St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-03-28

| state of things. There has been (per-
haps) but one Charley Ross-sureiy
there have not been many. And such
parents would move heaven and earth,
and drag the seas, until they had found
their child, or its grave. But all pa
rents are not animated by Christian
principle. 1t is probably also true that
in no one point does the finest power
of culture more finely show itself, than
in the conservation which it puts upon
the parental and the filial relation. 1t
is apt to be different with the rough
laborer. If he be not habitually exag-
gerating all that is brutal about HIM
self with drink, he is still so situated
that he fares hardly, and, from consent
as much as necessity, very early comes
to thrust his litter of children forward
toward the endeavOr after self-support.
With him one mouth the fewer means
considerably less to be provided three
times day at the table; means fewer
shoes, caps and garments, costing money
of which he has but very little to spend.
He wishes his children well-when he
wishes them anything. Some natural
tears he sheds when one of them runs
away. But he says: 'He's got it 10
him, and he'll worry through )" or cpl
risk her to make her way and she
can't be much worse off than here !'
| And so the umbilical cord which vitally
bound the wanderer to the family at
home is severed, with no real effort
made to renew the relation. Months
and years pass. There is still with the
mother surely, some grateful memory
of the absent at the Preside, but no
vigorous endeavor toward recall, or
Identification. With many such people
the thought of writing a letter is like
that of having teeth pulled. When,
then, such fresh catastrophe as this
at Lynn gathers horror around the his
tory of an somebody's son or
daughter of near the same age, and
possibly with considerable personal
esemblance-it is natural that the
long-silent family should speak, and
with awe and terror hurry to the mergue
to make suIe-the one way or the
other.
1t is to be feared that in nothing are
thousands of American families more
delinquent than in that sweet concord
and clinging intimacy between parents
and children, which breeds unconscious
ly within the little folks's breasts the
ineradicable conviction that no cooking
and storytelling are like mothers, no
sympathy and counsel like fathers
and that abe it ever so humble there's
no place like home" Happy is the
household-in palace or hut, and it
may be hard to think in which the
more difficulties cucumber the endeavOr
tah IL. h,,,t, 10,
children on toward the time when the
ripened son or daughter drops from the
family bOugh to take root as the germ
center of another family, that Gold
smiths couplet "a little mOdified) shall
describe their case:
Such is their offspring's bosst-where'er they
roam,
Their first, best country ever is at home"
1t will be Il sweet flower of good,
blooming in charming and healthful
fragrance upon the dark stalk of this
Lynn brutality, if it set some fathers
and mothers seriously and penitently
and prayerfully to thinking, before it
be too late, as to the quality. of the re-
latiOns between them and their chill
dren. "HOw,"-it was once said in
our bearing,-''hOv can any person
dare to take the responsibility of father
hood, or motherhood, who is not first IA
Christian ~ 1t is indeed, under any
ii fearful responsibility.
But he who took little children in his
arms and blessed them, still lives and
loves. And he will help-will gladly |
help-us who are parents so to live
and teach and love, that ours shall
never be, in anV sense lost children
COngregatiOnatiSt.