Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-02-27

turn the blinds the wrong way. Let
the light which puts gold on the gen
tian ard spots the pansy. pour into
your dwellings, Do not expect the lit
tie feet to keep step to dead march
Do not cover up your walls with such
pictures as Vests "Death on a Pale
| Horse" or Tintoretto's Massacre Of
the Innocents Rather cover them, if
you have pictures, with ''The Hawking
Party" and 1.-The Mill by the Noun
tain Stream, and ''The Fox Hunt, >
and the ''Children Amid Flowers, " and
the Harvest Scene" and HThe Satur-
day Night Marketing. Get you no
hint of cheerfulness from grasshopper'
leap and lambs frisk and quail's whis-
tie and garrulous streamlet which from
the rock at the mountain top clear down
to the meadow ferns under the shadow
of the steep comes looking to see where
it can find the steepest place to leap OH
at and talking just to hear itself talk2
IF all the skies hurtled with tempest
and everlasting storm wandered over
the sea and every mountain stream
were raving mad. frothing at the mouth
with mud foam, and there were moth
ing but simooms blowing among the
hills and there were neither lark's
carol nor humming birds trill nor wa
terfall's dash. but only bears bark and
panther's scream and wolf s howl, then
you might well gather into your homes
only the shadows But when God has
strewn the earth and the heavens with
beauty and with gladness let US take
into our home circles all innocent hilar
ity. all brightness and all good cheer.
A dark home makes bad boys and bad
girls in preparation for bad men and
bad women.
Above all, my friends take into your
homes Christian principle Can it be
that in any of the comfortable homes
whose inmates / confront the voice Of
prayer is never lifted? What No sup
plication at night for protection What!
No Thanksgiving in the morning for
care? How, my brother, my sister, will
you answer God in the day of judg-
ment with reference to your children2
It is a plain question, and therefore l
ask it In the tenth chapter of jeremiah
God says he will pour out his fury upon
the families that call not upon his
name. Oh, parents, when you are dead
and gone and the moss IS covering the
inscription of the tombstone, will your
children look back and think of father
and mother at family prayer? Will
they take the old family Bible and open
it and see the mark of tears CT contri-
ton and tears of consoling promise
wept by eyes long before gone out into
darkness? Oh. if you do not inculcate
Christian principle in the hearts of
your children, and you do not warn
them against evil, and you do not in
vite them to holiness and to God. and
they wander off into dissipation and
into infdelity, and at last make ship
wreck of their immortal soul. on their
deathbed and IN the day Of judgment
they will curse youl
Early RecoIIectiGns.
Seated by the register or the stove,
what if on the wall should come out
the history of your children! What a
history-the mortal and immortal life
of your loved onesl Every parent is
writing the history of his child He is
writing it. composing it into song or
pointing it with groan.
My mind runs back to one of the best
of early homes. Prayer like roof over
it Peach like an atmosphere in it
Parents personifcations of faith in
trial and comfort in darkness. The two
pillars of that earthly home long crum-
bled to dust. But shall l ever forget
that early homer Yes when the flower
forgets the sun that warmed it. Yes,
when the mariner forgets the star that
guided him Yes, when love has gone
out on the hearts altar and memory
has emptied it's urn into forgetfulness.
Then, the home of my childhood, | will
forget thee. The family altar of ia
theirs importantly and mothers ten
derness. the voices of affection, the fu-
neral of our dead. the father and moth
er with interlocked arms like intertwin-
ing branches of trees making a per-
petual arbor of love and peace and kind
ness Then I will forget thee-then.
and only then You know. my brother.
that hundred times you have been
kept out of sin by the memory of such
a scene as have been describing. You
have often had raging temptations, but
you know what has held you with su-
pernatural grasp. I tell you man who
has had such good home as that never
gets over it, and a man who has had a
bad early home never gets over it
Again, home is a type of heaven. At
our best estate we are only pilgrims
and strangers here Heaven is our
home" Death will never knock at the
door of that mansion, and in all that
country there is not single grave
How glad parents are in the holidays
to gather their children home againl
But have noticed that there is almost
always a son or q daughter absent
absent from home. perhaps absent from
the country. perhaps absent from the
world Oh, how glad our Heavenly Fa-