Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1888-02-27
WOMEN OF AMERICA.
"fHB GRANDMOTHER AND HER GRAND
CHILDREN"
Sermon By Rev. 7. Dewitt falmaBs Preached IL
the Brooklyn Tabernacle Yesterday, Being
the Eighth of a Series Of Sermons
10 Women, With Hints to Men"
Tslsorcm 10 the Register.


10 Women, With Hints to Men"
Spec,al Telegram TO the Register.
BROOKLYN, February 26.-The Rev. l.
Dewitt Talmage, D. D.. preached in the
Brooklyn Tabernacle to-day, the eighth oil
his series of Sermons to the Women Of
America, with Important Hints to Men "
His subject was: "The Grandmother and
H,r Grandchildren. A vast coDgrega-
tion was present. The opening hymn
begins:
"Give to the wind thy fears,
Hope and be undismayed;
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears
God shall lift uptAy head"
DR.. Ta!mage's text was from II. limo
thy i. s: "rhe unfsigned faith that Is III
thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother
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 a
good grandmother you had. You ought to
be better 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 direction" The fact was that
Timothy needed encouragement. he was
in poor health, having a weak stomach,
and was dyspeptic, and Paul prescribed for
for him a tonic, "a little wine for thy
stomach's sake"-not much wine, but a
little wine, and only as medicine. And
if the wine then had been as much adul-
terated with logwood and strychnine as
our modern wines, he would not have pre-
scribed any.
But Timothy, not strong physically, is
ENCOURAGED SPIRITUALITY
By the recital of fgrandmotherly 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 genera
tions of to-day godly influence, and then
in response to prayer let's down the power
upon children and grandchildren and great
grandchildren. The world is woefully in
want of table OF statistics in regard to
what is the pCotractedness and immensely
of influence OF one good woman IN the
church and world. We have accounts OF
how much evil has been wrought by Mar
Caret, the mother OF criminals, who lived
near a hundred years ago, and Of how
many hundreds OF criminals her descend
ants furnished for the penitentiary
and the gallows, and how many hundreds
of thousands OF dollars they cost this coun-
tryiu their arraignment and prison support
as we'll as in the property they Surglarizsd
or destroyed. But will not some one
come with brain comprehensive enough
and heart warm enough and pen keen
enough to give US the facts in regard to
some good woman of e hundred years ago,
and let US know nov Iaany Christian men
and women and refotpers and useful
people have been found among her de-
scendauts, and how many asylums and
colleges and churches they built, and how
many millions of dollars they contributed
for humanitarian aud Christian purposes?
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 nine
teenth century will be more alive for good
in the twentieth century than now. Mark
YOU, have no idea that the grandmoth-
ers were any better than their grand
daughters. You cannot get very old people
to talk much about how things were when
they were boysT ,ad girls. They have a
reticence and3. Col Con- n.ttsiism which
makes me thS ethey feel themselves to
be the custodiahs 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 az to how things were
seventy years ago the silence becomes op-
pressive.
A celebrated Frcnchman by the name OF
Yolney visited this country in l777, and
he says CT wor.sn's diet in those times :
''Isa premium was offered for regimen
most destructive to health, none could be
devised more eificacious for these ends
than that in use among these people. "
That eclipses our lobster sslada at mid
night. Everybody talks about the dissp-
pations of modern society and how woman
ly health goes down under it, but it was
worse hundred years ago. for the chap
lain II French regiment in our RsvOlu,
tionary war wrote in 1892, in his aCok on
American women, saying: They are tall
and well proportioned, their features are
generally regular, their compilations are
generally fair and without color. At twen'
" years of age the women have no longer
the freshness of her youth. At thirty or
forty
THEY ARE DECREPIT."
In 1872 foreign Consul wrote hook en-
titled "A Sketch Of the United States al
the Commencement of the Present Cen,
tury, vapd 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 a hundred
years ago and their style of dress makes
MS 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 sad
dlebsps, than the women Of our day are
Improvement on the women of the hst
century.
But still, notwithstanding that those
times were so much worse than ours, there
WAS glorious race of godly women, sew
enty and hundred years ago. who held
the world back from sin and lifted toward
virtue, and without their exalted and
sanctihed influence before this the last
good influence would have perished from
the earth. Indeed all over this land there
are seated to day-not so much in
churches, for many Of them are too feeble
to come-a 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 down stairs or in the
next room. They steady themselves by
the banisters as they 60 up and down.
whea they get cold it hangs on to them
longer than it used to. They cannot bear
to have the grandchildren punished even
when they deserve it, and have 90 rela1e ed
their ideas of family discipline that they
would spoil all the youngsters Of the house.
hold by too great .leniency. These old