The Brookhaven leader., 1890-03-27

and can do this no more effectually
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 sons suffering, and started,
and took the long journey, and found the
hospital, and as he entered the son
cried:
so father, I 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 every
thing you need"
NO" said the soldier, "they give me
here every thing that is nice to eat, but
have no appetite, and must die"
Then the father took from his KNAPP
sack loaf of rye bread, such as the
plain people of his country ate, and
said:
Here is loaf of bread your mother
made, and l am sure you can eat this;
she sent it to you"
Then the soldier frightened up, and
took the bread and ate it, and said: at
is SO good, the bread from home, the
bread my mother made!" No wonder
that in few days he had recovered.
o young man, wounded in the battle of
life and discouraged, given up by your
self and given up by others, the cid
folks at tho country fireside have not
given you up. bring you bread from
home. 1t may be plain bread, but it is
that bread of which if man eat he
never again shall hunger. Bread from
home! Bread from home!
Carrying out the idea of my text,
remark that reckless or dissipated
son makes a heavy-hearted parent be-
cause it hurts the family pride. 1t is
not the given name, or the name which
you received at the christening, that is
injured by your prodigality. You can
not hurt your name of John or George
or Henry or Mary or Frances or Rachel,
because there have been thousands of
people, good and bad, having those
names, and you can not improve or de-
preciate the respectability of those
given names. But it is your last name,
your family name, that is at your mercy.
All who bear that name are bound, be-
fore God and man, not to damage its
happy significance. You are charged,
by all the generations of the past and
all the generations 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 contain
ing the story of the marriages and births
and deaths of the years gone by, or to
cast blot on the family Bibles whose
records are yet to be opened. There
are in our American directories names
that always suggest commercial dishon-
esty or libertinism or cruelty or mean
ness, just because one man or woman
bearing that name cursed it forever by
miscreancy. Look out how you stab the
family name! 1t is especially dear to
your mother. She was not born under
that name. She was born under an
other name, but the years passed on
and she came to young womanhood, and
she saw some one with whom she could
trust her happiness, 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, through health,
by cradles and by graves. Yes, she put
off her old family name to take the fam
lily name you now wear, and she has
done her part to make it an honorable
name. How heavy a trouble you put up
on her when, by misdeeds, you wrench
that name from its high significance!
To haul it down from your mothers
forehead aud trample it in the dust
would be criminal. Your fathers name
may not be a distinguished name, but 1
hope it stands for something good. 1t
may not be famous, like that of Homer,
the father of epic poetry, or Izaak Wal
ton, the father of an Cling; or Eschylus,
the father of tragedy; or Ethelwold, the
father of monks; or Thomas Aquinas,
the father of moral philosophy; or Abra-
ham, the father of the faithful, but your
father has a name in small circle as
precious to him as theirs in larger Cir
ole. Look out how you tarnish it!
Further, the recklessness and dissipa-
ton of a young man are cause OF par
entail distress at time when the parent
is less able to bear it. The vicissitudes
of life have left their impression upon
those parents. The eye is not so 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 can not
stand as much as they once could. They
have not the elasticity OF feeling with
which once they could throw OH
trouble. That shoulder, now some
what bent, can not bear as heavy
a burden as once it could. At the
time when the machinery is getting
worn out yoyput up, a 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
down grade of life swiftly enough with
out your increasing the momentum.
They will be gone soon enough without
your pushing them away. Call in all
the doctors W ho ever lived since Hippo
crates raised medicine from a super
stition to science, and they could not
cuye the heart-break of a mother over