Mother! tender, loving soul! Heaven bless her dear old face! I'd give half my years remaining Just to give her one embrace; Or to shower love-warm kisses On her lips, and cheeks, and brow, And appease this mighty longing That I get so often now!
—Sel.
ONLY SIXTEEN.
Only sixteen, so the papers say,
Yet there on the cold, stony ground he lay;
'Tis the same sad story we hear every day.
He came to his death in the public highway.
Full of promise, talent and pride,
Yet the rum fiend conquered him—so he died.
Did not the angels weep o'er the scene?
For he died a drunkard and only sixteen.
Only sixteen.
Oh! it were sad he must die all alone,
That of all his friends, not even one
Was there to list to his last faint moan,
Or point the suffering soul to the throne
Of grace. If, perchance, God's only Son
Would say, "Whosoever will may come."—
But we hasten to draw a veil over the scene,
With his God we leave him—only sixteen.
Only sixteen.
Rumseller, come view the work you have wrought!
Witness the suffering and pain you have brought
To the poor boy's friends; they loved him well,
And yet you dared the vile beverage to sell
That beclouded his brain, his reason dethroned,
And left him to die out there all alone.
What if 't were your son instead of another?
What if your wife were that poor boy's mother?
And he only sixteen.
Ye freeholders who signed the petition to grant
The license to sell, do you think you will want
That record to meet in the last great day
When heaven and earth shall have passed away,
When the elements melting with fervent heat
Shall proclaim the triumph of right complete?
Will you wish to have his blood on your hands
When before the great throne you each shall stand?
And he only sixteen.
Christian men! rouse ye to stand for the right,
To action and duty; into the light.
Come with your banners inscribed: "Death to rum."
Let your conscience speak, listen, then come;
Strike killing blows; hew to the line;
Make it a felony even to sign
A petition to license; you would do it I ween
If that were your son and he only sixteen,
Only sixteen.
THE DRESS QUESTION.
One day, at Louisville, riding with Mrs. Wheaton to visit the sick prisoners, she said, "Do you think it your duty to rebuke Christians who wear jewelry?" I saw her question was a kindly reproof to me, and said, "If the Lord wants me to give up the jewelry I have, He will show me." "Yes, He will," she answered; "for I am praying for you." The next morning the friend who was entertaining me told me her little eleven-year-old daughter, Emma, just converted, said, "Mamma, I wish you would read to me in the Bible where it says not to wear jewelry." The mother read the verses. Then the child said, "Mamma, if the Lord does not want me to wear jewelry, I don't want to;" and she brought her little pin and ring to her mother. I took my Bible and read, "Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price" (1 Peter ii, 3, 4); and, "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works." (1 Tim. ii, 9, 10.) Then I thought: "The child is right. The Bible means just what it says." Then I recalled that Mrs. Wheaton had told me how she went one day to visit a poor, sick girl, to whom she had talked of the love of Christ until she was almost won. She went again with a wealthy woman, who was decked with diamonds. As they entered the room, the girl pointed to the jewels, and said: "O mother, mother! I have wanted them all my life!" The rich woman tried to hide her diamonds, and Mrs. Wheaton tried to turn the girl's attention again to the Savior, but in vain. Her last thought was of the diamonds, and her last words, "I have wanted them all my life!"