Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-11-10

shadow of her tent and sometimes falls
into a drowsiness or half sleep. But
the step of a jackal among the dry
leaves or the painting of a hyena
arouses her, and with the fury of a
maniac she rushes out upon the rock
crying, Away Away' and then, ex-
aiming the gibbets to see that they
still keep their burden, returns again
to her tent till some swooping wing
from the midnight sky or some growI
ing monster on the rock again wakes
her.
THE LONE WATCH OF RIZPAH.
A mother watching her dead children
through May, June. July. August, Sep
TENDER and OCTOBER What a vigil
Painters have tried to put upon canvas
the scene, and they succeeded in sketch
ing the hawks in the sky and the pam
theirs crawling out from the jungle, but
they fail to give the wanness. the ear
nestness, the supernatural courage, the
infinite self sacrifice of Rizpah, the
mother. A mother in the quiet home
watching by the caslzet of a dead child
for one night exerts the artist to his
/ utmost; but who is sufficient to put
upon canvas mother for six months
of midnights guarding her whole family,
dead and gibbeted upon the mountains?
Go home, Rizpah You must be
awfully tired. You are sacrificing your
reason and your life for those whom
you can never bring back again to your
bosom. As I say that from the darkest
midnight of the century Rizpah turns
upon me and cries: Glow dare you
tell me to go home? [ am mother.
l am not tired. You might as well ex-
pect God to get tired as for mother
to get tired. [ cared for those boys
when they lay on my breast in infancy
and [ will not forsake them now that
they are dead Interrupt me not
There stoops an eagle that I must drive
back with my agonized cry. There is
a panther [ must beat back with my
club"
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 Ameri-
can sea coast there are a thousand
GASES l1IIo u1OIlIClIU WO1So Ullclll lIIStU.
Mothers watching boys that the rum
saloon, that annex of hell, has glib
beted in a living death. Boys hung in
chains of evil habit they cannot break.
The father may go to sleep after wait
ing until twelve o'clock at night for the
ruined boy to come home and, giving 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 one o'clock in the morning
1t is half-past one. 1t is two o'clock
1t is half-past two when he comes stag
gering through the hall.
Do you say that young man is yet
alive? No; he is dead. Dead to his
fathers entreaties. Dead to his moth
er's prayers. Dead to the family altar
where he was reared. Dead to all the
noble ambitions that once inspired him
Twice dead. Only a corpse of what he
once was. Gibbeted before God and
man and angels and devils Chained
in a death that will not loosen its cold
grasp His father is asleep, his brothers
are asleep, his sisters are asleep; but his
mother is watching him, watching him
in the night. After he has gone up to
bed and fallen into a drunken sleep
his mother will go up to his room and
see that he is properly covered, and be-
fore she turns out the light will put
kiss upon his bloated lips. Mother,
why don't you go to bed?" ''AhI' she
says, 81 cannot go to bed. [ am Riz-
pah watching the slain!
THE POLITICAL JACKALS.
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 buzZards that roost |
on the shelves of the grog shops and |
to what political party L belong, and l |
now declare my opinion of the political |
parties today. Each one is worse than |
the other, and the only consolation in |
regard to them is that they have putre
fed until they have no more power to
rot. Oh, that comparatively tame scene
upon which Rizpah lookedi She looked
upon only seven of the slain. Amer
lean motherhood and American wife
seventy of the slain upon seven hun
dred of the slain, upon seventy thou
sand of the slain. Woe! woe woe!
My only consolation on this subject
is that foreign capitalists are buying up
the American breweries. The present
owners see that the doom of that bust
ness is 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 parties will cease to be
afraid of the liquor traffic, and at their
nominating presidential
candidates will put in their platform a
plank as big as the biggest plank of the
biggest ocean steamer, saying: Re
solved unanimously that we always
have been and always will be opposed
20 alcoholism"
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 a great national fes-
tival. Where is my child, Jesus"
says Mary. Where is my child, jesus" |
says Joseph. Among the thousands
that are returning from Jerusalem they
thought that certainly he was walking
on in the crowd. They described him,
saying: 'He is II years old, and of
light complexion and blue eyes A lost
child!'' Great excitement in all the
crowd Nothing SO stirs folks as the
news that child is lost. I shall not
forget the scene when, in a great out
door meeting, | was preaching, and
some one stepped on the platform and
said that child was lost. We went on
with the religious service, but all our
minds were on the lost child
After while man brought on the
platform a beautiful little tot that look
ed like a piece of heaven dropped
down, and said, ''Here is that child F"
And I forgot all that l was preaching
about and lifted the child to my shout
der and said, Here is the lost child,
and the mother will come and get her