Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-13

thlng they neu themselves uoue, out as q
PREPARATION for what their father and
grandfather, Saul, had done. Burial
was denied these youths from May until
November. Rizpah, the mother Of two
of these dead boys, appoints herself as
sentinel to guard the seven corpses from
beak of raven and tooth of wolf and paw
of lion. She pitches black tent on the
rock close By the gibbets. Rizpah by day
sits on the ground in front of her tent,
and when vulture begins to lower out
of the MONDAY sky seeking its prey
among the gibbets, Rizpah rises, her
long hair flying in the wind, and, swing
ing her arms wildly about, Shoes away
the bird of prey until it retreats to its
eyrie At night she rests under the
shadow of her tent and sometimes falls
into drowsiness or half sleep. But the
step of jackal among the dry leaves or
the painting OF a hyena arouses her, and
with the fury of u maniac she rushes out
upon the rock crying. Away! awsy!"
and then examining the gibbets TO see that
they still keep their burden, returns
again to her tent till some swOoping wing
from the midnight sky or some growing
monster on the rock again wakes her.
A mother watching her dead children
through Nav, June, July, August, Sep
tember and October! What a vigil!
Painters have tried to put upon canvas
the scene and they succeeded i'll sketch
ing the hawks i'll the sky aud the PAN
theirs crawling out from the jungle, but
they fail to give the wauuesS, the
earuestness, the supernatural courage,
the infinite self-acr!tice of Rizpah, the
mother. a mother in the quiet home
watching 10y the cRsket of q dead child
Tor one night exerts the artist TO his ut
most, but who is sufficient to put upon
canvas q mother for six months of mid
mig hts guarding her whole family, dead
and gibbeted upon the mountains? GO
home, Rzpuh, You must be awfully
tired. You are sacrificing yonr reason
and your .fe for those whom you can
never bring back again 10 your bosom.
As ] say that, from the darkest mid
night of the century Rizpah tarns upon
me and cries: "How dare you tell me
10 go nome? l am mother. lam not
tired. You might well expect God TO
get tired as for a mother TO get tired. |
cared for those bows W hen they lay upon
my breast in infancy aud will not for
sake chem now that they are dead.
Interrupt me not. There stoops an eagle
that must drive back with my asonized
cry. There is a panther | must beat
bnck with my club!'
DO you know what that scene By our
roadside i'll Palestine makes me think
OF? II is no unusual scene. Right here
IN these three cities by the American sea-
coast, there are Il thousand cases this mo-
mtnt worse than that. Mothers watch
ing boys that the rum saloon, that annex
of hell, has gibbeted in living death.
BOYS hung in chains of evil habit they
cannot break. The father may go TO
sleep. after waiting until II O'Clock at
night tor the ruined boy to come home
and give it up, he may say: Mother,
come to bed; there's no use sitting up
any longer But mother will not so
to bed. It is o'clock in the morning.
1t is 80. 1t is , O'Clock. 1t is 2:30
when he comes staggering through the
hall. DO you say that young man is yet
alive? No; he is dead Dead to his
fathers entreaties. Dead to his
mothers prayers. Dead TO the
Dead to all the noble am
dead. Only corpse of what he once
was. Gibbeted before God and man and
angels and devils. Chained in death
father is asleep, his brothers are asleep,
his sisters are asleep, but his mother is
him, watching him in the
Il ght After he has gone up to bed and
fallen into a drunken sleep. his mother
will 20 up to his room and see that he is
covered, aud before she turns
out the light will put a kiss upon his |
bloated lips. "Mother, why don't you |
go to ped?' "Ah!' she SAYS, al can |
not 20 10 bed. l am Rizpah watching
the slaiui''
And what are the political parties of |
this country doing for such cases? Tney !
are taking care not to hurt the feelings !
Of the jackals and the buzZards that !
roOst on the shelves OF the grog shops, !
and boot above the dead. l am often |
asked TO what political party l belong, |
and | now declare my opinion of the po-
litical parties to-day. Each one is
worse than the other, and the only con-
ISOLATION iii regard to them Is, that they
have putretied until they have no more
1ower to rot. Oh, that comparatively
anne scene upon which RiZpah looked!
She looked upon only seven of the slain.
American motherhood and American
Tifehood, this moment are looking upon
seventy of the slain, upon seven hun
ired of the slain, upon seventy thou
and of the slain. Wool Woe. Wool
Ny only consolation on this subject is
hat foreign capitalists are buy
nc mp the American brewer
es: The present owners see that the
loom of that business Is coming, as
urely as that God is not dead. They
re unloading upon foreign capitalists,
ud when We can get these brewerIes
nto the hands OF people living on the
ther side of the sea, our political par
les will cease to be afraid of the liquor
rattle, and ut their conventions nomi-
ating presidential candidates Will put
n their platform a plank as big as the
biggest plank of the biggest ocean
teamer, saying: 'Resolved uuau-
nously, that we always have been, and
lwavs will be opposed to alcoholism. -
But mus, spur on our Arab steed,
nd here we come in sight of Beeroth,
aId 10 be the place where Joseph and
larry missed the boy Jesus on the way
rom Jerusalem to NaZaTeth. going /
ONE now from great national festival.
Where is my child, Jesus?' says
larry; "where is my child, Jesus?''
iys Joseph. Among the thousands that
re returning from Jerusalem, they