The Russellville Democrat., 1888-03-08
q'ALMAGE'S SERMON.
Eighth Sermon Of the Series to
the Women OF America,
The Influence of Good GRANDMOTHER
on Household-Good and Bad
Influences of Early Train
ing on Children.


America took for his subject "The Gran d.
mother and Her Grandchildren" His
text was:
The unfeigned faith that Is In thee, which
trelt hrst in thy grandmother Lois.
The eloquent preacher said:
In this love letter which Paul, the old
minister, is writing TO Timothy, tho
young minis ter, 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 pre-
ceding generations of piety ought to give
you mighty push in the right direc-
ton" 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 q
tonic, ga little wine FOR thy stomach's
sake"-not much wine, but a little wine,
and only as a med icine. and II the wine
then had been rs much adulterated with
iozwood and strychnine as our modern
wines, he would not have prescribed any.
Bat Timothy, not strong physically, Is
encouraged spiritually by the recital OF
grandmotherly excellence, Paul limiting to
him, as hint this day to you, that God
sometimes gathers up as in a reservoir
sway back Of the active generations Of
to-day cody influence, and then in re-
Spouse to prayer let's down the power up
on children and grandchildren and great
grandchildren. The world is woefuly in
want Of n 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 Mar
garei, the mother of criminals, who
lived near one hundred years ago,
end Of how many hundreds
of criminals her descendants fur
ulshed for the penitentiaries and the
gallows, and how many hundreds of
thousands of dollars they cost this coun-
try in their arraignment and prison sup
port, as we'll as in the property they burg
lar zed or destroyed. But viii 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
years ago, and let as 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 tombs tones
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 cen fury
will b9 more alive for good in the TWEEN
tieth century than now. Mark you,
have no idea that the grandmothers were
any hotter than their granddaughter.
81 L.. ALL
much about how things were when they
were boys and girls. They have a reti-
ccnce and a n-committalism that
makes me think they feel themselves to
be the eustodians of the regulations Of
their early comrades. While our dear
old folks are rehearsing the follies OF the
present, il you put them on the witness
stand and eros examine them as to how
things we're 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: "lf a premium was offered for a
regimen most destructive TO health, none
could be devised more eflicacious for these
ends than that in us, among these peo-
pie" That eclipses our lobster salad at
midnight Every y talks about the
ulSsipdlioH OIL DlOdSTn society ana now
womanly health goes down under it. but
it was worse hundred years ago, for the
Chaplain Of a French regiment in our
Revolutionary War wrote in 1882, in his
book Of American women, saying: "They
are tall and well proportioned, their
features are generally regular,
their compilations are general |
ly 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 1872
foreign consul wrote book entitled "a
Sketch OF the United States at the Com
mencement of the Present Century," and
be says of the women of those times: "At
the age of thirty all their charms have
disappeared" One glance at the por-
traits 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 Improvement on the
old canal boat, or the telegraph no more
an Improvement On the old-time saddle-
bags than the women of our day are an
improvement ON the women of the last
century.
But still, Notwithstanding that those
times were so much worse than ours,
there was a glorious race OF cody wom-
eu, seventy and a hundred years ago, who
held the world back from sin aud lifted II |
toward virtue, and without their exalted |
and sanctfed influence before this the |
last good influence would have persisted |
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 grandmoth-
ers. They sometimes feel that the world |
has gone past them, and they have an |
idea that they are OF little account. Their |
head sometimes gets aching from the |
racket OF tho grandchildren down. stairs |
or in the next room. They steady them
selves by the banisters as they go up and |
down. When they get a cold it hangs on
to them longer the It used to. They can
not bear TO have t4e grandchildren pun
ished even whom 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
are the resort when troubles come, and |
there is u calming and a soothing power |
in the touch OF an aged hand that Is al |
most supernAt ural. They feel they are |
almost through with the journey of life |
and read tho old book more than they |
used to, hardly knowing which most they !
en- JOY, the Old Testament or the New, aud |
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 a 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.
lnever knew the joy Of having grand |
mother; that is, the disadvantage of |
being the youngest child of the family. |
The elder members only have that bene- |
diction. But though sh3 went up out Of |
this life before ] began it., have heard OF !
her faith In God, that brought all Of her !
children into the kingdom, and two OF |
Them into the min strN. and then bronght |