News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-03-01
SUNDAYS SERMON.
ONE OF REV. DIR. TALIA C iG's;
STERLING DISCOURSES.
Subject: "WifeIy Ambition, Good
and Bad"

and Bad"
TEXT: "Arise and eat bread, and let thin,
heart be merry; IlCiU gire thee the Uineyarc
Of Naboth."-I Kings, xxi, Z.
One day King Ahab, looking out of the
window of his palace at Jezree said to hi
| wife Jezebel: 1--WE ought to have these roya
gardens enlarged. If we could only get thai
| fellow NabOth, who owns that vineyard out
there, to trade or sell we could make it 6
kitchen garden for our palace.
Fetch in Naboth," said the king to one OF
his servants
The plain gardener, wondering why hf
should be called into the presence of His
Majesty, comes in, a little downcast in hi!
modesty and with very obsequious manner
bows to the King
The King says: 'Naboth, want to trade
vineyards with you. | want your vineyard
for kitchen garden, and [ will give great
deal better vineyard in place of it, or, if you
prefer money for it, 1 will give you cash."
"Oh, no." says Naboth, 81 cannot trade of
my little place, nor can | sell it. 1t Is the old
homestead. l got it of my father and he OF
his father, and cannot let the old place &C
out of my hands"
In great state of petulancy King Ahat
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
" hat is the matter with you? Are you
sick?n
oh" he says, &C feel very blue I 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 stan1.n
''Oh pshaw,n says Jezebel, 'dont 90 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
ment was the signature. She stamped her
husbands s 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
VIII after while have a 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
OlO CLiI mage, uO1 SSUOOu uIlCer III laDDlng his
llfes blood And a 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 queanly 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
ne he, shouted to the slaves in her room:
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 cOn0uaror
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 ssinside 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.
peafed on the scene, and they removed all her
body except those parts which in all ages
dogs arc 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 5ory
W DIS Jue IeSuIJ Ol d WlIe Duu ADVICE 10 a nus
band 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 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; l will give thee
the vineyard of Naboth."
The influence suggested by this subject is
an influence you never before heard dis
courset on and may never hear again, but a
most potent and semi Umnipotent 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, anelevated, 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 decisivey employ the rights she already
has in possession. Some says she will be in
fair way to get all rights when she gets the
right to the ballot box. l wish that the ex-
pertinent might be tried and settled
would like to see all women vote,
and then wat III the result I 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
Iuly h6puDllCdll OT lJtIuOcIdUlC OF IOulDl-
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 political
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
of womans wages. About the
rum business l have to say that mu titudes
of women drink, and it is no unusual thing
to see them i'll the restaurants 50 oyCrpow-
cred with wine and beer that they can
hardly sit up, while there are many so
called respectable restaurants where they can
go and take their champagne AMI hot toddy
all alone Mighty Temperance voters those
women would make! Besides that, the
wives of the rum sellers would have to vote
in the interests of Their husbands business or
have a time the inverse of felicitiOus. Be
sides that, millions of respectable and re-
fined women in American would not
vote at all, because they did not care to
go to the polls, and, on the other hand,
womanly roughs would all go to the polls,
and that might make more womanS vote on
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 by
woman's vote, have not much faith in that.
Women are harder on women than men are.
Masculine employers are mean enough IN
treatment Of women, but If you want to hear
beating down of prices and wages in pertec-
ton, listen how some women treat washer
women and dressmakers and female servants.
Mrs Shylock is more mercileSs than Mi:
Shylock. Women, | fear, will never get
righteous wages through wOmans vote, and
as to unfortunate wOmanhOOd, woman are
far more cruel and unforgiving than men
are After a woman has made Shipwreok of
hnr n1,a Of rO1n OnnnlsDIlV nIOn her.
women do not so much drop her as hurl her
with the force of a catapult clear out and
off and down and under.
| have not much faith that women will
ever get merciful consideration and justice
through woman suffrage, yet | like expert
ments, an / some of my friends in whose judg-
ment have confidence are so certain that al
deviation would come by such process that l
would, if l had the power, put in every
woman'S hand the vote. | cannot see what
right you have to make a woman pay
taxes on her property to help support city,
State and national government, and yet deny
her the opportunity of helping to decide who
shall be mayor, governor or president. But
let every wife. not waiting for the vote she
may never get or, getting it, find it outbal-
anced by some other vote not fit to be cast,
arise now in the might of the eternal Col
and WELD the power of the Sanctified wifelV
ambition for good approximating the in
finite.
No one can so inspire man to noble pur-
poses as a noble woman, and no one so thor
oughly degrade a man as wife of unworthy
tendencies. While in my text we have illus
tration of wfely ambition employed IN the
wrong direction, society and history are full
of instances of wifelY ambition glorouslv
triumphant in right directions. All that was
worth admiration i'll the character of Henry
VI. was a reflection of the heroic in his wife
Margaret. William. Prince of Orange, was