The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-07-07

fore it gets to the tropics. Have you
never seen the snow strewn with
the birds belated in their migration?
The titmouse mingles its voice with the
snow storms as Emerson describes the
little thing he found in tempestuous
January:
Here was this atom in full breath
| Hurting defiance at vast death;
| This scrap of valor just for play
Fronts the nor h wind in waistcoat gray.
For every bird, thousand perils and
disasters lowering and sweeping round
| and round. Yet there it sings, and it
is truthful song. The bird that has
it the hardest, sings the sweetest. The
lark from the shape of her claws may
not perch on a tree. In the grass her
nest is exposed TO every hoof that
passes. One of the poorest shelters of
all the earth is the lark's nest. If she
sing at all. you will expect her to rem
der the saddest of threnodies. No, no.
She sings an hour exultingly without a
pause and mounting 5000 feet without
losing a note Would God we all might
learn the lesson. Whatever perils,
whatever bereavements, whatever trials
art yet W COlllt, SiIlRs olus WIN oil
your heart and sing with all your
lungs. If you wait until all the hawks
of trouble have folded their wings and
all the hunters of hate have unloaded
their guns and all the hurricanes of dis
aster have spent their fury, you will
never sing at all.
Further, in the sky galleries, there
are songs adapted to all moods. The
meadow lark is mournful, and the gold
finch joyous, and the grosbeak pro-
longed of note But the libretto of ma
ture is voluminous. Are you sad? You
can hear from the bowers the echo of
your grief. Are you glad? You can
hear an echo of your happiness Are
you thoughtful? You can hear that
which will plunge You into deeper pro-
found. Are you weary? You may
catch restful air. So the songs of
birds are administrative in all circum-
stances. And we would do well to
have hymnology for all changes of
condition. You may sing your woes
into peace and rouse your joys into
greater attitudes. Upon every condi-
ton of body and soul. let us try the
| power of song. The multitudinous ut
terances of grove and orchard and gar
den and forest suggest most delightful
possibilities.
Further, | notice. that the song of
birds is family song. Even those of the
| feathered throngs which have no song
at all. make what utterances they do
| in sounds of their own family of birds.
The boot of the owl. the clatter of the
magpie, the crow of the chapticleer,
the drumming of the grouse, the laugh
of the loon in the Adirondachs, the
| cackle of the hen, the scream of the
eagle, the croak of the raven, are
sounds belonging to each particular
family; bat when you come to those
which have real songs, how suggestive
that it is a family song. All the sky
larls, all the nightingales, all the gold
| finches, all the blackbirds, all the
cockoos, prefer the song of their own
family, and never sing anything else.
So the most deeply impressive songs we
ever sing are family songs. They have
come down from generation to genera
ton. 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 Con-
necticut, or the Tweed. or the
Thames, or the Raritan? That song at
eventide, when you were tired out-in-
deed 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 slunbered. Oh, those
family songs! The songs that father
sang, that mother sang, that sisters
and brothers sang. They roll on us to-
day with a Renaissance that fills the
| throat, as well as the heart, with emo
| ton. 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. Better have in it something
that will help that boy thirty years
from now TO bear up under the bonn
bardment 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 bereavement. Do
not waste the best hour for making an
impression upon your little one, the
| hour of dusk. the beach between the
day and the night. Sing not doleful
song, but suggestive song, a Chris
tan song, a song you will not be
| ashamed to meet when it comes to you
in the eternal destiny of your son and
daughter.
These family songs are about all we
| keep of the old homestead. The house
| where you were born will go into the
| hands of strangers. The garments that
were carefully kept as relics will be-
| come 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 n
| few years all signs and mementoes of
the old homestead will be gone forever.
| But the family songs, those that we
| heard at years of age, at 5 years of
| age, at 10 years OF age, will be indie
| structible, and at 40, or so, or 60, or 20
years of age will give US a mighty boost
over some rough place in the path of
our pilgrimage. Many years ago a
group of white children were captured
and carried of by the Indians. Years
after mother who had lost two chill
dren in that capture went among the
| Indians and there were many white
children in line. but so long a time had
passed the mother could not tell which
were hers, until she began to sing the
| old nursery song, and her two children
Immediately rushed up, shouting:
Mamma Mamma" Yes, there is
an Immortality in nursery song. Hear