The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1899-04-21
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.OO Per Year.

| Pheasant 10 MS IdSte, anu the uffNIHE
rains that drip through the roof Of the
/ sepulcher are sweeter than the wines of
| Helbon.
There must be harmony between the
! fathers government and the mothers
| government. The father will be tempt
| ed to too great rigor. I7ls mother will
be tempted to too great leniency. Her
! tenderness will overcome her. Her voice
is little softer; her hand seems better
| fitted to pull out thorn and soothe "a
pang. Children wanting anything from
the mother cry for it. They hope to
| dissolve her with tears. But the mother
must not interfere, must not coax off,
must not beg for the child when the
| hour comes for the assertion of parental
supremacy and the subjugation of
a ctiid's temper. There comes in the
history of every child an hour when it
| is tested whether the parents shall rule
or the child shall rule. That is the
| crucial hour. If the child triumphs in
that hour, then he will some day make
| YOU crouch. 1t is horrible scene-I
have witnessed it-a mother come to old
age, shivering with terror in the pres
ence of a son who cursed her gray hairs
and Knocked her wrinkled face and be-
grudged her the crust she munched
| with her toothless gums!
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
But, on the other hand, too great
rigor must be avoided. 1t is a sad thing
when domestic government becomes
cold military despotism. Trappers on
the prairie fight fire with fire, but you
cannot successfully fight your child's
bad temper with your own bad temper.
We must not be too minute in our in
spection. We cannot expect our children
to be perfect. We must not see every
thing. Since we have two or three faults
of our own, we ought not to be too rough
when we discover that our children
have as many. If tradition be true.
when we were children-we were not all
little Samuels, and our parents were
not fearful lest they could not raise us
because ofour premature goodness. You
cannot scold or pound your children in
to nobility of character. The bloom of
child's heart can never be seen under
cold drizzle. Above all, fretting and
and scolding in the household. Better
than ten years of fretting at your chill
dren is one good, round, old-fashioned
application of the slipper! That minis
ter of the gospel of whom we read in
the newspapers that he whipped his
child to death because he would not say
his prayers will never come to canon
ization. The arithmetics cannot calcu-
late how many thousands of children
through too great rigor or too great lem
iency. The heavens and the earth are
filled with the groan of the sacrificed.
In this important matter, seek Divine
direction, o father, D mother!
Further on, thousands and tens of
thousands of the daughters of America
are sacrificed to worldliness. They are
taught to be in sympathy with all the
artificialities of society. They are in
Quoted into all the hollowness of what
is called fashionable life. They are
taught to believe that history is dry,
but that so cent stories of adventurous
love are delicious. With capacity that
might have rivaled a Florence Night
ingale in heavenly ministries or made
the fathers house glad with filial and
sisterly demeanor, their life is waste.
their beauty a curse, their eternity a
demolition.
In the siege of Charleston, during
our civil war, lieutenant of the army
stood on the floor beside the daughter
of the ex-governor of the state of South
Carolina. They were taking the vows
OF marriage. A bombshell struck the
roof, dropped into the group, and nine
were wounded and slain, among the
wounded to death the bride. While the
bridegroom knelt on the carpet trying
to stanch the wounds the bride de-
manded that the ceremony be COM
pleted, that she might take the vows
before her departure, and when the
minister said: "Wilt thou be faithful
unto death?" with her dying lips she
said, Il WILL" and in two hours she had
departed. That was the slaughter and
the sacrifice of the body, but at thou
sands of marriage altars there are
daughters slain for time and slain for
eternity. 1t is not marriage. 1t is a
massacre. Affianced to some one who is
only waiting until his father dies so he
can get the property; then little while
they swing around in the circles, bril-
liant circles; then the property is gone,
and, having no power to earn liveli-
hood, the twain sink into some corner
of society, the husband an idler and a
sot, the wife a drudge, slave and
sacrifie. All, spare your denunciations
from Jephthah's head and expend them
all on this wholesale modern martyr
dom!
lift up my voice against the sacri-
fee of children. l lool; out of my win
dow on Sabbath, and see group of
children unwashed, uncombed, un-
Christianized. Who cares for them?
Who prays for them? Who utters to
them one kind word? When the city
missionary, passing along the park in
New York, saw ragged lad and heard
him swearing, he said to him: MY
son, stop swearing! You ought to go to
the house of God to-day. You ought to
be good. You ought to be a Christian"
The lad looked in his face and said:
"Ah! 1t is easy for you to talk, well
clothed as you are and well fed. But
we chaps hain't got no chance" Who
lifts them to the altar for baptism?
Who goes forth to snatch them up from
crime and death and woe? Who to-day
will go forth and bring them into
schools and churches? No; heap them
up, great piles of rags and wretchedness
and filth. Put underneath them the
fires of sacrifice. stir up the blaze, put
on more fagots, and, while we sit in
the churches with folded arms and in
difference, crime and disease and death