Cama
#
i
i
¥
fs
STE
AE
Sr
PATIENCE,
Bs patient! Easy words to speak
While plent
While health brings roses to the cheek,
And far romoved are care and strife.
tho
cup of life,
Falling so glibly from the tongue
Of those —I often think of th
Whom suffering has no
3
r wrung,
Wko scarcely know what patienes is.
n the suff'rer lies
Ba patient! w!
Prost:
ate beneath some fell diseasa,
And longs, through torturing agonies,
Only for one short hour & ease.
Be patient! when the weary brain
Is racked with thought ani anxious care
And troubles in an endless train
Seem almost more than it ean bear.
To feel the torture of
The ago
To labor st
The prize unwon, the prayer unheard.
of hopo def
li irom day to
And still to hope, and strive, an wait
The due reward of fortune’s kiss;
This is to almost conquer fate,
This is to learn what patience is.
Despair not! though the clouds are dark,
And storm and danger veil thes sky;
Let fate and couraze guides thy bark.
The storm will pass, the port is nigh.
De patient ! and thetide will turn,
Shadows will fade before the sun ;
These are the hopes that live and burn
To light us till our work is done.
so —AIl! the Year Round.
AUNT SUSAN'S QUILT.
Mrs. Dake, who was a widow and |
childless, lived in a small, remote |
country town in which her nephew, |
James Larkin, had been born, and |
from which he had gone to become a |
successful young lawyer in the city. |
He had not been back to the home of |
his childhood for five years. As his
Aunt Susan sad, he ‘‘wa’n’t no hand
to write letters,” but he often sent
brief notes and little gifts to his
to assure her
gratitude.
He had not announced his engage-
ment to her, and the invitation to his
wedding was one of the greatest sur-|
prises of Mrs. Dake’s uneveniful life.
‘““He jest wanted to give his old
aunty a big s’prise,” she said to Elvira
Hodge, the village seamstress, when
she came to ‘‘lix over” Aunt Susan’s
black silk. “I couldn’t believe my
own eyes at first. It don’t seem no
longer than yesterday that Jimmy was
runnin’ ‘round here in pinafores; and |
to think of him bein’ married—I de- |
clare I can’t git over it!
cep
i
3ut I'll give him a &'prise, too. 1]
|
aunt |
of his affection and |
I'm comin’ to his weddin’, and if he!
won't be took back when he sees me
marchin’ in on him, my name ain't
Susan Elizabeth Dake! Don’t you!
reckon his wife'll be tickled with that
quilt, Elviry?”’
‘“They’d ought to be, that's sure,”
said Elvira.
‘I think it's a kind ofspecial Provi-
dence that I put in the frames when I
did.
TF Jimmy and his
bride ain’
pleased with
that, 1 don’t
know what would
, said
Dake
ms akim-
head
one
twisted to
side, as
Z ne epped back and
gazed with admiration at the object
spread out on the bed. It was a care
fully-pieced quilt, of =o
tricate pattern.
‘“‘dimmy’s bride can’t help
tickled with that,” said Mrs. Dake, as
she smoothed out a fold; ‘and if she
knows anything about nice quiting,
ghe’ll see that wa’'n't quilted in a day.
Well, T guess not! I quilted ev'ry last
ot j=
stitch of it myself, and there’sa good |
half-day’s work in someof them blocks
with the feather and herrin’ bone pat-
ternsand the shell border all round
the aidge. I had that quilt in the
frames five weeks and three days, and
I put all thetime I conld geton it, and
there ain’t no slack work, tired as I
did get of seeing it round.”
She smoothed out another crease.
“Lemmesee,” she went on. “There's
£147 pieces in the quilt, and a good
many of ’em are pieces of Jimmy's lit-
tle baby dresses. That'll please his
wife, TI jest know. Here’s a block made
of calico like a little pink dress he had
when his ma first put him into short
dresses. I remember it was made
with a low neck and short sleeves, like
they made baby dresses in them days,
and his little shoulders and arms was
almost as pink as the dress.
“And here’s pieceslike alittle double
gown he had ’fore he went into short
dresses. And this piece of blue cham-
bery 1s like a little sunbonnet he had,
all lined with fine white jaconet. And
here is a piece of fine muslin with a
little pink sprig in it like the first short
dress Jimmy ever had. He did look
so cunnin’in it, with the sleeveslooped
back, and a tumble-curl on the top of
his head!
“I’1l1 show his wife-to-be all these
pieces, and if she ain't tickled with the
quilt, she'll be a queer one.”
