Part 13 (2/2)

There she sits,

THE OLD CHRISTIAN MOTHER,

ripe for heaven. Her eyesight is almost gone, but the splendors of the celestial city kindle up her vision. The gray light of heaven's morn has struck through the gray locks which are folded back over the wrinkled temples. She stoops very much now under the burden of care she used to carry for her children. She sits at home, too old to find her way to the house of G.o.d; but while she sits there, all the past comes back, and the children that forty years ago tripped around her armchair with their griefs and joys and sorrows--those children are gone now. Some caught up into a better realm, where they shall never die, and others out in the broad world, testing the excellency of a Christian mother's discipline. Her last days are full of peace; and calmer and sweeter will her spirit become, until the gates of life shall lift and let in the worn-out pilgrim into eternal springtide and youth, where the limbs never ache, and the eyes never grow dim, and the staff of the exhausted and decrepit pilgrim shall become the palm of the immortal athlete!

THE CHILDREN'S PATRIMONY.

”Whose son art thou, thou young man?”--SAMUEL 17:58.

Never was there a more unequal fight than that between David and Goliath. David five feet high; Goliath ten. David a shepherd boy, brought up amid rural scenes; Goliath a warrior by profession. Goliath a mountain of braggadocia; David a marvel of humility. Goliath armed with an iron spear; David armed with a sling with smooth stones from the brook. But you are not to despise these latter weapons. There was a regiment of slingers in the a.s.syrian army and a regiment of slingers in the Egyptian army, and they made terrible execution, and they could cast a stone with as much precision and force as now can be hurled shot or sh.e.l.l. The Greeks in their army had slingers who would throw leaden plummets inscribed with the irritating words: ”Take this!” So it was a mighty weapon David employed in that famous combat.

A Jewish rabbi says that the probability is that Goliath was in such contempt for David, that in a paroxysm of laughter he threw his head back, and his helmet fell off, and David saw the uncovered forehead, and his opportunity had come, and taking his sling and swinging it around his head two or three times, and aiming at that uncovered forehead, he crushed it in like an egg-sh.e.l.l. The battle over,

BEHOLD A TABLEAU:

King Saul sitting, little David standing, his fingers clutched into the hair of decapitated Goliath. As Saul sees David standing there holding in his hand the ghastly, reeking, staring trophy, evidence of the complete victory over G.o.d's enemies, the king wonders what parentage was honored by such heroism, and in my text he asks David his pedigree: ”Whose son art thou, thou young man?”

The king saw what you and I see, that this question of heredity is a mighty question. The longer I live the more

I BELIEVE IN BLOOD

--good blood, bad blood, proud blood, humble blood, honest blood, thieving blood, heroic blood, cowardly blood. The tendency may skip a generation or two, but it is sure to come out, as in a little child you sometimes see a similarity to a great-grandfather whose picture hangs on the wall. That the physical and mental and moral qualities are inheritable is patent to any one who keeps his eyes open. The similarity is so striking sometimes as to be amusing. Great families, regal or literary, are apt to have the characteristics all down through the generations, and what is more perceptible in such families may be seen on a smaller scale in all families. A thousand years have no power to obliterate the difference.

ROYAL RASCALS.

The large lip of the House of Austria is seen in all the generations, and is called the Hapsburg lip. The House of Stuart always means in all generations cruelty and bigotry and sensuality. Witness Queen of Scotts. Witness Charles I. and Charles II. Witness James I. and James II. and all the other scoundrels of that imperial line.

Scottish blood means persistence, English blood means reverence for the ancient, Welsh blood means religiosity, Danish blood means fondness for the sea, Indian blood means roaming disposition, Celtic blood means fervidity, Roman blood means conquest.

The Jewish facility for acc.u.mulation you may trace clear back to Abraham, of whom the Bible says ”he was rich in silver and gold and cattle,” and to Isaac and Jacob, who had the same

FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS.

Some families are characterized by longevity, and they have a tenacity of life positively Methuselahish. Others are characterized by Goliathian stature, and you can see it for one generation, two generations, five generations, in all the generations. Vigorous theology runs on in the line of the Alexanders. Tragedy runs on in the family of the Kembles. Literature runs on in the line of the Trollopes. Philanthropy runs on in the line of the Wilberforces.

Statesmans.h.i.+p runs on in the line of the Adamses. Henry and Catharine of Navarre religious, all their families religious. The celebrated family of the Casini, all mathematicians. The celebrated family of the Medici--grandfather, son and Catharine--all remarkable for keen intellect. The celebrated family of Gustavus Adolphus, all warriors.

This law of heredity a.s.serts itself without reference to social or political condition, for you sometimes find the ign.o.ble in high place and the honorable in obscure place. A descendant of Edward I. a toll gatherer. A descendant of Edward III. a door-keeper. A descendant of the Duke of Northumberland a trunk-maker. Some of the mightiest families of England are extinct, while some of those most honored in the peerage go back to an ancestry of hard knuckles and rough exterior. This law of heredity entirely independent of social or political condition.

Then you find avarice and jealousy and sensuality and fraud having full swing in some families. The violent temper of Frederick William is the inheritance of Frederick the Great. It is not a theory to be set forth by worldly philosophy only, but by divine authority. Do you not remember how the Bible speaks of ”a chosen generation,” of ”the generation of the righteous,” of ”the generation of vipers,” of an ”untoward generation,” of ”a stubborn generation,” of ”the iniquity of the past visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation?” So that the text comes to-day with the force of a projectile hurled from mightiest catapult: ”Whose son art thou, thou young man?”

”Well,” says some one, ”that theory discharges me from all responsibility. Born of sanctified parents we are bound to be good and we cannot help ourselves. Born of unrighteous parentage we are bound to be evil and we cannot help ourselves.”

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