The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-06-30

| Years from now when upon her come the
cares Of motherhood and the agonies OF
bereavement and the brutal treatment
Of one who swore before high heaven
that he would cherish and protect. Dc
dot 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 a doleful song, but
suggestive song, a Christian song, a
song you will not be ashamed to meet
when it comes to you in the eternal DIES.
tiny Of your son and daughter. The orr.
ole has loud song, and the chewink
long song, and the bluebird short song,
but 1t is always family song and let
your cleaning song to your children,
whether loud or long OF short, be a
Christian song.
These family songs are about all we
keep of the old homestead. The house
where you We're born will go into the
hands of strangers. The garments 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
all signs and mementoes of the old home
stead will be gone forever. But the
family songs, those that we heard at 2
years of age, at 8 years of age, at 10
years of age, will be ihdestructible and
at 40 or so or G0.or 10 years of age will
give us mighty boost over some rough
place in the path of our pilgrimage.
THE LOST RESTORED BY SONG.
Many years ago group of white chill
dren We're captured and carried off by
the Indians Years after, mother who
] had lost two children 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 tc
sing the old nursery song, and her two
children Immediately rushed up, shout
ing mamma" Mammal Yes, there
! is an immortality in a nursery song
Hear 1t, all you mothers, an immortality
of power to rescue and save.
What an occasion that must have been
in Washington, Dec. II, 1850, when
Jenny Lind sang Home, Sweet Home, +"
the author of those words, John Howard
Payne, seated before her. She had rem
dered her other favorite 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 whole audience rose with him. Any
thing connected with home ransacks our
entire nature with holy power, and
songs that get well started in the nur-
sery or by the family hearth roll on after
the lips that sung them are forever silent
and the ears that first heard them for
ever cease to hear.
preach this sermon Just before many
Of you will go out to pass days or weeks
in the country. Be careful how you
treat the birds. Remember they are
Gods favorites, and if you offend them
You offend him. He Is SO fond of their
voices that there are forests where for
hundred miles no human foot has ever
trod and no human ear has ever listened.
Those interminable forests are concert
halls with only one auditor-the Lord
God Almighty. He builded those audi
forums Of leaves and sky and supports
all that infinite minstrelsy for himself
alone. Be careful how you treat his fa-
yorite choir.
IN Deuteronomy he warns the people,
IF a birds nest chance to be before thee
in the way in any tree or on the ground,
whether they be young ones or eggs, thou
shalt not take the dam with the young,
| that it may be well with thee and that
thou mayest prolong thy days" So you
see your own longevity is related to your
treatment of birds. Then go forth and
attend the minstrelsy. Put off startling
colors, which frighten the winged song
sters into silence or flight, and put on
your more sober attire and move noise
lessly into the woods farther and fan.
| ther from the main road and have no con-
~~~--.-- ~-~n.-~.
versation, for many concert in and GU
Of doors has been ruined by persistent
takers, and chen sit down on messy
bank
Where wild stream with headlong shock
Comes braN'ling down bed of rock.
And after perhaps half an hour of iu-
| tense solitude there will be tap of
he OF tree branch far up, sounding
lie The tap of a musical baton, and then
first there will be solo, followed by a
| duet or quartet, and afterward by doxol-
ogies in all the tree tops and amid all
the branches, and if you have Bible
along with you, and you can without
! rustling the leaves, turn to the one hun
| bred and forty eighth Psalm of David
and read, Praise the Lord, beasts and
all cattle, 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 if under the power
| Of the bird voices you are trans
| ported, as when DR.. Morgan played so
| powerfully on the organ at st. Johns
that Richard Cecil said he was in such
blessed bewilderment he could not find
in his Bible the first chapter of Isaiah,
though he leafed 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 so 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.
THE SEASON TO STUDY NATURE.
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 advan-
tages of costly religious service and
smoking incense on the altar, to be lis
tening to the chantresses among the tree
branches? Ali he wanted to make him.
| self 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. PauPs 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 services of the
millennium will be held. The buildings
| fashioned out of stone and brick and