Then Mis. Dake went over to an
old-fashioned mahogany bureau with
brass knobs, shd took from the upper
drawer a large, square cream-tinted
envelope, out of which she carefully
drew the ‘“‘invite” to Jimmy's wed-
ding.
“Mr. and Mrs. William P. Holbrook
invite you to be present at the mar-
riage of their daughter Belen and
James Barclay Larkin, Wednesday
evening, September 14.”
Then followed the address of the
bride's parents, in a city 400 miles
from Mrs. Dake’s home.
“But I'm goin’ !” she said gleefully,
as she slipped the invitation back into
its envelope. “I'd go if it was twice
us far. 1 ain't seenJimmy for near on
to five years, and he always seemed
like my own boy to me ‘cause I never
had none o’ my own, and I helped to
bring him up after his own ma died,
when he wa'n’t but just in his first little
trousies.”
“I aint been so far from home in
many a long year, and I reckoned my
travelin’ days was done, but I’ve got
to go and see Jimmy married. I must
see Elviry Hodge right away about
turning and making over my black
silk, and I must see Samantha Rose
about a new cap.
have something kind o’ smart for a
city weddin’, where they’il all be fini-
fied up so. I don’t want Jimmy to be
ashamed of his old aunty; but lawsy
me! Jimmy wouldn't be ashamed of
me if I went in my plain calico house
dress. He wa’'n’t raised to set clothes
above his relations, and he ain't got |
nothing to be ’shamed of in any of his
folks.”
Then Jimmy's aunt, her face aglow |
with loving thoughts of seeing Jimmy |
again, folded up the quilt carefully in |
laid it away in a |
an old sheet, and ;
lower drawer of the bureau, saying :
“I g’pose they’ll have lots of nice
presents,
won’t have one thatrepresentsasmuch
lovin’ labor as that quilt. I had to
cry a little when T quilted them blocks
with the pieces of his baby dresses iu |
ought to think the |
I hope to |
em. His wife
world and all of the quilt. I h
the land she won’t go to using it com-
mon.”
she |
somewhat in- |
being |
I guess I'll have to |
but I'll warrant you they |
until next winter, butI had a kind of
| feelin’ that I'd better do it when 1 did,
| and now it’s turned out that there was
| a good reason why I should quilt it
{ then.”
| Susan’s friends at the little station to
| see her off on the morning she started.
| There was unusual color in her cheeks
| and undwonted sparkle in her eyes.
| She bade each of ber friends good-bye
two or three times, and promised to
| take good care of herself. + Some of
( Se
“An’ if you cor
the bride’s weddin’ dress an’ of any of
her other dresses for my silk quilt,
{ Susan, 1d be so pleased with em!”
| said old Mrs. Gray.
{- “I will if I can, Nancy,”
Susan. ‘‘There’s the train comin’!
Tmso glad I could get my irunk
checked elean through! I'd bein a
| nice fix if that trunk should get lost
said Aunt
| with Jimmy's quilt and my black silk |
{in it! Where's my lunch basket? Oh,
| yol're goin’ to carry it away on the
train for me, you, Hiram Dre
I'm ’bleezed to you, but mind you git
off the © fore it starts. Good-bye,
Nancy; good-bye all!”
In » moment the train was on its
way, Aunt Susan’s handkerchief ilut-
tered from one of ear windows as long
as the train was within sight of the lit-
tle station.
All the people in the car noticed the
happy old lady in her queer, old fash-
are
ioned garb. Some had not seen for
many years a shawl like the one she
wore, with its fringe a foot long and
| silk embroidery in the corners; but
| nothing was coarse or amiss in her
dress, and there was a quaintness and
charm about her that attracted the
sympathy of all the passengers.
wd not gone twenty-five miles
before she was telling some of them
nearest her all about Jimmy and Jim-
my’s quilt, and the wedding to take
place on the coming Wednesdey.
She was delighted to find that a mid-
dle aged, kindly looking woman who
was one of the passengers lived in the
city in which young Mr. Larkin lived,
and conld easily show her his board-
ing house.
“I'm so much obleeged to youn!” said
Aunt Susan. ““I've been dreadful nerv-
| ous “bout trying to find the house my-
i self. I hated to write to him to meet
{ me, cause it'd take off the best part of
| the s'prise. I jest want to walk right
in on him.’
That was just what she had the
pleasure of doing the next afternoon.
James Larkin was taking his wed-
ding suit from the box in which it had
been sent home, when there came a
knock at the door of his room.
Aunt Susan was trembling with ex-
citement when her nephew opened the
door.
’
“Why, Aunt Susan!” he cried, and
then he took her into his arms and
kissed her on both cheeks.
