Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1892-01-23


the son and daughter of that family did
not promise much ut the start but they
are now an echo, glorious echo. a
prolonged echo of parental teaching
and example.
A Vermont mother, as her boy was
about to start for life on the sea, said:
Edward, have never seen the ocean,
but understand the great temptation
is strong drink. Promise me you will
never touch it." Many years after that,
telling of this in a meeting, Edward
said: II have been around the world
and ut Calcutta, the ports OF the Med
iterrane an, San Francisco, Cape OF
Good Hope and the north and south
poles and Fever saw q glass of liquor
in all those years that my mothers
form did not appear before me, and l
do not know how liquor tastes. have
never tasted it and all because OF the
promise made to my mother" This
was the result of that conversation ut
the gate of the Vermont farm house.
But. here is slipshod home. The
parents are a goddess pair. They let
their children do as they please. No
example fit to follow. No lessons OF
morality or religion. Sunday no better
than any other day. The Bible no
better than anv other book. The house
is sort of inn where the older and
younger people of the household stop
for awhile. The theory acted on,
though perhaps not announced, is:
"The children will have to do as did,
and take their chances. Life is lot
terry anyhow. aud some draw prizes and
some draw blanks, and we will trust to
luck" Skip twenty years and come
back to the neighborhood where that
family used to live. You meet on the
street or on the road an old inhabitant
of that neighborhood, and you say:
"Can you tell me anything about the
Petersons who used to live here?"
"Yes," says the old inhabitant, Il re-
member them very well. The father
and mother have been dead for years.
"Well, how about the children?
What has become OF them?"
The old inhabitant replies: ''They
turned out badly. You know the
old man was about half an infidel and
the boys were all infidels. The Oldest
son married, but got into drinking
habits, and in few years his wife was
not able to live with him any longer
and his children were taken by rela-
tives, and he died of delirium tremens
on Blackwcll's island. His other son
forged the name of his employer and
fled to Canada. One of the daughters
of the old folks married an inebriate
with the idea of reforming him, and
you know how that always ends-in
the ruin of both the experimental and
the one experimental with. The other
daughter disappeared mysteriously and
has not been heard of. There was u
woman picked out of the East river
and put in the morgue, and some
thought it was her, but / cannot say:
sis it possible?" You cry out: Eyes,
it is possible. The family is q COM
plete wreck"
My hearers that is just what might
have been expected. All this is only
the echo, the dismal echo, the awful
echo, the dreadful echo of parental OBJ
liouity and unfaitbfulness. The old
folks heaped up a mountain of wrong
influences. and this is only what my
text calls 'the sounding of the mount
aims" Indeed our entire behavior in
this world will have res1und. While
opportunities fly in a straight line and
Just touch us once and are gone never
to return, the wrongs we practice up
on others fly in circle, and they come
back to the place from which they
started.
So also the Judgment day viii be an
echo OF all our other days. The uni
verse needs such day, for there are
so many things in the world that need
to be fixed up and explained. II God
had not appointed such a day all the
nations would cry out: 20, God, give
us q Judgment day." But we are apt
to think of it and speak about it as
day away off in the future, having no
special connection with this day or any
other day. The fact is that we are now
making up its voices; its trumpets will
only sound back again to us what we
now say and do. &.
My subject advances to tell You that
eternity itself is only an echo of time.
Mind you. the analogy warrants my
saying this. The echo is not always
exactly in kind like the sound original
ly projected. Lord Raleigh says thata
woman's voice sounding from a grove
was repeated an octave higher. A
scientist, playing a flute in Fairfax
county, Virginia, found that all the
notes were returned. although some of
them came in raised pitch. A trumpet
sounded ten times near Glasgow, Scot
land, and the ten notes were all repeat
ed, but third lower. And the spirit
ual law corresponds with the natural
world. What we do of good or bad may
not come back TO US in just the propor-
ton we expect it, but come back it will;