Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1896-07-31
Z intozioants has burned down through

OF intoxicants has burned down through
the arteries of hundred and fifty years.
Pugnacity or combativeness character
ICES other families. Sometimes one form
of evil, sometimes another form of evil.
But it mag 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 half
of it. Is the family frailty combative-
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 keep
it a week before 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 OF
Paul and see if you cannot get little
iron in your blood. Find out what the
family fiailty is and set body, mind
end soul in battle array. Conquer you
will | think the genealogical table was
put in the first chapter of the New Tes-
lament not only to show our Lord S 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
King Abba. See in that genealogical
table that Joseph and Mary and the
most illustriOus Being that ever touched
our world or ever will touch 1t had III
their ancestral line scandalous Reno
boam and Rahab and Thamar and Bath
sheba. If this world is ever to be Eden
ized-and it will be-all the infected
families of the earth are to be regencr-
ated, and there will some one arise IN
each family line and open new genoa
logical table. There will be some Joseph
TO arise in the line and reverse the evil
influence of RehobOam, and there Will
be some Mary to arise in the line and
reverse the evil influence Of BathSheba
Perhaps the star of hope may point
down to your manger. Perhaps you are
70 be the hero or the heroine that Is to
put down the brakes and stop that long
line of genealogical tendencies ana
switch it off on another track from that
on which it has been running ion cen
tury. You do that, and l will promise
you as fine a palace as the architects OF
heaven can build, tie archway inscribed
with the words, more than conquer
or" But, whatever your heredity, let
me say you may be sons and daughters
of the Lord God Almighty.
Estranged children from the home
stead, come back through the open gate
of adoption. There is royal blood in our
veins; there are crowns on our escutch-
con; our father is king; our brother IS
king; we may be kings and queens unto
God forever. Come and sit down on the
ivory bench of the palace. Come and
wash in the fountains that fail into the
basins of crystal and alabaster. Come
and look out Of the upholstered window
upon gardens Of aZalea and- amaranth.
Hear the full burst Of the orchestra
while you banquet with potentates and
yictors. On, when the text sweeps back
ward, let it not stop at the cradle that
rocked your infancy, but at the cradle
that rocked the first world, and when
the text sweeps forward let it not stop
at your grave, but at the throne on
which you may reign for ever and ever.
"WhOse son art thou, thou young mani
Son of God Heir of Immortality! Take
your inheritance!