Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-03-17
Bread from bomel Bread from home

you received at the christening that
injured by your prodigality. You car
not hurt your name of John or Georg
or Henry or Mary or Frances or RI
8 chel, because there have been thou
sands of people, good and bad. havin
those name, and you cannot improv
or depreciate the responsibility of thos
given names But it is your last name
your family name, that is at your mel
cy. All who bear that name are bound
before God and man, not to damag
its happy significance. You are chare
ed, by all the generations of the pas
and all the generations to come, to d
your share for the protection and tn
honor and the integrity of that name
You have no right, my young friend
by bad life to blot the old famil,
Bible containing the story of the mar
riages and births and deaths of tn
! years gone by, or to cast a blot upon
the family Bibles whose records ar
yet to be opened.
There are in our American city di
rectories names that always sugges
commercial dishonesty or libertinisn
or cruelty or meanness, just because
! one man or woman bearing that name
cursed it forever by miscreancy. Loci
out how you stab the family name! I
is especially dear to your mother Sht
was not born under that name Sht
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 happi
ness, her life and her immortal desti
ny; and she took his name, took i
while the orange blossoms were filing
the air with Fragrance, took it with
joined hands, took it while the heav
ems witnessed. She chose it out of al
the family names since the world
stood, chose it for better or worse
through sickness and through health
by cradles and by graves.
Yes, she put off her old family name
to take the family name you now
wear, and she has done her part tC
make it an honorable name. How
heavy a trouble you put upon heI
when, by misdeeGS, you wrench that
name from its high significance! TIC
haul it down from your mothers fore
head and trample it in the dust would
be criminal Your fathers name may
not be a distinguished name, but ]
hope it stands for something good. Ii
may not be famous, like that of Ho-
mer, the father of epic poetry, or Izaak
Walton, the father of angling, or
AEschylus, the father of tragedy, OF
EthelWold, the father of monks OF
Herodotus, the father Of history, or
Thomas Aquinas, the father of moral
philosophy, or Abraham, the father
of the faithful, but your father has a
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 dis
sipatiOn of a young man are a cause
Of parental distress at a time when the
parent is less able to bear it. The vi
cissitudes of life have left their i'm
preston upon those parents. The eye
is not as clear as once, nor the hear
ING as acute, nor the nerves as steady,
nor the step as strong, and with the
tide of incoming years comes the
weight of uniilial behavior You take
your parents at great disadvantage,
for they cannot stand as much as they
once could. They have not the elias
ITCHY Of feeling with which once they
could throw off trouble That shout
der, now somewhat bent, cannot 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 seventy years the vital
ity Is not so strong as at thirty or
forty. Surely they are descending the
down grade of life swiftly enough
without your increasing the mOmen-
tum. They will be gone soon enough
without your pushing them away.
Call in all the doctors who ever lived
since HiPpOcrates raised medicine from
a superstition to a science, and they
could not cure the heartbreak of mo-
Their over her ruined boy. There may
be, as some suppose, enough herbs on
earth, if discovered, to cure all the all
ments of the body; but nothing save
a leaf from the tree of the heavenly
Paradise can cure a wound made by
foolish son who Is the heaviness of his
mother.
Perhaps it is a good thing that cruel
treatment by a child abbreviates
parents life; for what is there desir-
able in a fathers life or a TnOther's
life if its peace is gone? Do you not
think death is something beneficent 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. [ 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 restW At the
departure of such mothers let the mu-
sic be an anthem instead of a 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 school
ing, all good cOunsels given, and the
equipment for a sober and earnest and
useful 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 pa
rental grief arises from the ingratitude
of such behavior. What an undertake
ing it is to conduct family through
the ailments and exposures of early
life! Talk about the skill demanded
of a sea captain commanding a ship
across the ocean! That requires less
skill than to navigate young soul in
safety acrSss the infantile and boy
hood years The sicknesses that as
sault 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 know 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 res
piration. What they could do for 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 blood! He
looks older than he ought to look at
his years, for it has been work, work,
work Many a time he felt like Civ
ing up the battle, but then he looked
at your helplessness and the helpless
ness 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 com
Portable starting in the world, and [
must get little something ahead, so
that if I am taken awav these HELPLESS