Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-04-09
is past and the generation that ia 70 co,n.

- FuoS oaAA Vu0 k0u0TdVlUN GUdC Ii 10 come.
are you going to pass the blessing on,
or are you going to have your life the
gulf in which that tide of blessing
shall drop out of sight forevery You
are the trustees of piety in that ancestral
LINE, are you going to augment or
squander chat solemn trust funds? Are you
going to disinherit your sons and daugh.
ters OF the heirloom which your parents
left you? All! that can not be possible,
that can not be possible that you are going
to take such a position as that. You are
very careful about the life assurances, and
careful about the deeds, and careful about
the mortgages, n careful about the title
OF your property, because when you step
on the stage you van your children to
get 1t all. Are you making no provision
That they shall get grandfather and grand
mothers religion? Oh, what a last will
and testament you are making, my BROTH
er!
In the name of God. amen. I, being Of
sound mind, make this my last will and ties.
lament. 1 bequeath to my children all the
money I ever made and all the houses 1
own; but l disinherit them, I rob them OF the
ancestral grace and the Christian influence
mat l inherited. Ihave ~squandered that on
~S w" W IL ouuCC anu snare alK0
must they in the misfortune and the ever.
lasting outrage. Signed, sealed and deliv.
cred In the presence Of God, and men, ana
angels, and devils, and all the generations
OF earth, and heaven, and he'll. March, 1883.
o, We highly~-favored ancestry, wake up
tnis morning to a sense of your opportuni-
~ and and your responsibility. Think
there must be an old cradle or a fragment
OF a cradle somewhere that could tell q
story of midnight supplication in your be-
half. Where is the old rocking chair in
which You were sung to sleep with the
holy nursery rhyme? Where is the old
clock that licked away the moments of
that sickness on that awful night when
there were but three of you awake-you
and God and mother? Is there not an old
stan in some closet? Is there not an old
family Bible on some shelf that seems to
address, you.s saying:
"My son, my daughter, how can you re-
ject that God who so kindly dealt with us
all our lives and to whom We commended
you in our prayers, living and dyingp By
the memory of the old homestead, by the
family altar, by our dying pillow, by the
graves in which our bodies sleep while our
spirits hover, we beg you to turn over a
new leaf, and that now"
2. But l turn for a moment to those who
had evil p%arentage, and 1 want to tell
you that the highest thrones in Heaven,
and the mightiest triumphs and the
brightest crowns will be for those who
had evil ~parentage, but who, by the
grace of God, conquered. AS useful, as
splendid a gentleman as 1 know of to.
day, had for father a man who died BIAS
pheming God until the neighbors had to
put their fingers in their ears to shut out
the horror. One Of the most consecrated
and useful Christian ministers Of to-day
wrs born of q drunken horse jockey. Tide
of evil tremendous in some families. It is
like Niagara rapids, and yet men have
chung to a rock and been rescued.
There is a family in New York whose
wealth has rolled up into many millions
that was founded by a man who, after
he had vast estate, sent back a paper of
tacks because they were two cents
more than he expected. Grip and grind
and gouge in the fourth generation-I sup.
pose it will be grip and grind and
gouge in the twentieth genera.
ton. The thirst for intoxicants
has burned down through the
arteries of a hundred and fifty
years. Pugnacity or combativeness char
acterizes other families. Sometimes one
form of evil, sometimes another form of
evil. But it may be resisted. it has been
resisted. If the family frailty be a~varice,
cultivate unselishness and charity, and
teach your children never to eat an apple
without offering somebody else half of It.
Is the family frailty combativeness, keep
ont 0f tho connoono ~ ~,soJx o-.-..a
people, and never answer an impertinent
question until you have counted a hundred
both ways. and after you have written q
letter keep it a week before you send it,
and then burn it up! Is the family frailty
timidity and cowardice, cultivate back
bone, read the biography of brave men
like Joshua and Paul, and see if you can
not get a little iron in your blood. Find
out what the family frailty is, and set
body, mind and soul in battle array.
I think the genealogical table was put
in the first chapter of the New Testament
not only to show our Lords pedigree, but
to show that a man may rise up in an an
cestral line and beat back successfully all
the influences of bad heredity. Seem that
genealogical table that good King Asa
came of vile King Abba. See in that
genealogical table that Joseph and Mary
and the most illustrious Being that ever
touched our world, Or ever will touch it,
had in their ancestral line scandalous Re-
hoboam and Themar and Bathsheba. IT
this world is ever to be Edenized-and it
will be-all the infected families of the
earth are to be regenerated, and there will
some arise in each family line and open
a new genealogical table. There will
be some Joseph in the line to re-
verse the evil influence of R%ehoboam, and
there will be some Mary in the line to re-
verse the evil influence of Bathsheba. Per.
haps the star of hope may point down to
your manager. Perhaps you are to be the
hero or the heroine hat is to put down the
brakes and stop that long train of genoa
logical tendencies, and switch it off on an
other track from that on which it has been
running for a century. Youdo that, and I
will promise you as fine a palace as the
architects of heaven can build, the arch
way inscribed with the words: "More than
conqueror."
But whatever your heredity, let me say,
you may be sons and daughters of the Lord
God Almighty. Estranged children from
A. 1900 49,