The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-08-07

TO the great reunion ana WAS on MS
way back. to Mississippi. Il stopped
over a day TO see YOU" he said, land tol
revisit the place where | was born, but |
couldn't find it and am very tired, for |
have been tramping over the hills and
valleys above here nearly all day" The
old man famed himself with his hat and
looked sad and disappointed. | learned
from him that he was born somewhere
between here and old Cassville, and his
mother boarded some of the hands who
were 1T work building the State rail-
road. and there was a spring not far
from their humble home. Il thought"
said he, ''tliat | could find the spring and
the branch and the walnut tree and
blackberry patch, but | walked and
walked and nothing looked natural.
Seemed to me that everything has
changed and shrunk up. The hills have
washed down and the branches nearly
dried up and nobody could tell me any
thing. You see, we left here away back
i'll the. forties, when | was lad, and
there is new set of people, but
thought I would find somebody or some
thing that | remembered" The old man
looked away off and sighed. OF course.
we were sorry for him, and tried tot
cheer him up. / asked him about the
IIoopers and Trips and Akin and
Underwood and Latimers and Arthur
Hare, but he didn't remember them. He
was Il poor boy and mixed with poor
boys and they had grown up and gone
west too How the old people do yearn
for the friends and the scenes of their
youth. After fifty years absence from
his native State, Judge Warner, our
honored chief justice, had this yearning
to come over him and he, too, revisited
his boyhood's home in Massachusetts.
He went with fond expectation and
came back sad and disappointed. "My|
relatives were all dead or gone away
he said Il found but one man who re-
membered me, and he was blind and in
the poorhouse. The hills where l used
to pick blueberries had been cleared and
were not so large or so high. The little
branches where | fshed for minnOws
had all been dtched and were bridged
where they crossed the highways.
Everything was strange and | took no
comfort and have come back to good,
old Georgia, my adopted mother, and
here l will stay until | die and | wish
to be buried in her friendly BOSOM"
Life seems to be but circle, and we
would all go back to the starting point
il we could. The startled hare when
pursued by the hounds speeds straight
forward for Il time, but after mile or
two begins to bend its course, and keeps
on curving until it comes painting on
the home stretch to its familiar nesting
place. And the pioneers tell us that
when a hunter gets lost in the forest on
Il cloudy day and tries to make Il bee
line for home, he makes Il curve I'M
consciously and gets back to his starting
point. Shakespeare says that old age is
but second childhood. and so the older
we grow the more affection we have for
children and their innocent sports and
pleasures. How fondly our minds and
memories live over again the little plays
of blind mans buff, milybright, hide and
seek, trimble-toe. club-fst, hide the
switch, craney crow and many others.
How we admire their happy laughs and
glowing faces as we draw near to them
now No wonder that George Francis
Train in his gloomy moods wandered to
the park and drew as many children to
him as he could and played with them
on the lawn.
But time shrinks more than nature.
The world is not so big nor the trees so
high as when we were children; but Il
year is not half 50 long-nOt Il tenth part
so long-as it used to be. The days
were never too long then, for they were
happy; but it seemed like lifetime from
Christmas to Christmas. Children are
the sweetest part of this great big world.
Not long ago a cynical friend who has
none said they were an expensive luxury;
so they are-eXpensive not only in money
and labor and toll but in anxious care;
but they repay it in love a thousand fold.
They are the life and comfort of every
good family. What would the world be
without them? Suppose they were all
grown up and there were no more to
come-no day schools nor Sunday schools
no playhouses or toys or picture books
no babies learning to talk and say
mamma or grandpa-no little chaps to
follow you about and love you, and, the
saddest of all, no more mothers to fondle
and caress and hug them to their bos-
oms What Il cold and dismal world this
would be-no mothers. no fathers, no
grandmas. no nothing but grown-up peo-
pie who never played horse or sang a
lullaby song.
make no return except in filial duty and
no recOmpense but affection. Well that
is enough. Parents do not ask any more.
The love and obedience of Il good child is
beyond price. The disobedience and in
gratitude of bad one is the most in
tense of all miseries. There is not a
greater contrast upon earth than in the
JOY op the sorrow that children bring to
parents From the time of old Eli until
now this contrast has been going on.
That poor old man had the curse of
God upon him because his children were
vile and he restrained them not. | tell
you, young friends, who have mated and
married and are rearing children, you
had better read and ponder the story OIL
old Eli. The first commandment says:
Il will visit the sins of the fathers upon
the children" but in this story the Lord
visited the sins of the children upon the
parent. The old man was cursed and
the priesthood taken from his house for
ever. What if all the preachers whol
have bad children were deposed in these
days? How many churches would be
closed against the married clergy?l
Wouldn't the young theologians be inl