St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-11-26

SnOulu speak out upon tneSc tncIHcS.
My first counsel to you is, have God
in your new home, if it be a new home;
and let Him who was a guest at
Bethany be in your households; let
the Divine blessing drop upon your
every hope and plan of expectation.
Those young people who begin with
God end with Heaven Have on your
right hand the engagement ring OF the
Divine affection. If one of you be
Christian, let that one take the Bible
and read a few verses in the evening
time, and then kneel down and COM
mend yourselves to Him who setteth
the solitary i'm families. want to tell
you that the destroying angel passes
by without touching or entering the
door-post sprinkled with blood OF the
everlasting covenant. Why is it that
in some families they never get along,
and in others they always get along
well? / have watched such cases, and
have come to a conclusion. In the
first instance, nothing seemed to go
pleasantly, and after awhile there
came devastation, domestic disaster,
or estrangement. Why? They start
ed wrong. In the other case, although
there were hardships and trials and
some things that had to be explained.
still things went on pleasantly until
the very last. Why? They started
right.
My second advice to you in your
home is. to exercise to the very last
possibility of your nature the law of
forbearance. Prayers in the house
hold will make up for everything Some
of the best people in the world are the
hardest to get along with. There are
people who stand up in prayer-meet-
ings and pray like angels, who at
home are uncompromising and
cranky. You may not have every
thing just as you want it. Sometimes
it will be the duty of the husband and
sometimes of the wife to yield; but
both stand punctiliously on your
rights, and you will have Waterloo
with no Blucher coming up at night
fall to decide the conflict.
Never be ashamed to apologize when
YOU have done wrong in domestic af-
fairs. Let that be the law of your
household. The best thing / ever
heard of my grandfather, whom /
never saw, was this: That once, hav-
ing unrighteously rebuked one of his
-hs,ara. he himself having lost his
patience. anu. essaps. pe1ss.aps. having been
misinformed of the child's dongs,
found out his. mistake, and in the
evening of the same day gathered all
his family together and said: Now,
/ have one explanation to make, and
one thing to say. Thomas, this morn
ing rebuked you very unfairly. / am
very sorry for it. i rebuked you in
the presence of the whole family, and
now l ask your forgiveness in their
presence" 1t must have taken some
courage to do that. 1t was right, was
it not? Never be ashamed to apollo
gize for domestic inaccuracy. Find
out the points, what are the weak
points, if / may call them so of your
companion, and then stand aloof from
them. Do not carry the fire of your
temper too near the gunpowder. If
the wife be easily fretted by disorder
in the household, let the husband be
careful where he throws his slippers.
If the husband come home from the
store with his patience exhausted, do
not let the wife unnecessarily cross
his temper; but both stand up for
your rights, and ] will promise the
everlasting sound of the war-whoop.
Your life will be spent in making up,
and marriage will be to you an un-
mitigated curse. Cowper said:
The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something. every day they live.
To pity. and perhaps forgive.
1 advise, also, that you make your
chief pleasure circle around about
that home. 1t is unfortunate when it
is otherwise. If the husband spend
the most of his nights away from
home, of choice, and not of necessity,
he is not the head of the households;
he is only the cashier. If the wife
throw the cares of the household into
the servants lip, and then spend five
nights of the week at the opera or
theater. she may clothe her children
with satins and laces and ribbons that
would confound French milliner, but
they are orphans. 1t is sad when
child has no one to say it's prayers to
because mother has gone off to the
evening entertainment! In India they
bring children and throw them to the
and it seems very cruel;
but the jaws of social dissipation are
down more little children
to-day than all the monsters that ever
crawled upon the banks of the Ganges!
l have seen the sorrow of a goddess
mother on the death Of child she had
neglected. 1t was not so much grief
that she felt from the fact that the
child was dead as the fact that she had
neglected II. She said: IF had only
over and cared for the child,
l know God would not have taken it."
The tears came not; it was a dry,
tempcst-a scorching 81
moon of the desert. When she wrung
her hands it seemed as if she woulc
twist her fingers from their sockets;
when she seized her hair, it seemed ~
If she had, in wild terror, grasped . i
cciIing serpent with her right hand.
No tears! Comrades of the little one
came in and wept over the coffin;
neighbors came in and the moment
they saw the still face of the child the
shower broke. No tears for her. God
gives tears as the summer rain to the
parched soul; but in all the universe
the driest and hottest, the most scorch-
i'.g and consuming thing is mothers
heart if she has neglected her child,
when once it is dead. God may for
give her, but she will never forgive her
self. The memory will sink the eyes
deeper into the sockets, and pinch the
face. and whiten the hair, and eat up
the heart with vultures that will not
be satisfied, forever plunging deeper
their iron beaks. Oh, you wanderers
from your home, go back to your
duty! The brightest flowers in all the
earth are those which grow in the
garden of Christian household, ciam-
bering over the porch Of . Christian
home