The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-03-02
GRANDMOTHER LOIS.
DR.. TAlMAeE's EIGHTH SERMON
TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.

ph' JAIMAGE'S EIGHTH SERMON
TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.
This Is Hard World for Women. and
Also for Men--A Mothers Influence OF
Immense and Lasting Importance on
Unborn Generations.
BROOKLYN, Feb 26.-The Rev. T. De Witt
Talmage, D. D., preached in the Brooklyn
Tabernacle to-day the eighth Of his series OF
Sermons to the Women of America, with
Important Hints to Men, His subject was,
1.-THE Grandmother and Her Grandchildren. y
A vast congregation was present. The open
ing hymn begins:
Give 70 the wind thy fears,
Hope and be slndismayed;
God hears thy signs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head.
DIR. Talmageis text was from III Timothy,
!, S: "The unfeigned faith that is In thee,
which dwelt first In thy grandmother Lola =
The eloquent preacher said:
In this loveletter which Paul, the old min
lister, is writing to Timothy, the young min
lister, the family record is brought out. Paul
practically says: Timothy, what q 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-
ton" The fact was that Timothy needed
encouragement. He was in poor health, hav-
ing week stomach, and was dyspeptic, and
Paul prescribed for him tonic, "a little
wine for thy stomach's sake"-not much
wine, but a little, and only as q medi-
cine. And IL the wine then had been a.
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, cody in
fuence, and then inresponse to prayer lets
down the power upon children and grand
children and great-grandchildren. The world
Is woefully in want of q table of statistics In
regard to what is the protractedness and Inn
mensity of influence Of one good woman In
the church and world We have accounts of
how much evil has been wrought by Mar
geret, the mother of criminals, who lived
near a 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 arTaign-
ment and prison support, as well as In the
property they burglarized or destroyed. But
win 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 q hundred
years ago. and let us know how many Chris
tian men and women and reformers and use
full people have been found among her de-
scendants, and how many asylums and col
leges and churches they built. and how many
millions of dollars they contributed for hui
manitarian and Christian purposes2
The good 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 makes
me think they feel themselves to be the Gus
todians of the reputation of their early COM
rades. 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 1875, and he
says of woman's diet in those times: eff q
premium was offered for a regimen most de-
structive to health, none could be devised
more ef1cacious for these ends than that in
use among these people" That eclipses our
lobster salad at midnight Everybody talks
about the designations 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-
evolutionary war wrote in 1882, in his book Of
American women. saying: "They are tall
and well proportional, their features are
generally regular, their compilations are
generally fair and without color At 90
years of age the women have no longer the
freshness of youth. At 80 or 40 they are de-
crepit." In 1912 foreign consul wrote q
book entitled ga Sketch of the United States
at the Commencement Of the Present Gem
tury," and he says Of the women Of those
times: "At the age of 30 all their charms
have disappeared" One glance at the por-
traits of the women a hundred years ago and
their style 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 q
glorious race Of cody women, seventy and q
hundred years ago, who held the world back
from sin and lifted it toward virtue, and
without their exalted and sanctified influ-
ence before this the last good influence would
have persisted from the earth. Indeed, Ill
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 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 lowering round and God is in the
room. May her last days be like those lovely
autumnal days that we call Indian summer.
never knew the joy Of having 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 ont Of this life before ]
began 1t, ! have heard of her faith In God.
that brought all 10 children into the king
dom and two of them into the ministry, and
then brought all her grandchildren into the
kingdom, myself the last and least worthy.
Is it not time that you and do two things,
swing open picture gallery Of the wrinkled
faces and stopped shoulders Of the past, and
call down from their heavenly thrones the
cody grandmothers, to give them our thanks,
and then persuade the mothers Of today that
they are living for all time, and that
against the sides Of every cradle In which a
child Is rocked beat the two eternitles.
Here we have an untried, undiscussed and
unexplored subject You often hear about
your influence upon your own children-I
am not talking about that. What about
your influence upon the Twentieth century,
upon the Thirtieth century, upon the Fortieth