The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1908-07-23

Like a NlOthcr s Love ana
Fathers Deovtion.
The following article was written
by the late Rev. Sam p. Jones and
published i'm the Atlanta Journal
some time before his death. There
was what he called an epidemic of
runaway boys about that time.
Scarcely a day passes,' he wrote,
but what we read about boys and
young men running away from home,
and no tidings OF their whereabouts
come back to parents and loved
ones" With Il heart full of love for
the thoughtless, wayward, wandering
boys who leave home and it's infiu-
ences without so much as acquaint-
ing father or mother with their
whereabouts, or whether living or
dead, and yearning to bring them to
a sense of their wrong doing, the
great evangelist wrote this article
telling something of mothers
love and a fathers devotion, and
begging the wanderer to return or at
least write q letter to the folks at
home and let them know how goes
the world with him.
The article has been kept by Mr.
T. Y. Hale, of North Henderson, who
is a great admirer of the noted
preacher-author, and he hands it to
the GOLD LEAF with request to pub
lish, which it does with pleasure.
Omitting the preliminary or intro
ductory part which is partially in-
cluded i'm the above, it is as follows:
The great trouble with boys is the
fact that they don't think. In the
first place, the closer a boy can be
and the closer lie lives under the
shadow of a good mother the better
it is fer him. The home roof is the
best covering and the best shield that
boy can know in this world. The
literature of the day is largely re-
sponsible for this craze on the part
of boys and young men to leave
home and wander up and down
through the earth. l suppose no
boy has left good home, a good
mother end father, but what
thoughts of home and friends occur
eyerand anon to him. At might time,
wherever he pillows his head he must
think of mother at home; but he
doesn't realize how mother and father
suffer because of the absent boy. /
hope these lines may fall under the
eyes OF many wandering boys, and if
they refuse to come back to their
homes. they will sit down and write
to mother and father, or to brother
and sister. They need not say where
they are, but let their loved ones
know they are well and how they are
getting along. How many thousand
mothers have been made to utter
the sad pathetic words: Where is
my wandering boy tonight? Go
search for him where you will and
bring him to me with all his blight
and tell him l love him STILL" A
mothers's love and fathers devo-
tion are as long as all eternity.
Broader than this world, and there
is no land SO distant, no pathway 50
cold but what mothers feet would
tread that way, a fathers weary ef-
forts.would lead that way until they
came i'm the presence of the one who
, wandered off. A good boy can do
much better at his own home and in
the community in which he is raised
than he can do anywhere else on
earth. A bad doy can do we'll no
where. Latitude and longitude and
geographical position does not de.
termine the well doing of fellow.
Character alone settles the question
with him.
The Judge of our circuit court re-
lated the following incident to me d
few days ago: Eight or ten boys
were indicted in his court as railroad
tramps for riding trains, every one
Of whom were strangers to him and
from different towns and States oi
the Union. They were convicted and
he simply sentenced them to- pay the
cost or to three months imprison-
! ment. None of them could pay tbeiI
fine and all went to the chain-gang
Some of them have broken down il
their prison life and have written te
I their parents at home of their condi
! tion and their parents sent ths
money to- pay their fines aud bring
them home. One of them, the son o
a poor widow, who earned the moue,
to pay her boy s fine ut the wash tub
One of those boys lived in the Stat.
of tennessee, one in the city of At
laBta, OF respectable family, anothe
one in North Carolina. The other,
are still III the chain-gaBg, some o
them, perhaps, have no parents Il
! whom they can write Or friends WHIT
viii come to their relief, and other
perhaps are too stubborn and prou,