The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-01-29
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Second Discourse Of the Series on
The Marriage Ring"

Second Discourse Of the Series on
The Marriage Ring"
Pointed Sagxestions ~ to what . Womsa
Should Avoid In Choosing . Husband
None But God . Safe Guide In
Deciding the Question.
We give below Rev. r. De Witt Tai.
IMAGES second sermon of his course on
sThe Marriage Ring" delivered recently
In the Brooklyn Tabernacle. The text for
this discourse was:
The Lord grant you that We may ind rest
each Of you. In the house Of her husband.
DR.. Talmage said:
This was the prayer Of the pious Naomi
for Ruth and Orpah, and is an appropriate
prayer now in behalf of unmarried WON.
anhood. Naomi, the good old soul, knew
that the devil would take their cases in
hand il God did not, SO she prays: 1.-THE
Lord grant you that ye may find rest,
each Of you, in the house of her husband"
In this series of sermons ON 1.-THE Mar.
riage Ring" last Sabbath gave prayer.
full and Christian advice to men in regard
to the selection of a wife, and to-day I give
the same prayerful and Christian advice
to women in. regard to the selection of q
husband, but in all these sermons saying
much that hope will be appropriate for
all ages and all classes.
Iapplaud the celibacy of multitude of
women who, rather than make unfit selec-
tion, have made none at all. 1t has not been
a lack of opportunity for martial contract
on their part, but their own culture and re.
fnement and their exalted idea as to what
husband ought to be, have caused their
declinature. They have seen so many
women marry imbeciles, or ruifians, or in
cipient sots, or lifelong incapables, or
magnificent nothings, or men who
before marriage were angelic and
afterward diabolic, that they have
been alarmed and stood back. They saw
SO many boats go into the maelstrom
that they steered into other waters
Better for woman to live alone, though
she live thousand years, than to be
annexed to one of these masculine fail
ures with which society is surfeited.
The patron saint of almost every fam.
fly circle is some such unmarried woman,
and among all the families of cousins she
moves around, and her coming in each
house is the morning, and her going away
is the night.
In my large circle of kindred, perhaps
twenty families in all, it was an Aunt
Phoebe. Paul give q letter of introduce
tion to one whom he calls "Phabe, our
icfo cho f..o,. (Nav, ol,wao
to Rome, commenting her for her kind
ness ana Christian service, and implor.
ing for her all courtesies. think Aunt
Phoebe was named after her. Was there
sickness in any of the households, she
was there ready to sit up and count
out the drops of medicine. Was there
q marriage, she helped deck the bride for
the altar. Was there q new soul incar-
mated, she was there to rejoice at the
nativity. Was there a'sore bereavement,
she was there to console. The children
rushed out at her first appearance crying,
"Here comes Aunt Phoebe" and but for
parental interference they would have
pulled her down with their caresses, for
she was not very strong, and many sewers
illnesses had given her enough g.impses of
the next world to make her heavenly.
minded. Her table was loaded up with
Bakers "Saints' Rest" Doddridge's
"Rise and Progress" and jays Morning
and Evening Exercises" and John Bun.
vans Pilgrims Progress, and like books,
which have fitted out whole generations
for the heaven upon which they have
already entered.
"De Witt" she said to me one day,
"twice in my life 1 have been so over
whelmed with the love of God that I
tainted away and could hardly be re.
suscitated. Don't tell me there is no
heaven. l have seen it twice." II you
would know how her presence would
soothe an anxiety, or lift q burden, or
cheer Q sorrow, or leave a blessing on
every room in the house, ask any of the
Talmages. She had tarried at her early
home, taking care of an invalid father,
until the bloom of life had somewhat
faded, but she could interest the young
folks with some three or four tender pas
sages in her own history, so that we all
knew it was not through lack of opportun-
ity that she was not the queen of one house,
hold, instead Of being a benediction on q
whole circle of households. At about
seventy years of age she made her last
visit to my house, and when she sat
in my Philadelphia Church, was more
at her presence than by all
the audience, because felt that in religion
1 had got no further than the a. b. c., while
she had learned the whole alphabet, and
for many years had finished the y and z.
When she went out of this life into the
next, what a shout there must have been
in Heaven, from the front door clear to the
back seat in the highest gallery! saw the
other day in the village cemetery of Somer-
vile, N. j.. her resting place, the tomb
stone having on it the words which, thirty
years ago, she told me she would like to
have inscribed there, namely: "Yhe
Cometh."
Had she q mission in the world: Ger
tainly. As much as Caroline Herschel,
first amanuensis for her illustrious brother,
and then his assistant in astronomical cal |
and then discovering worlds for |
herself, dying at ninety-eight years of !
age, still busy with the stars till she sped |
beyond them; as much as had Florence !
the nurse of the Crimea; or
Grace Darling, the oarswoman OF the |
Long Stone Lighthouse; or Nary Lyon,
the teacher of Mount Holyoke Female Sem
mary; or Hannah Moore, the Christian
authoress of England; or Dorothea Dix,
The angel of mercy for the insane; or ANNA
among the wounded Of Black
burns Fort; or Margaret Breckenridge, at
vicksburg; or Mary Shelton, distributing
roses and grapes and cologne in Western
hospitals; or thousands of ~sher glorious
women like them, who never took the mar.