The Bossier banner., 1894-08-23

child Notwithstanding all the reignlng
splendor of everlasting noon. What
thrilling visit was that of the old shep-
herd to the Prime Minister Joseph.
see the old countryman seated in the
palace looking around at the mirrors
and the fountains and the carved pill
lars, and OH how he wishes that
Rachel, his wife, was alive, and she
could have come there with him to see
their son in his great house. "Oh,
says the old man within himself, Il do
wish Rachel could be here to see all
thisn' / visited at the farm house of
the father of Millard Fillmore when
he was president of the United States,
and the octogenarian farmer enter
tanned me until eleven 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
Millard treated his father in the White
House. The old mans face was IL
lumined with the story until almost
the midnight. He had just been visit
ing his son at the capital. And l sup
pose it was something of the same joy
that thrilled the heart of the old shep-
herd as he stood in the palace of the
prime 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 can not stay many
days, for they are a little restless,
and especially at nightfall, because
they sleep better in their own bed;
but while they tarry you somehow feel
there is a benedlction in every room in
the house. They are a little feeble,
and you make it as easy as you can for
them, and you realize they will proba-
bly, not visit you very often-perhaps
never again. You go to their room
after they have retired at night to see
if the lights are properly put out, for
the old people understand candle and
lamp better than the modern apparatus
for illumination. In the morning,
with real interest in their health,
you ask them how they rested
last night. Joseph, in the historical
scene of the text, did not think
any more of his father than you do of
your parents. The probability is, be-
fore they leave your house they half
spoil your children with kindness.
Grandfather and grandmother are more
lenient and indulgent to your children
than they ever were with you. And
what wonders of revelation in the
| bombazine pocket of the one and the
sleeve of the other! Blessed is that
home where Christian parents come to
visit! 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
good-by. Do not be embarrassed if
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 millin-
cry. The wife of the Emperor Theo-
dosius said 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 did not say: u
can't have the old man around this
place. How clumsy he would look
climbing up these marble stairs, and
walking over those mosaics! Then he
would be putting his hands upon some
of these frescoes. People would won
der where that old greenhorn came
from. He would shock all the Egypt
ian court with his manners at table
Besides that, he might get sick on my
hands, and he might be querulous, ant
he might talk to me as though | were
only boy, when / am the second mar
in all the realm. Of course, he mus
not suffer, and if there is famine il
his country-and hear there isl vii
send him some provisions; but | can
take man from Padanaram and in
troduce him into the polite Egyptian
court. What nuisance it is to hav,
poor relations!'
Joseph did not say that. but he rushed
out to meet his father with perfec
abandon Of affection, and brought hin
up to the palace, and introduced hin
to the emperor, and provided for al
the rest of his father days, and moth
ing was too good for the old man Will
living; and when he was dead, Joseph
with military escort, took his father
remains TO the family cemetery Woul
to God all children were as kind t
their parents.
If the father have large property
and he be wise enough to keep it in hi
own name, he will be respected by tn
heirs, but how often it is when the so
finds the father in famine, as Josep
, found Jacob in famine, the young pee
pie make it very hard for the old mar
They are SO surprised he eats with
knife instead of a fork. They ar
chagrined at his antediluvian habit.