The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1890-03-21

DR.. TALMAGE breaches 4 SERMON
ON A PROLIFIC SUBJECT.


The Young Owe as Much Consideration
70 tho Aged rs the Aged do to the
Young = Good Advice for Youth and
Maiden.
BROOKLYN, March 10. The follow
ing sermon was preached this morn
ing by DR.. Talmage in the Academy
of Music, in which his church is wor
shipping during the rebuilding of the
Brooklyn Tabernacle, and which will
continue to be SO occupied until that
edifice is completed. After expomd-
ing chapter describing Absalom's
carriage toward lis father David, and
the singing OF an appropriate hymn,
DR.. Talmage announced as his text the
words, "A foolish son is the heaviness
of his mother"-Prov. x, l. He said
All parents want their children to
turn out we'll. However poorly father
and mother may have done them
selves, they want theirsons and daugh-
tiers to do splendidly. Up to forty
years of age parents may have ambi-
tons 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" The name Abigail
means her fathers joy And what
} parental delight was Solomon to
David, and Samuel to Hannah, and
Joseph to Jacob! And the best earthly
staff that father has to lean on is
good one. and the strongest arm a
mother has to help her down the steep
Of years is that of grateful child.
But i is not a rare thing to find people
unfilial, and often the parents are
themselves to blame. Aged persons
sometimes become querulous and
snappy, and the children have their
hands full with the old folks.
Before entering my profession I was
for three months what is called a col
porteur. One day in the country dis
trics | stopped at the house of a good,
intelligent, genial farmer. The hos
pitality of such country house is es-
pecialfy 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-five years of age, and his
grandfather, about ninety, were yet
alive and with him. Indeed, there
were four generations in the house,
for the farmer had little children play
ing about the room.
We gathered at the dining table.
After the blessing was asked the farmer
put some of the meat upon his plate
and courteously passed it to me, when
his father of sixty-five years cried out
to his son, who was at least thirty
years of age: why do you not pass
the meat as you always do, and let us
take it off the plate ourselves2 you are
trying to show off because we have
company" Meanwhile his GRANDPA
Their of ninety sat with his hat on at
the table, his face unclean, and his
apparel untidy. Still the farmer kept
his patience and equipose, and never
think of him without admiration. He
must have had more grace than ever
had.
Because people are old they have no
right to be either ungentlemanly or
uncanny. There 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 it all his life, but the young
wife, coming in from another house
hold, can hardly endure it, and some
times almost cries her eyes out. And
when little children gather in the
house they are afraid of the venerable
who has forgotten that he
ever was a child himself and cannot
understand why children should ever
want to play hide and seek, or roll
hoop, or fly kite, and he becomes i'm
patient at the sound from the nursery,
and shouts with an expenditure of
voice that keeps him coughing fifteen
afterwards, Boys! stop that
racket as though any boy that ever
to anything in the world
did not begin by making racket!
Indeed, there are children who owe
to their parents, for those
parents have been profigates. My la
mented friend, good and Christian and
lovely Henry Wilson, vice president
Of the United States, in early life
CudlScu Ills udIllc. I1cIlfy w llSOu Was
not his original name. He dropped
his fathers name because that father
was drunkard and a disgrace, and
The son did not feel called upon to |
carry such carcass all his life. While |
children must always 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
Dr. eighty or ninety years of age, for
The old to be kind and genial; and the
yrandest adornment of home is an
aged father and an aged mother, if the
process of years has mellowed them.
Besides that, if your old parents are
,ard to get along with now, you must
there was time when they
lad hard work to get along with you.
When you were about five or seven or
en- or twelve years of age what time
hey had with you! If they had kept
! written account of your early pranks
md misdoings, it would make a whole
,olume That time when you gave
,our little sister clip; that time when
vou explored the depth of a jar of