Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-03-25
THE DEMOCRATIC NORTHWEST THURSDAY MARCH 25 1896

come 10 the coronation. Had there be,
no Miriam there would have been no Noses
What q garland for faithful sisterhoodl
For how many a lavgiver and how many
hero and how many dsliverer and how
many q saint are the world AMI the church
indebted 10 n watohful. loving. faithful,
godly sister? Come up out of the farm
houses; come up out of the inconspicuous
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 America,
and let rs see you-the Miriams who
watched and protected the leaders in law,
and medicine, and merchandise, and art,
and agriculture, and mechanics, and re-
hgion! II I should ask all these ply
sicians, and attorneys, and merchants, and
ministers OF religion, and successful men
of all professions and trades who are in
debted to an elder sister for good influence,
and perhaps for IN education or pros
porous start, 10 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 o herwise have gone for the replen-
ishing of sisters wal drobe. While the
brother sailed OF for a resounding sphere
! the sister watched him from the banks Of
sci denial.
Miriam was the eldest of the family;
Moses and Aaron, her brothers, and
younger. Oh! The power of the elder sis
ter 10 help decide the brothers character
! for usefulness and fer b. aven! She can
I keep off from her brother more evils than
Miriam could have driven back water fowl
or croeodiles from the ark of bulrush s.
TIL elder sister doci,ts he direction in
which the cradle Loaf shall sail. BY n
tleness, by good sense. by Christian prin-
cipls she can turn it toward the palace, not
of wicked Pharaoh. but of holy God;
and brighter princess than Ihermutis
shall lit him out of peril, even Religion,
whose ways are ways of pleasantness and
all her paths arc peace. The elder sister,
how much the world owes her! Born while
yet the family was in limited circumstances.
she had to hold and take care of her
younger lrothers. And fthere is anything
that excites my sympathy it is little girl
Juggling around a great, fat child and get
ting her ears boxed because she cannot
keep him quiet. By the time she gets to
young womanhood she is pale and worn
out, and her attractiveness has been sacri-
feed on the altar of sisterly fidelity, and
she is consigned to celibacy, and society
calls her by an ungal'ant name, but in
heaven they call her Miriam. In most
families the two most undesirable places
in the record of births are the first and the
last; the first because she is worn out with
the cares of home that cannot afford to
hire help, and the last because she is
| spoiled as q pet. Among the gran lest
equipages that sweep through the streets of
heaven will be those occupied by sisters
who sacrificed themselves for brothers.
They will have the finest of the apocalyptic
white horses, and many who on earth
looked down upon them will have to turn
out to let them pass.
Let sisters not begrudge the time and
care bestowed on brother. It is hard tc
believe that any boy that you know SO well
as your blother can ever turn out ny
thing very useful. Well, he may rot !,
Moses. There is only one of 'ha Iii
needed for six thousand years. Tu
you what your brother will be en..c.
blessing or curse to society, an, :. i,
didate for happiness or wretchednes. .e
will, like Moses, have the choice b tween
rubies and living GOALS, and your influence
will have much to do with his decision. He
may not, like Moses, be the deliverer of
nation, but he may, after your father and
mother are gone, be the deliverer of q
household. What thousands of homes to.
day are piloted by brothers! There arc
properties now well invested, and yielding
income for the support Of sisters and
younger brothers. because the elder brother
rose to the leadership from the day the
father laid down to die, Whatever you do
for your brother will come back to you
again. If you set him an ill-natured, CEN
serious, unaccommodating example, it will
recoil upon you from his own irritated and
despoiled nature. If you, by patience
with all his intirmities and by nobility of
character, dwell with him in the few years
of his companionship, you will have your
counsel reflected bac upon you some day
by his splendor of behavior in some crisis
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 off
the bank of the Nile and wade out and upset
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 dew
ilish. There is teasing that is pleasurable,
and is only another form of innocent rail-
lery, but that which provokes and irritatas
and makes the eye flush with anger is to be
reprehended. It would be less blame-
worthy TO take bunch of thorns and draw
them across your sisters cheek, or to take
knife and draw it's sharp edge across
your brothers hand till the blood spurts,
for that would damage only the body, but
teasing is the thorn and tl!, knife scratch
ing and lacerating the sposition and the
soul. It is the curse of innumerable
households that the brothers tease the SIS
teis and the sisters the brothers. Some
times it is the color of the hair, or the
shape Of the features, or an affair Of the
heart. Sometimes it is by revealing Sc.
cret, or by suggestive look, or guffaw
or an "Ahem!" Tease! Tease! Tease! Fol
Gods sake, quit it. Christ says: "He that
bateth his brother is murderer" Now
when you, by teasing, make your brother
or sister hate, you turn him or her into
murderer or murderess.
Don't let jealousy ever touch sisters
soul, as it SO often does, because hel
brother gets more honor or more means
Even Miriam, the heroine Of the text, wal
struck by that evil passion of jealousy. Sh,
had possessed unlimited influence owe.
Moses, and now he marries black woman
from Ethiopia, and Miriam is SO disgustet
and outraged at Moses-first, because b,
had married at all, and, next. because h
had practiced miscegenation, that she il
drawn into q frenzy, and then begins t
turn white, and gets white as corpse, ant
then winter than corpse. Her complexio,
is like chalk. The fact is, she has tn,
Egyptian leprosy. And now the brother
whom she had defended on the Nile, come,
to her rescue in prayer that brings he
restoration. Let there be no room in al
your house for jealousy, either to sit o