TRIBUTE TO HIS FATHER.

(Written about four years after the death of his father, Rev. Joseph William

I

Wallace.)

HAVE carried with me through life and I could not rid myself of it if I would-the image of a man who told the simple story of the Cross for sixty-one years. He is my ideal-an ideal I shall never reach.

This man was graduated regularly from Center College, Kentucky, and from the Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey. He was connected for many years with the Southern General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and was regarded as one of its ablest theologians. But the triumph of worldly fame had no music for him. He reached the height of his ambition, which was to lead a quiet, useful life on a farm, to bring to manhood there his five sons, to work in his fields during the week and preach the Gospel on Sunday. He preached to the congregation of one community nearly fifty years, and a neat church edifice now bears his name in Eastern Jackson County. He never missed an appointment. Neither heat nor cold, nor rain nor snow, nor storm nor blizzard ever detained him. For many years during the latter part of his life he lived twenty-five miles from his church, and even after he was far beyond his three score and ten he would mount his horse and make his appointment, with the thermometer below zero. Of almost giant frame he was as tender as a woman. He wept with the sick, the distressed and the suffering, and I have seen the big tears roll down his cheeks while listening to the preaching of others. Modest and unobtrusive, he had his convictions and did not hesitate to express them. Though not assuming to claim kinship with him, he possessed a goodly measure of the intrepid courage of that Scottish chief whose name he humbly bore. Much of his life was full of hardship and peril. He passed through the horrors of the border warfare in Western Missouri, and was mistreated until it often appeared that death was immediately impending, but if he was ever frightened, neither friend nor foe detected the least evidence of it. He was never engaged in a quarrel. When reviled he reviled not again.

He was a man of prayer. Twice every day day for sixty-one years he went down upon his knees at the family altar-as I have it, in round numbers, forty-four thousand five hundred and thiry times, to say nothing of the prayers of his youth, in his church services and elsewhere. Often after he had wrought all day in his field it was an effort for him to keep tired nature awake while he prayed at eventide, but he never missed, and the next morning, refreshed, his voice ascended to his Maker with the voice of the birds. His prayers abounded with beautiful passages of Scripture aptly put together. Like chimes of silver bells, they will ring in my soul forever. There never lived a tenderer husband, a kinder father, a truer friend. It is doubtful if his home was without a guest in fifty years. It was not only the welcome abode of his friends, but also of the neglected and the unfortunate. Without self-seeking, he gave his life to others. Senator Vest, when at the zenith of his fame, once said to me that he had known this man long and well, and had thought many times that he would give all he possessed to change places with him in life. He said he had rather have this man's godly character and quiet contentment than all the glamor and glory the world could give.

This man was the humblest man I ever knew. Though a ripe scholar, when a college conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity he declined it. When he came to the end at four score years and three he calmly wrote out the order of exercises for his funeral, selecting among others the old hymn beginning:

"Show pity, Lord; oh Lord, forgive,
Let a repenting rebel live.

Are not thy mercies large and free?
May not a sinner trust in thee?"

This humble, stalwart, scholarly, godly man was my father.

APOSTROPHE TO THE HOME.

(From campaign speech against the Single Tax in 1912.)

ACRED, time-honored, divinely-appointed home. The dwelling place of the family, God's greatest institution among men. The sweet retreat where two lives are lived as one. Where eyes meet eyes that speak, and hearts meet hearts that thrill again. Where immortal souls first behold the blaze of day and, anon, childhood's merry laughter makes music sweeter than songs of birds in Paradise. Where father, mother, sister, brother divide their joys and loves, and the fires go not out upon family altars, whereon Jehovah was worshipped before the Church was born.

