The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1890-11-19

But the step Of a jackal among the dry
leaves or the painting of a hyena
arouSeS her, and with the fury OF q
maniac she rushes out upon the rock
crying, Away . Away" 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 sliv or some growl-
ing monster on the rock again wakes
her.
TIE GIBBETS IN AMERICA.
\ mother watching her dead chill
dren through May, June, July, August,
September and October, What a
vigil. Painters have tried to put upon
canvass the scene, and they succeeded
in sketching the hawks in the sky and
the panthers crawling out from the
jungle, but they fail to give the wan
ness, the supernatural courage, the in
finite self sacrifice of Rizpah, the moth
er. a mother in the quiet home watch
ing by the casket OF dead child for
one night exerts the artist to his ut
most, but who is sufficient to put upon
canvass q mother for six months of
midniyhts guarding her whole family,
dead and gibbeted upon the noun
tains?
Go home. Rizpah. You must be aw-
fully tired. You are sacrificing your
reason and your life for those whom
you can never bring back again to
your bosom. AS l say that from the
darkest midnight OF the century Riz-
Dah turns upon me and cries: How
dare you tell me to go home? l am a
mother. l am not tired. You might
as we'll expect God to get tired as for a
mother to get tired. cared for those
boys when they lay on my breast in in
fancy. and Will not forsake them now
that they are dead. Interrupt me not.
There stoops An eagle that l must drive
back with my agonized cry. There Is
a panther I must beat back with my
club"
Do you know what that scene by our
roadside in Palestine makes me think
of? It is no unusual scene. Right
here in these three cities by the Ameri-
can sea coast there are a thousand cases
this moment worse than that. Moth
ers watching boys that the rum saloon,
that annex of hell. has gibbeted in a
living death. Boys hung in chains Of
evil habit they cannot break. The
father may go to sleep after waiting
until 12 o'clock at night for the ruined
boy to come home and, giving it up, he
may say. Mother. come to bed; there's
no use sitting up any longer" But
mother will not go 10 bed. 1t is l
o'clock in the morning. 1t is half-past
!. 1t is 2 o'clock. 1t is half-past 2
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 moth
er's prayers. Dead to the family altar
where he was reared. Dead to all the
noble ambitions that once inspired
him. Twice dead. Only a corpse of
what he once was. Gibbeted before
God and man and angels and devils.
Chained In death that will not loosen
its cold grasp. His fathe. is asleep, his
brothers are asleep, his sisters are
asleep; but his mother IS watching him
in the night. After he has gone up to
bed and fallen into drunken sleep his
mother will 60 upt to his room and see
that he is properly covered, and before
she turns out the light will put kiss
upon his bloated lips. Mother, why
don't you 60 to he'd ?' "Ah! she says,
II cannot go to bed. l am Rizpah
watching the slain!'
But must spur on our Arab steed,
and here we come ID sight Of Beeroth,
said to be the place where Joseph and
Mary missed the boy Jesus on the way
from Jerusalem to Nazareth, going
home now from a great national fest.-
val. Where is my child, Jesus?" says
Mary. Where is my child, Jesus?" says
Joseph. Among the thousands that
are returning from Jerusalem they
thought that certainly be was walking
on in the crowd. They described him,
saying. He is 12 years old, and of
light complexion and blue eyes. A lost
childp' Great excitement in all the
crowd. Nothing so stirs folks as the
news that child is lost. l shall not
forget the scene when, in a great out
door meeting, I was preaching, and
some one stepped on the platform and
said that a child was lost. We went
on with the religious service, but all
our minds we're on the lost child.
After a while man brought on the
platform a beautiful little tot that
looked like a piece of heaven dropped
down, and said, Here is that child"
And forgot all that I was preaching
about, and lifted the child to my shoul-
der and said, Here is the lost child,
and the mother will come and get her
right away, or l will take her home and
add her to my own broodw And some
cried and some shouted, and amid all
that crowd l instantly detected the
mother. Everybody had to get out
Of her way or be walked over. Hats
were nothing and shoulders were moth
ing and heads were nothing in her
pathway, and | realized something of
what must have been Mary's anxiety
when she lost Jesus, and what her
gladnesS when she found her boy In
the temple ot\Je7usalum talking with
those old ministers of religion, Sham
mai. llil!el and Betirah
a CHRISTIAN WoMAN's PRAYER.
Out Oh the western prairies. was a
happy but isolated home. Father,
mother and child BY the sale of cat
tie quite ii large sum OF money was one
night IN that cabin, and the father was
away. \ robb-r who had heard of the
money one night looked in 1T the win
dow, and the wife and mother of that
home saw him and she WAS helpless.
Her child by her Side, she knelt down
and PRAYED among other things for all
prodlgals who were wandering up and
down the world. The robber heard her
prayer and was overwhelmed and en-
tered the cabin and kneit beside her
and began to pray. He had come to
rob that h ouse, but the prayer of that
woman for the prodigals reminded him
Of his mother and her prayers before
he became a yagabound. and from that
hour he began a new life. Years after
that woman was in city IN great
audience, and the orator who came on
tho ,,lotf fo-rD on5 ,,laoI o1orjouS1y for