The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-01-22


with a pathos and power and q
triumph that seem instantly to eman-
cipate the hardened sinner Oh, no,
you must not cali her a thoughtless
butterfly in Ou presence. You SEQ
we would not stand il" The fact is
that the son and daughter of that
family did not promise much at the
start, but they are now an Echo, a
glorious Echo, a prolonged Echo of
parental teaching and example,
PLANTING FOR TIME AND ETERNITY.
A Vermont mother, us her boy was
about TO start for Il life on the sea,
said Edward, | have never seen the
ocean, bat | understand the great
temptation is strong drink, Promise
me you will never touch it" Many
years after that, telling of this in n
meeting, Edward said; II gave that
promise to mother and have been
around the world and at Calcutta,
the ports of the Mediterranean, San
Francisco, Cape of Good Hope and
north and south poles, and never
saw Il glass of liquorin all those years
that my mothers form did not APP
pear before me, and do not know
how liquor tastes, | never have
tasted it and all because of the prom
Use | made to my mother"
This was the result of that CONVEX
sation at the gate of the Vermont
farmhouse. The statuary of Thor
waldsen was sent from Italy to Ger
many, and the straw in which the
statues had been packed was thrown
upon the ground The next spring
beautiful Italian flowers sprang up
where this straw had been cast, for
in it had been some of the seeds of
Italian flowers, and whether CON
scious of it or not we are all the time
planting for ourselves and planting
for others roses or thorns. You
thought it only straw, yet among it
were anemOneS.
But here is a slipshod home, The
parents are II goddess pair They let
their children do us they please. No
example fit to follow. No lessons of
morality or "eligion. Sunday no bet
ter than any other day. The Bible
no better than any other book, The
house is a 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
a lottery anyhow, and some draw
prizes and some draw blanks and we
will trust to luck
Skip twenty years and come back
to the neighborhood where that fam
lily used to live You meet on the
street or on the road an old inhabi-
tant Of that neighborhood, and you
say, Can you tell me anything about
the Petersons who used to live here2"
Yes, says the old inhabitant, Il re-
member them very We'll The father
and mother have been dead for
years We'll, how about the chill
dren? What has become Of them2"
The old inhabitant replies They
turned out badly. You know the
old man was about half an infdel and
the boys were all intidels The old
est 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 We're taken
by relatives, and he died of delirium
tremens on Bluckwell's island. His
other son forged the name of his en-
ployer and fled to Canada One of
the daughters Of the old folks mar
ried an inebriate with the idea of re-
forming him, and you know how
that always ends in the ruin of both
the eXperimenter and the one ey
perimented with. The other daugh-
ter disappeared mysteriously and
has not been heard of There was a
young woman picked out of the
East river and put in the morgue,
and some thought it was her, but
cannot say" rs it possiblel" you
cry out. Yes, it is possible. The
family is a complete 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
Obliquity and unfaithfulness. The
old folks heaped up mountain of
wrong influences, and this is only
what my text calls The sounding of
the mountains.
Indeed our entire behavior in this
world will have a resound. While
opportunities fly in a straight line
and just touch us once and are gone
never to return, the wrongs we prac-
tice upon others fly in a circle and
they come back to the place from
which they started. Doctor Guillo-
tine thought it smart to introduce
the instrument Of death, named after
him; but did not like it so well when
his own head was chopped off with
the guillotine.
MAKE YOUR RECORD FOR JUDGMENT
DAY.
So, also, the judgment day will be
an Echo of all our other days The
universe needs such a day for there
are so many things in the world that
need to be fixed up and explained. If
God had not appointed such a day all
the nations would cry out, oh, God,
give us a judgment day" But we are
apt to think Of it and speak about il
as a 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.
That is the meaning of all that
Scripture which says that Christ will
on that day address the soul, saying
Il was naked and We clothed me;
was sick and in prison and we visited
me-" All the footsteps in that prison
corridor as the Christian Reformel
WALKS IN tha ;7yirI-at of fha i71f.qrparot