The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1893-07-12
I something that will help that boy thirty


who swore before high heaven that he would
cherish and protect.
will he gone forever. But the family songs,
those that we heard ut TWO years OF age, at
five years of age, at ten years OF age, Will De
irdestructible and at forty or fifty or Sixty or
seventy years ofage will give Us mighty
boost over some rough place in the path OF
our pilgrimage.
MANY wears ago group Of white children
were captured and carried off by the Indians.
Years after, o mother who had lost two chill
d-en in that capture went among tho Indi-
ans, and there wera many white children in
line, hut so lonS a time had passed tho moth
er could not tell which were hers until she
began to sing the old nursery song, and her
two children Immediately rushed up, shout
ing: Mammal" Mamma Yes, there is
an Immortality In nursery song. Hear 1t,
all you mothers, an immortality OF power to
rescue and save.
What an occasion that must have been in
Washington December II, 1850, when Jennie
Lind sang Home, Sweet Home, the author
of those words, John Howard Payne, seated
before her. She had rendered her other ia
yorite songs: ''Casta Diva" and her Flute
Song" with fine effect, but when she struck
Home, Sweet Home" John Howard Payne
rose under the power, and President Fillmore
and Henry Clay and Daniel Webster and the
conlecred With home ransacks our entire
nature with holy power, and songs that
get well started in the nursery or by the
family hearth rolf on after the lips that sung
them are forever silent and the ears that first
heard them forever cease to hear.
Be careful how you treat the birds. Re-
member they are Gods favorites, and II you
offend them you offend Him. He is so fond OF
their voices that there are forests where for a
A,- hy. F1nf hoe frn1
and no human ear has ever listened.
Put off startling colors, which frighten the
winged son3sters into silence or flight, and
put on your moro sober attire and move
no;selessly into the woods farther and far
ther from the main road and have no CONVEX
sation, for many q concert in and out ofdoors
has been ruined by persistent takers, and
then sit down messy bank
Where wild stream with headlong shock
Comes b-awns down bed OF rock.
And after perhapsa half an hour of intense
solitude there will be a tap OF beak on a
tree branch far up, sounding like the tap OF a
musical baton, and then first there will be
solo, followed by duet or quartet, and after
ward by doxologies in sill the tree tops and
amid ell the branches, and II you have a
Bible along with you and you can without
rustling the leaves, turn TO. the one hun
dred and forty-eiShth Psalm Of David and
creeping things and flying fowl" and then
turn over quietly to my text and read, "By
them shall the fowls of the heaven have
their habitation, which sing among the
branches" or il under the power Of the bird
voices you are transported, as when Doctor
Worgan played so powerfully on the organ at
St. Johns that Richard Cecil said he was in
such blessed bewildermenth he could not ind in
his Bible the first chapter OF Isaiah, though
he leaied the book over and over, and you
shall be so overcome with forest harmony
that YOU cannot find the Psalms Of David,
never mind, for God will speak to you 80
nightly it will make no difference whether
YOU hear His voice from the printed page or
the vibrating throat Of one Of His plumed
creatures.
While this summer more than usual out OF
doors let US have what my text suggests, an
out Of doors religion. What business had
David, with all the advantages OF costly relig-
ious service and smoking incense on the al-
tar. to be listening to the chantresses among
the tree branches? All he wanted to make
himself and all who should come after him
more alert and more worshipful amid the
sweet sounds and beautiful sights OF
the natural world. There Is an old church
that needs to be rededicated. 1t is older than
ST. Paul's or st. Peters or St. Marks or st.
Sophia's or st. Isaac's. 1t is the cathedral OF
nature. That Is the church in which the ser
vices Of the millennium will be held. The
buildings fashioned out OF stone and brick
and mortar will not hold the people.
Again the mount Of Olives will be the
pulpit. Again the Jordan will be- the
baptistry. Again the mountains will. be
:he galleries. Again the skies will be
the blue ceiling. Again the sunrise will
be the front door and the sunset the back
door of that temple. Again the
clouds will be the upholstery and the
morning mist the incense. Again the
trees will be the organ loft where
'the fowls of heaven have their hab-
itation, which sing among the
branches" ST. Francis d'Assisi preached a
sermon to birds and pronounced u benedic-
tion upon them, but all birds preach to US,
and their beHediction is almost supernal.
In the time of Edward ~ no ono was
| allowed to own swan except he were a
| kings son or had considerable estate. Through
100 or 200 years of life that bird was said
never to utter anything like nusic until its
last moment came, and then lifting It's
crested beauty it would pour forth q
| song Of almost matchless thrill re-
sounding through the groves. AND
so, although the struggles OF life may be
too much for US and we may find it hard to
sing at all, when the last hour comes to you
and me, may there be radiance from above
and q glory settling round that shall enable
us to utter a song on the wings OF which we
shall monnt to where the music never ceases
and the raptures never die.
what is that, mother" THE swan, my lovei
He Is floating down from his native grove.
No loved one, no Nesting nigh
He Is floating down by hlmSe!s to die.
Death darkenS his eye aud unplumes his wings,
Yet the sweetest song Is the last he sings
Live so, my child. that when death shall come,