Connecticut western news., 1897-10-07

old countryman seated 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 come
 with him to see their son in his great
 house. "Oh," says the old man within
 himself, "I do wish Rachel could be
 here to see all thisl" I visited at the
 farmhouse of the father of Willard Fill
 more when the son was president Of the
 United States, and the octogenarian
 farmer entertained me until II o'clock
 at night telling me what great things
 he saw in his sons house at Washing
 ton and what Daniel Webster said to
 him and how grandly Willard treated
 his father in the White House. The old
 man s face was illumined with the story until almost the midnight. He had just been visiting his son at the capital. And I 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.
 It is great day with you when your old parents come to visit you. Your lit tie 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 lit tie restless, and especially at nightfall, because they sleep better in their own bed, but while they tarry you somehow feel there is a benediction 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 prob
 ably 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 bet ter than the modern apparatus for illu- imitation. 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
 The First and the Last.
 Grandfather and grandmother are
 more lenient and indulgent to your chil- dren than they ever were with you. And what wonders of revelation in the bombazine pocket of the one and the sleeve of the other Blessed is that home Whatever 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 l 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, Husband, remember what you lately were and re- member what you are and be thankful. :" By this time you all notice what kindly provision Joseph made for his father Jacob. Joseph did not say: II can't have the old man around this place. How clumsy he would look climb ing up these marble stairs and walking over those mosaicsl Then he would be putting his hands upon some of these 1 frescoes. People 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 I were only boy, when am the second man in all the realm Of course he must not suffer, and if there is famine ill his country-and I hear there is-I will send him some provisions, but I can t take a man from Padanaram and intro
 duce him into this polite Egyptian court. What nuisance it is to have 1 poor relations!"
 Joseph did not say that, but he rush ed out to meet his father with perfect abandon of affection and brought him up l to the palace and introduced him to l the emperor and provided for all the rest of the fathers days, and nothing waas too good for the old man while liv- | ing, and when he was dead Joseph, with military escort, took his father S remains to the family cemetery. Would God all children were as kind to their | parentsl
 The Ingrate and His Fate.
 ! 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 i'll famine, as Joseph found
 Jacob in famine, the young people make
 1t very hard for the old man. They are
 so surprised he cats with a knife in-
 stead of fork. They are chagrined at
 his antediluvian habits. They are pro- vokad 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 thatP' How long he must wear the old coat or the old hat before ! they get him new onel How cha
 grined they are at his independence of ! the English grammar How long he
 hangs onl Seventy years and not gone ! yeti Seventy five years and not gone \
 Will he ever go? They think it of no
 use to have doctor in his last sickness and go up to the drug store and get | something that makes him worse and | economize on coffin and beat the un- I dertaker down to the last point, giving
 a note for the reduced amount which
 they never pay. I have officiated at ob-
 sequies of aged people where the family
 have. been so inordinately resigned to
 Providence that felt like taking my
 text from Proverbs, "The eye that mock
 eth at his father and refuseth to obey ! it's mother, the ravens of the valley
 shall pick it out and the young eagles
 shall eat it. '' In other words, such an
 ingrate ought to have flock of crows
 for pallbearers. I congratulate you if
 you have the honor of providing for