St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1888-03-10
TALMAGES SERMON,
Eighth Sermon of the Series to
the Women of America.
The Influence of a Good Grandmother
on a HousehoId-Good and Bad
Influences of Early Train
ing on Children.

discourse of his series to the women OF
America took for his subject "The Grand
mother and Her Grandchildren" His
text was:
The unfeigned faith that Is In thee, "hlcn
awelt 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:
ATimothy, 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-
oedfng generations of piety ought to give
Won a mighty push in the right direc-
tfon.D The fact was that Timothy needed
encouragement. He was in poor health,
having a weak stomach, and was dys-
peptic. and Paul prescribed for him
Cor, ic. "a little wine for thy stomach's
gakev-not much wine, but a little wine,
and only as medic And if the wine
then had been as much adulterated with
togwood and strychnne as our modern
wines, he would not have prescribed any.
But Timothy, not strong physically, is
encouraged spiritually by the recital OF
grandmotherly excellence, Paul limiting to
him, as hint this day to you, thet God
sometimes gathers up as in a RESERVOIR
away back of the active generations Of
to-day cody influence, and then in re-
Spouse to prayer lets down the power up
on children and grandchildren and great
grandch children. The world is woefuliy 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. We have accounts of
how much evil has been wrought by Mar.
garet, the mother of criminals, who
lived near one hundred years ago,
and Of how many hundreds
of criminals her descendants fur
nished for the penitentiaries and the
sallows, ans aow many hundreds Of
thorsandIss Of dollars they cost this eoun.
try in their arraignment and prison sup
port, as we'll as in the property they burg
larized or destroyed. But will not some
one come out with brain comprehensive
enough and heart warm enough and pen
keen enough to give us the facts in regard
to some good woman of one hundred
wears ago, and let us know how many
Christian men and women and reformers
and useful people have been found among
her descendants, and how many asylums
and colleges and churches they built, and
how many millions of dollars they con
tributed for humanitarian and 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 nineteenth. century
will be more alive for good in the TWEEN
tieth century than now. Mark you,
have no idea TINT the grandmothers were
any better than their granddaughter.
You can not get very old people to tall
much about how things were when they
were boys and girls. They have reti
cence and a non-committalism thai
makes me think they feel themselves te
be the custodians of the regulations o,
their early comrades. While our deal
old folks are rehearsing the follies OF the
present, if you put them on the witness
stand and cross -exara Zine them as to how
things were seventy years ago, the silence
becomes oppressive.
A eel ebrated Frenchman by the name
of Volney visited this country in 1876
and he says of woman's diet In those
times: "1f premium was offered for Z
regimen most destructive to health, none
could be devised more eff1cacious for thes.
ends than that in use among these PEG.
ple." That eclipses our lobster salad a
midnight. Everybody talks about thu
dissipation of modern society and how
woman1y health goes down under it. bui
it was worse hundred years ago, for tn,
Chaplain of French regiment in oul
Revolutionary War wrote in 1882, in his
book of American women, saying: "They
are tall and well proportioned, theil
features are generally regular,
their compilations are general
" fair and without color. A
twenty years of age the women hav
no longer the freshness of youth. A
thirty or forty they are decrepit" In 1871
o foreign consul wrote book entitled ~
Sketch of the United States at the Com
mencement of the Present Century," an,
he says Of the women Of those times: "A
the age of thirty all their charms hav
disappeared One glance at the por
traits of the women hundred years age
and their style OF dress makes us wonde
how they ever got their breath. All thi
makes me think that the express raj
train is no more an Improvement on th
old canal boat. or the telegraph no NOR
an Improvement on the old-time saddle
bags than the women of our day are Al
Improvement on the women of the las
century.
But still, notwithstanding that thos
times were SO much worse than ours
there was a glorious race of cody won
en-, seventy and a hundred years ago, VIII,
held the world back from sin and lifted |
toward virtue, and without their exalte
and sanctified influence before this th
last good influence would have perishe
from the earth. Indeed all over this lam
there are seated to-day-not so much i
churches, for many Of them are too fsebl
10 come-a greatma aged grandmotI
srs. They sometimes feel that the worl
has gone past them. and they have q
idea that they are of little account. Yhei
head sometimes gets aching from tn
racket Of the grandchildren down-stair
or in the next room. They steady then
selves by the banisters as they GO mp an
down. When they get a cold it hangs o
20 them longer than 1T used to. They ca
not bear to have the grandchildren pun
ished even when they deserve it, an
have so relaxed their ideas q
family discipline that they woui
spoil all the youngsters Of the househol
by too great leniency. These old folk
are the resort when troubles come, an
there is calming and soothing powe
I'm the touch of an aged hand that IS al
most supernat urai. They feel they al