Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1892-04-16

SURRENDER IleIu IUT Clo u1dhl1B "
Christ's journey toward Jerusalem thu
more picturesque, the more memorable
and the more triumphant? And to wha
better use could we put orr lives thar
into the sacrifice for Christ and his cause
and the happiness Of our fellow crea
lures? Shall we not be willing to bt
torn down that righteousness shall have
triumphant way? Christ was torn dowI
for u.s. Can we not afford to be TORI
down for him? If Christ could suffer 81
mach for us, can we not suffer u little
for Christ? If he can afford on Palm
Sunday to travel to Jerusalem to carry
a cross. can we not afford few leave:
from our branches to make emerald lii
way?
FEW LEAVES FROM OUR BRANCHES.
The process is going ON every moment
in all directions. What makes thai
father have such hard work TO find tht
hymn today? He puts on his spectacle.
and holds the book close up. and ther
holds it far off, and is not quite sure
whether the number of the hymn is 15t
or 1870, and the fingers with which ht
turns the leaves are very clumsy. Ht
stoops a good deal, although once he was
straight us an arrow, and his eyes were
keen as hawks, and the hand he
offered to his bride on the marriage day
was of goodly shape and as God made it
| will tell you what is the matter. Forty
years ago he resolved his family should
have no need and his children should be
well educated and suffer none of tho
disadvantages of lack of schooling from
which he had suffered for lifetime, and
that the wolf of hunger should never
put its paw on his doorsill, and eoI
forty or fifty years he has been tearing
off from the palm tree of his physical
strength and manly form branches to
throw in tie pathway of his household.
1t has cost him muscle and brain and
health and eyesight, and there have
been twisted off more years from his life
than any man in the crowd on the
famous Palm Sunday twisted off
branches from the palm trees on the
road from Dcthpagc to Jerusalem. What
makes that mother look so much older
than she really is? You say she ought
not yet to have one gray line in her hair.
The truth is the family was not always
as well off as now The married pair
had hard struggle at the start. Ex-
anime the tips of the foreGnger and
thumb of her right hand and they will
tell you the story of tho needle that was
piled day in and day out.
Yea. look 1T both her hands and they
will tell the story of the time when she
did her own work, her own mending
and scrubbing and washing. Yea, look
into tie face and read the story of
scarlet fevers and Groups and midnight
watchings when none but God and her
self in that house were awake, and then
the burials and the loneliness afterward.
which was more exhausting than the
preceding watching had been, and no
one now to put to bed. How fair she
once was and as graceful as the palm
tree, but all the branches of her strength
and beauty were long ago torn off and
thrown into the pathway OF her house
hold. Alas that sons and daughters,
themselves SO straight and graceful and
educated, should ever forget that they
ere walking today over the fallen
strength of an Industrious and honored
parentage A little ashamed, are you,
at their ungramr,atical utterance? It
was through their sacrifices that you
learned accuracy of speech. Do you
lose patience with them because they
arc little querulous and complaining?
| guess you have forgotten how queru-
lous and complaining when you were
getting over that whooping cough or
that intermittent fever. A little an
neyed. are you. because her hearing is
poor and you have to tell her some
thing twice? She was not always hard
of hearing. When you were two years
old your first call for a drink at mid
night woke her from sound sleep as
quick as any one will waken at the
trumpet call of the resurrection.
Oh, my young lady. what is that uuder
the sole of your fine shoe? 1t is palm
leaf which was torn off the tree Of ma
ternal fidelity. Young merchant, young
lawyer, young journalist, young me-
chanic, with good salary and fine clothes
and refined surroundings, have you for
gotten what time your father had that
winter, after the summers crops had
failed through droughts or floods OF To-
Gusts, and how he wore his old coat too
long and made his old hat do, that he
might keep You at school or college:
What is that, my young man, under your
fine boot today, the boot that SO well fits
your foot, such boot as your father
could never afford to wear? 1t must be
q leaf from tic palm tree of your fathers
self sacrifices. Do not be ashamed of
him when he comes to town. and, be-
cause Lis manners are little old fash
toned, try to smuggle him in and snug
gle him out, but call in your best friends
aad take him to the house of God and
Introduce him to your pastor aud say,
This is my father If he had kept for
himself the advantages which be gave
you he would be as well educated and
as well gotten up as you. When in the
English parliament a member was max
ing a great speech that was unanswera-
HE, /. lord derisively cried out, Il re-
you when you blackencd my
fathers boots!' Eyes, replied the man,
land did not do it well?' Never he
ashamed of your early surroundings
Yes, yes, all the green leaves we walk
over were torn off some palm tree. |
have cultivated the habit of forgetting
the unpleasant things of life, and chiefly
remember the smooth things, and as far
as I remember now my life has for the
most part moved on over road soft
with green leaves. They were torn OFF
two palm trees that stood at the start of
the road. The prayers, the Christian ez-
ample, the good advice, the hard work
of my father and mother. How they
toiled! Their fingers were knotted with