Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1897-10-12

brought together. That is one thing
that makes old people die happy. They
realize it is reunion with those from
whom they have long been separated
am often asked as pastor-and
every pastor is asked the question
viii my children be children in
heaven and forever children" Well,
there was no doubt great change in
Joseph from the time Jacob lost him
and the time when Jacob found him
between the boy of seventeen years of
age and the man in mid-life, his fore
head developed with the great bust
ness of state; but Jacob was glad to get
back Joseph anyhow, and it did not
make much difference to the old man
younger. And it will be enough joy
for that paNent if he can get back
that son, that daughter, at the gate Of
heaven, whether the departed loved one
shall come cherub or in full-grown
angelhood. There must be change
wrought by that celestial climate and
by those supernal years, but it will only
be from loneliness to more loneliness,
and from health to more radiant
health. o, parent, as you think of the
darling painting and white in membran-
GUS Group, l want you to know ii will
be gloriously bettered in that land
where there has never been a death
and where all the inhabitants will live
on in the great future as long as God!
Joseph was Joseph Notwithstanding the
palace, and your child will be your
child Notwithstanding all the raining
splendors 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 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 this"' l
visited at the farm house Of the father
| of Willard Fillmore when the son was
president Of the United States, and the
octogcnarian farmer entertained me
until IL 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 grand
| ly Willard treated his father in the
| White House. The old mans face was
| illumined with the story until almost
midnight. He had just been visiting
| his son at the capitol Ard / suppose
it was something of the same joy that
| thrilled the heart OF the old shepherd
| as he stood in the palace of the prime
minister. 1t is a 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 par
ents cannot stay many days, for they
are little restless, and especially at
nightfall, because they sleep better in
their own bed; but while they tarry
you somehow feel there is a benedc-
! ton in every room in the house. They
are 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 retir-
| ed at night to see if the lights are
| properly put out, for the old people up-
! derStand candle and lamp better than
the modern apparatus OF illumination.
In the morning, with real interest in
their health, you ask 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, before they
leave your house they half spoil your
children with kindnesses. Grandfather
and grandmother are more lenient and
indulgent to your children than they
ever were with you. And what Won
ders 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! What
ever may have been the style of the
architecture when they came, it is a
palace before they leave. If they visit
you fifty times, the two most memoir
able 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 millinery. The
wife of the Emperor Theodosius said a
wise thing when she said: Husbands,
remember what you lately were, and
remember what you are, and be thank
full"
By this time you all notice what
kindly provision Joseph made for his
father Jacob. Joseph did not say, Il
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. People would
wonder where that old greenhorn came