The southern sentinel. (Winnfield, La.) 1883-1910, 1886-07-02

obseuuies at which God did all the Offices
of priest and undertaken and grave-digger
| and mourner, were ended.
Oh, was not Miriam the sister of Moses,
doing a good thing, an important thing, a
| glorious thing when she watched the boat
| woven of river plants and made water
tight with asphaltum, carrying its one
| passenger? Did she not put all the ages
| of time and of q coming eternity under
| obligation when she defended her help
less brother from the perils aquatic, reptil-
ian and ravenous? She it was that
brought that wonderful babe and his
mother together, SO that he was reared to
be the deliverer of his nation, when other
wise, If saved at all from the rushes of
the Nile, he would have been only one
more of the God defying Pharaohs, for
the Princess Thermutis. of the bathing
| house, would have inherited the crown of
Egypt, and as she had no child of her own
| this adopted child would have come to
coronation. Had there been no Miriam
there would have been no Moses. What
a garland for faithful sisterhood? For,
how many law-giver, and how many
| a hero, and how many a deliverer, and
how many a saint are the world and the
| Church indebted to a watchful, loving,
faithful godly sister? Come up out of the
farm houses; come up out Of the uncon-
spicuous homes! Come up from the banks
of the Hudson and the Penobscot and the
Savannah and the Mobile and the Missis-
sippi and all the other Niles of Amer.
lea, and let us see you, the Miriams
who watched and protected the lead
ers in law and medicine and
merchandise, and art, and agriculture, and
mechanics, and religion. III should ask all
these physicians, and attorneys, and mer-
chants, and ministers of religion, and sue
eessful men of all professions and trades
who are indebted to an elder sister for
good influences, and perhaps for an educa-
ton or a prosperous start. to rise. they
would rise by the hundreds. God knows
how many OF our Greek lexicons and how
much of our schooling was paid for by
money that would otherwise have gone
for the replenishing of sisters wardrobe
While the brother sailed OF for a resound-
ing sphere the sister watched him from the
banks of self-denial.
Let sisters not begrudge the time and
care bestowed on a brother. 1t is hard to
believe that any boy that you know so well
as your brother can ever turn out anything
very useful. Well, he may not be Moses.
There is only one of that kind needed for
5000 years. But I tell you what your
brother will be-either a blessing or q cnrse
to society and a candidate for happiness
or wretchedness. He will, like Moses,
have the choice between rubies and
living Goals, and your influence
viii have much to do with his decision. He
may not, like Moses, be the deliver of
nation, but he may, after your father and
mother are gone, be the deliverer ct q
household. What thousands of homes to-
day are piloted by brothers. There are
properties now well invested, and yield
ing income for the support of sisters and
younger brothers, because the older brother
rose to the leadership from the day the
father laid down to die. Whatever you
do for your brother viii come back to you
again. II you set him an iil-natured, GEN.
serious. accommodating example, 1t win
recon upon you from his own irritated and
despoiled nature. II you, by patience
with all infirmities and by nobility Of
character, dwell with him, in the few years
Of your companionship you win have
your counsel reflected back upon you some
day by his splendor Of behavior in some
cases where he would have failed but for
You.
Don't snub him. Don't depreciate his
ability. Don't talk discouragingly about
his future. Don't let Miriam get down Oh
the bank Of the Nile and wade out and mp
set the ark of bulrushes. Don't tease him.
Brothers and sisters do not consider it any
harm to tease. That spirit abroad in the |
family is one Of the meanest and most |
deviiish. There is q teasing that IL |
pleasurable and is only another form |
OF innocent raillery,. but that viii D |
provokes and irritates and makes the |
eye Hush with anger is to be reprehended. |
1t would be less blameworthy to take . |
bunch OF thorns and draw them across |
your sisters cheek, or to take q knife and |
draw its sharp edge across your brothers |
hand till the blood spurts, for that would |
damage only the body, bat teasing il the
thorn and the knife scratching and lacer-
ating the disposition and the soul. II II
the curse Of innummerable households that |
the brothers tease the sisters aud the sis-
ters the brothers. Sometimes It is the color
OF the hair, or the shape of the features. OR
an AFFAIR Of the heart. Sometimes IL II nv
revealing q secret, or by a suggestive look.
or guhaw, or an "ahemv, Tease! teasei |
tease! For Gods sake OUTFIT. Christ saws:
HE that hateth his brother is q murderer
Now, when you, by teasing, make your
brother or sister hate, you turn hum or her
into murderer or murderess.
Don't let Jealousy ever touch a sisters
soul, A. 1t 30 often does, because her BROTH
or gets more honor or more means. Even
Miriam, the heroine Of the text, was struck
By that evil passion Of jealousy. She had
possessed unlimited influence over Moses.
and now he marries, and not only 30, but
marries black woman from Ethiopia.
and Miriam il 80 disguised and
outraged BY Moses, first because
he had married It all, and NEXT because
he had practiced miscegenstion, that she
u drawn into frenzy and then begins 10
turn white, and gets as white a. corpse.
and then whittier than corpse. Her com.
plexion II like chalk; the fact il. she has
the Egyptian leprosy. And nov the
brother whom she had defended nm -.