The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1893-07-12


do in sounds of their own family of
birds. The boot of the owl, the chat
ter OF the magpie, the crow OF the
chanticleer, the drumming OF the
grouse, the laugh of the loon in the
Adirondacks, the caclxle of the hen,
the scream of the eagle, the croak of
the raven, are sounds belonging to each
particular family; but when you come
to those which have real songs, how
suggestive that it is always family
song All the skylarks, all the night
ingales, all the goldfinches, all the
blackbirds, all the cuckoos, prefer the
song of their own family and never
sing anything else. So the most deep
ly impressive songs we ever sing are
family songs. They have come down
from generation to generation. You
were sung to sleep in your infancy and
childhood by songs that will sing in
your soul forever. Where was it, my
brother or sister, that you heard the
family song-on the banks of the Ohio,
or the Alabama, or the Androscoggin,
or the Connecticut, or the Tweed, or
the Thames, or the Raritan? The
song at eventide, when you were tired
out-indeed, too tired to sleep, and you
cried with leg ache, and you were
rocked and sung to sleep-you hear it
now, the soft voice from sweet lips,
she as tired, perhaps more tired than
you but she rocked and you slumbered.
0, those family songs! The songs that
father sang, that mother sang, that
sisters and brothers sang. They roll
on us to-day with a "Reminiscences that
fills the throat, as well as the heart,
with emotion. In our house in
my childhood it was always re-
ligious song. do not think that
the old folks knew anything but re-
ligious songs; at any rate never heard
them sing anything else. TWAS Jesus,
Lover of My SOUL or Rock of Ages, !"
or There is Fountain Filled With
Blood" or Mary to The Saviour's
Tomb" Mothers, be careful what you
sing your children to sleep with. let
it be nothing frivolous or silly. Better
have in it something of Christ and
Heaven, something that will help that
boy thirty years from now to bear up
under the bombardment of temptation.
Better have in it something that will
help that daughter thirty years from
now when upon her come the cares OF
motherhood and the agonies OF be-
reavement and brutal treatment of one
| no a. h fcrh Hao ha 40
would cherish and protect. Do not
waste the best hour for making an inn
preston upon your little one, the hour
of dusk, the beach between day and
night. Sing not doleful song, but
suggestive song, Christian song, a song
you will not be ashamed to meet when it
comes to you in the eternal destiny OF
your son and daughter. The oriole has
loud song, and the chewink a long
song, and the bluebird short song,
but it is always family song, and let
your cleaning song to your children,
whether long or short, be Christian
song These family songs are about
all we keep of the old homestead. The
house where you were born will &c
into the hands of strangers. The gar
ments that were carefully kept as
relics will become moth-eaten. The
family Bible can go into the possession
OF only one of the family. The lock OF
gray hair may be lost from the locket
and in few years alls signs and me
mentoes of the old homestead will bt
. | D,,t th. 20, mil
those that we heard at two years o.
age, at five years of age, at ten years
of age, will be indestructible, and a
forty or fifty or sixty or seventy years
of age will give us mighty boost ovel
some rough place in the path of oul
pilgrimage Many years ago groul
of white children were captured ant
carried off by the Indians.
Years after, a mother who had los
two children in that capture, wen
among the Indians, and there wer'
many white children in line, but 81
long time had passed the mothe
could not tell which were hers unit
she began to sing the old nursery song
and her two children immediatel,
rushedup, shouting, Mammal" "Mam
maj Yes, there is an Immortality il
nursery song. Hear it, all yo1
mothers, an immortality of power t.
: rescue and save. What an occasion
that must have been in Washington
December II, 1850, when Jenny Lin,
sang Home Sweet Home" the autho
of these words, John Howard Payne
: seated behind her. She had rendere,
her other favorite songs, "Casta Diva,
and her "Flute Song" with fine effect
but when she struck "Home, Swee
Home" John Howard Payne ros
under the power, and President Eli
more and Henry Clay and Daniel Wei
ster and the whole audience rose wit
him. Anything connected with HON
l ransacks our entire nature with hol
power, and songs that get well starte
: in the nursery or by the family heart
roll on after the lips that sung ther
3 are forever silent and the ears tina
first heard them forever cease t
S hear
l preach this sermon just befor
many of you will go ont to pass day
i or weeks in the country. Be carefr
: how you treat the birds. Remembe
S they are Gods favorites, and if 20
' offend them, you offend Him. He is S
| fond of their voices that there ar
forests where for hundred miles n
e human foot has ever trod and no huma
2 ear has ever listened Those intermin;
e able forests are concert halls with onl
< one auditor-the Lord God Alright.
{ He builded those auditoriums of leave