The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-03-14
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: THE Grandmother and Her
Grandchildren"

Grandchildren"
TEXT: 1.-THE tnfeigned faith that is in
thee, arhich d,ceN first in thy grandmother
Lois. III. Timothy, l., 5.
In this love letter which Paul, the old
minister, is writing to Timothy. the young
Paul practically says: Timothy. what q
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 a mighty
push in the right direction" The
fact was that Timothy needed encourage
ment. He was poor in health, having weak
stomach, and was dyspeptic, and Paul pre-
etomachs sake'-not much wine, Tut little
wine, and only as a medicine. And if the
wine then had been as much aduterated 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 reservoir away back of the
active generations of to-day godly in
fuence, and then in response to prayer lets
down the power upon children and grand
children and great grandchildren. The
world is woefully in want of a table
of statistics in regard to what is
the protractedneSs and immensity of influence
of one good woman in the church and world.
We have accounts of how much evil has
been wrought by Margaret, the mother of
criminals, who lived near a hundred years
ago, and Of how many hundreds of Grim
inals her descendants furnished for the peni-
tentiary and the gallows, and how many
thousands of dollars they cost this country
in their arraignment and prison support
as we'll as in the property they burg
iariZed or destroyed. But will not
some one come out with brain compre-
hensive enough and heart warm enoug b 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
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 hu-
manitarian and Christian purposes!
The good women whose tombstones were
planted in the 18th century are more alive
FOR good in the 10Th century than they were
before, as the good women Of this 10Th cent
ury will be more alive for good in the 10th
century than now. Mark you, l 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 were boys and girls.
They have reticence and non-committal-
selves to be the cuStodians of the reputation
of their early comrades. While our dear old
folks are rehearsing the follies of tho present,
If you put them on the witness stand and
cross examine them as to how things were
seventy years ago the silence becomes op-
preSsive.
A celebrated Frenchman by the name Of
Volney. visited this country in 1876, and he
says Of woman's diet in those times: ''If
premium were Offered for 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 Every
body 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
French regiment in our Revolutionary War
wrote in 17S3, in his book of American
proportioned, their features are generally
regular, their compilations are 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 decrcpit."
In 1872 foreign consul wrote book en-
titled: "a Sketch Of the United States at
the Commencement of the Present Century,.
t'At the age Of thirty all their charms have
disappeared" One glance at the portraits of
the women a hundred years ago and their
style Of dress makes us&onder how they ever
got their breath. All this makes me think
that the express rail train is no more an i'm
provement on the old canal boat or the
telegraph no more an improvement on the
oldtime saddlebags, than the women Of our
day are an Improvement on the women of
the last century.
But still, Notwithstanding that those times
we're 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 Sanctiied influence
before this the last good influence would have
perished from the earth. Indeed all over
this land there are seated to-day
not 50 much in churches, for many
q great many aged grandmothers They
sometimes feel that the world has gone past
them, and they have an idea they are Of
little account Their head sometimes gets
aching from the racket of the grandchildren
downstairs or in the next room. They steady
themselves by the banisters as they 90 up and
down. When they get cold it hangs on to
them longer than it used to. They cannot
bear to have the grandchildren punished
80 relaxed their ideas of family
discipline that they would spoil all the young
sters 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 enjoy, 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 grandmother Lois.
Where she is angels are lowering round and
God is in the room May her last days be
like those lovely autumn days that we call
Indian summer
Inever knew the joy of having a grand
youngest child of the family. The elder
members only have that benediction. But
though she went up out of this life before I
began it, have heard OF her faith in God,
that brought all ner 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
you and I do two things, swing open q
picture gallery of the wrinkled faces and
stopped shoulders of the past, and call down
from their heavenly thrones the godly grand
mothers to give them our thanks, and then
persuade the mothers of to-day that they are
living for all time, and that against the sides
of every cradle in which child is rocked
beat the two eternities.
Here we have an untried, undiscussed and
unexplored subject. You often hear about
your influence upon your children-I am not
talking about that What about your lntiu-
ence upon the twentieth century, upon the
tbirtieth century, upon the fortieth century,