The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-08-15

hold. Let parents win so much Of the
child's confidence that they shall be taken
into all counsels pertaining to the affairs
of the heart When the young people
of a household come TO under
stand that father and mother are their
most sympathetic advisers the chapter of
domestic calamity will end. But
whoever may be to blame, in almost
all cases there are just four people who
will have to suffer for the precipitate
matrimonial relationship parents and
the runaways. The romance soon van
ishes, and the twain find out that if they
had, some evening in early acquaintance
ship, on the way home from a place OF
amusement, been, by drunken hackman,
driven off the dock into the lake or river
and the policeman had not been able to
fish them out, their fate would have been
less deplorable. The glamour of elOpe-
ment gone, refinement is found tied for
life to vulgarity, education chained fast to
ignorance, and soft hands OF lux
uriance have to come to the wash
tub More appropriate would it have
been ii the minister officiating had lost
his place in the litanv, and read the SER
wee for burial of the dead rather than the
wedding ceremony for the living. Most of
your sympathies go out toward the par
ents, or the daughter who steps from
mansion to hovel. The most of my SYM
pathies are for the poor fellow OF 500 in
come with a millionaire fool tied fast to
him, one who shall forever keep him in
formed as to how much better she had il
before she left home. Many OF my sym
pathies are with him, for he thought he
was making a grand atfiancing, and all
his life will be disappointment and
bitterness untold During the honey
moon he may be exhilarant, but before
six months have passed he will wish
he had never been born. There have been
justifable cases OF welded life contrary to
parental decree, and yet subsequent hap
piness; but ninety-nine cases out OF the
hundred that YOU see reported have been
unmitigated disasters and will lind ter
minus either in the divorce court or the
almshOuse, or a pauper's cabin. Paul,
standing in a state of celibacy, yet closely
observant OF the family relations, warns
people against being unequally yoked to-
gether; vet what devastation has been
wrought by the romance oil the connubial
state. Marriage is an Old-fashioned
business, and that wedding procession
marches the best which starts not down
ladder from the back window, but from
the front door with a better benediction
than any clergyman in canonicals can
ever pronounce-namely, mothers bless
ing
But what thing to be grateful for that
the vast majority OF homes are divinely
constructed The exceptions only make
the rule more observable. The stranger
passes along our streets and he sees the
front steps, the doorways, the windows Of
a thousand houses, and they seem very
much alike. Brick is brick, and iron is
= I,.A n l.
tween those houses is the boundary of an
empire. God has fenced it in from all the
world. II is realm by itself. 1t is the
most sacred spot on earth to us.
There our children were born ;
there our loved ones died. Fes-
tivities and lamentations, reunions
and partings, have dedicated the place.
Father and mother, son and daughter, call
it home Nothing will so soon kindle a
man into a confagation of wrath, or hurl
him into such a thunderboIt of indigna-
ton as the invasion of his home. When
his work is done he expects 20 die there.
The last time he ever sees the world he
will see it from that window. Now in
these places are concentrated more
Of happiness than can be found in any
other place on earth. God has kindly APP
portioned Us into these families, and let
1t could not have merely happened so. II
was divinely ordered that it should be so.
God setteth the solitary in families. Upon
all your homes may the blessing come.
Upon the dining-room, and may there be
bread enough TO spare. Upon the nursery
and may sickness stand back, and the
angel which redeemeth US from all evil
bless the lads. Upon your pillow, and
you be guarded by him who never slum-
bereth and sleepeth. Upon your parlor,
that it may be the scene OF healthful re-
union and neighborhood civilities. Upon
your library, that the destroying angel of
iuiquitous literature may never touch its
wing to shelf OF table. And may there DO
somewhere a spot of prayer, family
altar, where all shall kneel and all shall
get the divine blessing, and then, when a
few more seasons have come and gone and
that home is broken up, as it must be by
the passage of years. may our sons and
daughters in other homes live happy and