There wes no lack of tenderness in
her nephew’s greeting, yet the change
in him was painful to her. He was a
| beardless, boyish-looking young man
{ when she had seen him last. Now he
| was a tall, broad-shouldered, full-
| bearded man with a way that made it
ia little hard for her to call him
| “Jimmy.” He did not say so, but
she felt that he would rather have her
| call him ““James;” and that sounded
| so cold and formal to her.
| He now had the graces of a ecity-
i bred young man. She found it hard
to accoramodate herself to them, and
to the usages of the fashionable board-
ing-house in which her prosperous
young nephew lived.
He might, perhaps, have wished that
| Elvira Hodge had made his aunts
| garments more stylish when he took
| her down to dinner, but he was in no
| sense ashamed of her. When they
were going down stairs with her hand
timidly resting on his arm, he made
her very happy by looking down into
her face and saying tenderly and heart-
ily, “I am so glad you came Aunt
Susan.”
| “I thought you would be,” she said,
patting his arm affectionately. ‘You
know youre the only boy I ever had.” |
| “And you were always the best of |
mothers “ me.” |
But when she was alone in her room |
she wondered if it had been wise for
her to come after all. She did not
doubt now that James was genuinely
happy to see her, but she had discov-
ered that his betrothed was the daugh-
| Susan
| dressed
I didn’t callate on quiltin’ it |
\
There was quite a company of Aunt |
a full account of |
ud git me a scrap of |
|
x
rE TE py
ter of a rich man, and that: the wed- *
ding was to be an elegant affair. Aunt
feared she wonld be
cence do or say something
James and his bride
ashamed of her.
to give
cause to be
or her family until then.
new and strange to her!
She had expected to
All wes so
“take right
hold” and help Mrs. Holbrook with the
| wedding dinner, even if she did ‘keep
There was a big, new kitchen |
apron in her trunk, brought with Aunt :
Susan to be worn while she was ““mak- :
a girl.”
ing herself useful in Mrs. Holbrook’s
kitchen.” It disappointed her to be
told by her nephew that her services
would not be required, and that a
caterer would provide the supper.
She did not know what a caterer
was, and felt confused and uneasy, and ;
went to sleep half wishing herself
{ home.
1 : : When, the next evening, she found |
don’t intend to give him a hint that | 1
Mr.
surrounded by finely-
ladies and gentlemen who
looked curiously at the odd-looking
little old woman in the queerly-made
and old-fashioned black silk, she heart-
ily wished that she had not come.
Mr. and Mrs. Holbrook were as at-
tentive tb her as they could be with a
house full of guests; but Aunt Susan
soon found it convenient to slip off
into a corner, where she hid like the
little country mouse she was.
| But she was glad, after all, that she
| had come when James, looking so tall
| and happy and handsome, came into
the great parlors with his bride on his
arm in her trailing, white satin dress
and Jong veil. Aunt Susan was so com-
pletely overawed by this magnificence
that, instead of going forward with the
others to offer her congratulations, she
slipped off up-stairs to the room in
which she had tzken off her bonnet and
shawl. In it was her wedding gift to
Jimmy—the quilt that had but yester-
day seemed to her as beautiful and ap-
propriate a gift as she could bestow
upon him.
Across the hall was the open door of
a room almost filled with shining silver
and glittering glass, with pictures, and
rare ornaments, and beautiful books,
gifts to James and his bride.
Aunt Susan felt that her own offer-
ing, although it was the gift of her own
labor and love, would be out of place.
It might offend her nephew and his
ride to see it there. Some one might
| laugh and jeer at it, and she could not
bear to think of that. It seemed so
poor and trifling, now; she could not
bear to think of allowing Jimmy and
his wife to know that she had brought
them such a gift.
She turned back a corner of the
quilt, and looked at a piece of the pink
and white muslin of which one of
Jimmy's first garments have been
made. A flood of tender mémories
filled her heart, and she buried her
face in her gift and cried as she had
not cried for years. .
There she sat for a long time, pay-
ing no heed to the noise and nferri-
ment downstairs, Presently she heard
a rustle of silk and satin in the hall,
and a low murmur of voices. In a
moment a pair of soft arms were
{around her neck, and a girlish voice
was saying :
“I am so glad that we have found
you at last! We have been looking
everywhere for you!”
When Aunt Susan looked up she
found the bride kneeling by her side,
while James was bending low over
her.
‘You haven’t been up here all this
time, have you?” he said. “We have
wondered where you were. Helen was
so anxious to see you.”
“Of course I was,” said the bride.
