Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-03-28
DR.. TALMAGE's SERMON.
He breaches A DISCOURSE ON a
PROLIFIC SUBJECT.
The Treatment of Parents by Children
The Young Owe as Much Consideration
to the Aged as the Aged Do to the Young
Good Advice for Youth and Maiden.

Good Advice for Youth and Maiden.
The following sermon was preached
envy of Music on Sunday morning,
March 16. After expounding q chapter
describing Absalom's carriagetoward his
father, David, and the singing of an APP
propriate hymn, DR.. Talmage announced
as his text the words, "a foolish son is
the heaviness of his mother. PROV. <,
l. He said:
All parents want their childrento turn
out we'll. However poorly father and
mother may have lone themselves. they
want their sons and daughters to do
%splendidly. Up to forty years of age
parents may have ambitions for them
selves, 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
And what a parental delight was Solo
mon to David, and Samuel to Hannah,
and Joseph to Jacob! And the best
earthly staff a father has to lean on is a
good one. and the strongest arm a
mother has to help her down the steep
of years is that of q grateful child. But
it is not a rare thing to find people I'M
ilial, and often the parents are them
selves to blame. Aged persons some
times become q%uerulous 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 q col
porteur. One day in the country dis
tricts l stopped at the house of a good,
intelligent, genial farmer. The hos
nIfo lifv 0f c,1oh n ,,r$r 1,nrco Sc 90.
pecially pleasing to me, for l was born
in the country. This farmer and his
wife We're ~hardworking people, but tried
to make their home agreeable and at
tractive. The formers father, about sixty
nve years of age, and his grandfather,
about ninety, were vet alive and with
him. Indeed, there were four genera
tions in the house, for the father had
little children playing about the room.
We gathered at the dining table. At
ter 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-fve 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 ourselves? You are trying to show
off because we have company" Mean
while his grandfather 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 I
aver had.
Because people are old they have no
right to be either ungentlemanly or UNI
canny. There are old people SO dis
agreeable 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 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 patriarch, who has forgot
ten 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
impatient at the sound fromthe nursery,
and shouts with al expenditure of voice
that keeps him coughing fl fteen minutes
afterwards, Boys! stop that racket" MS
though any boy that ever amounted to
anything in the world did not begin by
making n racket!
Indeed, there are children who owe
nothing to their parents, for those par
ents have been prof1igates. Ny lamented
friend, good and Christian and lovely
Henry Wilson, Vice President of the
United States, in early life changed his
name. Henry Wilson Was not his origi-
nal name. He dropped his fathers name
BEGAN SO that father was a drunkard and
q disgrace, and the son did not feel
called upon to carry such a carcass all
his life. While children must always
be d%utiful, l sympathize with all young
people who have disagreeable or un-
principled old folks around the house.
Some of US, drawing out Of our mem
cries, know that it is possible, after
sixty or seventy or eighty or ninety
years of age. for the old to he kind and
genial; and the grandest adornment Of a
mother, If the process of years has
mellowed them.
Besides that, if your old parents are
hard to get along with now, you must
remember there was a time when they
had hard work to get along with YOU.
When you We're about five or seven or
ten or twelve years of age what q time
they had with you! If they had kept a
written count of your early pranks and
%misdoings, it would make a Whole VOL
ume. That time when you gave your
lltt!e SISTER q CLIP; That time when you
explored the depth of a jar of sweet
things for which you had no permission;
that havoc you II day made with your
jack-knife; that plucking from the or
chard of unripe fruit; that day when,
instead of being at school, as your par
ents supposed, you went a-fshing; and
many a time did you imperil your young
life in places where you had no business
to climb or swim or venture. To get you
through your first fifteen years with
your life and your good morals was a
fearful draft upon parental fidelity and
endurance.
Indeed, it may be that much of this
present physical and mental weakness
IN your parents may have been a result
of your early w~aywardness. You made
such large and sudden drafts upon the
bank of their patience that you broke
the bank. They We're injured in being
thrown while trying to break the colt.
1t is a matter of only common honesty
that you pay back to them some of the
suffering which they paid to YOU.
A father said to his son: Surely no
father ever had as bad a boy as l have"
Yes" said the son. my grandfather
had" It is about the same from genera
ton to generation. and norertc naa1 10