The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-02-09

~ z4L "A ~ r K -
farer's crust. A little while ago approved
and sought for: now none SO poor as
to acknowledge her acquaintanceship.
Vashti the sacrifice. All, you and | have
seen it many time. Here is home
empalaced with beauty. All that refine
ment, and books, and wealth can do for
that home has been done: but Ahasuerus,
the husband and the father, is taking
hold on paths of sin. He is gradually
going down. After while he viii
founder and struggle like a wild beast in
hunters net,-fprther away from God,
further away from the right. Soon the
bright apparel of the children will turn
to rags: soon the household song will be-
come the sobbing of broken heart. The
old story over again. Brutal Centaurs
breaking up the marriage feast of La
pithae. The house full of outrage, and
cruelty, and abomination, while trudging
forth from the palace gate are Vashti
and her children. There are homes rep
resented in this house this morning that
are in danger of such a breaking
up. Oh Ahasuerus, that you should
stand in home, by a dissipated
life destroying the peace and comfort
of that home. God forbid that your
children should ever have to wiring their
hands, and have people point their finger
at them as they pass down the street and
say: ''There goes c drunkard's child"
God forbid that the little feet should ever
have to trudge the path of poverty and
wretchedness. God forbid that any evil
spirit, born of thewine cup or the brandy
flask, should come forth and uproot that
garden, and, with q biasting, blistering,
all consuming curse. shut for ever the i
palace gate against Vashti and the chill
tren.
Oh, the women and the men of sacri-
flee are going to take the brightest coro-
mails of heaven! This woman of the text
gave up palatial residence. gave up all for
what she considered right Sacrifice
Is there anything more sublime? A
steamer called the Prairie Belle, burning
on the Mississippi river, Bludso, the engi-
neer, declared he would keep the bow of
the boat to the shore till all were off, and
he kept his promise. At his post, scorched
and blackened, he perished. but he saved
all the passengers. Two verses of pa
thetic poetry describe the scene, but the
verses are little rough, and so | changed
a word or two:
| Through the hot black breath of the burning
Jim Bludso's voice was heard
And they all had trust in his stubbornness,
And knew he would keep his word,
| And sures you're born they all got off
| Afore the smokestacks fell;
! And Budsos ghost went up above,
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
! He weren't no saint, but at Judgment
I'd run my chance with Jim
| Longside Of some pioUs gentlemen
That wouldn't shake hands with him.
He'd seen his duty, dead thing,
And went for it there and then,
And Christ is not going to be too hard
| On man that died for men.
Once more: l want you to look at
| Vashti the silent. You do not hear any
outcry from this woman as she goes forth
| from the palace gate. From the very
dignity of her nature yoa know there will
be no vociferation. Sometimes in life it
is necessary to make retort; sometimes
in life it is necessary TO resist; but there
are crises when the most triumphant
| thing to do is to keep silence. The phil
osopher, confident in his newly discov-
cred principle, waited for the coming of
more intelligent generations, willing that
and cotton gin and steamboat waiting for
long years through the scoffing of philo-
sophical schools, in grand and magnificent
] silence. Calico, condemned by mathe-
maticians, and monks, and cardinals.
caricatured everywhere, yet waiting and
watching with his telescope, to see the
4 coming up of stellar re-enforcements,
wheh the stars in their courses would
| fight for the Copernican system; then
sitting down in complete blindness and
deafness to wait for the coming on of
the generations who would build his
monument and bow at his grave. The
reformer, execrated by his contempo-
raries, fastened in O pillory, the slow
| fires of public contempt burning under
him, ground under the cylinders of the
printing press, yet calmly waiting for the
day when purity of soul and heroism of
character will get the sanction of earth
and the plaudits of heaven. Affliction,
enduring without any complaint the
sharpness of the pang, and the violence
of the storm, and the heft of the chain,
and the darkness of the night-waiting
until divine hand shall be put forth to
soothe the pang, and hush the storm, and
release the captive. 4 wife abused, per-
secuted, and a perpetual exile from every
earthly cOmfort-waiting, waiting, until
the Lord shall gather up his dear children
in heavenly home, and no poor Vashti
will ever be thrust out from the palace
gate. Jesus, in silence, and answering
not a word, drinking the gall. bearing
the cross, in prospect of the rapturous
cOnSummatiOn when
Angels thronged his chariot wheel,
| And bore him to his throne;
Then swept their golden harps and sung
The glorious work is done.
An Arctic explorer found ship float
ing helplessly about among the icebergs,
and going on board he found that the
captain was frozen at his logbook, and
the helmsman was frozen at the wheel,
and the men on the lookout were frozen
in their places, That was awful, but
magnificent. All the Arctic blasts and
all the icebergs could not drive them
from their duty. Their silence was
louder than thunder. And this old ship
of a world has many at their posts in the
awful chill of neglect, and frozen of the
worlds scorn, ann their silence shall be
the eulogy Of the skies, and be rewarded
long after this weather beaten craft of a
planet shall have made its last voyage.
l thank God that the mightiest in
fiuences are the most silent. The fires in
furnace of factory CT Of steamship
roar though they only move few shut
ties or few thousand tons, but the sun
that warns world rises and sets with
out a crackle or faintest sound. Tray
elers visiting Mount Etna, having heard
of the glories of sunrise ON that peak,
went up to spend the night there and see
, the sun rise next morning, but when it
, came up it was so far behind their an
ticipations they actually Missed it. The
mightiest influences today are like the
, planetary system-completely silent.
Don't hiss the SUM-
) Oh, womanl does not this story OF
I Vashti the queen, Vashti the veiled,
Vashti the sacrifice, Vashti the silent.
move your soul? My sermon converges
into the one absorbing hope that none OF
. you may be shut out of the palace gate
] of heaven. You can endure the hard