Connecticut western news., 1896-07-30

herit them, l rob them of the ancestral grace and the Christian influence that I inherited. I have squandered that on my own worldlinesS. Share and share alike must they in the misfortune and the everlasting outrage. Signed. sealed and delivered in the presence of God and men and angels and devils and all the generations of earth and heaven and hell, July, 1896"
 O ye of highly favored ancestry, wake up this morning to sense of your opportunity and responsibility. think there must be an old cradle or frag ment of a cradle somewhere that could tell story of midnight application in your behalf. Where is the old rocking chair in which you were sung to sleep with the holy nursery rhymef Where is the old clock that ticked away the moments of that sickness on that awful night when there were but three of you awake-you and God and mother? Is there not an old staff in some closet? We beg you to turn over a new leaf this very day.
 A Question of Power.
 Oh, the power of ancestral piety, well illustrated hy young man of New York who, attended a prayer meeting one night, and asked for prayer and then went home and wrote down these words: Twenty-Five years ago tonight my mother went to heaven, my beauti- ful. blessed mother. and I have been alone, tossed up and down upon the bill lows of life.s tempestuous ocean. Shall ever goto heavenf She told me must meet her.in heaven When she took my hand in hers and turned her gentle, loving eyes on me and gazed earnestly and long into my face and then lifted them to heaven in that last prayer, she prayed that might meet her in heaven. wonder if ever shall? My mothers prayers-oh, my sweet. blessed mothers prayersl Did ever a boy have such & not heard her pray until tonight I have heard all her prayers over again. They have had, in fact, 8 terrible resurrection. Oh. how she was wont to pray! She prayed as they prayed tonight so ear nest, so importunate, so believing. Shall ever be a Christian? She was Chris tian- Oh. how bright and pure and hap py was her lifel She was Q cheerful and happy Christian.
 "There is my mothers Bible. I have not opened it for years. Did she believe could ever neglect her precious Bible? She surely thought I would read it much and often. How often has she read it to mel How did she cause me to kneel by my little bed and put my little hands up in the attitude of prayeri How has she kne1t by me and over me. and I have felt her warm tears raining down upon my hands and facei Blessed mother. did you pray in vain for your boy? It shall not be in vain. An, no, no. it shall not be in vain. will pray for myself. Who has sinned against so much instruction as have? Against so many precious prayers put up to heaven for me by one of the most lovely, tender, pious, confiding, trusting of mothers in her Heavenly Fathers care and grace? She never doubted; she believed She always prayed as if she did. My Bible, my mothers Bible and my conscience teach what am and what have made ! myself. Oh, the bitter pangs of an ac- cusing consciencei I need Saviour mighty to save. I must seek him. I will am on the sea of existence, and can never get of from it. I am afloat No anchor, no rudder. no compass, no book of instructions, for l have put them all away from me. Saviour of the perishing, save, or l perish. Do you wonder that the next day he arose in prayer meeting and said: My brethren, I stand before you a monument of God s amazing mercy and goodness, forever blessed be his holy name. All have and Saviour and my Godr" Oh, the power oi ancestral prayerl Hear itl Hear itl An Inheritance.
 | But I turn for moment to those who had evil percentage, and want to ! tell you that the highest thrones in | heaven and the mightiest triRmphs and | the brightest crowns will be for those who had evil percentage, but who by the grace of God conquered - conquered. | As good, as useful, as splendid gentle man as I ever knew had for a father a man who died blaspheming God until the neighbors had to put their fingers in their ears to shut out the horror. Ono of the most consecrated and useful l son of drunken horse jockey. Tide of evil tremendous in some familiesl It is like Niagara rapids, and yet men have olung to a rock and been rescued There is family in New York, whose wealth has rolled up into many millions, that l was founded by man who after he had vast estates, sent back a paper of tacks because they were 3 cents more than he expected. Grip and grind and gouge in the fourth generation-I sup pose it will be grip and grind and gouge in the twentieth generation. The thirst of intoxicants has burned down through the arteries of hundred and fifty years. Pugnaoity or combativeness character izes other families Sometimes one form of evil, sometimes another form of evil But it may be resisted; it has been re- sisted. If the family frailty be avarice, cultivate unselfishness and charity and teach your children never to eat an ap- pie without offering somebody else halt of it. Is the family frailty ombatiye- ness, keep out of the company of quick tempered people and never answer an
 impertinent question until you have counted hundred both ways, and after you have written an angry letter keeI it Q week befcTe you send it, and then
 burn it up.
 Is the family frailty timidity and cowardice. cultivate backbone; read the
 biography of brave men like Joshua ol
 Paul and see if you cannot get little
 iron in your blood. Find out what the family frailty is and set body, mind
 and soul in battle array. Conquer you
 will think the genealogical table wal put in the first chapter of the New Tes-
 lament not only to show our Lords ped.
 igree, but to show that a man may rise
 up in an ancestral line and beat back
 successfully all the influences of bad
 heredity. See in that genealogical table
 that good King Asa was boru of vile l Kssas. A 4L..s