“There is no one here I am so glad to
see. James has told me all about you,
ana it was so good of you to come so
far to see us married. You must kiss
us both and wish us joy, won’t you?”
“If you'll let me,” said Aunt Susan,
with the tears still in her eyes.
‘Let you!” said James. ‘We should
think it very strange if you didn’t.
| What have you here? It looks like one
| of the quilts you used to make. It is
| a guilt, isn’t it?”
Aunt Susan tried to conceal the quilt,
but James took it from her and un-
folded it. Suddenly he said:
“Why, Aunt Susan, didn’t youbring
this for a wedding present?”
“Well, I—I—did think I'd give it to
your wife, James,” said Aunt Susan,
soberly. ‘‘Ithought that—well-—well,
you see, I made it ev'ry stitch myself
end——and——there’s lots of pieces in it
from the first clothes you ever had,
{ and—-T thought maybe she’d tike it be-
cause I did it ev'ry stitch myself, and—"
“Like it?” cried Helen. ‘I shall
value it above any gift I have had! It
| is beautiful-—I never saw such exquis-
| ite needlework! What weeks of labor
| it must have cost you. I am so proud
lof it!”
| “She said them very words,” said
herself in the beautiful house of
Holbrook
fur J
|
|
|
|
|
|
{
lighted friends who came to see her
the day she reached home. ‘‘She was
so tickled over the quilt. She fairly
cried when I showed her the blocks
made out of pieces of Jimmy’s things.
*“~he said she’d think the world and
all of it. She and Jimmy had to go
off their weddin’ tower in about an
that night; but Mr. and Mrs. Hol-
brook wouldn’t hear to it.
week, and they treated me as if I was
one of the greatest ladies in the land.
They took me to ride ev'ry day, and
they never seemed to mind a bit
about my old-fashioned ways and
clothes.
“I had a beautiful time; and the
best part of it is that Jimmy and his
wife are coming to make me a visit on
their way home from their tower next
week. You never see such a splendid
young woman as she is!”
out of |
place—that she might in her inno- |
A SERMON FOR WOMEN.
BY REV. DR. TALMAGE.
Sai
The Prophet’s Visit to the Woman of
| Shunem the Subject of His
The wedding was to take place the !
next evening, and there would be no !
opportunity for her to meet the bride :
: Discourse,
TeXT - “And it fell on a day that Elisha
passed to Shunem, where was a great wo-
i man.”—II Kings iv.. 8.
The hotel of our time had no counterpart
in any entertainment of olden time. The
vast majority of travelers must then be en-
tertained at private abode. Here comes
Elisha, a servant of the Lord, on a divine
mission, and he must find shelter. A bal-
cony overlooking the valley Esdraelon is of-
fered him in a private house, and it is es-
pecially furnished for his occupaney—a chair
tosit on, a table from which to eat, a candle-
stick by which to read and a bed on which to
slumber—the whole establishment belonging
to a great and good woman.
| Her husband, 1t seems, was a godly man,
Aunt Susan to half a dozen of her de- !
hour, and I expected to come on homes !
‘They made me stay there a whole °
i
but he was entirely overshadowed by his
wife's excellencies, just as now you some-
times find in a household the wife the centre
of dignity and influence and power, not by
any arrogance or presumption, but by
superior intellect and force of moral nature
wielding domestic affairs and at the same
time supervising all financial and business
affairs, the wife's hand on the shuttle, on the
banking house, on the worldly business.
You see hundreds of nten who are successful
only because there is a reason at home why
they are successful.
If a man marry a good, honosst soul, he
makes his fortune, If he marry a fool, the
Lord help him! The wife may be the silent
tner in the firm, thers may be only
culine voices down on exchange, but
.m
there oitentime comes from the home circle
a potential and elevitting influence.
This woman of my text was the superior of
her husband. He, as tar as I can under-
stand, was what we often see in our day—a
man of large fortune and only a modicum of
brain, intensely quiet, sitting a long while in
the sume place without moving hand or foot
—if you say “yes,” responding fives if
you say ‘‘no,” responding ‘‘no”—inane, eyes
half shut, mouth wide open, maintaining his
position in society only because he has a
large patrimony, But his wife, my text says,
was a great woman.
Her name has not come down to us. She
belonged to that collection of people who
need no name. to distinguish them. What
would title of duchess or princess or queen—
what would escutcheon or gleaming diadem
—be to this woman of my text, who, by her
intelligence and her behavior, challenges the
admiration of all ages? Long after the bril-
liant women of the court of Louis XV have
been forgotten, and the brilliant women of
the court of Spain have been forgotten, and
the brilliant women who sat on mighty thrones
have been forgotten, some grandfather will
put on his spectacles, and holding the book
the other side the light read to his grandchil-
dren the story of this great woman of Shu-
nem who was so kind and courteous and
Christian to the good prophet Elisha. Yes.
she was a great woman.
