Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-17

nave. - eS, SAID the son, my
grandfather had. - 1t is about the same
from generation to generation, and
parents need to be patient with children,
and children dutiful to their parents.
! Taking it for granted that those who
hear me to-day have had good parent
age. want to urge upon all the young
the fact that the happiness and longevi-
ty of the parents much depend upon the
right behavior of their children, and 1
can do this no more effectuIlly than by
demonstrating the truth of my text,
"a foolish son Is the heaviness of his
MOTHER
Perhaps some young man astray may
be brought back by a thought of how
they feel about him at home. A French
soldier lay wounded and dying in the
hospital at Geneva, Switzerland. His
father, at home, seventy years of age,
heard of his son s suffering, and started,
and took the long journey and found the
hospital, and as he entered the son cried:
"Oh, father, am so glad you have come
to see me die. - ''No,' - said the father,
"you are not going to die.
YOUR MOTHER IS WAITING FOR YOU,
and am going to take you home; have
brought you money and everything you
need. " Ono, - said the soldier, ''they
give me here everything that is nice to
eat, but have no appetite, and 1 must
die. - Then the father took from his
knapsack q loaf of rye bread, such as
the plain people of his country ate. and
said, "Here is a loaf of bread your
mother made, and l am sure you can eat
this; she sent it to You.'' Then the SOL
der frightened up and took the bread
and ate it, and said, sit is so good, the
bread from home, the bread that my
mother made!' No wonder that in q
few days he had recovered. o young
man, wounded in the battle of life, and
discouraged, given up by yourself and
given up by others, the old folks at the
country tireside have not given you up.
bring you bread from home. 1t may
be plain bread, but it is that bread OF
which if a man eat he never again shall
hunger. Bread from home! Bread
from home!
Carrying out the idea of my text,
remark that d reckless or dissipated son
makes a heavy-hearted parent, because
it hurts the family pride. 1t Is not the
given name, or the name which you re-
ceived at the christening, that is injured
by your prOdigalitV. You cannot hurt
your name of John or George or Henry or
Mary or Frances of Rachel, because
there have been thousands of people.
good ana bad having those names, and
you cannot improve or depTecIate the
respectability of those given names But
it iseyour last name, your family name,
that its at your mercy. All who bear
that name are bound, before God and
man, not to damage its happy sIgnIfi-
canoe. You are charged by all the gen.
erations of the past and all the genera
tons to come to do your share for
the protection and the honor and
the integrity of that name. You have
no right, my young friend, by bad
life to blot the old family Bible con-
tanning the story of the marriages and
births and deaths of the years gone by,
or to cast q blot upon the family
Bibles whose records are yet to be
opened There are in our American
city directories names that always sug-
gest commercial dishonesty or hbertin-
ism or cruelty or meanDess, just be-
cause one man or woman bearing that
name cursed it forever by miscreaucy.
Look out how you stab the family name!
II is especially dear to your mother.
She was not born under that name.
She was born under another name, but
young womanhoOd, and she saw some
one with whom she could trust her hap
piness, her life, and
HER IMMORTAL DESTINY,
and she took his name, took it while the
orange blossoms were filling the air with
fragrance, took it with joined hands,
took it while the heavens witnessed. She
chose it out of all the family names since
the world stood, chose it for better or
worse, through sickness and through
health, 10y cradles and by graves. Yea,
she put off her old family name to take
the family name you now wear, and she
has done her part to make it an honor
able name. How hard a trouble you
put upon her when, by misdeedS, you
wrench that name from its
high significance. To haul it
down from your mothers fore
head and tramDIe it in the dust would be
criminal. Your fathers name may not
be distinguished name, but I hope it
stands for something good. 1t may not
he famous, like that Of Homer, the
father of epic poetry, or Izaak Walton,
the father OF angling, or IEschylus, the
father of tragedy, or Ethelwold, the
father of monks, or Herodotus, the
father of history, or Thomas AquInaS,
the father of moral philosophy, or Abra-
ham, the father of the faithful, but your
father has name in q small circle as
precious to him as theirs in q larger
circle. Look out how you tarnish it!
Further, the recklessness and diSslpa-
ton Of a young man are a cause of
parental distress at q time when the
parent is less able to bear it. The vicis-
STUDIES of life have left their impression
upon those parents. The eye is not as
clear as once, nor the hearing as acute,
nor the nerves as steady, nor the step as
strong, and with the tide of incoming
years comes the weight of unfilial be-
havior. You take your parents at great
disadvantage, for they cannot stand as
much as they once could. They have
not the elasticity of feeling with which
once they could throw off trouble. That
shoulder, now somewhat bent, cannot
bear as heavy q burden as once it could.
At the time when the machin-
cry is getting worn out you
put upon it the most terrific
strain. At sixty and seventy years the
vitality is not so strong as at thirty or
forty. Surely they are descending the
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