Milford chronicle., 1888-02-17
WIFELY AMBITION.
DR.. TALMAeE'S SIXTH SERMON TO
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.

Tx NOmEN Vt FtNlI-IiSfNs
Wives of America Use Your Influence for
God and Home-Remember the Story
of JezebaI and Ahab and Give Not Bad
Advice to Your Husbands.
BROOKLYN, Feb 12.-In the tabernacle
this morning the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage,
D. D., preached the sixth of his series Of
'Sermons to Women of America with I'M
portant Hints for Men," The subject was:
''Wifely Ambition, Good and Bad and the
text was from Kings, xxi, q: "Arise, and
eat bread, and let thine heart be merry:
will give thee the vineyard of Naboth.n DR..
Talnage said:
One day King Ahab, looking out of the
window of his palace at Jezreel, said to his
wife Jezebel: "We ought to have these royal
gardens enlarged. If we could only get that
fellow Naboth, who owns that vineyard out
there, to trade or sell we could make it
kitchen garden for our palace"
''Fetch in Naboth," said the king to one Of
his servants.
The plain gardener, wondering why he
should be called into the presence of his
majesty, comes in, a little downcast in his
moiesty and with very obsequious manner
bows to the king.
The king says: "Naboth, want to trade
vineyards with you. l want your vineyard
for kitchen garden, and 1 will give great
deal better vineyard in place Of it, or, if you
prefer money for it, l will give you cash"
"Oh, no." says Naboth, Il cannot trade off
my little place nor can sell it. 1t is the old
homestead got it of my father and he of
his father, and I cannot let the old place go
out Of my hands
In a great state of petulancy King Ahab
went into the house and flung himself on the
bod, and turned his face to the wall in great
pout.
His wife Jezebel comes in and she says:
"What is the matter with you? Are you
sick!'
oh lie says, 81 feel very blue. I have
set my heart on getting that kitchen garden
and Naboth will neither trade or sell, and to
be defeated by a common gardener is more
than I can stand"
ooh, pshaw," says Jezebel, ''dOn't go on
that way. Get up and eat your dinner and
stop moping. 1 will get for you that kitchen
garden
Then Jezebel borrowed her husbands signet
ring or seal, for then, as now, in those lands
kings never signed their names, but had
ring with the royal name engraved on it,
and that impressed on a royal letter or docu-
mont was the signature She stamped her
husbands name on proclamation which
resulted in getting Neboth tried for treason
against the king, and two perjured witnesses
swore their souls away with the life of
Naboth, and he was stoned to death, and his
property came to the crown, and so Jezebel
got for her husband and herself the kitchen
garden.
But while the wild street dogs were rend-
ing the dead body of poor Naboth, Elijah,
the prophet, tells them of other CANNES that
will after while have free banquet, say
ing: "Where dogs lick the blood Of Naboth
shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine"
And, sure enough, three years after, Ahab,
wounded in battle, his chariot dripping with
the carnage, dogs stood under it tapping his
lifes blood. And little afterward his wife,
Jezebel, who had been his chief adviser in
crime, stands at her palace window and sees
Jehu, the enemy, approaching to take posses
sion of the palace And TO make herself look
as attractive as possible and queenly to the
very last, she decorated her person and, &C
corling to Oriental custom, closed her eyes
and ran a brush dipped in black powder
along the long eyelashes, and then from the
window she glared her indignation upon
Jehu. As he rode to the gates in his chariot
he shouted to the slaves in her room: !
''Throw her DOWN. But no doubt the |
slaves halted a moment from such work |
of assassination, yet knowing Queen Jezebel |
could be no more to them and the conqueror
,Jehu would be everything, as he shouted |
again, Throw her DOWN. they seized her |
and bore her struggling and cursing to the |
window easement and hurled her forth till |
she came tumblng to the earth, striking It |
lust in time to let Jehu's horses trample her |
and the chariot wheels roll over her While |
Jehu is inside at the table refreshing himself |
after the excitement he orders his servants to |
go out and bury the dead queen. But the |
wild street dogs had for the third time ap- /
peared on the scene, and they removed all her |
body except those parts which in all ages |
dogs are by a strange instinct or brutal su-
perstition kept from touching after death
the palms of the hands and the soles Of the |
feet.
All this appalling scene of ancient history |
was the result of a wife's bad advice to a
husband, of a wife's struggle to advance her
husbands interests by unlawful means.
Ahab and Jezebel got the kitchen garden of
Naboth, but the dogs got them. The trouble /
all began when this mistaken wife aroused
her husband out Of his melancholy by the
words Of the text: ''Arise, and eat bread,
and let thine heart be merry; 1 will give thee
the vineyard of Naboth.n
The influence suggested by this subject is
an influence you never before heard dis
coursed on and may never hear again, but a
most potent and semi-omnipotent influence,
and decides the course Of individuals, fami-
lies, nations, centuries and eternities
speak of wifely ambition, good and bad
How important that every wife have her
ambition, an elevated, righteous and divinely
approved ambition.
And here let me say, that what am most
anxious for is that woman, not waiting for
the rights denied her or postponed, promptly
and decisively employ the rights she already
has in possession. Some say she will be in a
fair way to get all rights when she gets the
right to the ballot box ! wish that the ex-
might be tried and settled.
would like to see all women vote,
and then watch the result. l do
not know that it would change
anything for the better Most wives and
daughters and sisters would vote as their
husbands and fathers and brothers voted.
Nearly all the families that know are sol
idly Republican or Democratic or Prohibi,
bon. Those families all voting would mfng
more votes, but no difference in the J aud
Besides that, as now at the poles
bought up by the thousands, woD-fhi USE
be bought up by the thousands. sell all or
voters, the more opportunity cash.
corruption We have seveTi, ,-,..so,s
voters now than are for pu AAOiN ''l'''V4''
We are told that feinal
correct two eyils-the