Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1875 — To Fathers. [ARTICLE]

To Fathers.

“ Now, do you feel any better?” The question was irritably put, and it roused me from a pleasant reverie as I sat in a street-car. The man had looked up from his newspaper to address his little boy, who had committed the very simple offense of asking to have the corner seat, that he might kneel upon the cushion and look for amusement in both directions. He was a delicate, pretty littje feilow of six years old. 1 did not like the parent’s tone toward Him. That and the words indicated a lack of sympathy. However simple and apparently unimportant a child’s innocent desires, the impulses of the true heart of father or mother should be to grant vbein. if proper, with delight. And more than this, the parent should enter with zest into whatever interests the little one. It scarcely seems possible to me that it can be otherwise w ith those who have received the blessed , gift of little children. lam only taught the fact by painful exhibitions like that in the street-car. i The tiny heart was obviously wounded. | The visions outside the window lost half their beauty, and the boy looked furtively now and then lather to see if ihe were vexed or angry. The man had ! forgotten it in a moment anaburiedhim§elf in the news of the day; but I shall remember it alw>ys. Happily the little children are iorgi’ving. , They do not hold in their pure hearts any revenge or malice. They have the sweet faith that trusts again and again, even after repeated experience of evil and unkindness. Can we not oftener put otmelves in the place of the little ones and so make their trifling pleasure a thing of consequence? It is so beautiful to see a strong man stooping to wklk with his tottering babe and bioking bubbles with him w ith as much eagerness as he would build a city. Let us feel that the shaping of .the little soul depends upon what mav seem to us tile very smallest things. We ought to Earn more from the Great Father who has so condescended to us.— -Adtocaieand fiuardian. Put hard sand instead of ashes on slippery sidewalks. /