Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-01-17

many homes have made shipwreck on
the wardrobe. And that mother who
sits at the window watching for vain.
glorious triumph of millinery and fine
colors and domestic pageantry will aft
er awhile hear as bad news from her
children out in the battle of life as Sis
era s mother heard from the struggle at
Esdraelon.
AN APosTRoPHE TO MOTHERS.
But if you still press the question,
where's motherT' / will tell you
where she is not, though once she was
there. Some of you started with her
likeness in your face and her principles
in your soul. But you have cast her
out. That was an awful thing for you
to do, but you have done it. That hard,
grinding, dissipated look you never got
from her. If you had seen any one
strike her, you would have struck him
down without much care whether the
blow was just sufficient or fatal; but,
my boy, you have struck her down
struck her innocence from your face and
struck her principles from your soul,
You struck her downl The tent pin
thrt Jael drove three times into the
skull of Sisera was not so cruel as the
stab you have made more than three
times through your mothers heart. But
she is waiting yet, for mothers are slow
to give up their boys-waiting at some
window, it may be window on earth
or at some window in heaven. All 9TH
ers may cast you off. Your wife may
Il nd
with you. Your father may disinherit
you and say, LET him never again
darken the door of our house." But
there are two persons who do not give
you up-God and mother.
How many disappointed mothers
waiting at the Window Perhaps the
panes of the window are not great glass
plate, bevel edged and hovered over by
exquisite lambrequin, but the window
is made of small panes, | would say
about six or eight of them, in summer
wreathed with trailing vine and in
winter pictured by the Raphaels of the
forest, a real country window. The
mother sits there knitting, or busy with
her needle on homely repairs, when she
looks up and sees coming across the
bridge of the meadow brook a stranger,
who dismounts in front of the window.
He lifts and drops the heavy knocker of
the farmhouse door. Come in" is the
response. He gives his name and says
81 have come on sad errand. There
is nothing the matter with my son
in the city, is there?" she asks. "Yesl"
he says. Your son got into an unfor-
tunate encounter with young man in
u liquor saloon last night and is badly
hurt. The fact is he cannot get we'll.
l hate to tell you all. am sorry to
say he is dead "Deadl" she cries as
she totters back. 'Oh, my son! my
son! my son! Would God | had died
for theei" That is the ending of all
her cares and anxieties and good coun-
sells for that boy. That is her pay for
her self sacrifices in his behalf. That is
the bad news from the battle. So the
tidings of derelict or Christian sons trav-
el to the windows of earth or the win
dows of heaven at which mothers sit.
But, says some one, "are you not
mistaken about my glorifed mother
hearing of my evildoings since she
went aWayE" Says some one else, "Are
you not mistaken about my glorifed |
mother hearing Of my self sacrifice and |
moral bravery and struggle to do
right?" No! Heaven and earth are in
constant communication. There are
trains running every five minutes
trains of immortals ascending and de-
scending- spirits going from earth to
heaven to live there. Spirits descend
ing from heaven to earth to minister
and help. They hear from us many
times every day. Do they hear good
news or bad news from this battle. this
Sedan, this Thermopyl@, this Auster-
litz, in which every one of us is fight
ing on the right side or the wrong side
o God, whose am, and whom | am
trying to serve, as q result of this ser
mon, roll over on all mothers a new
sense of their responsibility, and upon
all children. whether still in the nur-
sery or out on the tremendous Esdraelon
of middle life or old age, the fact that
their victories or defeats sound clear
out, clear up to the windows of sympa-
thetic maternity. Oh, is not this the
minute when the cloud of blessing
filled with the exhaled tears of anxious
mothers shall burst in showers of mercy
on this audience2
There is one thought that is almost
too tender for utterance. | almost fear
to start it lest have not enough con-
troll of my emotion to conclude it. AS
when we were children we 80 often
came In from play or from hurt or
from some childish injustice practiced
upon us, and as soon as the door was
opened we cried, Where's mother"
and she said, Here | am, and we
buried our weeping faces in her lap, 80
after awhile, when we get through with
the pleasures and hurts of this life, we
will, by the pardoning mercy of Christ,
enter the heavenly home, and among
the first questions, not the first, but
among the first, will be the old question
that we used to ask, the question that
ia heing asked in thaf1aapda of ,,laoaa