The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-04-27

and groans of their composers, who
wore their lives out in whiting the
harmony. American independence was
triumphant. but it moved on over the
lifeless forms of tens Of thousands of
men who fell at Bunker Hill and fcrls-
town and the battle between, which
were the hemorrhages of the nation.
The kingdom of God advances in all
the earth, but it must be over the lives
of missionaries who die of malaria in the
jungles, or Christian workers who
preach and pray and toll and die in the
service. The Saviour triumphs in all
but beauty and strength
must be torn down from the palm trees
of Christian heroism and conservation
and thrown in His pathway. To what
better use could those palm trees on the
southern shoulder of Mt. Olivet and
clear down into the valley OF Gethse-
name put their branches than to sur
render them for the making of Christ's
journey toward Jerusalem the more
memorable and the more triumphant?
And to what better use could we put
our lives than into the sacrifice OF
Christ and His cause and the happiness
of our fellow-creatures? Shall we not
be willing to be torn down that right
eousness shall have full sway? Christ was
torn down for us. Can we not afford to
be torn down for Him? 1t Christ could
suffer so much for us, can we not suffer
little for Christ? If He can afford on
Palm Sunday to travel to Jerusalem to
carry cross, can we not afford few
leaves from our branches to make
emerald His way.
The process is going on every moment
in all directions. What makes that
father have such hard work to find the
hymn to-day? 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 15C
or 1870, 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 hawks, and the hand
he offered to his bride on the marriage
day was of goodly shape and as God
made it. l will tell You what is the
matter. Forty years ago he resolved
his family should have no need, and
his children should be well edu-
Gated, and suffer none of the dis
advantage of lack of schooling from
which he had suffered for lifetime,
and that the wolf of hunger should new
err put its paw on his door-sill, and 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 his
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 Jeru-
salem. 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. Examine 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 fevers and groups and
midnight watchings when none but God
and herself in that house were awake,
and then the burials and the loneliness
afterward, which was more eXhausting
than the preceding watching had been,
no one now to put to bed.
How fair she once was and as grace
full as the palm tree, but all the branch
es of her strength and beauty were
long ago torn off and thrown into the
pathway of her household. Alas! that
sons and daughters, themselves so
straight and graceful and educated,
should ever forget that they are walk
ing to-day over the fallen strength of
an industrious and honored parentage.
A little ashamed, are you, at their UNI
grammatical utterance? 1t was through
their sacrifices that you learned ac-
curacy of speech. Do you lose patience
with them because they are a little
querulous and complaining? l guess
you have forgotten how querulous and
complaining you were when you were
getting over that whooping cough Oh
that intermittent fever. A little an
noyed, are you, because her hearing is
poor and you have to tell her something
twice? She was not alwas hard OF
hearing. When you were two years old
your first call for drink at midnight
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 UNI
der the sole of your fine shoe? 1t is a
palm leaf which was torn off the tree
of maternal fidelity. Young merchant,
young lawyer, young journalist, young
mechanic, with good salary and fine
clothes and refined surroundings, have
you forgotten what time your fathel
had that winter, after the summers
crops had failed through droughts or
floods or locusts, and how he wore his
old coat, too long, and made his old ha,
do, that he might keep you at school OF
college? What is that, my young man.
under your fine boot to-day, the boot that
so well fits your foot, sucl, a boot as
your father could never afford to wear,
1t nlust be leaf from the palm tree OF
your fathers self-sacrifces Do not be
asbamad of him when he comes IN town