Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1896-08-24
THE HARVEST FIELD.
A SHADOW ON THE sPLENDOR OF
A SHUNEM HOME.

World Of Sin and Suffering to q World
of Peace and Joy.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 23.-While the
reapers are busy in many parts of the
land and the harvests are being gathered
the scene brought before us in this sub
5ect is especially appropriate. The text
is III Kings iv, IS, 10, 20: 'tAnd when
the child was grown it fell on a day
that he went out to his father to the
reapers. And he said unto his father,
My head, my head! And he said to
lad, Garry him to his mother. And
when he had taken him and brought
him to his mother he sat on her knees
till noon and then died.
There is at least one happy home in
Shunem. To the luxuriance and splen-
dor of q great house had been given the
advent of child. Even when the angel
of life brings a new soul to the poor
mans hut a star of JOY shines over the
manager. Infancy. with it's helplessness
and innocence, had passed away. Days
of boyhood had come, days of laughter
and frolic, days of sunshine and prom
Use, days of strange questions and
curiosity and quick development. sup
pose among all the treasures of that
house the brightest was the boy. One
day there is the shout of reapers heard
afeld. A boys heart always bounds at
the sound of sickle or soythe. No sooner
have the harvesters cut q swath across
the field than the lad joins them, and
the swarthy reapers feel young again as
they look down at that lad, as bright
and beautiful as was Ruth in the harvest
fields of Bethlehem cleaning after the
reapers. But the sun was too hot for
him. Congestion Of the brain seized on
him.
see the swarthy laborers drop their
sickles, and they rush out to see what is
the matter, and they fan him, and they
try to cool his brow, but all is of no
avail. In the instant of consciousness
ne puts his hands against his temples
and cries out: "My head, my head!"
And the father said, Garry him to his
mother, just as any father would have
said, for our hand is too rough, and our
voice is too harsh, and our foot is too
loud to doctor sick child If there be
in our home q gentler voice and a gen
tier hand and stiller footstep. But all
of no avail. While the reapers of
Shunem were busy in the field there
came stranger reaper that way, with
keener scythe and for a richer harvest
He reaped only one sheaf; but, oh, what
q golden sheaf that Wasl 1 do not want
to know any more about that heart
breaking scene than what / see in just
this one pathetic sentence: "He sat on
her knees till noon and then died.
hundreds Of years have passed
away since that boy skipped to the har-
vest field and then was brought home
and died on his mothers lap, the story
still thrills Us. Indeed, childhood has a
charm always and everywhere. / shall
now speak to you Of childhood, its
beauty, it's susceptibility to impression,
it's power over the parental heart and
its blissful transition from earth to
heaven.
Beauty CT Childhood.
The child's beauty does not depend
upon form OF feature or complexion or
That destitute one that you
saw on the street, bruised with unkind-
ness and in rags, has charm about her,
even under her restitution. You have
forgotten a great many persons whom
you met, of finely cut features and with
erect posture and with faultless COM
plexion, while you will always remem-
Der the poor girl who, on cold, moon
light night. as you were passing late
home, in her thin shawl and barefoot
ON the pavement. put out her hand and
said: ''Please to give me a penny.
All, how often we have walked on and
said, ooh, that is nothing but street
vagabondisml but after we got block
or two on we stopped and said, "Ah,
that is not right" and we passed up
that same way and dropped mite into
that suffering hand, as though it were
not matter Of second thought, SO
were we of our hard hearted
ness.
With what admiration we all look
upon group Of children ON the play
ground or in the school, and we clap
our hands almost involuntarily and say,
Chow beautiful All stiffness and
dignity are gone, and your shout is
heard with theirs, and you trundle their
hoop and fly their kite and strike their
ball, and all your WEAKNESS and anxiety
are gone, as when a child you bounded
over the playground yourself. That
father who stands rigid and unsympa-
thetic amid the sportfulness of children
ought never to have been tempted out
OF a crusty and unredeemable solitari-
ness. The waters leap down the rocks,
but they have not the graceful step of
childhood. The morning comes out of
the gates of the east, throwing its silver
on the lake and its gold on the towers
and its fire on the cloud, but it is not SO
bright and beautiful as the morning of
life. There is no light like that which
rs kindled in a child's eye, no color like
that which blooms on child's cheek,
no music like the sound of child's
voice. Its face in the poorest picture re-
deems any imperfection in art When