The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-02-28
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Preached YESTERDAY in BROOKLYN
Tabernacle.

subject was: 'Ihe grandmother and Her
Grandchildren" vast congregation was
4 present. The opening hymn begins:
"Give to the wind thy fears.
Hope and be undismayed
God hears thy signs and counts thy tears
God shall lift up thy head"
DR.. Talmage's text was from II Timothy l.
B: "The unfeigned faith that is in thee.
which dwet first in thy grandmother LOIS
q The eloquent preacher said:
& In this love letter which Paul, the old minis
3 ter, is writing to Timothy, the young minister.
q the family record is brought out. Paul practi-
cally says: Timothy, what a good grand
q mother you had You ought to be better than
8 most folks, because not only was your mother
q good but your grandmother. Two preceding
s generations ofpiety ought to give you mighty
S push in the right direction" The fact was
8 that Timothy needed encouragement. He was
q in poor health, having a weak stomach and
q was dyspeptic, and Paul prescribed for him a
& tonic, "a little wine for thy stomach's sake'-
3 not much wine, but little wine, and only as
Y medicine. And if the wine then had been
81 as much adulterated with logwood and strych-
81 nine as our modern wines, he would not have
prescribed any.
n But, Timothy, not strong physically, is en-
81 couraged spiritually by the recital of grand
IA motherly excellence, Paul limiting to him. as
81 hint this day to you, that God sometimes
81 gathers up as in q reservoir away back of the
a active generations of today godly influence
81 and then in response to prayer lets down the
"a power upon children and grandchildren and
Fl great grandchildren. The world is woefully
= in want of a table of statistics i'll regard 10
a what is the protractcdness and immensely of
81 influence OF one good woman in the church
81 and world. We have accounts of how much
n evil has been wrought by Margaret the
s mother of criminals, who lived near hundred
81 years ago, and of how many hundreds of GRIM
iDals her descendants furnished for the peni-
Tertiary and the gallows, and how many hun
s dreds Of thousands of dollars they cost this
& country in their arraignment and prison sup
port, as well as in the, property they
s. burglarized or destroyed. But will
Is not some one come out with brain comprehen-
sive enough and heart warm enough and pen
81 keen enough to give us the facts in regard to
y some good woman of a hundred years ago and
let us know how many Christian men and
women and reformers and useful people have
Va been found among her descendants, and how
many tasylums and colleges and churches
they built, and how many millions of dollars
u they contributed for humanitarian and Chris
s. tian purposes?
81 The good women whose tombstones were
5&planted in the eighteenth century are more
alive for good in the nineteenth century than
they were before, as the good women of this
Snineteenth century will be more alive for good
in the twentieth century than now. Mark
you, have no idea that the grandInothers
Is.
~ GU cannot get very old people to talk much
about how things were when they were boys
and girls. They have reticence and a nom
committalism which makes me think they feel
sthemselyes to be the custodians of the rep
sntation of their early comrades While
our dear old folks 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
Oppressive.
A celebrated Frenchman by the name of
Volney, visited this country in 1896, and he
says of womans diet III those times: eff
premium was offered for regimen most des-
tr9ctive to health, none could be devised more
NJ etficacious for these ends than that in use
a among these people, That eclipses our lob
sster salad at midnight. Everybody talks
about the designations of modern society and
how womanly health goes down under it, but
1t was worse hundred years ago, For the chap
lain of q French regiment in our revolutionary
war wrote in 1882 in his book of American
women, saying. They are tall and well pro-
sportioned 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 decrepit.' In
1S12 foreign consul wrote q book entitled
"a sketch of the United States at the COM
mencement of the present Century," and he
says of the women of those times cat the
age of thirty all their charms have dsap-
#peared." 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 improve
ment on the old canal boat, or the telegraph
no more an improvement on the old-time sad
dle-bags, than the women of our day are an
improvement on the women of our last CEN
ID fury.
II But still, notwithstanding that those times
were so much morse than ours, there was q
e glorious race of godly women, seventy and a
81 hundred years ago. who held the world
u back from sin and lifted it toward
q virtue, and without their exalted and sancti-
fed influence before this the last good influence
& would have persisted from the earth. Indeed
# all over this land there are seated today-not
80 much in churches, for many of them are too
feeble to come-a great many aged grand
mothers. They sometimes feel that the world
IS has gone past them, and they have an idea
2 they are of little account Their head some
times gets aching ,from the racket of the
grandchildren down stairs or in the the next
a room. They steady themselves by the banis-
terS as they go up and down. When they get
cold it hangs on to them longer than it used
to. They cannot bear to have the grandchil-
dren punished even when they deserve it, and
have so relaxed their ideas OF family discipline
that they would spoil all the youngsters of the
household by too great leniency. These old folks
u are tho resort when great trouble come, and
q there IS calming and soothing power in the
touch Of an aged hand that is almost supernat-
Il ural. They feel they are almost through with
4 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 today, 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
autumnal days that we call Indian summer.
never knew the joy of having grand
mother; that is the disadvantage of being the
4 youngest child of the family. The elder mem
bers only have that benediction. But, though
she went up out of this life before l began it,
have heard of her faith in God, that
brought all her children into the
kingdom and two of them into the ministry
and then brought all her grandchildren into
the kingdom, myself the last and least worthy.
Is it not time that you and I do two things,
swing open picture gallery of the wrinkled
faces and stopped shoulders of the past, and
call down from their heavenly thrones the
4 cody grandmothers, to give them our thanks,
and then persuade the mothers of today that
they are living for all time, and that against
The sides Of every cradle in which child is
] rocked beat the two eternities.
Hap Io,r