The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1905-04-28

burden or passions plaything.
What woulI Columbia bs if ther,
had teen no Jesus of Nazareth, and il
he had not Iisen from the dead? VIVA
would your life and character be with
out the benign influence of his life anC
character upon the world. and its reflex
influence upon you? Christ gave tC
you a christian mother, and she taught
you the trundle bed prayer of infancy
and into whatever dens of vice you
may have stIayed or been enticed,
those PRAYERS are in your memory yet.
and in hours of deepest trouble, when
friends forsake and foes prosecute you,
those early prayers. learned. at your
mothers Knees. come back TO you and
appeal to the best that is in you left
There IS not a soul so dead In Colum-
bia. but he would live over again, if
he could, the innocent days of his
youth. and there is not one but would
think and hope and promise to live a
different and better life Who would
live in land without chuIchest And
yet better a land without churches
than people who had forgotten the
TT iyers of their childhood and the
lullaties their mothers sang; for church
buildings are but brick and mortar
and can ne buildcd by the hand of
man; but mothers love is divine
and fresh from God, and by it and
through it Gods spirit is working
nightly ter the redemption of the
world. Ard women whose lives men
Inst have destroyed. and men whose
honor has persisted in the same flame
of unhOly desire; men and women who
have lost all else In the world, are yet
not lost to the hope of return to
better living If they have been blessed
with christian mothers and the early
environments of christian homes. And
christ, whose resurrection from the
grave We celebrated Sunday, is the
creator of the christian home. and the
christian community, and the christian
worlI: and without him, none OF
these precious influences could ever
have come into the lives of any Vt
us, the basest OF the best.
SO. 1T is right that the anthems
should be joyous Easter. and that
the churches and all christian homes
should be gaIlanded with flowers. 1t
is the day of all days that the christian
world should rejoice and be glad.
And while we open our hearts to
some tender recollection of what this
Christ. through christian mother
and christian home has done for us,
and under the inspiration of that
8 weet and holy influence may we not
repent the mistakes and sins On the
past, and resolve to follow in his foot
steps in the future the best we can?
May the recollection of some little
prayer. or the memory of voice that
is stilled, OF the odor of an Easter |
flower, or an anthem, or song, break
through some sin-crusted heart in &;
lumbia and let the Christ love come IN.
And may it reach especially into those
d ,rk places in this community where
mans work, half-heaited and poorly
DONE does not reach. May 1t reach
the boys who have lett their christian |
homes of love and plenty, to feed on
the husks with the swine and may it
reach the girls, sinned against and SIN
ming. SO far away from human help;
may the memory of a lullaby or
prayer, of a sweet old face, care worn
and tear-staIned, call them back from
the brink of death and despair, and
remind them that the Christ who died
on cavalry and lose again the third
nay from the grave, came into this
world to save sinners. and that his
pc wei is infinite.