The Russellville Democrat., 1890-03-27
FIIIAL PETTY.
The Duty and Respect Due from
 Children to Parents.
Sermon by Rev. T. Dewitt Taimage on the Subject of Filial FIety--Thc Cares and Anxieties of Pa-
 rental Life.

Brooklyn Academy of Music on recent sabbath. his text being
 A foolish son Is the hcayine ss of his moth. er.--Prov. x., 1.
 He said: All parents want their children to turn out well. However poorly father and mother may have done themselves, they want their sons and daughters to do splendidly. Up to forty years fagc parents may have ambitions for themselves; after that their chief ambitions are for their children. Some of the old-time names indicate this. The name of Abner means ''his fathers lamp" Tho name Abigail means 'her fathers joy" And what parental de- light was Solomon to David, and Samuel to Hannah, and Joseph to Jacob And the best earthly staff that a father has to lean on is a good son, and the strong est arm a mother has to help her down tho steep of years is that of grateful child. But 1t Is not rare thing to find people unfilial, and often the parents are themselves to blame. Aged per sons sometimes become querulous and snappy, and the children have their hands full with the old folks. Before entering my profession l was for three months what is called colporteur. One day in the country districts 1 stopped at the house of a good, intelligent, genial farmer. Tho hospitality of such n country house is especially pleasing to me, for l was born in the country. This farmer and his wife were hard working people, but tried to make their home agreeable and attractive. The farmers father, about sixty-hve years of age, and his grandfather, about ninety, were yet alive and with him. Indeed. there wore four generations in the house, for the farmer had little children playing about the room. We gathered at the dining table. After the blessing was asked the farmer put some of the meat upon his plato and courteonsly passed it to me, when his father of six ty-hye years of age cried out to his son, who was at least thirty: Why do you not pass the meat as you al ways do, and lot us talk it of the plate ourselves? You are trying to show of because we have company" Meanwhile his grand father of ninety sat with his hat on the
 
 untidy. Still the farmer kept his pa tience and equipoise, and l never think ofohim without admiration. He must have had moro grace than ever had.
 Because people are old they have no right to be either nngentlemanly or un- canny. There are old people so dis agreeable that they have nearly broken up some homes. The young married man with whom the aged one lives stands it because he has been used to 1t all his life, but the young wife, coming in from another household, can hardly endure it, and sometimes almost cries her eyes out. And when little children gather in the house, they are afraid of the venerable patriarch, who has for gotten that he ever was child himself, and can not understand why children should ever want to play hide and seek" or roll hoop, or fly kite, and he becomes impatient at the sound from the nursery, and shouts with an ex- penditure of voice that keeps him coughing fifteen minutes afterward: Boys! stop that racket" as though any boy that ever amounted to any thing in the world did not begin life by making a racket
 Indeed, there are children who owe nothing to their parents, for those par ents have been profligates. My lament cd friend, good and Christian and love- ly Henry Wilson, Viee-President of the United States, in early life changed his name. Henry Wilson was not his orig inal name. He dropped his fathers name because that father was drunk ard and disgrace, and the son did not feel called upon to carry such carcass all his life. While children must al- ways be dutiful. l sympathize with all young people who have disagreeable or unprincipled old folks around the house. Some of us, drawing out of our memories, know that it is possible, after sixty, or seventy or eighty or ninety years of age, for the old to be kind and genial; and tho grandest adornment of home is an aged father and aged mother, if the 0ocess of years has mellowed them. Resides that if your old parents are hard to get along with now, you must remember there was time when they had hard work to get along with you. When you were about five or seven or ten or twelve years of age what a time they had with youl If they had kept writ ton account of your early pranks and misdoings it would make whole vol nme. That time when you gave your little sister clip; that time when you explored the depth of jar of sweet things for which yos had no permission; that havoc you one day made with your iack-knife; that plueking from the or ohard of unripe fruit; that day when, instead of being at school, as your par ents supposed, you went a-fshing; and many a time did you imporil your young life in places where you had no busi- ness to climb or swim or venture.
 To get you through your first fifteen years with your life and your good nor als was fearful draft upon parental fidelity and endurance. Indeed. it may he that much of this present physical and mental weakness in your parents may have been a result of your early waywardness. You made such large and saaden drafts upon the bank of their pa kAtItt AtAtAh No0 DfthN kbH hAHhs IHtY were injured in being thrown while try ing to break the colt It is a matter of only common honesty that you pay back to them some of the long suffering which they paid to you X father said to his son: Surely no father ever had as bad a boy as haye.r "Yes, said the son, my grandfather had. It is about the same from generation to generation, and parents need 70 be patient with chil- dren, and children dutiful to their par ents- Taking it for granted that those who hear me to-day have had good parentage, want to urge upon all the young the fact that tho happiness and longevity of parents much depend np- on the right behavior Of their children, and can do this no more eHectualiy than by demonstrating the truth of my text. "A foolish son is the heayiness of his mothor."
 Perhaps some young man astray may he brought back by thought ot how they feel about him at homo. A French