The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-03-01
GRANDMOTHER LOIS.
DR.. TALMAeE'S EIGHTH SERMON TO
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.

Also for sIen-A Mothers influence OF
Unborn Generations.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 26.-The Rev. 7. DE
Witt Talraage, d. D., preached in the
Brooklyn Tabernacle today 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 Children A vast congregation was
present. The opening hymn begins:
Give to the wind thy fears,
Hope and be undismayed;
God hears thy signs and counts thy tears
God shall lift up thy head.
DR.. Talmage's text was from II
Timothy i, 5: The unfeigned faith that is
in thee, which dwelt first in thy grand
mother Lois" The eloquent preacher
said:
In this love letter which Paul, the old
minister, is writing to Timothy, the
young minister, the family record is
brought out. Paul practically says:
"Timothy, what good grandmother you
had. You ought to be better than most
folks, because not only was your mother
good but your grandmother. Two pre-
ceding generations of piety ought to
give you a mighty push in the right di-
rection. The fact was that Timothy
needed encouragement. He was in poor
health, having a weak stomach, and was
dyspeptic, and Paul prescribed for him a
tonic, ga little vino for thy stomach's
sake"-not much wine, but little wine,
and only as medicine. And if the wine
then had been as much adulterated with
logwood and strychnine as our modern
wines, he would not have prescribed any.
But Timothy. not strong physically, is
encouraged spiritually by the recital of
grandnothcriy excellence. Paul limiting
to him, as | hint this day to YOU, that
God sometimes gathers up as in reser-
voir away back of the active generations
of today godly influence, and then, in
response to prayer, lets down the power
upon children, and grandchildren, and
decentralization. The world is woe
fully i'll want of q table of statistics in re-
gard to What Is the protractedness and
immcnsitv of influence of one good wo-
man III the church and world. We
have accounts of how much evil has
been wrought by Margaret, the mother
of criminals, who lived nearly 100 hun
dred years ago, and of how MANY hun
dredS IF criminals her descendants fur
nishcd for The penitentiary and the gal
AONor '|'''N INV Vi lnOu-
sands ,f dollars they cost this country in
their a:'r;iEnment and prison support, as
well - in The property they burglarized
or destroyed. But will not some one
come cut with brain comprehensive
enough AMI heart warm enough and pen
keen enough to give us the facts in re-
gari to some good woman of a hundred
years 10. and let us know how many
Christian men and women and reformers
and useful people have been found among
her &, scel,i:,nts, and how many asylums
and colleges and churches they built, and
how many millions of dollars they con-
trlbuted for humanitarian and Christian
purposes!
The good women whose tombstones
were planted in the Eighteenth century
are more aEvc 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 Tween
tieth century than now. Mark YOU,
have 10 idea that the grandmothers were
any better than their granddaughter.
You cannot get very old people to talk
much about how things were when they
were boys and girls. They have a reti-
cence and a non-committalism which
makes me think they feel themselves to
be the custodians of the reputation of
their early comrades. While our dear
old folks are rehearsing 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 1895,
and he says of woman's diet in those
times: '1f premium was offered for a
regimen most destructive to health, none
could be devised more efficacious 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
1t was worse hundred years ago, for
the chaplain of French regiment in our
revolutionary war wrote in 1882, in his
book of American women, saying: ..They
are tall and well proportioned, their feat
tres are generally regular their complex
ions are generally fair and without color.
At 20 years Of age the women have no
longer the freshness of youth. At 40
or 40 they are decrepit.'' In 1912 for
elgn consul wrote a book entitled "a
Sketch of the United States at the Com
of the Present Century, and
he says of the women of those times:
At the age of 80 all their charms have
disappeared. One glance. at the Dor
TRAITS Of the women a hundred wears
ago and their style of dress makes us
wonder how they ever got their breath. |
ALI this makes me think that the express |
rail train lS no more an improvement On |
The old canal boat, or the telegraph no |
more an improvement on the old time |
than the women of our day |
Are an improvement on the women of the |
asst century.
But still, Notwithstanding that those |
lines were 80 much worse than ours. |
here was a glorious race of godly |
women, seventy and hundred wears
sgo, who held the world back from sin
md lifted it toward virtue, and without
heir exalted and sanetified influence be-
ore this the last good influence would (
laye persisted from the earth. Indeed /
III over this land there are seated TODAY
mot so much in churches, for many OF |
hem are too feeble to come great |
many aged graadmothers. They some
lines feel that the world has gone past
hem, and they have an idea they are Of |
little account. Their head sometimes
,ets aching from the racket of the,grand- |
hlldren down stairs or in the next rooml-
they steady themselves by the Banissers
s they go up and down When they
ret cold it hangs on 10, them longer
han it used to- They cannot bear to
ave the grandchildren punished even
rhen they deserve t.. and have SO re-
lxed their ideas of family discipline that
ney would spoil alItale youngsters of the
ousehold by too great leniency These +
Id folks are the resort when great tro11-
les come, and there is a calming and #
)Othing pOWersin thu touch erf an a.-oa ]