Page:Oration on the virtues of the old women, and the pride of the young (2).pdf/5

 JANET’S ORATION. 5

thers, chattering like hungry cranes, crying still, I want, I want, ever craving, wilfuly wafting, till all' be brought to a doleful dish of desolation, and with cleanness of teeth, a full bread, an empty belly, big pockets without pence, pinching penury, perfect poverty, drouth, hunger, want of money and friends both, old-age, dim-eyes, feeble joints, without shoes nor clothes, the real fruits of a bad marriage, which brings thoughtless Fops to both faith and repentance in one day.

Thirdly, another thing I see, hear, and cannot help, is the breeding, of bairns and bringing them up like bill-stirks, they gie them wealth of meat, but no manners; but when I was a bairn, If I did not bend to obedience, I ken mysel what I got, which learned me what to gi’ mine again; if they had tell’d me tuts or prute-no, I laid them o’er my knee and a com'd crack for crack o’er their hurdles like a knock bleaching a harn web, till the red wats flood on their lips, this brought obedience into my house, and banish’d dods and ill-nature out at the door; I dang the de’il out o’ them, and dadded them like a wet dish-clout till they did my bidding; but now the bairns are brought up to spit fire in their mither’s face, and cast dirt at their auld daddies; How can they be good who never saw a sample of it; or reverence old age, who practiced no precepts in their youth; How can they love their parents who gave them black poison instead of good principles ? Who shewed them no good, nor taught them no duties ? No marvel such children despise old age, and reverence their parents as an old horse does his father.

Fourthly, The last prevailing evil which I see, all men may hear, but none strive to help, the banishment of that noble holy day, called the Sabbath, which has been blasted by a whirl-wind from the fouth; I an yet alive, who saw this hurricane coming thro’ the walled city near Solway in the South it being on a,Sunday, and a beautiful sun-shine day amangst some foul weeks in harvest weather, which aufed the Lord Mayor of that place to work hard and