St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-02-08
Inheritance.

How many fathers, having failed in
the uncertain struggle for money, la
ment that they have ''nOthing to leave
the children Their ideas of bequests
are limited to what can be conveyed in
last will aud testament. So stub
bornly does false standard maintain
itself against the wisdom of ages, when
it appeals to man on the side of his sell
tishness, his ease, his ambition, his
power! If one have no possessions but
dollars, the devising of his wealth may
be his most important affair, It's he draws
near the end of his life but as the bus
mess of the world has been going on
for the past few years, the number of
those who need to concern themselves
as to what use shall be made of their
money when they are through with it,
is growing less and less. Men who
were wealthy ten years ago-whole
classes of them-have now barely
enough to take them to the end of their
journey. ''Riches have WINGS" and
there has been il good deal of flying
away SINCE the war, and the end of
flush times.
Well, having no money to bestOw,
shall men therefore conclude that they
will leave nothing behind them
Every child is an heir, and his inheri-
tance is indefeasable. First of all. aIe
his memories Of his parents and home.
All ! if men and women could dictate
to their lawyers, OH paper or parchment,
what memories they should leave be-
hind them, how different would the
records read, in so many cases But
Memory is a record not open to amend
ments, or subject to obliteration by an
others will. We shall be remembered
chiefly for what we are,-happy if there
be even one who will think of what we
wish or tried to be. Every day and
year, therefore, adds to the possessions
of our children and friends, in their
memories of us. How inadequateIy
does money represent one, when COM
pared with ones self! The trite truth
that it is not what man has, but what
he is, that measures him, never seems
less trite than when one thinks what he
will be to his friends when he has been
ten years dead!
And so the man who has no property
to devise, should not be uncOncerned
nor disappointed. 81 give and bequeath
to my dearly beloved wife and children
GOOD NAME" Isn't that good start
to last will ? If man can honestly
and proudly write that, and then de-
scend to possessions that are expressed
in figures, so much the better. But
there is the best authority for giving
the preference to the intangible be-
quest. And if in his inmost soul the
father feels that among the unenumer-
ated legacies, each dear one left behind
will have memory of him as kind.
thoughtful, generous, amiable, loving,
tender and true, how dare he think that
he shall die poor? These are treasures
that no heirs quarrel over, and that re-
qulre no probate outside of the sanctu-
ary of the heart. They are veritably
''laid up in heaven" Why do the er-
rors of the old spiritual materialists
still keep men looking beyond the stars
as the place where "their possessions
be?"
There are, however, more direct and
tangible inheritances, quite apart from
property. The matter of temperament
and natural disposition reaches farther
back into the borderland of mystery
than we care to go in these suggestions
SOmetime,-nO yet for many genera
tions, perhaps.-but sometime, the liv-
ing and loving of the world will be
good and pure enough, and marriage
and parentage will be so intelligent
and holy, that the children will be born
nearer the Divine pattern than they
are now. But leaving Temperament
and actual equipment for living out of
the account, there is still much that
may be done. A sound mind in a
sound bOdy,-is not that an inheritance
worth having? How many figures af-
ter dollar mark will compensate for
the lack of it BY wise, watchful, pa
tient, untiring care and guardianship
from earliest infancy to maturity, thous-
ands of delicate children-or children