Milford chronicle., 1888-03-02
GRANDMOTHER LOIS.
DR.. TALMAeE's EIGHTH SERMON
TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. >

This Is a Hard World for Women. and
Also for sIen--A Mothers Influence o.
Immense and Lasting Importance OF
Unborn Generations.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 26-The Rev. 7. De Wit
Talmage, D. D., preached in the Brooklyn
Tabernacle to-day the eighth Of his series oi
s'Sermons to the Women Of America, witt
Important Hints to Men, His subject was
ssThe Grandmother and Her Grandchildren.
A vast congregation was present. The open
ing hymn begins:
Give to the wind thy fears,
Hope and be undismayed;
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head.
DR.. Talmage's text was from II Timothy
/, 5: "The unfeigned faith that is in thee
which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois
| The eloquent preacher said:
In this love letter which Paul, the old min
lister, is writing to Timothy, the young min
ister, the family record is brought out Pau
practically says: Timothy, what a good
! grandmother You had. You ought to be bet
ter than most FOLKS, because not only was
your mother good, but your grandmother.
! Two preceding generations Of piety ought to
! give you mighty push in the right direc-
tom The fact was that Timothy needed
encouragement He was in poor health, hav-
ing a week stomach, and was dyspeptic, and
Paul prescribed for him a tonic, ''a little
wine for thy stomach's saken-not much
wine, but little, and only as a medi-
cine. And il the wine then had been as
much adulterated with logwood and strych-
| nine as our modern wines, he would not have
/ prescribed any.
But Timothy, not strong physically, is en-
couraged spiritually by the recital of grand
motherly excellence, Paul limiting to him as
! hint this day to you, that God sometimes
! gathers up, as in a reservoir away back OF
! the active generations of today, a godly in
! fuence, and then in response to prayer lets
/ down the power upon children and grand
4 children and reat-grandchildren. The world
/ is woefully in want Of a table of statistics in
regard to what is the protr@etedness and i'm
4 mensitv of influence of one good woman in
/ the church and world. We have accounts OF
1 how much evil has been wrought by Mar
| geret, the mother of criminals, who lived
| near hundred years ago and of how many
hundreds Of criminals her descendants fur
/ nished for the penitentiary and the gallows
and how many hundreds Of thousands Of dol
! lars they cost this country in their arraign-
meat and prison support, as well as in tho
property they burglarized or destroyed. But
will not some one come out with brain COM
prehensive enough, and heart warm enough,
/ and pen keen enough to give us the facts in
regard to some good woman of hundred
wears ago. and let us know how many Chris
! tian men and women and reformers and use
| fuI people have been found among her de
scendants, and how many asylums and col
| Ieges and churches they built, and how many
millions of dollars they contributed for hu-
manitarian and Christian purpOses9
The rood women whose tombstones were
planted in the Eighteenth century are more
! alive for good in the Nineteenth century than
they were before, as the good women Of this
Nineteenth century will be more alive for
GOOD in the Twentieth century than now.
Mark You, have no idea that the grand
mothers were any better than their grand
daughters. You cannot get very old people
to talk much about how things were when
they were boys and girls. They have reti-
cence and non-committalism which max
me think they feel themselves to be the Gus
todians Of the reputation Of their early COM
radcs. While our dear old folks are rehears-
ing the follies of the present, if yOu put them
on the witness stand and cross examine them
as to how things were seventy years ago the
silence becomes oppressive.
A celebrated Frenchman by the name of
Volney visited this country in 1916, and he
saws of woman's diet in those times; 'ff a
premium was offered for a regimen most de-
stluctive to health, none could be devised
more efiicacious for these ends than that in
use among these people, That eclipses our
lobster salad at midnight. Everybody talks
about the dissipations Of modern society and
how womanly health goes down under it,
but it was worse hundred years ago, for
the chaplain of a French regiment in our re-
volutionary war wrote in 1882, in his book Of
American women, saying: "They are tall
and well proportioned, their features are
generally regular, their compilations are
generally fair and without color. At 20
years of age the WOMEN have no longer the
freshness Of youth. At so or 40 they are de-
crepit.n In 1912 q foreign consul wrote
book entitled "a Sketch Of the United States
at the Commencement of the Present Cen
tury,n and he says of the women of those
times: cat the age of 30 all their charms
have disappeared One glance at the por-
traits of the women a hundred years ago and
their stvle of dress makes us wonder how
they ever got their breath All this makes
me think that the express rail train is no
more an improvement on the old canal boat,
or the telegraph no more an improvement on
the old time saddle bags, than the women of
our day are an improvement on the women
of the last century
But still, notwithstanding that those times
were so much worse than ours, there was
glorious race of godly women, seventy and
hundred years ago. who held the world back
from sin and lifted it toward virtue, and
without their exalted and sanctified infiu-
ence before this the last good influence would
have perished from the earth. Indeed, all
over this land there are seated today-not SO
much in churches, for many Of them are too
feeble to come-a great many aged grand
mothers. They sometimes feel that the world
has gone past them, and they have an idea
they are Of little account Their head some
times gets aching from the racket of the
grandchildren down stairs or in the next
room. They steady themselves by the banis-
ters as they go up and down. When they
get a cold it hangs on to them longer than it
used to. They cannot bear to have the grand
children punished, even when they deserve
it, and have so relaxed their ideas of family
discipline that they would spoil all the
Youngsters Of the household by too great
leniency. These old folks are the resort when
great troubles come, and there is a calming
and soothing power in the touch Of an aged
hand that is almost supernatural They feel
they are almost through with the journey Of
life and read the old book more than they
used to, hardly knowing which most they en-
JOY, the Old Testament or the New, and often
stop and dwell tearfully over the family
record half way between. We hail them to-
day whether in the house Of God or at the
homestead Blessed is that household that
has in it a Grandmother Lois Where she is
angels are towering round and God is in the
room. May her last days be like those lovely
autumnal days that we call Indian summer.
1 never knew the joy Of having a grand
mother; that is the disadvantage Of being
the youngest child Of the family. The elder
members only have that benediction. But
though she went up out Ct this life before J
oegan it, have heard Of her faith in God,
that brought all her children into the king
i 49,. - AI,rs,,, into f1o ministry and