In the first place, she was great in her
hospitalities. Uncivilized and barbarious
nations honor this virtue. Jupiter had the
surname of the hospitable, and he was said
especially to avenge the wrongs of strang-
ers, Homer exaited it in his * verse.
The Arabs are punectilious upon this subject,
and among some of their tribes it is not until
the ninth day of tarrying that the occupant
has a right to ask his guest, “Who and
Yhence art thou?” If this virtue is so hon-
ered even among barbarians, how ought it to
be honored among those of us who believe
in the Bible, which commands us to use hos-
pitality one toward another without grudg-
ing?
Of course I do not mean under this cover
to give any idea that I approve of that va-
grant class who go around from place to
place ranging their whole lifetime perhaps
under the auspices of some Lenevolent or
philanthropic society, quartering themssalves
on Christian families, with a great pile of
trunks in the halland carpetbag portentous of
tarrying. There is many a country parson-
age that looks out week by week upon the
ominous arrival of wagon with creaking
wheel and lank horse and dilapidated driver,
come under the auspices of some charitable
institution to spend a few weeks and canvass
the neighborhood Let no such religious
tramps take advantage of this beautiful vir-
tue otf Christian hospitality.
Not so much the sumptuousnes of your
diet and the regality of your abode will im-
press the friend or the stranger that steps
across your threshold as the warmth of your
greeting, the informality of your reception,
the reiteration by grasp and by look and by a
thousand attentions, insignificant attentions,
of your earnestness of welcome. There will
be high appreciation of your welcome,
although you have nothing but the brazen
candlestick and the plain chair to offer Elisha
when he comes to Shunem.
Most beautiful is this grace of hospitality
when shown in the house of God. I am
thankful that I am pastor of a church where
strangers are always welcome, and there is
not a State in the Union in which I have not
heard the affability of the ushers of our
church complimented. But I have entered
churches were ther» was no hospitality. A
stranger would stand in the vestibule for
awhile and then make pilgrimage up the
long aisle. No door opened to him until,
flushed and excited and embarrassed, he
started back again, and coming to some half-
filled pew with apologetic air entered it,
while the occupants glared on him with a
i look which seemed to say, “Well, if I must,
1 I must.” Away with such accursed in-
; decency from the house of God! Let every
church that would maintain large Christian
i influence in community culture Sabbath by
i Sabbath this beautiful grace of Christian hos-
| pitality.
A good man traveling in the far west, in
the wilderness, was overtaken by night and
| storm, and he put in at a cabin. He saw fire-
arms along the beams of the cabin; and he
felt alarmed. He did not know but that he
had fallen intoa den of thieves. He sat
there greatly perturbed. After awhile the
man of the house came home with a gun on
his shoulder and set it down in a corner.
The stranger was still more alarmed. After
awhile the man of the house whispered with
his wife, and the stranger thought his de-
struction was being planned. i
Then the man of the house came forward
and said to the stranger: ‘Stranger, weare
a rough and rude people out here, and we
work hard for a living. We make our living
by hunting, and when we come to the night-
fall we are tired, and we are apt to go to bed
early, and before retiring we are always in
the habit of reading a chapter from the word
of God and making a prayer. If you don't
like such things, if you will just step outside
the door until we get through I'll be greatly
obliged to you.” Of course the stranger tar-
| ried in the room, and the old hunter took
hold of the horns ot the altar and brought
i down the blessing of God upon his house-
hold and upon the stranger within their
gates. Rude but glorious Christian hospi-
tality ! :
Again, this woman in my text was great in
her kindness toward God’s messenger. Elisha
may have been a stranger in that houshold,
but as she found out he had come on a divine
mission he was cordially welcome. We have
i a great many books in our day about the
| hardships of ministers and the trials of
Christian ministers. I wish somebody would
write a book about the joys of the Christian
minister—about the sympathies all around
him, about the kindnesses, about the genial
considerations of him.
