What must be the anguish of that wretch who has brought
infamy upon it; how painful must be every recollection of it, when in the
distance of years and of space, from its scenes and its loved ones, his
remembrance hails them with its burning tear.
"I am far from the home that gave me birth,
A blight is on my name;
It only brings to my father's hearth
The memory of shame;
Yet, oh! do they think of me to-day,
The loved ones lingering there;
Do they think of the outcast far away,
And breathe for me a prayer?
That early home I shall see no more,
And I wish not there to go,
For the happy past may nought restore--
The future is but woe.
But 'twould be a balm to my heavy heart
Upon its dreary way,
If I could think I have a part
In the prayers of home to-day!"
Every thing within the memory of home will question our hearts whether we
have been faithful to her parental ministry. Every cherished association;
every remembered object, and even the old scenes and objects around the
homestead, will challenge our faithfulness. The trees under whose shade we
frolicked and of whose fruit we ate; the streams that meandered through the
meadow; the hills and groves over which we gamboled in the sunny days of
childhood; the old oaken bucket and the old ancestral walls that yet stand
as monuments of the past,--these will all question your fidelity to the
training you received in their midst; and oh, if they assume, in the courts
of memory, the attitude of witnesses against you; if nursery recollections
speak of forgotten prayers and abandoned habits, what a deep and painful
sense of guilt and ingratitude will this testimony develop in your bosom,
and
"Darken'd and troubled you'll come at last,
To the home of your boyish glee.
Pages:
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334