Omaha daily bee., 1915-09-30


In their education. You hire teachers,
you tax the community, you build public
| schools and get the best money can buy.
You arc concerned with their health.
You will send for the doctor when they
are ~. You work to give them three
meals a day. You will buy them warm
clothes for winter and cool clothes for
summer. You arc concerned for their
health; but, great God. what about their
souls7
I tell you. there are men I'm this town.
there are fathers who arc leading their
boys as straight to hell as that two and
two make four.
rs It well with the child?"
II Twas not Christian do you know
what / would do? / would walk down the
aisle tonight give my heart to Cod and
II 1 had child 1 would 20 home, and IL
it was asleep 1 would get II out Of bed,
wash its face to waken It, and l would
say to 1t:
You never heard your father pray.
want you to hear him pray"
/ would get him on his knees and l
would let that child that bears my name
hear my voice In prayer.
They have heard you cuss, damn, bias
pheme. mock and rail at the preacher and
rdlcule what I have been trying 70 do to
keep YOU out of hell: would let them
hear me pray.
And I tell you, q mothers arms and a
mothers heart are a safe anchorage, and
there are not devils enough In hell to
drag the children out of tnat harbor II
they viii only get in there
us 1t well with the childT'
Listenl In your home there are boys
ana girls destined to rule in church and
state
Publis school teacher. don't simply
think Of the little paltry salary you draw
from the school board at the end of the
month.
You have the grandest. most noble, far
reaching work ever given 10 human be-
ings, the shaping and molding of char
acter. In your classes next week will be
some boy or girl destined to rule in
church or in state.
Upon which side OF their life the in
fluences are thrown will determine what
they will be.
You Wait Too Long. II is Too Late.
Hear me! Some Oliver Cromwell that
will dissolve parliament; some. Davis
Brainerd that will change the Indian
war-whoop into q Sabbath school; some
Beethoven who will touch the worlds
heart strings and make them sing; some
M IS DIX who will soothe the brain of
the crazed; some Clara Barton that will
bind up the battle wounds; some Frances
E. Willard who will arouse the people
to the ravages of the liquor traffic.
Yes, some one. 1 say. destined to rule
in church and In state
Some John Knox. who will make queens
turn pale on their throne; some Martin
Luther who will start a reformation.
Yes, but you wait too long. You wait
until he curses you to your face before
you teach him:
Thou shalt not take the name Of the
Lord thy God in vain.'
You wait until he staggers into your
presence before you teach him:
Look not on the wine when II lie red
You wait until he steals and Is off to
the penitentiary before you teach him:
Thou shalt not steal
You wait until he has robbed some girl
OF her virtue before you teach him:
Thou shalt not commit adultery"
You wait too long.
Lived)Gn Memory of Boyhood.
I want to say to you that one of the
brightest pictures that hangs upon the
walls of my memory Is the recollection
Of the days when as a little boy out in
the log cabin on the frontier OF Iowa I
knelt by mothers side.
/ went back to the old farm some years
ago to bury my brother. The first bury
ing ground in that section Of the state
was on the old farm.
The scenes had changed about the
place. Faces had known and loved had
long since turned to dust.
Fingers that used to turn the pages Of
the Bible were obliterated and the old
trees beneath which we boys used to play
and swing had been felled by the woods
mans axe.
l stood and thought. The man became