Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-17

| Your fathers name may not be a dis
tinguished name, but hope it stands for some
thing good. 1t may not be famous. like that o
/ Homer the father of epic poetry, or 1zal
| Walton, the father of angling. or Eschylus. th
/ father of tragedy, or Ethelwold. the father o
monks, or Herodotus, the father of history, o.
| Thomas AquInas. the father of moral philoso
! phy, or Abraham, the father of the faithful
but your father has name in small circle al
precious to him as theirs in larger circle
Look out how you tarnish It'll
Further, the recklessness and dissipation o.
young man are cause of parental distress a
a time when the parent is less able to bear 1t
The vicissitudes of life have left their impres
sion upon those parents. The eve is not a!
clear as once, nor the hearing as acute, nor tht
nerves steady, nor the step as strong, anC
with the tide of incoming years comes the
weight of unflial behavior. You take your pa
rents at
A 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 beal
as heavy burden as once it could. At the time
when the machinery is getting worn out you
put upon it the most terrific strain. AT
60 and go years the vitality is not SC
strong as at 80 or 40. Surely they are
descending the down grade of life swiftly
enough without your increasing the mo-
mentum. They will be gone soon enough with
out your pushing them away. Call in all the
doctors who ever lived since Hippocrates
raised medicine from superstition to a
science, and they could not cure the heart
break of mother over ner ruined boy. There
may be, as some suppose, enough herbs on
earth, if discovered, to cure all the ailments of
the body: but nothing save leaf from the tree
of the heavenly paradise can cure wound
made by foolish son who is the heaviness of
his mother.
Perhaps it is a good thing that cruel treat
ment by a child abbreviates parents life. for
what is there desirable in fathers life or a
mothers life if its peace is gone? Do you not
think death is something benefcent if it stops
the mothers heart from aching and her eyes
from weeping, and says: You need not bear
the excruciation any longer. Go and sleep. 1
will put the defense of marble slab between
YOU and that boys Cutrages Go now where
the wicked cease from troubling and the weary
are at rest? At the departure of such mothers
let the music be an anthem instead of dIrge.
While you and hear no sound, yet there are
at this moment tens of thousands of parental
hearts breaking. All care was taken with the
boys schooling. all good counsels given. and
the equipment for a sober and earnest and use
full life was provided, but it has all gone. and
the foolish son has become the heaviness of
his mother.
Much of the poignancy of the parental grief
arises from the ingratitude of such behavior
What an undertaking il is to conduct family
through the ailments and exposures of early
life! Talk about the skill demanded of a sea-
Captain sup dCTOSS Iue OCcdu-
That requires less skill than to navigate
young soul in safety across the infantile and
boyhood years. The sicknesses that assault,
the temptations that entrap, the
ANXIETIEs THAT ARE EXCITED.
Young man, you will never know what your
mother has suffered for you. You will never
knoE how your father has toiled for you. You
have been in all their thoughts, in all their
plans. in all their prayers, from the time your
first breath was drawn to this moments respi-
ration. What they could do TOR your health,
what they could do for your happiness, what
they could do for your mind, what they could
do for your soul. have been absorbing
questions. To earn a livelihood for
you has not always been an easy
thing for your father. By what fatigues of
body and what disturbances of mind, and long
years of struggle, in which sometimes the
losses were greater than the gains, he got bread
for you, paying for it in the sweat of his own
brow and the red drops of his own hearts
bloodi He looks older than he ought to look at
his years, for it has been work, work, work.
Many a time he felt like giving up the BATTLE
but then he looked at your helplessness and the
helpleSsness of the household. and then he
nerved himself up anew and said: by the help
of God will not stop: my children must have
home and education and advantages, and
comfortable starting in the world, and l must
get little something ahead. SO that if am
taken away these helpless ones will not be
turned out on the cOlu ClarlL1eS OF the WOrlu.
Yes your father has been a good friend to
you. He has never told anyone, and he
never will tell anyone, of the sacrifices he has
made for you. And he is ready to keep right
on until unto that hand that has been toiling
for you all these years shall come to the very
numbness of death. You cannot afford to
break his heart But you are doing it. Yes,
you are. You have driven the dagger clear up
TO the hilt.
And your mother-I warrant she has never
told you much about the nights when you were
down with scarlet fever, or diphtheria. and she
slept not wink, or falling into drowsiness, your
first cry awakened her. and brought the words,
What is it, my dear?" Oh, if the old rocking
chair could speak, Oh, if the cradle could only
tell Its story of years, And when you got bet
ter and were fretful and hard to please. as is
usual in convalescence she kept her patience
so well, and was as kind as you were unreason-
able and cross. Oh, midnights of mOtherly
how can you keep silence? Speak
out and tell that wandering young man the
story that he so much needs to hear.
THE oLD-FASHIoNED CRADLE.
BY the by wonder what has become Of our
old cradle in which all Of US children were
rocked! must ask my sister when L see her
next time. We were large family, and that
old cradle was going good many years. L re-
member just how it looked. 1t was old-fash-
ioned and had no tapestry. Its two sides and
canopy all of plain wood. but there was great
deal of sound sleeping in that cradle, and mary
aches and pains were soothed by it as 1t moved
to and fro by day and night. Most vividly [ re-
member that the rockers, which came out from
under the cradle, were on the top and side very
smooth, SO smooth that they actually glistened
They must have been worn smooth by foot
that long ago ceased its journey. How tired
the foot that pressed it must sometimes have
got! But it did not stop for that. 1t went right
on and rocked for Phebe the first and for De
Witt the last And it was a cradle like that
upholstered, in which your mother
rocked you. Can it be that for all that care
and devotion you are paying her back with |
harsh words. or neglects, or wicked life? Then |
who is the heaviness of his mother" Better |
90 home and kiss her, and ask her forgiveness.
Kiss her on the lips that have so often prayed |
for you. Kiss her on the forehead that so often |
ached for you. Kiss her on the eyes that have |
so often wept over you. Better 60 right away, |
for she will be dead before long. And how will |
you feel then after you realize it is your way
wardness that killed her? Romulus made no |
aw against patricIde. or the Staying of a father
or the Staying of a mother, because |
he considered such crimes impossible, and for |
i0G years there was not a crime of that sort in |
Rome. But then came Lucius Ostius. ana slew |
lis father. proving the crime possible. Now
10 you not think that the child who by wrong |
behavior sends his father to premature grave |
S a patricide, who by misconduct hastens a |
mother into the tomb is matricide?
The beavlness of parents oyer sons de- |
1ravity is all the greater because it means |
piritual disaster and overthrow. That is the |
worst thing about it. In the pension regula- |
ions soldier receives for loss of both hands |
,r feet, So. For loss of one hand and one foot. |
Sc. For loss of a hand or foot, $50. For loss of |
10Th eyes, ST2. But who can calculate tine
-alue of a whole man ruined body mind and |
oul7 How can parents have any happiness
bout your future destiny, oh young man gone |
stray2 Can
SUCH OPPOSITE LIVES
IS you and they are living come out at the |
anne placer Can holiness and dissipation enter
he same gate? Where is the little prayer that |
vas taught you at your mothers knee? Is the
iod they loved and worshiped your God? It |