Connecticut western news., 1892-04-14


 better use could we put our lives than into the sacrifice for Christ and hls cause and the happiness of our fellow crea- lures? Shall we not be willing to be torn down that righteousness shall have triumphant way? Christ was torn down for us. Can we not afford to be torn down for him2 If Christ could suffer so much for us. can we not suffer a little for Christ? If he can afford on Palm Sunday to travel to Jerusalem to carry a cross, can we not afford n few leaves from our branches to make emerald his way?
 FEW LEAVES FROM OUR BRANCHES.
 The process is going on every moment in all directions. What makes that father have such hard work to find the hymn today? He puts on his spectacles and holds the book close up, and then holds it far off, and is not quite sure whether the number of the hymn is 150 or 13o. and the fingers with which he turns the leaves are very clumsy. He stoops good deal, although once he was straight as an arrow, and his eyes were keen as a hawks, and the hand he offered to his bride on the marriage day was of goodly shape and as God made it. 1 will tell you what is the matter. Forty years ago he resolved his family should have no need and bis children should be we'll educated and suffer none of the 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 .or forty or fifty years he has been tearing off from the palm tree of his physical strength and manly form branches to throw in the pathway of his household. 1t has cost him muscle and brain and health and eyesight, and there have been twisted off more years from bis life than any man in the crowd on the famous Palm Sunday twisted off branches from the palm trees on the road from Bethpage to Jerusalem. What makes that mother look so much older than she really is2 You say she ought not yet to have one gray line in her hair, The truth is the family was not always as we'll off as now. The married pair had a hard struggle at the start. Elk anime the tips of the forefnger and thumb of her right hand and they will tell you the story of the needle that was piled day in and day out.
 Yea. look at 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 the face and read the story of scarlet levers and croups 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 ence 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. Alasl that sons and daughters, themselves so straight and graceful and educated, should ever forget that they are walking today over the fallen strength of an industrious and honored parentage A little ashamed, arc you, at their ungrammatical utterance2 It was through their sacrifices that you | learned accuracy of speech. Do you lose patience with them because they are 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- moved, 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 drink at mid night woke her from q sound sleep as quick as any one will waken at the trumpet call of the resurrection.
 Oh, my young lady, what is that under the sole of your fine shoe? It is n 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 or To- custs, 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 ;.fford to wear? It must be leaf from the palm tree of your fathers | self sacrifices. Do not be ashamed of him when ke comes to town, and, be- cause his manners are little old fash toned, try to sinuggle him in and snug gle him ont, but call in your best friends a--l take him to the house of God and introduce him to your pastor and say, This is my fatker." If he had kept for himself the advantages which he gave you he would be as well educated and as well gotten up as you. When in the l English parliament n member was mak- | ing great speech that was unapswera- ole, lord derisively cried out, Il re- member you when you blackened my | fathers bootsr' "Yes," replied the man, ''and did I not do it welly' Never be ashamed of your early surroundings. | Yes, yes. all tho green leaves we walk over were torn off some palm tree. l 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 of two palm trees that stood at the start Of the road The prayers, the Christian ex- ample, the good advice, the hard work of my father and mother. Low they toiled! Their fingers were lnotted with hard work. Their foreheads were wrin- kled with many cares. Their backs stopped from carrying our burdens.
 They long ago went into slumber among their kindred and friends on the banks of the Raritan, but the influences they threw in the way of their children are yet green as leaves the moment they are plucked from palm tree, and we feel them on our brow and under our | n,,I tl,a., ,,.,I1 ,tr.a,,v ,,11 tka x,vo ,,