Mexico weekly ledger., 1879-05-29
OLD MOTHER
A Sermon i'm the Modern Style.

A Sermon i'm the Modern style.
The following hits pretty fairly the
way in which some discourses are
constructed: 1
"%Brethren, the words of my text
are as
:" old Mother Hubbard she went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone,
But when she got there the cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none
H'These beautiful words, dear
friends, carry with them a solemn
lesson. 1 propose this evening to
analyze their meaning, and to attempt
to apply it, lofty as it may be, to our
everyday life:
's 'old Mother Hubbard she wentto the cupboard
To get her poor dog abone. 81.
"Mother Hubbard, you see, was
old; there being no mention Of 9TH
ers, We may presume she was alone ;
q widow--a friendless. old, solitary
widow. Yet, did she despair! Did
she sit down and weep, or read a
novel, or wiring her hands? No; she
went to the cupboard. And here OBJ
serve that she went to the cupboard.
She did not hop, or skip, or run. or
jump, or use any ether peripatetic
artitic.; she solely and merely went to
the cupboard.
eve have seen that she was old
and lonely, and we now further see
that she was poor. For, mark, the
words are 'the cupboard Not zone
of the cupboards,' or the 'right-hand
cupboard" or the 'lett-hand cup
board or the one above, or the one
below, or the one under the floor, but
just the cupboard. The one humble
little cupboard the poor widow pos
sessed. And why did she go to the
cupboard? Was it to bring forth
golden goblets or glittering precious
stones, or costly apparel, or ~feasts,
or any other attributes of wealth.! 1t
was to get her poor dog a bone! Not
only was the widow poor, but her
dog. the sole prop of her age, was
poor too. We can imagine the scene.
The poor dog crogching. in the cor
ner, looking wistfully at the solitary
cupboard and the widow going to
that cuphoard-in hope, in expecta-
ton, may be-to open it, although
we are not distinctly told that it was
not half open or ajar, to open it for
that poor dog.
" But whsn she got there the cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none
"'When she got there?' You see,
dear brethren, what perseverance Is.
You see the beauty of persistence in
doing right. She got there. There
were no turnings and twistings, no
slippings and slidings, no leaning to
the right or f~altering to the
left. With glorious simplicity We
arc told, she got there.
And how was her noble effort re-
warded?
".rhe cupboard was bare' 1t
was bare! There were to be found
neither oranges, nor c~heesccakes.
nor penny buns, o gingerbread,
nor crackers, nor nuts, nor lucifcr
matches. The cupboard vas bare.
There vas but one, only n solitary
cupboard in the whole of that cot
tage, and that one, the sole hope Of
the widow, and the glorious loadstar
of the poor dog, was bare! Had
there been a leg of mutton, u loin of
a lamb, a fillet of veal, ever an ice
from Gunter's, the case would have
been different, the incident would
have been otherwise. But it was
bare, my brethren, bare rs a bald
head, bare as an infant born without
a caul.
''ntany of you will probably say,
with ali the pride Of worldly sophis-
try-.The widow, no doubt, went
ont and bought the dog a biscuit
All, mol Far removed from earthly
ideas, these mundane desires, poor
Mother Hubbard, the widow, whom
many thoughless wording would de,
spise, in that she only owned one
cupboard, perceived or 1 might
even say saw-at once the relentless
logic Of the situation, and yielded to
it with all tue hero.sm of that nature
which had enabled her, without de-
Walton, to reach the barren cupboard.
She did not attempt, like the stiff
necked scotfers of this generation, to
wal against the inevitable; she did
not try, like the so-called men of
science, to explain what size did not
understand. She did nothing. THE
poor dog had nonel' And then at
this point our information cease
But do we not know So fiicIent Are
we not cognizant of enough? ID r1
''Who would dare to pierce the
veil that shrouds the ulterior fate of
old Mother Hubbard-tle poor dog
the cnpboard-or the bone that was
not there? Must we imagine her
still standing at the open cupboard
door, depict .to ourselves the dog
still dropping his disappointed tail
upon the floor, the sought-for. bone
still remaining somewhere else? All!
no, my dear brethren, we are not so
permitted to attempt to read the flu
ture. Suffice ii for US 10 CLEAN from
this beautiful story its many lessons ;
suffice it for US to apply them, to
study them as far as in usilies, and
bearing in mind the natural frailty of
our nature, to avoid being widows,
to shun the patronymic Of Hubbard ;
to haveS1if oar means afford it, more
than one cupboard in the house !; and
to keep stores in them ar And, OH !!
dear friends, keeping II. recollection
what we have learned this, day, let as
avoid keeping dogs that are fond of
bones. But, brethren, FIVE doc if
Fate has ordained that we should do
any. OF these things, let us then go, as
Mother Hubbard did, straight, with
out curyesing or pTancipg, TO a Our
cupboard, empty though ~ @beI1iet
us, like her, accept the inevitable
with calm steadfastness'; and Should
I'VE, like her, esef.be left withea hun
CRY dog and an empty cupboard,
may future tchroniclers be able to
write also Of us, in the beautiful
words. Of our textssfe- od: siareb y
Is4f : Ind 90 the poor dog had none. ~