The Newtown bee., 1898-05-06

Lh to them that they are out of fashion, not in style, not in line with the present way of doing things, is feeling on par Sith that shown by Rehoboam to the old men who offered him counsel.
 This feeling is breaking out of the spirit of irreverence, which, 8 character istic of any age, is peculiar characteris tic of our age. Irreverence has many forms, and that which is manifested by the young toward the old is only one of its forms. We do not have the respect to-day for old age that once it claimed. There was a time when simply because one was old he was respected; it is now far too true that simply because one is old respect is not shown him. In too many homes 'the old man" and "the old woman" are sobriquets for those who ought ever to stand for all that Is best in the names father and mother. Once the minister gained reverence through his broadcloth and white tie. The cloth in itself to-day wins reverence from very few. The aged minister especially was ONCE THE PATRON SAINT OF THE TOWN. great and grand, and his word had more weight than the decision of the court. To-day the minister advanced in years is fortunate if the children do not say to him as they said, so it is recorded, to 8 prophet of old: "Go up, thou bald haad S3 I fn ho Sya life of Jonathan Edwards, the great New England divine, how the cup that he drank from at meals was of silver, es- pecially chased and heavy, while the cups of his children were of some com mon material, that thus the fathers dignity might be emphasized. Perhaps that way of teaching dignity had its faults, bat am afraid that there is little teaching along that line to-day. The lad just home from the preparatory school thinks his father old-fogy because he cannot cODjugate "amo" or does not know the paradigm of the Greek verb the miss just home from the young ladies' seminary thinks her mother ex- cessively plain because she IS 80 absorb ed in her household work. It is nothing rare for the young collegian to laugh at his mothers slips in grammar or her failures to give the latest pronunciation, on which latter thing, it seems to me, the most learned disagree. Show me the way in which the young man treats his mother, and 1 will tell you whether that young man is fit for your employ.
 This Is not an age of reverence, and America is not land where there is much lowing of the head or prostration of the knee. A shrewd observer of American ways has said: 'In England men look up and look down; in America men neither look up or look down; they look off," If, perchance, in this land for little while we do look up, it is only to see how few are our superiors and to think how it will only be matter of few months, or, at worst, of few years, before we ourselves shall have changed places with them. And if, per- chance, in this land we do for little while 1 look down, it is only to see how many l are beneath us and to congratulate our. selves on being 80 near the top. Why is l this SOP lean conceive of many reasons the suggestion of few will answer our l purpose.
 One reason is because in America i nothing ls old. There is food for thought | in the fact that we call the land on this side of the water the 'tNew World" and | the land on the other side of the watef the "Old World" It is not so far to 20 | back, in tracing one's ancestry, to the little band that came over in the May. | flower as it is to the time of William the Conqueror. It was said, in reference to the friendly note recently given to our President by representatives of the six great European Powers, that this was the first time such thing had occurred In our country in 122 years. There are many first timesn in America that we are crossing the border-line of things even now. Across the sea to-day we sail down the storied Rhine and look up- 0n castles whose hoary ruin speaks to us 1f the brave warrior knight of many cen ;uries ago. In Chester, England, we gaze on the wall that was built by the Romans when they first invaded the sland. In the External City, where Past and Present meet and THEMSELVES INTO 4 SPLENDID
 FRABRIC, ve stand meath the dome Of the Pan-
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