Connecticut western news., 1894-07-12

ed in the palace looking around at the mirrors, and the fountains, and the carved pillars, 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 housel "Oh, says the old man within himself, II do wish Rachel could be here to see all thisp' visited at the farmhouse of the father of Willard Fillmore when the son was president of the United States, and the octogenarian farmer entertain ed me until 1 o'clock at night, telling me what great things he saw in his sons house at Washington, and what Daniel Webster said to him, and how grandly Willard treated his father ill the White House The old mans face was illumined with the story until al most the midnight. He had just been visiting his son at the capital. And l suppose 1t was something of the same joy that thrilled the heart of the old shepherd as he stood in the palace of the prime minister.
 It 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 any body could be so old. The parents can not stay many days, for they are little restless, and especially at nightfall, be- cause they sleep better in their own bed, but while they tarry you somehow feel there is benediction 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 probably 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 his torical 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 half spoil your children with kindness. Grand father and grandmother are more leni ent 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 otherl Blessed is that home where Christian parents come to visit! What ever may have been the style of the architecture when they came. it is palace before they leave. If they visit you 50 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 doorsill they parted with you, giving you the final goodby. 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 millinery The wife of the Emperor Theodosius said a wise thing when she said, Husbands, re- member what you lately were and re- member what you are and be thank full y |.
 Joseph and Jacob.
 By this time you all notice what kindly provision Joseph made for his father, Jacob. Joseph did not say: ''I can't have the old man around this place. How clumsy he would look climbing up these marble stairs and walking over these mosaics! Then he would be putting his hands upon some of these frescoes. Peolse would wonder where that old greenhorn came from. He would shock all the Egyptian court with his manners at table Besides that he might get sick on my hands, and he might be querulous, and he might talk to me as though were only a boy, when am the second man in all the realm. Of course he must not suffer. and if there is famine in his country and hear there is-I will send him some provisions, but can't take man from Padanaram and introduce him into this polite Egyptian court. What nuisance it is to have poor relationsp'
 Joseph did not say that, but he rush. ed out to meet his father with perfect abandon of affection, and brought him up to the palace, and introduced him to the emperor, and provided for all the rest of the fathers days, and nothing was too good for the old man while living and when he was dead Joseph, with military escort, took his fathers re- mains to the family cemetery. Would God all children were as kind to their parents!
 If the father have large property, and he be wise enough to keep it in his own name, he will be respected by the heirs, but how often it is when the son finds his father in famine, as Joseph found Jacob in famine, the young people make 1t very hard for the old mani They are so surprised he eats with knife instead of fork. They are chagrined at his antediluvian habits. They are provoked because he cannot hear as well as he used to, and when he asks it over again and the son has to repeat it he bawls in the old mans ear, "I hope you hear thatr" How long he must wear the old coat or the old hat before they get him new onel How chagrined they are at his independence of the English gram marl How long he hangs onl Seventy years, and not gone yeti Seventy-five years, and not gone yeti Eighty years, and not gone yeti Will he ever go? They think it of no use to have a doc- tor in his last sickness, and go up to the 1 drug store, and get dose of something that makes him worse, and eoonomize on a coffin, and beat the undertaken down to the last point, giving note | for the reduced amount, which they never pay. have oficiated at obsequies of aged people where the family have been so inordinately resigned to Provi- dence that I felt like taking my text from Proverbs, ''The eye that mocketh at its father and refuseth to obey its mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. |" In other words, such an in- grate ought to have flock of crows for pallbearersl I congratulate you if you have the honor of providing for aged parents. Tho blessing of the Lord God of Joseph and Jacob will be on you.