Does sorrow come to our home and is there
a shadow on the cradle, there are hundreds
of hands to help, and many who weary not
«through the long night watching, and bun-
dreds of prayers going up that God would
restore the sick. Is there a burning, brim-
ming cup of calamity placed on the pastor's
table, are there not many to help him to
drink of that cup and who will not be com-
forted because he is stricken? Oh, for some-
body to write a book about the rewards of
the Christian minister—about his surroand-
mgs of Christian sympathy.
temp stim ov ————————
|
This woman of The text was only a Type of |
thousands of men and women who come
down from the mansion and from the cot to
do kindness to the Lord's servants. I sup-
pose the men of Shunem had to pay the bills,
but it wasthe large searted Christian sympa-
thies of the women of Shunem that looked
after the Lord’s messenger.
Again, this woman in the text was great in
her behavior under trouble.
Her only son had died on her lap. Avery
bright light went out in that household. The
sacred writer puts it very tersely when he
says, “He sat on her knees until noon, and
then he died.” Yetthe writer goes on to say
that she exclaimed, “It is well!” Great in
prosperity, this woman was great in trouble.
Where are the feet that have not been blis-
tered on the hot sands of this great Sahara?
Where are the shoulders that have not been
bent under the burden of grief? Whereis
the ship sailing over glassy sea that has not
after awhile been caught in a cyclone? Where
is the garden of earthly comfort but trouble
hath hitched-up its flery and panting team
and gone through it with burning plowshare
of disaster? Under the pelting of ages of
suffering the great heart of the world has
burst with woe.
Navigators tell ns about the rivers, and the |
Amazon and the Danube and the Mississippi |
have been explored, but who can tell the
depth or length of the great river of sorrow
made up of tears and blood rolling through
all lands and all ages, bearing the wreek of
families and of communities and of empires
—foaming, writhing, boiling with the agon-
ies of 6000 years? Etna and Cotopaxi and
Vesuvius have been described, but who has
ever sketched the voleano of suffering reach-
ing up from its depths the lava and the scoria
and pouring them down the sides to whelm
the nations? Oh, if I could gather all the
heartstrings, the broken heartstrings, into a
harp I would play on it a dirge such as was
never sounded.
Mythologists tell us of Gorgon and Cen-
taur and Titan, and geologists tell us of ex-
tinct species of monsters, but greater than
Gordon or megatherium; and not belonging
to the realm of fable, and not of an extinet
species, is a monster with iron jaw and iron
hoofs walking across the nations, and his-
tory and poetry and sculpture, in their at-
tempt to sketch it and describe it. have
seemed to sweat great drops of blood.
But, thank God, there are those who can
conquer as this woman of the text conquered
and say: ‘‘Itis well! Though my property
be gone, though my children he gone, though
my home be broken up, though my health
be sacrificed, it is well, it is well!” There is
no storm on the-sea but Christ is ready to
rise in the hinder part of the ship and hush |
it. There is no darkness but the constella- |
tions of God’s eternal love can illumine it, |
and though the winter comes out of the
northern sky you have sometimes seen the
all ablaze with auroras that
seem t6 say: ‘‘Come up this way. Up this
way are thrones of light, and seas of sap-
phire, and the splendor of an eternal heaven.
Come up this way.”
We may, like the ships, by tempest be tossed
Ou perilous depths, but cannot be lost.
Though satan enrage the wind and the t'de,
Tae promise assures us the Lord will provide,
I heard an echo of my text in a very dark |
hour, when my father Jay dying, and the old
country minister said to him, “Mr. Talmage,
how do you feel now as you areabout to pass
the Jordan of death?’ He replied—and it
was the last thing he ever said—*I feel well :
I feel very well ; all is well,” lifting his hand
in a benediction, a speechless benediction,
which I pray God may go down through all
the generations. It is well! Of course it |
was well.
Again, this woman of my text was great
in her application to domestic duties. Every
picture is a home picture, whether she is
entertaining an Elisha, or whether she is giv-
ing careful attention to her sick boy, or |
whether she is appealing for the restoration
of her property—every picture in her case is
a home picture. Those who are not disci-
ples of this Shunemite woman who, going
out to attend to outside charities, neglect the
duty of home—the duty of wife, of mother,
of daughter. No faithfulness in public ben-
efaction can ever atono for domestic negli-
gence,
There has been many a mother who by in-
defatigable toil has reared a large family of
children, equipping them for the duties of
life with good manners and large intelli-
gence and Christian principle, starting them
out, who has done more for the world than
many another woman whose name has
sounded through all the lands and ali the
centuries.
I remember when Xossuth was in this
country there were some ladies who got
reputations by presenting him very grace-
fully with bouquets of flowers on public oc-
casions, but what was all that compared with
the work of the plain Hungarian mother who
gave to truth and civilization and the cause
of universal liberty a Kossuth? Yes, this
woman of my text was great in her simplicity.
