Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-02-24
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discusses of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
Subject WifeIy Ambition,
Good and Bad"

TEXT; "Arise and eat bfedd, and lei hins
heart De merry; {iUiH give thee the vineyard
Of NabOth"-1 Kings, xxi, a.
One day King Ahab, looking out Of the
window of his palace at Jezreel said to his
wife Jezebel: 1--WE ought to have these royal
gardens enlarged. II we could only get that
fellow Naboth, who owns that vineyard out
there, to trade or sell we could make It q
kitchen garden for our palace.
Fetch in Naboth, said the king 10 one Of
his servants.
The plain gardener, wondering why he
should be called into the presence Of His
Majesty, comes in, little downcast in his
modesty and with very obsequious manner
bows to the King.
The King says: ''Naboth, want to trade
vineyards with you. want your vineyard
for a kitchen garden, and will give great
deal better vineyard in place Of il, or, if you
prefer money for It, viii give you cash.
oh, no" says Naboth, 81 cannot trade Off
my little place, nor can l sell it, 1t is the old
homestead. got it of my father and he of
his father, and cannot let the old place 60
out of my hands"
In great state of petulancy King Ahab
went into the house and flung himself on the
bed, 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!n
oh he says, " l feel very blue. l have
set my heart on getting that kitchen garden
and Naboth will neither trade nor sell, and to
be defeated by a common gardener is more
than | can stand"
"Oh, pshaw,n says Jezebel, "don't go on
that way. Get up and eat your dinner and
STOP, moping 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 docUl-
ment was the signature. She stamped her
husbands name on a proclamation which
resulted in getting Naboth 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
ing: "Where dogs lick the blood of Naboth
shall dogs lick thy blood even thine.n
And, sure enough, three years after, Ahab,
wounded in battle, his chariot dripping with
the carnage, dog sstood under it tapping his
llfes 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, ac-
cordlng to Oriental custom, closed her ewes
and ran brush dipped in the 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
m ell -, Ga,.
Throw her down" But no doubt the
slaves halted moment from such work of
assassination, yet knowing Queen Jezebel
could be no more to them and the conuueror
Jehu would be everything, as he shouted
again: Throw her down." they seized her
and bore her struggling and cursng to the
window easement and hurled her forth till
she came tumbling to the earth, striking it
just 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 strange instinct or brutal SUI
perstition kept from touching after death
the palms of the hands and the soles of the
feet.
All this appalling scene of ancient his tory
was the result of wifes bad advice to a hus.
band, of 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 the 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; will give thee
the vineyard of Naboth"
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 eternties. I
speak of witely 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 says she will be in q
fair way to get all rights when she gets the
right to the ballot box. / wish that the ex.
pertinent might be tried and settled.
would like to see all women vote
and then watch the result. l dc
not know that it would change
anything for the better. Most wives and
daughters and sisters would vote as their
nuoDdiluS anu ldGueTS anu DrOUnefS VOCeu
Nearly all the families that know are sol
idly Republican or Democratic or Prohibi
ton. Those families all voting would make
more votes, but no difference in the result
Besides that, as now at the poles men are
bought up by the thousands, women would
be bought up by the thousands. The more
voters, the more opportunity for politica
| corruption. We have several million more
voters now than are for public good.
We are told that female suffrage would
correct two evils-the rum business and the
insufficiency of woman's wages. About the
rum business | have to say that multitude!
Of women drink, and it is no unusual thing
to see them in the restaurants so overpow
cred with wine and beer that they car
hardly sit up, while there are many Sc
called respectable restaurants where they cal
go and take their champagne and hot toddy
all alone Mighty temperance voters thost
women would make! Besides that, tn,
wives of thu rum sellers would have to vot,
in the Interests of their husbands business, o.
have e time the inverse of felcitious. Be
sides that, millions Of respectable and re
fined women in American would no
vote at all, because they did not care t,
go to the polls and, on the other hand
womanly roughs would all go to the polls
and that might make more woman's vote OF
the wrong side. There is not, in my mind
much prospect of the expulsion of drunken
ness by female Suffrage.
As to woman's wages to be corrected b,
woman's vote, Ihave not much faith in that
Women are harder on women than men are
Masculine employers are mean enough il
treatment of women. but il YOU want to hea
beating down of prices and wages in perfec
ton, listen how some women treat washer
women and dressmakers and female servants
Mrs. Shylock is more merciless than Mr.
Shylock Women, I fear, will never ge
righteous wages through woman's vote ant
as to unfortunate womanhood, woman ar
far more cruel and unforgiving than mer
are. After a woman has made shipwreok O
her character men generally drop her, bu
1 women do not so much drop her as hurl he
with the force of a catapult clear out an
off and down and under.
have not much faith that women wi