St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-05-25
WORK FOR WOMEN.
Those Who Send Their Daughters Into
the World With Money But
With Empty Brain
And Unskilled Hand Guilty Of Assassin
ation--The Useless, Giggling,
Irresponsible Nonentity
Which Society Calls WOman--Wheel
of Oppression Rolling Over
the Necks of
Thousands of Women Who Suffer
Under the Despottsm Of
Low Wages.
Taln,age,s sermon.

Ta1nagess Sermon.
Special to the Globe.
BROOKLYN, N. Y, May 24-Dr. Tai
mage preached in the Brooklyn taber-
nacle this morning on the subject, The Des-
potism OF the Needle, or a Discourse on
Woman's Wages. Before the sermon DIR.
Talmage explained the Epistle of James,
where it says: ''Be not many masters" ("
which he says was reproof for those who
are disposed to be bossy in their diSposi-
tion. The opening hymn was:
Mid scenes of confusion and creature COM
plants,
How sweet to my soul is communion of
saints.
The text was from Ecclesastes, iv., 1,
$50 returned and considered all the op-
pressions that are now done under the sun,
and beheld the tears of such as were op-
pressed and they had no comforter; and on
the side of their oppressOrs there was
power" Following is the sermon in full:
Very long ago the needle was busy. 1t
was considered honorable for women to
toll in olden time. Alexander the Great
stood in his palace showing garments made
by his own mother. The finest tapestries
at Bayeux were made by the queen of
William the Conqueror. Augustus, the
emperor, would not wear any garments
except those that were fashioned by some
member of his royal family. So let the
toiler everywhere be respected. The needle
has slain more than the sword. When the
sewing machine was invented some thought
that invention would alleviate woman's
toll and put an end to the
DESPOTISM OF THE NEEDLE.
But, no; while the sewing machine has been
a great blessing to well-to-do families in
many cases, it has added to the stab of the
needle the crush of the wheel, and multi
tudes Of women, Notwithstanding the REIN
forcement of the sewing machine, can only
make, work hard as they will, between two
or three dollars per week.
The greatest blessing that could have
happened to our first parents was being
turned out of Eden after they had done
wrong. Adam and Eve in their perfect state
might have got along without work, or only
such slight employment as a perfect garden
with no weeds in it demanded. But as soon
as they had sinned the best thing for them
was to be turned out where they would have
to work. We know what a whitening thing
it is for a man to have nothing to do. Old
Ashbel Green, at fourscore years, when
asked why he had kept on working, said,
Il do so to keep out of mischief" We see
that man who has a large amount of money
to start with has no chance. Of the thOus-
and prosperous and honorable men that you
know, nine hundred and ninety-nine had to
work vigorously at the beginning. But 1
am now to tell you that industry is just as
important for womap's safety and happi-
ness. The most unhappy women in our
communities to-day are those who have no
engagements to call them UP in the morning,
who, once having risene and breakfasted,
lounge through the dull forenoonin slippers
down at the heel and with disheveled hair,
reading
OUIDAS LAST NOVEL,
and who, having passed wretched fore
noon and taken their afternoon sleep,
and having passed an hour-and-a-half at
their toilet, pick up their card case and go
out to make calls, and who pass their
evenings waiting for somebody to come
in and break up the monotony. Arabella
Stuart never was imprisoned in so dark a
dungeon as that.
There is no happiness in an idle woman.
1t may be with hand, it may be with brain,
it may be with foot, but work she must or
else be wretched forever. The little girls of
our families must be started with that idea.
The curse of our American society is that
our young women are taught that the first,
second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh.
TENTH fiftieth, thousandth thing in their life
is to get somebody to take care of them.
Instead of that the first lesson should be
how, under God. they may take care of
themselves. The simple fact is that ma
jority of them do have to take care of them
selves, and that, too, after having, through
the false notions of their parents, wasted
years in which they ought to have learned
how successfully to maintain themselves.
We now and here declare the inhumanity,
cruelty and outrage of that father and
mother who pass their daughters into
womanhOod having given them no facility
for earning their livelihood. Nine. De
Stael said: sit is not these writings that
am proud of, but the fact that 1 have facil-
ity in ten occupations, in any one of which
/ could make livelihood"
You say you have portion to leave
them. o, man and woman, have you not
learned that like vultures, like hawks, like
eagles, riches have wings and fly away?
Though you should be successful in leaving
a competency behind you, the
TRICKERY OF EXECUTORS
may swamp it in night; so the officials in
our, churches may get up a mining company
and induce your orphans to put their money
into hole in Colorado, and if, by the most
skillful machinery, the sunken money can
not be brought up again, prove to them that
it was eternally decreed that that was the
way they were to lose it and that it went in
the most orthodox and heavenly style. Oh,
the damnable schemes that professed Chris
tians will engage in-until God puts his
fingers into the collar of the hypocrite's
robe and rips it clear down to the bottom
You have no right because you are well off
to conclude that your children are going to
be well off. A man died, leaving a large
fortune. His son fell dead in Philadel-
phia grog shop. His old comrades came in
and said as they bent over his corpse:
..sWhat is the matter with you, Boggsey?
The surgeon standing over him said: ''Hush
upl He is deadp' ''Oh! he is deadr' they
said. .'Come, boys, let lis go and take a
drink in memory of poor BoggseyG'
Have you nothing better than money to
leave your children? If you have not, but
send your daughters into the world with
empty brain and unskilled hand, you are
guilty of assassination, homicide, regicide.
llldIltiCidC. olO WOilcu tOlIIllg Ill
our cities for two or three dollars per week.
who were the daughters of
MERCHANT PRINCES.
These suffering ones now would be glad
to have the crumbs that once fell from their
fathers table; that worn-out. broken shoe
that she wears is the lineal descendant of
the $12 CATERS in which her mother walked,
and that torn and faded calico had ancestry
of magnificent brocade that swept Broad
way clean without any expense to the
street commissioners. Though you live in
an elegant residence and fare srmptuously
every day, let your daughters feel it is a
disgrace to them not to know how to work.