When the prophet wanted to reward her
for her hospitality by asking some prefer-
ment from the king, what did she say? She
declined it. She said: “I dwell among my
own people,” as much as to say: “Iam
satisfied with my lot. All I want is my
family and my friends around me. I dwell
among my own people.” Oh, what arebuke
to the strife for precedence in all ages!
How many there are who want to get great
architecture and homes furnished with all
art, all painting, all statuary, who have not
enough taste to distinguish between gothic
and byzantine, and who could not tell a
figure in plaster of Paris from Palmer's
“White Captive,” and would not know a boy’s
penciling from Bierstadt’s *‘Yosemite’ —men
who buy large libraries by the square foot,
buying theselibraries when they have hardly
enough education to pick out the day of the
almanac! Oh, how many there are striving
to have things as well as their neighbors, or
better than their neighbors, and in the strug-
le vast fortunes are exhausted and business
firms thrown into bankruptcy, and men of
reputed honesty rush into astounding for-
zeries,
"Of course I say nothing against refinement
or culture. Splendor of abode, sumptuous-
ness of diet, lavishness in art, neatnessin ap-
parel—there is nothing against them in the
Bible or out of the Bible. God does not
want us to prefer mud hovel to English cot-
tage, or untanned sheepskin to French
broadeloth, or husks to pineappie, or the
clumsiness of a boor to the manners of a
gentleman. God, who strung the beach with
tinted shell and the grass of the field with
the dews of the night and hath exquisitely
tinged morning cloud and robin red breast,
wants us to keep our eye open to all beauti-
tul sights, and our ear open to all beautiful
cadences, and our heart open to all elevating
sentiment. But what I want to impress upon
you is that you ought not to inventory the
luxuries of life as among the indispensables,
and you ought not to depreciate this woman
of the text, who, when offered kingly prefer-
ment, responded, “I dwell among my own
people.”
Yes, this woman of the text was great in
her piety, faith in God, and she was not
ashamed to talk about it before idolaters. Ah,
woman will never appreciate what she owes
to Christianity until she knows and sees the
degradation of her sex under paganism and
Mahommedanism. Her very birth considered
a misfortune. Sold like cattle in the sham-
bles. Slave of all work, and at last her body
fuel for the funeral pyre of her husband.
Above the shriek of the fire worshipers in
India and above the rumbling of the jugger-
nauts I hear the million voiced groan of
wronged, insulted, broken hearted, down-
trodden woman. Her tears have fallen in the
Nile and Tigris and the La Plata and on the
steppes of Tartary. She has been dishon-
ored in Turkish garden and Persian palace
and Spanish Alhamora. Her little ones have
been sacrificod in the Ganges. There is not
a groan, or a dungeon, or an island, or a
mountain, or a river, or a sea but could tell
a story of the outrages heaped upon her.
But, thanks to God, this glorious Chris-
tianity comes forth, and all the chains of
this vassalage are snapped, and she risesup
from ignominy to exalted sphere and be-
comes the affectionate daughter, the gentle
wife, the honored mother, the useful Chris-
tian. Oh, if Christianity has dons so much
for woman, surely woman will become its
most ardent advocate and its sublimest
| exemplification !
| parliaments,
When [ come to sp2ak of womanly influ.
ence, my mind always wanders off to one
model—the aged one who, 27 years ago, we
put away for the resurrection. About 87
years ago. and just before their marriage
day, my father and mother stood up in the
old meeting house at Somerville. N. J., and
took upon them the vows of the Christian.
Through a long life of vicissitude she lived
harmlessly and usefully and came to her end
in peace. No child of want ever came to her
door and was turned empty away. No one
in sorrow came to her but was comforted.
No one asked her the way to be saved but she
pointed him to the cross. When the angei
of life came to 1
a neighbor's dwelling, she
was there to rejoice at the starting of an-
other immortal spirit. When the angel of
death came to a neighbor’s dwelling, she
was there to robe the departed for the burial,
We had often heard her, when leading
family prayers in the absence of my father,
say, ““O Lord, I ask not for my children
wealth or honor, but I do ask that they all
may bethe subjects of Thy comforting grace I"
Her 11 children brought into the kingdom of
God. she had but one more wish, and that
was that she might see her long absent mis-
sionary son, and when the ship from China
anchored in New Yori: harbor and the long
absent one passed cver the threshold of his
paternal home she said, ‘Now, Lord, lettest
Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine
eyes have seen the salvation.” The prayer
was soon answered.