Legalized, enduring, permanent home! Owned not "by the State to be rented to the highest bidder," as this modern doctrine of the Single Taxers would have it, but owned by the individual, in fee as homes have been owned in every civilized nation since time began; owned as the old prophet possessed the abode to which the Syrian leper came; as Cincinnatus owned the field in which he plowed when the Romans called him to save again his country from the advancing foe; as Jefferson owned Monticello, where Americans come to pay their vows; as Washington possessed Mt. Vernon, where soldiers repair to fire afresh their valor; as the Greeks all down the centuries have owned their abodes beside the silvery lakes, or the Swiss, their cottages on the Alpine heights; as men have owned their homes in the valleys, on the hilltops and by the rivers in every clime beneath the stars; as Mary and Martha and Lazarus possessed their humble but permanent abode at Bethany, where the Son of God was always so welcome; as that abiding place was possessed described by Jesus in that most marvelous of all His parables, and to which the prodigal son returned after years of wandering, and his father ran to meet him; as that abode was owned which the Savior had in mind, when, hanging on the cross, He looked down and saw His mother and that disciple whom He loved standing by, and said to his mother: "Woman behold thy son!" and then to the disciple, "Behold thy mother!" "And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home."

Beauteous, happy, enchanting home!

Where business din and strife and hurly-burly must not come. Where Eos, goddess of the morn, drives her horses by at break of day, strewing flowers as she goes, when the stars have gone out, the whip-poor-will has hushed, the sunbeams are dancing in the skies and the lark is singing in the meadow. Where the yellow light is streaming through the great elms and oaks and walnuts. Where the apple, the peach, and the pear hang in luscious beauty side by side, the dew is on the watermelon, and the aroma is coming from the pomegranate. Where, ere long, the sun in his fiery chariot is about to cross the horizon; father calls; prayers are over; breakfast is eaten, and the boys go whistling to the field; the bobwhite answers; the blackbirds follow in the furrow. Where the old white dwelling with its green window shutters nestles down 'midst the evergreens, the lilacs and the roses, while the ivy climbs up its sides, and the humming bird flutters in the honeysuckles. Where within is the clean swept floor, the bounteous table and the arched fireplace. Where rosy-cheeked childhood is sleeping in the cradle, venerable age sits in the old armed chair, and "God bless our home" hangs over the mantle.

Quiet, peaceful, restful home! The day is done. The summer clouds are clustered in the west, and the sun has just lain him down in his golden couch. The cows come lowing homeward over the hill. Father and the boys have returned from the field. They drink from the gourd at the spring or the oaken bucket that hangs in the well. The evening meal is such as only mother can prepare. Night has come. The pale moon rises slowly and hangs silent in the sky. All nature is locked in the holy hush. Naught is heard save the notes of the nightingale or now and then the jingle of the sheep bell in the fold. It is autumn. The chill of night is on, and the family is assembled about the open fire with its dancing flames. Brightness is in every eye. Cheer is in every breast. Love is in every heart. Seriousness takes its turn with merry laughter. Ere long Morpheus calls to sleep. A chapter is read from the wellworn Bible. Hark! they are singing: the eldest daughter is leading

"Mid pleasures and palaces although we may roam,

Be it ever so humble there's no place like home.

A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,

Which seek through the world is ne'er met with elsewhere.

Home! Home! Sweet, Sweet Home!

There's no place like Home! There's no place like Home!"

Hush! they are on their knees in prayer. Silver-haired grandfather is leading: "O thou God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! Thou God of the family! We thank thee for this home, sweet reminder of our Eternal Home beyond the skies. In the strength of young manhood and under Thy protecting Providence, I carved it out of the wilderness. With my hands I built the house in which we kneel. Thou knowest that my companion who now sleeps in the churchyard, did her part, and sanctified it with her pure and lofty life. May this home long remain the inheritance of our children and our children's children. If any go out as thy servant who now speaks to Thee did, not knowing whither they go, may Thy hand lead them and bring them to a Christian home. And in the morning of the resurrection, through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, Thy divine Son, may we all without loss of one be reunited as a family in our Home on High-there, ever and anon, to join in the hallelujahs of Angels and of those "who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Amen.

Precious, hallowed, consecrated home! Blessed be the God who ordained it. And all the curses which the bard had Eve to shower upon Cain when he slew his brother, Abel, rest upon the head of him who would destroy it.