The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1894-07-11


was glad to get back Joseph anyhow,
and 1t did not make much difference to
the old man whether the boy looked
older or looked younger. And it will
be enough joy for that parent if he can
get back that son, that daughter, at
the gate Of heaven, whether the de-
parted one shall come cherub or in
full grown angelhood. There must be
a change wrought by that celestial eli
mate and by those supernal years, but
1t will only be from lovelines to more
loveliness, and from health to more ra-
diant health. o parent, as you think
of the darling painting and white in
membraneous Group, l want you to
know it will be gloriously bettered in
that land where there has never been
a death, and where all the inhabitants
will live on in the great future as long
as God! Joseph was Joseph notwith-
standing the palace, and your child will
be your child Notwithstanding all the
reigning splendors of everlasting noon.
Whnt a thrilling visit was that
of the old shepherd to the prime
minister, Joseph. | see the old
countryman seated in the palace
looking around at the mirrors and
the fountains and carved pillars, and
oh! how he wishes that Rachel, his
wife, was alive and she could have
come with him to see their son in his
great house. "O," says the old man
within himself, 81 do wish Rachel
could be here to see all this!" visited
at the farm house of the father of Mil
lard Fillmore when the son was presi-
dent of the United States, and the octo-
genarian farmer entertained me until
II o'clock at night telling me what
great things he saw in his sons house
at Washington, and what Daniel Web
ster said to him, and how grandly Mil
lard treated his father in the White
House. The old mans face was illu-
mined with the story until almost the
midnight lie had just been visiting
his son at the Capitol. And l suppose
it was something of the same JOY that
thrilled the heart of the old shepherd
40 hS SIOOu III bilS phldSO VI bhS plllhS
minister. 1t is great day with you
when your old parents come to
visit you. Your little children
stand around with great wide-open
eyes, wondering how anybody could be
so old. The parents cannot stay many
days, for they are little restless, and
especially at nightfall, because they
sleep better in their own bed; but while
they tarry you somehow feel there is a
benediction in every room in the house.
They are little feeble, and you make
it as easy as you can for them, and you
realize they will probably not visit you
very often-perhaps never again. You
go to their room after they have re-
tired at night to see If the lights are
properly put out, for the old people un-
derstand candle and lamp better than
the modern apparatus for illumina-
tion. In the morning, with real inter
est in their health, you ask them how
they rested last night. Joseph, in his
historical scene of the text, did not
think any more of his father than you
do of your parents. The probability
is, before they leave your house
they shall spoil your children
with kindness Grandfather and grand
mother are more lenient and indulgent
to your children than they ever were
with you. And what wonders of revel
alton in the bombazine pocket of the
one and the sleeve of the otherl Blessed
is that home where Christian parents
come to visitl Whatever may have been
the style of the architecture when they
came, it is palace before they leave.
If they visit you fifty times, the two
most memorable visits will be the first
and the last. Those two pictures will
hang in the hall of your memory while
memory lasts, and you will remember
just how they looked, and where they
sat. and what they said, and at what
figure of the carpet, and at what door
sill they parted with you, giving you
the final goodbye. Do not be embar-
rassed II your father come TO town and
he have the manners of the shepherd,
and If your mother come to town and
there be in her hat no sign of costly
millinery. The wife of the Emperor
Theodosius said n wise thing when she
said: Husbands, remember what you
lately were, and remember what you
are, and be thankful"
BY this time you all notice what !
kindly provision Joseph made for his
father Jacob. Joseph didn't say, 81
can't have the old man around the
place. How clumsy he would look
up these marble stairs !
and walking over the mosaics! |
Then he would be putting his |
hands upon some Of these frescoes.
People would wonder where that old |
greenhorn came from. lie would shock
all the Egyptian court with his man
ners at table. Besides that he might |
get sick on my hands, and he might be
1uerulous, and he might talk to me as
though were only n boy, when am
the second man in all the realm. OF
course he must not suffer, and II there
Is famine in his country-and l hear
there isl will send him some provis-
ons; but can't take a man from Pad
lnaram and INTRODUCED him into this po-
lite Egyptian court. What nuisance
L is to have poor relationsl"
Joseph did not say that, but he
'ushed out to meet his father with
perfect abandon of affection, and
brought him up to the palace, and in
reduced him to the emperor, and pro-
,ided for all the rest of the fathers
lays, and nothing was too good for the
I'D man while living; and when he was
lead Joseph, with military escort. took