It was an autumnal day when we gathered
from afar and found only the house from
which the sou] had fled forever. She looked
very natural, the hands very much as when
they were employed in kindness for her
children. Whatever else we forget, we never
forget the look of mother’s hands. As we
stood there by the casket we could not help
but say, ‘Don’t shelook beautiful?’ It was
a cloudless day when, with heavy hearts,
we carried her out to the last resting
place. The withered leaves crumbled under
hoof and wheel as we passed, and the sun
shone on the Raritan River until it looked
like fire ; but more calm and beautiful and
radiant was the setting sun of that aged pil-
grim’s life. No more toil, no more tears, no
more sickness, no more death. Dear mother!
Beautiful mother!
Sweet is the slumber beneath the sod,
While the pur: spirit rests v Goi.
I need not go back and show you Zenobia
or Semiramis or Isabella or even the woman
of the text as wonders of womanly excellence
or greatness when I in this moment point to
your own picture gdilery of memory, and
show you the one face that you remember so
weil, and arouse all your hoiy reminiscences,
and start you in new conseeration to God by
the pronounciation ot that tender, beautiful,
glorious word, ‘“Mother, mother !”
=
pe
edicine in the Middle Ages.
entertaining article in the
Nineteenth Century on medizeval med-
icine, some curious prescriptions are
given. A person whose right eye was
inflamed or bleared was recommended
| to “take the right eye of a Frogg, lap
it in a piece of russet cloth, and hang
it about the neck.” The skin of a
raven’s heel was prescribed for gout.
Diffident young men will be interested
in this: “If you wonld have a man be-
come bold or impudent, let him carry
about him the skin or eyes of a lion or
cock, and he will be fearless of his
enemies; nay, he will be very terrible
unto them.” The tendency to reti-
cence, which 1s so common a fault of
municipal councils, ete.,
might be cured by this treatment: “If
you would have him talkative, give
him tongues, and seek out those of
water frogs and ducks, and such crea-
tures notorious for their continual
noise making.”
If a man had a “sounding or a pip-
ing in his ears,’ he was recommended
to put oil of hempseed, warm, into
them, ‘‘and after that let him leape
upon his one legge upon that side
where the disease is; then let him
bowe doune hys eare of that syde, if
haply any moysture would issue out.”
The remedy for nose bleeding was to
‘‘beat egge shales to pouder, and sift
them through a linnen cloth, and blow
them into hys nose; if the shales were
of egges whereout young chickens are
hatched, it were so much the better.”
Powdered earth worms mixed with
wine were recommended for jaundice.
Toothache might be relieved by an ap-
plication of the fat of ‘little greene
frogges,” or of the ‘‘graye worms
breathing under wood or stones, hav-
ing many fete.” Frogs and toads were
favorite remedies, especially when
| treated in some grotesquely barbarous
manner. Popular prejudice against
medical science to-day is declining,
and will probably disappear alto-
gether; but in the Middle Ages it
seems to have had avery rational basis.
—Toronto Globe.
———— Sere eae
Saved by a Bloffer.
A commercial traveler writes to the
St. Louis Globe-Demoerat: ‘“The
blotter in a hotel writing room once
saved me from very considerable loss.
As a general rule the blotter in a writ-
ing room is so dirty and covered up
with ink marks that the whole presents
the appearance of an Egyptian
hieroglyphics. But on this occasion,
as luck would have it, the blotter was
absolutely new and clean and could be
examined very closely. The last man
who had been using it was also the
first, and as he used rather a liberal
supply of ink and wrote rapidly he re-
produced almost the entire letter upon
the blotter before folding it up. I
knew him to be the representative of a
large Eastern housein asimilar though
not rival capacity to our own® and
without intending to do so, I found
myself glancing at the reproduction
of his letter on the blotter. I was
struck at once with the name of the
house from which I had the previous
day taken an exceptionally large
order, and reading on'I found that he
had notified his firm that, acting under
advice from a very reliable source, he
had decided not tc carry out his in-
structions and sell this firm a bill of
goods. I went out at once and made
a few inquiries which convinced me
that not only was the house in ques-
tion in difficulties, but that it was also
contemplating a fraudulent transfer
to defeat its creditors. I promptly
wired the house I represented téignore
my letter by mail containing this
order, giving the reasons briefly, and
following up the telegram by an ex-
planatory letter. Some rather indig-
nant correspondence followed, but
this was abruptly terminated by the
suspension of the latter and the ab-
sconding of ome of the partners. I
have always held a clean blotter in a
hotel writing room with a feeling of
veneration ever since.”
tedi
entl
Told
the
tlen
thes
— Gr
orat
dela
era
denc
Ezel
this
enin
ever
gists