Year: 1873




tune through future years, is plant of


native growth i'll the human mind. We
need no prompter to awaken conjecture


concerning the changes which lie in re-


serve for ourselves the thorns or the


flowers which are springing IL the path


yet to be trodden by us the gall of the


honey which may De distilling in the


cup prepared for our lips. Where shall


we be in the days to come? What shall


we be? These are questions which


leave no bosom unvisited none I'm


thrilled to its core. And when We re-


is full of trouble, when the long train


of human af1lictien passes like funeral
procession before our aching sight, it
requires all the sanction of Divine au-
thority to ep alive within us a mind
fulness of the injunction, "Take no
though" anxious, distrustful,
worldly thought-"for the morrow :"
for the fate which may be on its wings
for us.


But there are other inquiries with re-
spect to future years which strike the
soul with a still keener edge which lay
hold upon the entire inner man and
shake it like an earthquake. We mean



tudes-thOse yearnings and question
ings-those anxieties to lift the veil of
coming time, which parents know when
they forecast the history of their off
spring; il rela ion to each one as was
asked in relation to JOHN the Baptist,
"What mann T of chi 4 shall this be 2"
The dependence of children, during
their early years, upon our vigilant
off
ping-physical weakness Their lack of
mental furniture-their inexperienoe-
the budding of their passions and their
faults from the very frst-these soft, II
the bosom to a tenderer pity, and stir
it to an intenser fearfulness, than is felt
either by manhood or womanhood, in
view of its own exposure to evil. And
how appalling is the prospect of send
ing these forth into the battle of life;
it may be without sword or shield, or
fitness for the use of either; to fall, per-
chance, at the first volley, or to be so
wounded as to carry the scar and the
manning through all after years How
keen the torture to sensi. i've parental
love, when such likelihoods, or at least
such possibilities, are taken into asso-
citation with the future of our sons, and
still more with the future of our daugh-
ters!


Ii parents confne their thoughts
within the narrow sphere of temporal
and earthly things, they have much
cause for anxiety on account of their
children. What may not these children
be destined to endure? Their health
may be utterly impaired, and they con-
strained to drag the slow length of years
along, as shattered, dropping invalids
By sudden eclipse may the sun of their
good name be darkened, and shine nev-
er more through the thick clouds which
gather over it. The fraud of others or
their own improvideuce may plunge
them into the depths of abject poverty /;
may steep them to the eyebrows in that
miry slough. The lamp of reason may
be quenched within them, and the night
of insanity spread its rayless gloom
the soul the storms which
burst upon life's sea may drive their
barks apart from all friendship and kim
may make them solitary voy- |
ayers, with no kindly sail in sight, ear
nestly as the eye may sweep the horizon |
in search of one, only one. Nay, all |
these evils may swarm angrily about |
them all pierce their hearts with their |
poisonous and painful stings. 1t was |
by too much dwelling on these thoughts
that the ancient Scythians were led to
greet every child, at it's entrance irtO |
the world, with sadness and tears
Looking only at mans mortal existence, |
looking chiefly at the ills through which
this existence takes its toilsome and |
hazard, us way, a birth was to them
what funeral is to us--a time of house
hold mourning. And though there was
of unwise excess in this Gus
tom, it savors more of wisdom than the |
stony heedlessness and heartlessness
with which many parents, false to ma
ture, disregard the exposure of their
children to earthly affliction.


But let parents enlarge their sphere
Of thought. Let them unfold the rela-
tion which their children bear to spirit
nal and eternal things. The subject
thus expanded takes to its coloring
deeper shade. A sharper thunder peals,
a redder lightning leaps aud flares along
the sky. Far weightier peals than any
which concern this life alone are soon
to lower around the path of our chill
lren. How obdurately may inborn sin
fulness refuse all cure, and shut the
door against the souls physician, and
cling to its disease till it perishes in the
'' chamber of death p How may inf
1elity build up large Bastileof doubts
and evils, and lock the mind in there,
until through the long Imprisonment,
hat mind loves the dungeon and the
dungeons darkness better than the
light and freedom of the truth! How
nav vice sing the sweetness of its sto-
en- waters, and smile with smiles of
,aint seeming but of treachery, and
sparkle with false luster and lure the
,oul on, "as an OK goeth to the slaugh-
5er, as a bird hasteth to the snare, and
not that is for his life How
may unbelief, in milder and more repu-
sable forms than these, by slow and GER
,ain petrifaction change the heart from