The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-02-24

self of as a single man practising GAL
lantries. After fifty years Of age
do not in women's society try
to appear young mannish. Interfere not
with your wifes religious nature, and put
her not in the awful dilemma in which hun
dreds of Christian w yes are put by their hus-
bands when asked to go to places or to do
things which they cannot conscientiously do,
and be compelled to decide between loyalty to
God and loyalty to husband. That is an
awful dilemma Within one week I have it
propounded as question: "What shall do
under such circumstances. Shall be loyal
to God or loyal to my husbandW l said,
tyou tell your husband that that is the
dilemma, and if he be the right
sort of a man you say he is, he
be loyal to me-" Do not ask your wife to
compromise herself by going to any place
which she cannot conscientiously go to. You
DO not want to make your wife less OF
Christian. My brother, there will be time
when you will want the help Of all her
Christian resources. When you remember
what influence your mother had over you,
certainly you do not want the mother OF
your children to set less ,godly example:
to state it when I hear an un-
converted, worldly man say of his
wife, not thinking it would ever come
to her ears, "that is the most godly woman
alive; her goodness is a perpetual rebuke to
my unholiness; you couldn't get her to do
wrong thing; hope the children all take
after her and not after me; if there is any
heaven at all she will 60 there sure" Ahl
that is a eulogy worth telling OF on earth
brought to God by just such faith
fO1nocc than hv a1moSt aOv other
influence It is not the dingdong-
ing about the subject of religion that brings
a man to the kingdom of God. It is the fact
that he knows in his own soul that his wife is
inspired by higher motives and consoled
by higher consolation, and moved by
higher principle than those that console and
help and move him. There is no argtfns
that down, there is no scofing that down,
there is no caricaturing that down. You
need not tell that man there is nothing in re-
ligion. He has it at his own table, he has it
in every room in the house, the reality of the
Christian religion. It has lived there as well
as professed there Oh, my brethren-for we
are having plain talk this morning. am
not speaking perfunctorily, but as
brother to brother; you are here for an
honest purpose and am here for an honest
purpose-do you not really think it would be
better for you to join your wife on the road
me. How much happier it would be if you
were both religious. In sickness what COM
fort. In reverses of fortune, what wealth.
In death, what triumph. God intended you,
my brother, to be the high priest of your home.
Go to your home to-day and take the family
Bible, and gather all the family that are liv-
ing around you, and those who are not living
will hear of it in q flash, and as ministering
spirits will hover, father and mother de-
no, ,faI oil
hover: and then having read chapter of the
Bible, kneel down and pray. If you cannot
think of any prayer will give YOU one:
Lord God, I surrender myself to Thee and
this beloved wife, and these dear children; for
Christ's sake forgive all the past and help us
for all the future. We have lived on earth
together. may we live forever together
Amen, and amen" Dear me, what stir
that would make among your best friends on
earth and your best friends in heaven: Joseph
H., the emperor, won the unbounded love Of
his subjects by bis kindness and his phlan-
thropic behavior. He abolished serfdon. He
established liberation and he lived in the
happiness of his subjects. One day, he was
going to Ostend to declare it free port He
was at the head of great procession. He
saw a woman at a college door in
great dejectment. He dismounted and he
went to her and asked the cause of her grief.
OQ0 UOlO QlIIl GudU u0I uuSUduu uthI SOuC w
Ostend to see the emperor and had declined
to take her, he being an alien and not under
standing her loyal enthusiasm and how that it
was the great desire of her life to see the ruler
whose goodness and greatness had won her
unspeakable admiration. She said; "The
is simply to me unbearable
that can't see the emperor" The emperor
took from his pocket box set with diamonds
around his own picture and he gave it to
her, and when she saw the picture it revealed
to her to whom she was speaking. She
dropped on her knees in reverence and clapped
her hands with joy, for that she had seen the
emperor. Then the emperor inquired the
name of her husband and where he would
probably be in Osten1, and that man was i'm
prisoned for the three days Of the emperors
visit at Ostend. So when the man got back
to bis cottage he found that his wife
had seen the emperor and he had not
seen him at all. Oh: my
friends, in many of the homes Of Christen
dom through the converting grace of God the
wife has seen the king in His beauty and He
has bestowed upon her the pearl of great
price, while the husband is an alien from the
covenant of promise, without God, without
hope in the world and imprisoned in wor1dli-
ness and sin. Oh that this day they would
arm in arm go and visit the king-the one
not only higher and greater than any Joseph
of earthly dominion, but high over all IN
earth and air and sky. His touch is life. His
voice is music. His smile is heaven.