The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-03-08
TALMAGE'S SERMON,
The Weekly Discourses Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject; "The Grnndm other
and Her GranLchiidren.''

LOIS. Ill. Timothy, l., 3.
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 a
good grandmother You had You ought to
be better than most folks, because not only
was your mother good, but your grand
mother. Two preceding generations of
piety ought to give you mighty
push in the right direction The
fact was that Timothy needed encourage
ment He was poor in health, having weak
stomach, and was dyspaptic, and Paul pre-
scribed for him tonic, "a little wine for thy
etomach's saken-not much wine, but little
wine, and only as medicine. And IL the
wine then had been as much aau,terated with
logwood and strychnine 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 to-day godlv in
ttuence. and then in response to prayer let's
down tho power upon children and grand
children and great grandchildren. The
world is woefully in want of table
OF statistics in regard to what is
the protractedness and immensely of influence
of one good woman in the church and world.
been wrought by Margaret, the mother of
criminals, who lived near hundred years
ago. and of how many hundreds of Grim
inals her descendants furnished for the peni-
Tertiary and the gallows, and how many
thousands of dollars they cost this country
in their arraignment and prison support
rs well as in the property they burg
larzel or destroyed. But will not
SOME one come out with brain compre-
hensive enough and heart warm enough and
pen Keen enough to give us the facts in re-
gard to some good woman of hundred
years ago, and let us know how many Chris
tian men and women and reformers and use
ful 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 hu'
manitaran and Christian purposes'
The good women whose tombstones were
planted in the 18th century are more alive
for good in the 18th century than they were
before, as the good women OF this 18th cent
ury will be more alive for good in the Goth
century than now. Mark you, | have no
idea that the grandmother's were any
better than their granddaughters You cannot
get very old people to talk much about how
things were when they We're boys and girls.
They have reticence and non-committal
ism which makes me think they feel them
selves 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 OPP
pressive.
A celebrated Frenchman by the name of
Volney. visited this country in 1896, and he
says OF woman's diet in those times: "If a
premium were ofe ed for regimen most
destructive to health, none could be devised
fn hoe de flo,> hat -,
use among these people" That eclipses
our lobster salad at midnight Every
body talks about tho 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 Revolutionary War
wrote in 1852, in his boo; of American
proportional their features are generally
regular, their compilations arc generally fair
and without color. At twenty years of age
the women have no longer the freshness of
youth AT thirty or forty they are decrepit."
In lSl2 foreign consul wrote a book en-
titled: "a Sketch of the United States at
the Commencement of the Present Century
and he says of the women OF those times:
AT the age Of thirty all their charms have
disappeared" One glance at the portraits OF
the women 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 inn
provement on the old canal boat or the
telegraph no more an Improvement on the
old time saddlebags than the women of oul
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 6
hundred years ago, who held the world back
from sin and lifted it toward virtue, ant
without their exalted and sanctiiied influence
before this the last good influence would have
persisted from the earth. Indeed all ovel
this land there are seated to-day
not SO much in churcles for man,
OF them are too feeble to come
great many aged grandmothers. They
sometimes feel that the world has gone pas
them, and they have an idea they are o
little account. Their head sometimes get
aching from the racket of the grandchildren
downstairs or in the next room They stead,
themselves by the banisters as they 90 up ant
down. When they get a cold it hangs on t,
them longer than it used to. They canno
bear to have the grandchildren punished
even when they deserve it. and hav
nfsfSa t s tSs ~o 1881 aSo ali # ne f fam
Sters OF the household by too great leniency
These old folks are the resort when grea
troubles come, and there is calming ant
soothing, power in the touch of an aged hant
mat is almost supernatural. They feel the.
are almost through with the journey o
life and read the old book more thai
they used to, hardly knowing which mos
they enjoy, the Old Testament or tn
New, and often stop and dwell fearful,
over the family record half way between
We hail them too day whether in the house O
Tod or at the homestead. Blessed is tina
household that has in it a grandmother Lois
where she is angels are lowering round AM
Tod is in the room. May her last days b
lndipn summer
never knew the joy of having grand
mother; that is the disadvantage OF being tn
youngest child OF the family The eide
members only have that benediction. Blu
though she went up out of this life before
began it, / have heard of her faith in God
that brought all her children into the king
then brought all her grandchildren int
the kingdom, myself the last an
least worthy. Is it not time tina
you and l do two things, swing open
picture gallery of the wrinkled faces an
stopped shoulders of the past, and call dow
from their heavenly thrones the godly grand
mothers to give them our thanks, and the
persuade the mothers of to-day that they ar
living for all time, and that against the side
of every cradle in which child is rookie
beat the two cternities.
Here we have an untried, undiscussed an
nnexplored subject. You often hear abor
your influence upon your children-I am M
talking about that. What about your Unfit
ence upon the twentieth century, upon ii
tbirtieth century, upon the fortieth century
upon the year two thousand, upo
the year four thousand, il the world last
80 long. The world stood four thousan
years before Christ came; it is NJ
unreasonable to suppose that it ma
stand four thousand years after his arriva
-Four thousand years the world swung off j
sin, four thousand years it may be swingin
back into Righteousness. By the ordinar
rate of multiplication Of the worlds populi
ton in a century your defendants wi
be over three hundred, and by tw
centuries at least over fifty Thousand
and upon every one of them you, IL
mother of today, will have an infuent
for good or evil. And if in four centuri,
your descendants shall have with their namt
filled scroll of hundreds of thousands, wi
some angel from heaven to whom is give
the capacity to calculate the number of I'll
stars of heaven and the sands of the seashor
step down and tell us how many descen'
ants you will have in the four thousand
year of the worlds possible continuance
Do not let the grandmothers an
longer think that they are retire'
and sit clear back out of sight fro
the world. feeling that thev have no relatio
IN y,ofha,S IF tb, 10 Of oop tury Z.