The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-08-13

/, same way, cannot / trace back my spir-
| tual nature and those higher yearnings
after the better and nobler life and my
/ holier desires-trace them back generation
| after generation to some remote progen-
itor? Why cannot 1 hear that far off voice
pleading with me to be good and true :?
| Jack Londons noble ST. Bernard dog
heard THE Call of the Wild pleading
; with him to become a wolfsh king, to
! lead on his hungry pack to destroy the
elk or the moose caught in the northern
' SHOWS Ny friends. We too may hear
the strange ancestral voices within u.s.
We know that the voices of our Chris
tian forefathers and foremothers, per-
| haps a hundred years dead, are now call
ing to us to live the Christ life and to
walk with God. Voices, myriads of
| voices demoniacal, ancestral voice
which call up as well as evil voices
which call us down.
| AS we place the palms of our hands
as sounding boards back of our ears
we may hear other strange voices call
| ing us to the higher state. At first we
cannot make out what these voices are.
| We are In doubt whether we are listening
! to silence itself or to voices crying from
| long distance We are in doubt, just
| as we used to be when, as boys, we
would our ears close to the railroad
| track to hear the rumbling OF the oncom-
| ing train. At first we would hear a
| faint murmur, the hum of the rail, but
| the train would come nearer and the
/ rumbling would grow louder and louder.
| So, when we place our ear close to the
side of the cradle, we seem to hear the
| voices of childhood days, the parental
voices of the old homestead 1.-The Call
| of the Good" How long, how very long
ago. in childhood days, those voices first
J sounded
Calls to the Higer Life.
| How many years back can you remem-
Der those voices of childhood? "Oh,"
| you answer II can remember back
twenty, thirty, forty years ago. I can
/ remember clear back to the time when I
was five years of age. l remember
| when my father sold his farm and went
to town and became storekeeper. We
| had a big yellow cat on that farm.
which was my playmate. l wanted to
| take that cat along to town. but mother
would not let me. When all the chldr en-,
| of whom / was the youngest. were piled
! into the wagon to leave the old house.
/ l cried so hard that mother at last re-
F, Tented and said could take the cat
F, remember how 1 held that cat in my
arms and carried her to our city house.
What. cannot you remember farther back
! than that? Oh. yes, you can, my brother.
1 think today you can hear strange
Voices of the Good calling you to the
better life, which were whispered in
prayer over your cradle. Perhaps today
| you can hear parental voices, pleading
with you for the better life. which were
whispered over you on the day after you
| were born.
| Many years ago when the Massachu-
sets hills were covered with forests and
| in the dark recesses Of the woods the
| smoke from the Indian wigwams was
| seen by the pilgrim colonists three lit
! tie white children were stolen away.
| searching party after searching party
went forth, but the lost could not be
| found. Many years after there came a
rumor to the coast that three young
maidens were living with an Indian tribe
| in the interior Of the state The father
and mother of one of these stolen chill
dren went to this tribe. but when they
arrived there they could not tell their
maiden Their daughter was stolen
when a baby; now she was a grown girl
Finally the mother sat down under a
tree and began to sing the old lullaby
with which she used to Groom her darling
to sleep. No sooner did the mother begin
to sing that lullaby than one of the
young girls stopped in her work to listen
Then she crept up nearer and nearer to
the singing woman. Then with bound
she ran and placed her head in the white
woman's lap and in the Indian dialect
sobbed "Motherl Ny motherl Ny lost
and found mother!'' All. yes, 1t was the
voice of the cradle that called her to her
mothers side. And 30 today you and