Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-02-26

should speak out upon these themes.
MY first counsel to you is, have Jesu. IN
your new home, If it be a new home: and
let him who was a guest at Bethany be IN
your household; let the divine BLESSING
drop upon your every hope and plan and
expectation. Those young people who ha.
gin with God end with heaven. Hava -,
your right hand the engagement ring OF
the dlvlne affection. If n of you be a
Christian, let that one take a Bible and
read a few verses in the evening time. and
then kneel down and commend yourselves
70 him who setteth the solitary in families.
l want to tell you that the DESTROYING
angel passes by without touching or enter.
ing the door.post sprinkled with blood Of
the everlasting covenant. Why is it that
in some families they never get along, and
in Others they always get along we'll? 1
have watched such cases, and have come
to a conclusion. In the first instance. moth
ing seemed to go pleasantly, and after a
while came devastation, domestic disaster.
or arrangement. Why? They started
wrong. In the other case, although there
were hardships and trials, and some things
that had to be explained, still things went
on pleasant until the very last. Why?
They started right.
My advice to you in your home is to ex-
ercise to the very last possibility of your
nature the law of forbearance. Prayers in
the household will not make up for
everything. Some of the best peo-
pie in the world are the hardest to get
along with. There are people who
stand up in prayer-meeting and pray
like angels, whom at home are uncompro
missing and cranky. You may not have
everything just as you want it. Some
times it will be the duty of the hus-
band and sometimes of the wife to yield;
but both stand punctiliously on your
rights, and you will have a Waterloo
with no Butcher coming up at nightfal to
decide the conflict.
Never be ashamed TO apologize when
you have done wrong in domestic af-
fairs. Let thet be a Law of your house,
hold. The best thing I ever heard of
my grandfather, whom l never saw, was
this: That once having unrighteously re.
buked one of his children, he himself hav-
ing lost his patience, and, perhaps, hav-
ing been misinformed of the child's doing,
found out his mistake, and in the evening
of the same day gathered all his family
together and said: "Now l have one ex-
PLANTATION to make, and one thing to say.
Thomas, this morning l rebuked you very
unfairly. l am very sorry for it. I re-
buked you in the presence of the whole
family, and now I ask your forgiveness
in their presence" It must have taken
some courage to do that. 1t was right,
was it not? Never be ashamed to apollo
gize for domestic inaccu:acy. Find out
the points; what are the weak points,
if l may call them so, of your companion,
and then stand aloof from them. Do not
carry the fire of your temper too near
the ~gunpowder. If the wife be easily
fretted by disorder in the household,
let the husband be careful where he
throws the slippers. If the husband comes
home from the store with his patience all
exhausted, do not let the wife unneces-
sarily cross his temper; but both stand up
for your rights, and l will promise the ev-
erlasting sound of the warwhoop. Your
life will be spent in making up, and mar
riage will be to you an unmitigated curse.
Cowper said:
SIS AsS SaNN WV tkpPlSS "a
Will find occasion to foroear;
And something. every day they live,
To pity, and perhaps forgive.
advise, also, that you make your chief
pleasure circle around about that home. II
is unfortunate when it is otherwise. If the
husband spend the most of his nights away
from home, of choice, and not of necessity,
he is not the head of the household; he is
Only the cashier. If the wife throw the
cares of the household in the servants
lap, and then spends five nights of the week
at the opera or theater, she may clothe her
children with satins and laces and ribbons
that would confound a French milliner,
but they are orphans. Oh, it is sad when
a child has no one to say it's prayers to,
because mother has gone off to the evening
entertainment! In India they bring chill
dren and throw them to the crocodiles: and
it seems very cruel; but the jaws of New
York and Brooklyn dissipation are swal-
lowing down more little children to-day
than all the monsters that ever crawled
upon the banks of the Ganges!
Ihave seen the sorrow of a goddess moth
er on the death of a child she had neglect
ed. 1t was not so much grief that she felt
from the fact that the child was dead as
the fact that she had neglected it. She said
"If I had only watched over and cared for
the child, l know God would not have
taken it," The tears came not; it was a
dry, blistering tempest-a scorching simeon
of the desert. When she wrung her hands
it seemed as if she would twist her fingers
from their sockets; when she seized her
hair it seemed as if size had, in wild terror,
grasped a coiling serpent with her right
hand, No tears! Comrades of the little
one came in and wept over the coffin;
neighbors came in, and the moment they
saw the still face of the child the shower
broke. No tears for her. God gives tears
as the summer rain to the parched soul;
but in all the universe the driest and hot
test, the most searching and consuming
thing is a mothers heart if she has neg
lected her child, when once it is dead. God
may forgive her, but she will never forgive
herself. The memory will sink the eyes
deeper into the sockets, and pinch the face,
and whiten the hair, and eat up the heart
with v%ultures that will not be satisfied,
forever plunging deeper their iron beaks
O., you wanderers from your home, go
back to your duty! The brightest flowers