Connecticut western news., 1893-03-23


 and at the next communion in the village church at Somerville over 200 souls stood up to profess the faith of the gospel My mother carrying the memory of this scene from early womanhood into fur ther life, in after years was resolved up- on the salvation of her children, and for many years every week she met three other Christian mothers to pray for the salvation of their families. think that all the members of those families were saved-myself, the youngest and last.
 There were 12 of us children. I trace the whole line of mercy back to that hour when my Christian grandmoth- CT sat in her room imploring the bless ing of God upon her children. Nine of her descendants became preachers of the gospel Many of her descendants are in heaven, many of them still in the Christian conflict. Did it pay for her to spend the whole evening in prayer for her household? Ask her before the throne of God, surrounded by her children. In the presence of the Christian church to- day make this record of ancestral piety. Oh, there is beauty, and ten derness, and a sublimity in family re- ligioni
 There are but four or five pictures in the old family Bible that inherited, but Dore never illustrated Bible as that book is illustrated to my eyes. Through 1t I can see into marriages and burials, joys and sorrows, meetings and partings, Thanks giving days and Christian festivals, era dles and deathbeds. Old, old book, speak out and tell of the sorrows comforted and of the dying hours irradiated. Old, old book, the hands that held thee are ashes, the eyes that perused thee are closed What pillow thou wouldst make for dying head. I salute all the mem- ories of the past when I press it to my heart and when press it to my lips.
 BIBLE ASSOCIATIONS.
 Oh, that family Bible! The New Tee lament in small type is not worthy of being called by that name. Have a whole Bible in large type, with the fam fly record of marriages and births and deaths. What if the curious should turn over the leaves to see how old you arer You are younger now than you will ever be again. The curious will find out from those with whom you have played in your childhood how old you are. Have family Bible. It will go down from generation to generation, full of holy memories. A hundred years after you are dead it will be benediction to those who come after you. Other books, worn out or fallen apart, will be flung to the garret or the cellar, but this will be inviolate, and it will be your protest for centuries against iniquity and in be- half of righteousness.
 Oh. when we see what family religion did for our fathers household, do we not want it to come into the dining room to break the bread, into the nursery to bless the young, into the parlor to purify the socialities, into the library to control the reading, into the bedroom to hallow the slumber, into the hall to watch our going out and our coming in? Aye, there are hundreds of voices in this house ready to cry out: 'Yes! Yes! As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"
 There are two arms to this subject. The one arm puts it's hand on all par ents. It says to them: Don't interfere with your children's welfare, don't inter- fere with their eternal happiness, don't you by anything you do put out your foot and trip them into ruin. Start them under the shelter, the insurance, the everlasting help of Christian percentage. Catechisms will not save them, though catechisms are good. The rod will not save them, though the rod may be neces sary. Lessons of virtue will not save them, though they are very important. Becoming through and through, up and down, out and out Christian yourself will make them Christians"
 The other arm of this subject puts it's hand upon those who had pious bring ing up, but who as yet have disappointed the expectations excited in regard to them. I said that children brought up in Christian households, though they might make wide curve, were very apt to come back to the straight path. Have you not been curving out long enough, and is it not most time for you to begin to curve in?
 EARLY CHRISTIAN TRAINING.
 "Oh," you say, .they were too rigid" We'll now, my brother, think you have 8 pretty good character considering what you say your parents were. Do not boast too much about the style in which your parents brought you up. Might it not be possible that you would be an exception to the general rule laid down, and that you might spend your eternity in different world from that in which your parents are spending theirs?
 feel anxious about you; you feel anx- ious about yourself. Oh, cross over into the right path. If your parents prayed for you twice day, each of them twice day for 20 years, that would make 29,- 900 prayers for you. Think of theml By the memory of the cradle in which your childhood was rocked with the foot that long ago ceased to move, by the crib in which your own children slumber night by night under Gods protecting care, by the two graves in which sleep those two old hearts that beat with love so long for your welfare, and by the two graves in which you, now the living father and mother, will find your last repose, urge you to the discharge of your duty.
 Though parents may in covenant be And have their heaven in view, They arc not happy till they see Their children happy too.
 Oh, you departed Christian ancestry, fathers and mothers in glory, bend from the skies today and give new emphasis to what you told us on earth with many tears and anxieties! Keep aplace for us by your blissful side, for today, in the presence of earth and heaven and he'll, and by the help of the cross, and amid overwhelming and gracious memories, we resolve, each one for himself, ''As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"
 Seen In Tobacco Smoke. 'Is there anything more blissful in all this world than that condition in which . man looks dreamily upward into . cloud of smoke and views the world through pale, hay filmY' said Dram Melvale as he did likewise. "We speak