Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-03-27

thing you need" NO" said the soldier,
''they give me every thing that is nice to
eat but l have no appetite, and 1 must
die" Then the father took from his
knapsack 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 1 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: SIT is so
good, the bread from home, the
bread that my mother madei'' No
wonder that in few days he had
the battle of life, and discouraged, given
up by yourself, and given up by others,
the old folks at the country Preside have
not given you up. 1 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 homel
Carrying out the idea of my text, re-
mark that a reckless or dissipated son
makes 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 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 depreciate the
responsibility of those given names
| D,,A -, l. 70 L.
name, that is at your mercy. All who
bear that name are bound before God
and man, not to damage its happy sig
nificance.
You have no right my young friend,
/ by bad life, to blot the old family Bible
containing the story of the marriages
and births and deaths of the years gone
by or to cast blot upon the family BIZ
bles whose records are yet to be opened.
There are in our American city direct
cries names that always suggest COM
mercial dishonesty or libertinism or
cruelty or meanness, just because one
man or woman bearing that name cursed
it forever by miscreancy. Look out how
| you stab the family name! 1t is eS-
pecially dear to your mother. She
was not born under that name. She
was born under another 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 wit
messed. She chose it out of all the fam
lily names since the world stood, chose
it for better or worse, through sickness
and through health, by 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 honorable name. How heavy a
| trouble you put upon her, when, by mis-
deeds, you wrench that name from its
| high significance! To haul it down from
your mothers forehead and trample it
in the dust would be criminal. Your
fathers name may not be a distin-
guished name, but l hope it stands for
something good. 1t may not be famous,
like that of Homer, the father of epic
poetry, or Izaak Walton, the father of
angling, or Eschylus, the father of
tragedy, or Ethelwold, the father of
monks, or Herodotus, the father of his
tory, or Thomas Aquinas, the father of
moral philosophy, or Abraham, the
father of the faithful, but your father
has name in a small circle as precious
to him as theirs in a larger circle. Look
out how you tarnish it!
Further the recklessness and dissipa-
ton of young men are cause of parental
| 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 as clear
as once nor the step as strong, and with
the tide of incoming years comes the
weight of unfilial behavior. You take
your parents at a 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 off trouble. That shoulder, now
somewhat bent, can not bear as heavy a
burden as once it could. At the
time when the machinery is getting
worn out you put upon it the
most terrific strain. At sixty and seven
ty years the vitality is not so strong
as at thirty or forty. Surely they are
descending the down grade of life swift
ly enough without your increasing the
momentum. They will be gone soon
enough without 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 heartbreak of a
mother over her ruined boy. There may
be, as some suppose, enough herbs on
earth, if discovered, to cure all the all
ments, 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 good thing that cruel
treatment by child abbreviates par
ent's life, for what is there desirable in
fathers life or a mothers life if its
peace is gone? Do you not think death is
benefcent if it stops the mothers heart
from aching and her eyes from weeping,
and says: "You need not bear the ex-
cruciation any longer. Go and sleep. l
will put the defense of a marble slab
between you and that boys outrages.
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 thou
sands of parental hearts breaking. All
care was taken with the boys schooling,
all good counsels given, and the equip