Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-10

thing they had themselves done, but as q
PREPARATION for what their father and
grandfather, Saul, had done. Burial
was denied these youths from May until
November. Rizpah, the mother Of two
of these dead boys, appoints herself rs
sentinel to guard the seven corpses from
beak OF raven and tooth Of wolf and paw
of lion. She pitches black tent on the
rock close by the gibbets. Rizpah by day
sits on the ground in front of her tent,
and when q vulture begins to lower out
of the MONDAY sky seeking its prey
among the gibbets, RiZpah rises. her
long hair flying in the wind, and swing
ing her arms wildly about, Shoes away
the bird of prey until it retreats to its
eyrie. at night she rests under the
shadow OF her tent and sometimes falls
into a drowsiuess or half sleep. But the
step OF a jackal among the dry leaves or
the painting OF hyena arouses her, and
with the fury of a maniac she rushes out
upon the rock, crying, Away! away!'
and then examing the gibbets to see that
they still keep their burden, returns
again TO her tent till some swooping wing
from the midnight sky OF some growing
monster Oh the rock again wakes her.
A mother watching her dead children
through NOV d uIc, ulJ AUGUST Cep-
TENDER and October! What vigil!
Painters have tried to put upon canvas
the scene and they succeeded in sketch
ing the hawks in the sky and the pan
thers crawling out from the jungle, but
they fail to give the wannesS, the
earuestness, the supernatural courage,
the infinite self-acrtice of Rizpah, the
mother. A mother in the quiet home
watching by the casket of a dead child
Tor one night exerts the artist to his ut
most, but who is sufficient TO put upon
canvas mother for six months of mid
nights guarding her whole family, dead
and gibbeted upon the mountains? Go
home, RiZpah! You must be swfully
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 mid
night of the century Rizpah turns upon
me and cries: ''HOw dare you tell me
TO 90 nome? l am mother. l am not
tired. You might as well expect God 10
get tired as for a mother to get tired. l
cared for those boys W hen they lay upon
my breast in infancy and 1 will not for
sake them now that they are dead.
Interrupt me not. There stoops au eagle
that / must drive back with my agonized
cry. There is q panther l must beat
back with my clubl'
DO you know what that scene by our
roadside in Palestine makes me think
of? 1t is no unusual scene. Right here
IN these three cities by the American sea-
coast there are a thousand cases this mo-
ment worse than that. Mothers watch
ing boys that the rum saloon, that annex
of hell, has eibbeted in q living death.
BOYS hung in chains of evil habit they
cannot break. The father may go TO
sleep, after waiting until II O'Clock at
night tor the ruined boy to come home
and give it up, he may say: "Mother,
come to bed; there's no use sitting up
any longer. But mother will not go
to bed. 1t Is O'Clock in the morning.
1t is 80. 1t is 2 O'Clock. 1t is 2:30
when he comes staggering through the
hall. Do you say that young man is yet
aIivep No; he is dead. Dead to his
fathers entreaties. Dead to Ills
mothers prayers. Dead to the
family altar where he was
reared. Dead to all the noble am
bitions that once inspired him. Twice
dead. Only 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
father is asleep, his brothers are asleep,
his sisters are asleep, but his mother ia
watching him, watching him in the
night. After he has gone up to bed and
fallen into drunken sleep, his mother
will go up to his room and see that he is
properly covered, and before she turns
out the light will put a kiss upon his
bloated lips. "Mother, why don't you
go to ped?'' "Ah!' she says, 81 eau
not go to bed. l am Rizpah watching
the slainl'
And what are the political parties of
this country doing for such cases? They
are taking care not TO hurt the feelings
of the jackals and the buZzards that
roost on the shelves of the grog shops,
and boot above the dead. l am often
asked to what political party l belong,
and now declare my opinion Of the po-
litical parties to-day. Each one Is
worse than the other, and the only con-
ISOLATION in regard to them Is, that they
have putretied until they have no more
power to rot. Oh, that comparatively
tame scene upon which Rizpah looked!
She looked upon only seven of the slain.
American motherhood and American
wifehood, this moment are looking upon
seventy of the slain, upon seven hum
dred Of the slain, upon seventy thou
sand Of the slain. Woe! Woel Woe!
My only consolation on this subject is
that foreign capitalists are buy
ing up the American brewer
les: The present owners see that the
doom Of that business il coming, as
surely as that God is not dead. They
are unloading upon foreign capitalists,
and when We can get these breweries
into the hands OF people living on the
other side of the sea, our political par
ties will cease to be afraid OF the liquor
traffic, and at their conventions nomi-
mating presidential candidates will put
in their platform plank as big as the
biggest plank of the biggest ocean
steamer, saying: "Resoived unani-
mously, that We always have been, and
always will be opposed to alcoholism. 4"
But must spur on our Arab steed,
and here we come in 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 great national festival.
'Where is my child, Jesus?' says
Mary; 'where is my child, Jesus9'
says Joseph. Among the thousands that
are returning from Jerusalem, they
thought certainly that He was walking
on in the crowd. They described Him,