The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1892-01-22

the sexton, "he is up there IN the
elders seat. d, He is one of our best
and most important members. You
ought to hear,ahim pray and sing.
He, is not Joe any longer; he is
Elder w ebster.r = well, where is
the daughter. Mary2 / suppose
she il the same thoughtless butterfly
she used to ,be2" t'Oh. mol" says the
sexton, 0''she is the president of our
missionary society and the directress
in the orphan asylum, and when she
goes down the street all the raga-
mullins take hold of her dress and
cry, ,Auntie, when are you going to
bring us some more books and shoes
and things2 And when in times of
revival there is some hard case back
in church pew that no one else can
touch. she goes where he is and in
a minute she has him a-crying. and
the first thing we know she is
fetching the hardened man up to
the front to be prayed for, and
says, Here is brother who wants
to find the way into the king
dom of God And if nobody seems
ready to pray she kneels down in the
aisle beside him and says, % Lord
with a pathos and a power and a
triumph that seem instantly to eman-
cipate the hardened sinner. Oh, no,
you must not call her thoughtless
butterfly in on. presence. You see
we would not stand it." 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, 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
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 a 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.
.Is 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 slipshod home. The
parents are goddess pair. They let
their children do as they please. No
example fit to follow. No lessons of
morality or religion. 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 here?"
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
dren9 What has become of themP
The old inhabitant replies: The
turned out badly. You know the
old man was about half an infidel and
the boys were all infidels. The old
est son married, but got into drinking
habits, and in a few years his wife
was not able to live with him any
longer and his children were taken
by relatives, and he died of delirium
tremens on Blackwell'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 mebriate with the idea of re-
forming him, and you know how
that always ends-in the ruin of both
the experimenter and the one ex-
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,