The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-04-02
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: parents Treatment of Chill
dren."

Subject: "Parents' Treatment of Chill
dren."
TEXT: "a foolish SON is the he,viness of
his mother."-Proverbs K, 1.
All parents want their children to turn
| out we'll. However poorly father and mother
may have done themselves, they want their
sons and daughters to do splendidly. Up to
| forty years Of age parents may have am
billions for themselves, after that their chief
ambitions are for their children. Some Of
| the old time names indicate this. The name
| of Abner indicates his "father'slam The
| And what parental delight was Solomon to
David, and Samuel to Hannah, and Joseph
| to Jacob The best earthly staff that father
has to lean on is good son and the strongest
| arm mother has to help her down the steep
Of years is that Of a grateful child.
But it is not rare thing to find people uA-
| filial, and often the parents are themselves
| to blame Aged persons sometimes become
| querulous and snappy and tho children have
are old people so disagreeable 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 il 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 patri-
arch, who has forgotten that he ever was
child himself, and cannot understand why
children should ever want to play hide and
! seek or roll hoop or fly kite, and he becomes
impatient ut the sound from the nursery and
shoats with an expenditure Of voice that
keeps him coughing for fifteen minutes after
ward: Boys! stop that racketF as though
any boy that ever amounted to anything in
the world did not begin life by making
racket!
Indeed, there are children who owe moth
ing to their parents, for these parents have
been proaigates My lamented friend, good
Christian Henry Wilson, Vice-President of
the United States, in early life changed his
name Henry Wilson was not his original
name. He dropped his fathers name be-
cause that father was drunkard and dis
grace and the son did not feel called upon to
carry such a carcass all hislife. While children
must always be dutiful, sympathize with all
young people who have disagreeable or un-
principfed old folks around the house Some
Of us, drawing out of bur memories, know
that it is possible after sixty or seventy or
eighty or ninety years CT age for the old to
be kind and genial; and the grandest adorn-
ment of home is an aged father and an
aged mother, if the process of years has mel
lowed them.
You cannot 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 cannot improve or depreciate the
respectabiity Of those given names. But
it is your last name, your family name, that
Is at your mercy. Ell who bear that name
are bound, before God and man, not to dam
age its happy significance. You are charged,
by all the generations Of the past and all the
generations to come, to do your share for the
that name.
Carrying out the idea Of my text, I re-
mark that reckless or dissipated son makes
q heavy-hearted parent because it hurts the
family pride. 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 Bibles
whose records are yet to be opened. There
are in our American city directories names
that always suggest commercial dishonesty
or Gbertinism 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 especially 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 woman
hood, and she saw some ole 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 fill
ing the air with fragments, took it with
Joined hands, tookit while the heavens wit
messed. She chose it out Of all the family
names since the world stood, chose it for
better CT worse, through sickness and
through health, by cradles and by graves.
Yea, she put Off her old family name to take
the family maine you now wear, and she has
lone uer part to make it an honorable name.
How heavy trouble you put upon her when,
by misdeeds YOU wrench that name from it's
high signifcancel To haul it down from
your mothers forehead and trample it in the
dust would be criminal.
''Your fathers name may not be distin.
guished name, but hope it stands for some.
thing good. 1t may not be famous, like that
of Homer, the father Of epic poetry, or Isaak
Walton, the father of angling, or Eschylus,
father of monks or Herodotus, the father OF
moral moral philosophy, or Abraham, the
father Of the faithful, but your father
has name in small circle as precious to
him as theirs in larger circle. Look out
how you tarnish itp
Perhaps it is good thing that cruel treat
ment by a child abbreviates parents life;
for what is there desirable in a fathers Life
or mothers life if its peace Is gone? DO
you not think death is something benehcent
If it stops the mothers heart from aching
and her eyes from weeping, and says, you
need not bear the excruciation any longer.
60 and sleep. I will put the defense OF
marble slab between you and that boys out
RACES. Go now where tho wicked cease
from troubling and the weary are at rest"
At the departure of such mothers let the mu-
sic be an anthem instead Of dirge. While
YOU and I 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 gwen,
and the equipment for sober and earnest 81,
gone, and the foolish son has become the
6eaviness of his mother.
Much Of the poiguancy OF the parental
grief arises from the ingratitude or sucn
behavior. What an undertaking it Is to
conduct family through the ailments and
exposures of early lifel Talk about the sklll
demanded Of O sea captain commanding
ship across the ocean! That requires less
skill than to navigate young SOUL In saIety
across the infantile and boyhood years,
Inc SlCRQeSSeS CQdG aSSdulU Guo
that entrap, the an1ieties 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 thls
moments respiration.
But says some young man, ''my mother
is gone; my behavior will not troubls her
any more" Then perhaps you have her Plct-
ure. Hang it up in your room in the place
where you oftenest look. Go and study her
e.t,,o, onJ ,yb;Ia vou ara looking the past