Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-04-11
w. c. T. u. COLUMN.
NJ otto: sGod and Home and Native Land
LESSONS FROM OUR FAST DA Y
PROCLAMATION.

Mrs. Joseph Owen and read at the
union services held at the M. B..
church, Sunday evening, April 3: ;
His Excellency, our Governor, has
asked us to urge the necessity Of OBJ
servance of law as requirement of
good government, and a higher re-
gard for temperance, purity and
home, the heavenly trinities.
The word Home, with which our
good Governor caps his climax, is to
me of first Importance.
Home, in it's dearest and hottest
the gospel of love has opened the
spiritual sight and taught the in
dividual responsibility of every hu-
man soul. China dates her civiliza-
ton far back of any other known
records, but with her myriad super
stitions, ancestral worship, her En-
peror, the "Son of Heaven" she has
evolved no better word for home
than that expressed by two char
acters, one meaning alone a pig, and
other placed over it meaning roof
or shelter, hence in English pig
sty. What wonder that today the
nations are tearing away her boun-
daries as ropes of sand without an
armed protest by her people. France,
beautiful, polite, gay and charming,
has for home, ala -1adisor, the house,
which accounts for their loose social
relations.
The family is the unit in all social
and political problems and every
member fraction Of that unit, and
the aggregation of units makes the
sum total In all mathematical and
scientific calculation, distance, weight,
fluid or solid, that unit of measure or
weight must be defined. Many
subtitle and laborious calculation has
failed because the unit or fraction of
a unit has been wrong.
Let us briefly consider the unit of
family life in relation to some things
that bring confusion and ruin through
all the chain of human relationships.
We are naturally impatient of re-
straint, therefore obedience to wise
parental authority must be mildly
but firmly insisted upon. I believe as
a help to weak and impotent family
restraint, the curfew law in our vii
lagos and cities would be beneficial.
Well governed families make peace
full, orderlo loving, law abiding citizens
of state and nation.
Purity in thought and action must
be carefully taught in the home.
Natural curiosity as to the mysteries
of life must be delicately met and
answered, SO the purity of the home
life will be an inspiration and pro-
lection in maturer years. Never al
low the pure, innocent page of child
hood to be soiled forever by obscene
books Or pictures. 1 knew a mother
who used to laugh when profane and
vulgar words slipped $50 cunningly"
from baby lips. Is it any wonder that
her boy grew up profane and wicked,
Oh, fathers and mothers, guard care
fully the young, innocent lives in
trusted to your care; teach them only
the sweet and pure, that they may
retain their purity, even though
obliged to mingle with the impure
and vicious. Like pure, sweet water
seen sometimes gliding with swift
current through muddy pool, un-
contaminated.
Would there were no need of urg-
ing the Importance of temperance in
the home. If mothers were the only
home keepers it would seem useless.
Yet there are many thOughtless
mothers who do not fully understand
the measure of their privilege and
usefulness. Sometimes we see cider
instead of water placed beside the
children's plate at the table. A little
"hot sling" administered for a cold or
collie, soothing syrups, and other
quieting nostrums administered with
out the least thought of the terrible
effect upon brain and nerve. I have
had frequent conversations with a
woman who insisted that ''all smart
men drink,'' and that the leading men
of the city in which we lived were
not examples of chaste living. Their
evening amusements were games Of
cards and cider a common drink. Is
it strange that her eldest son was a
gambler and sot. The younger son
and daughter died early, the latter
with a furnished name. Fathers and
mothers, your words before your
children, in the home, on the street,
in the shop or store, are either like
apples of gold in pictures of silver, or