The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-08-10
HUMBLE HEROES.
DR.. Talmage on the Martyrs Of
Every Day Life.

Dr.. Talmage on the Martyrs Of
Every Day Life.
Heroes OF the Sick Room and the Hospital
Military Heroes Not the Greatest
Srro Rewards Promised the
Humble.
In late sermon on the subject "The
Martyrs OF Every Day Life" DR.. Talmage
took for his text: Thou, therefore, endure
hardness" Timothy ii. 5. He said:
Historians are not slow to acknowledge
the merits Of great military chieftains.
We have the full length portraits Of the
Cromwells, the Washingtons, the Napo-
le0as and the Wellingtons of the world.
History is not written in black ink, but
with red ink of human blood. The gods of
human ambition do not drink from bowls
made out Of silver, or gold, or precious
stones, but out of the bleached skulls
of the fallen. But l am now to un-
roll before you q scroll of heroes that the
world has never acknowledged: those who
faced no guns, blew no bugle blast, con-
quercd no cities, chained no captives to
Sheir chariot wheels, and yet, in the great
day Of eternity, will stand higher than
those whose names startled the nations;
and seraph and rnpt spirit and archangel
will tell their deeds to a listening universe.
mean the heroes of common, every day
life.
In this roll, in the first place, l find all
the heroes of the sick room. When Satan
had failed to overcome Job, he said to
God: '.Put forth Thy hand and touch his
bones and his flesh and he will curse Thee
to Thy face" Satan had found out
what we have all found out, that sick
ness is the greatest test of ones char
acter. A man who can stand that
can stand any thing. To be shut
in a room as fast as though it were bas-
tile. To be so nervous you can not endure
the tap of child's foot. To have luxuri-
ant fruit. which tempts the appetite Of the
robust and healthy, excite our loathing
and disgust when it first appears on the
platter. To have the rapier of pain strike
through the side, or across the temples, like
q razor, or to put the foot in a wise, or
throw the whole body into blaze Of fever.
Yet there have been men and women, but
more women than men, who have cheer
fully endured this hardness. Through
years of exhausting rheumatism
and excruciating neuralgias they
have gone, and through bodily
distresses that rasped the nerves
and tore the muscles, and puled the
checks and stopped the shoulders. By the
dim light of the sick room taper they saw
on the wall the picture of that land
where the inhabitants are never sick.
Through the dead silence of the night they
l. 81, o,k-, Sc No Nh<..1
Ger ate away her life from week to week
and day to day, and she became weaker
and weaker, and every ''good night" was
feebler than the "good night" 5efore-yet
never sad. The children looked up into
her face and saw suffering transformed
Into a heavenly smile.
Those who suffered on the battlefield.
amid shot and shell, were not so much he
roes and herones as those who in the field
hospital and in the asylum had fevers
which no ice could cool aud no surgery
cure. No shout Of comrade to cheer
them, but numbness and aching and home
sickness-yet willing to suffer, confident
in God, hopeful of Heaven. Heroes Of
rheumatism; heroes of neuralgia; heroes
of spinal complaint; heroes of sick head
ache; heroes of lifelong invalidism; he
roes and heroines, they shall reign forever
and ever.
HarS! catch just one note Of the eter.
nal anthem: There will he no more
pain" Bless God for that.
In this roll shall find the heroes Of toll,
who do their work uncomplainingly. 1t 10
comparatively easy to lead a regiment into
battle when you know that the whole ma
tion will applaud the victory: it is COM
paratively easy to doctor the sick when
You know that your skill will be appre-
ciated by n large company of friends and
relatives; it is comparatively easy to ad-
dress an audience when in the cleaning
eyes and the flushed cheeks you know that
your sentiments are adopted; but to do
sewing where you expect that the employ
er will come and thrust his thumb through
| the work to show how imperfect it is, or to
have the whole garment thrown back on
you to be done over again: to build wall
and know there will he no one TO say you
did it well, but only q swearing employer
bowling across the scaffold: to work until
your eyes are dim and your back aches,
and your heart faints, and to know that
| if you stop before night your children will
stArve. All. the sword has not slain SO
many as the needle.
The great hattlefields of our last war
were not Gettysburg and Shiloh and South
Mountain. The great battleiieidS of the
last war were in the arsenalS, and in the
shops and in the atticS, there women made
army jackets for a sixpence. They toiied
on until they died. They had no funeral
sulosium, but, in the name Of my God, this
day ! enroll their names among those OF
| ~ hom the world was not worthy. Heroes
Of the needle. Heroes OF the sewing ma
chine. Heroes of the attic. Heroes of the
cellar. Heroes and herOines. Bless God
for them.
In this roll I also find the heroes who
hnve uncomplniningly endured domestic
in justices. There are men who for their
| toll and anxiety have no sympathy in their
homes. Exhsusting application to bust
ness gets them livelihood, but an unfru-
gal wife scatters it. He is fretted at from
the moment he enters tho door until he
comes out of it. The exasperations of
business life augmented by the exaspera-
tons of domestic life. Such men are
laughed at, but they have a heart-break-
ing trouble, and they would have long ago
gone into appalling designations but for
the grace of God. Society to-day is
strewn with the wrecks of men. who, IN.
der the northeast storm of do
nestle infelicity have been driven
on the rocks. There are tens Of thousands
of drunkaris in this country to-day. made
such by their wives. That is not poetry.
That is prose. But the wrong is generally
in the opposite direction. You would not
have to go far to find a wife whose life is .
perpetual martyrdom. Something heavier
than q stroke of the fist; unkind words,
staggering home at midnight and constant
maItreatment, which have left her only q