Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-04-11

ana Une happiness or 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 him? If Christ could suffer so
much for us, can we not suffer q little
for Christ! If he can afford ON Palm
Sunday to travel to Jerusalem to carry
q cross, can we not afford a 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 $50
or 1870, and the fingers with which he
turns the leaves are very clumsy. He
stoops a 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,
Twill tell you what is the matter. Forty
years ago he resolved his family should
have no need and his 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 for
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 cyesight, 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 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 Elk
anime tho tips of the forehnger 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 scrubbng and washing. Yea, look
into the face and read the story of
scarlet fevers and groups and midnight
watchings when none but God and her
self in that house We're awake, and then
the burials and the loneliness afterward.
which was moro 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
are walking today over the fallen
strength of an Industrious and hOnored
parentagc. A little ashamed, are you,
at their ungranmatical utterance? 1t
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 quoru- |
lous and complaining when you were
getting over that whooping cough or
that intermittent fever. A httlo an
noyed, 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 Mt mid
night woke her from a sound sleep rs
quick rs any ono 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 a 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-
Gusts, and how he wore his old coat too
long and made his old hat DO, that he
might keep you ut school or college!
What is that, my young man, rndoryour
fine boot today, the boot that - well fits
Your foot, such a boot as your father
could never afford to wear? 1t must be
u leaf from the palm tree eff your fathers
self sacrifices Do not be ashamed of
him when lie comes to town, and, be-
cause his manners are little old fash
toned, try to snuggle him in and Snug
gle him ont, but call in your best friends
and take him to the house of God and
introduce him to your pastor and say,
This is my father" If he had kept for
himself the advantages which he gave
YOU he would be as well educated and
as well gotten UP rs You. When in the
English parliament a member was maxi
ing great speech that was unanswera-
pic, lord dertsively cried out, IL re-
member You when You blackened my