than thousands of gold
and silver. From their earliest days he had
taught them to be industrious, "in books or
works or healthful play" He was we'll aware
that idle persons, whether children or adults,
tempt Satan to employ them, while he has to
tempt the industrious to do wrong. When
they were too young to do much besides, he
would have them 60 over the fields of new
so Iu grain to scare the birds away, lest they
should gather it up. Then, as they grew
stronger, when out of school, he would give
them such work as their little hands could do.
These habits of industry, early inculcated,
they carried with them through life, and, in
the various spheres in which they moved, life
was to them success. They became indus.
trious, useful men and women. There was no
dler no one of dissipated habits, no one un-
sound in the faith among them. The scholar
rose to eminence the teacher and the preach
er to useful spheres, while the idle children
of the prayerless ones around them, though
they started out in life rich in this worlds
goods, went to poverty and ruin.
And these legacies not only enriched the
children of that departed saint, but much of
them seems to have been entailed upon chill.
dren's children. Such we're the two legacies.
An interest in ssinted fathers prayers, and
most industrious habits taught them from
their earliest years. Would that all parents
were more anxious to lay up for their chill.
dren such legacies, rather than thousands of
gold and Christian Instructor.