The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1888-03-08
GRANDMOTHER LU4io,
Dr. Talmage's Eighth Sermon to the
Women of America.

This Is a Hard World for Women, and Also
for Men-A Mothers influences of Immense
and Lasting Importance on Unborn Cen
eratiOns
BROOKLYN, Feb. 26.-The Rev. T. De
Witt Talmsge, d. D., preached in the
Brooklyn Tabernacle to-day the eighth of
his gePies of Sermons to the women of
America, with important hints to men"
His subject was: "The Grandmother and
Her Children" A vast congregation was
present. The opening hymn begins:
Give to the wind thy fears
Hope and be undismaYed
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head
DR.. Talmages text was from II. Timothy
i. s.. "The unfeigned faith that is in thee,
which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois.
The eloquent preacher said:
In this love letter which Paul, the old
minister, is writing to Timothy, the young
minister, the family record is brought out.
Paul practically says: Timothy, what
good grandmother you had. You ought to
be better than most folks, because not
only was your mother good but your grand
mother. Two preceding generations Of
the right direction" The fact was that
Timothy needed encouragement. He was
in poor health, having weak stomach,
and was dyspepiic, and Paul prescribed for
him tonic, "a little wine for thy stomach's
sake"-not much wine, but little wine,
ana only as q medicine. And if the wine
then had been as much adulterated with
logwood and strychnine as our modern
vines, he would not have prescribed any.
But Timothy, not strong ply 1ically, is
encouraged spiritually BY the recital OF
grundmotherly excellence. Paul limiting to
him, as I hint to you, that God sometimes
gathers up as in o reservoir away back of
the active generations of to-day a godly
influence, and then, in response to prayer,
lets down the power upon children, and
grundchildyen, and great grandchildren.
The world is woefully in want of q table
of statistics in regard to what is the pro-
tractedness and immensity Of influence of
one good woman in the church and world.
We have accounts of how much evil has
been wrought by Margaret, the mother
of criminals, who lived nearly 100 years
ago, and how many hundreds of criminals
her descendants furnished for the peniten-
tiary and the gRllows, and how many hun
dreds of thousands of dollars they cost this
country in their arraignment and prison
support, as we'll as in the property they
hurglarized OF destroyed. But will not
some one come out with brain comprehen-
sive enough and heart warm enough and
pen keen enough to give us the facts in re-
gard TO some good woman of a hundred
years ago, and let us know how many
Christian men and women and reformers
and useful people have been found among
= oy,I hon
and colleges and churches they built and
how many millions of dollars they con-
tyibuted for humanitarian and Christian
purposes?
The good women whose tombstones
we're planted in the Eighteenth century
ar more alive for good in the Nineteenth
century than they were before as the good
women Of this Nineteenth century will he
more alive for good in the Twentieth
century than now. Mark you, | have no
idea that the grandmothers we're any better
than their granddaughters. You cannot
yet very old people to talk much about how
things were when they were boys and girls.
They have a reticence and non
rommittnlism which makes me think
hey feel themselves TO be the Gus
iojians of the reputation of
their early comrades. While our deaI
old folks are rehearsing the follies of the
present, if you put them on the witness
stand and cross examine them as to how
things were seventy years ago the silence
becomes oppressive.
A celebrated Frenchman by this name of
Volney visited this country in l796, and
he says of womans diet in those times:
If premium was offered for a regimen
more destructive to health, none could be
devised more efficacious for these ends
thln that in use among these people.
That eclipses our lobster salad at mid
might. Everybody talks about the dissipa-
tiOn of modern society and how womanly
health goes down under it; but it was
worse hundred years ago, for the chap
lain of French regiment in our Revolu-
tionary war wrote in 1882, in his book OF
American women, saying; "They are tall
and we'll proportional, their features are
generally regular. their compilations are
generally fair and without color. At 20
Years of age the women have no longer the
freshness of youth. At 30 or 40 they are
| ,Iecrepit." In 1912 a foreign consul wrote q
book entitled "A Sketch of the United
| St ties Mt the Commencement of the Pres
enG Century," and he says of the women
OF those times: "At the age of 30 all theiI
charms have disappeared. Once glance
at the portraits Of the women hundred
years ago and their style Of dress makes
us wonder how they ever got their breath.
| Sll this makes me think that the express
rail train is no more an improvement on
| tie old canal boat, or the telegraph nc
more an improvement on the old time sad.
| ilebags, than the women of our day are an
improvement on the women of the last
century.
But STILL notwithstanding that those
timos we're so much worse than ours, there
was glorious race of godly women,
! seventy and hundred years ago, who held
| the world back from sin and lifted it to-
ward virtue, and without their exalted and
sanctifed influence before this the last
| good influence would have perished
| from the EARTH Indeed all over this land
there are seated to-day-not 50 much in
| churches, for many of them are too feeble
| TO come-a great many aged grandmothers.
| They sometimes feel that the world has
! gone past them, and they have an idea they
| are of little account. Their head some-
| times gets aching from the racket of the
| grandchildren down stairs or in the next
room. They steady themselves by the
bauisters as they go up and down. When
they get cold it hangs on to them longer
than it used to. They cannot bear to have
the grandchildren punished even when
they deserve 1t, 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 great troubles come,
and there is a calming and soothing power
in the touch of an aged hand that is al
most supernatural. They feel they are al
most through with the journey of life, and
rca the old book more than they used to,
hardly knowing which most they enjoy,
the Old Testament or the New, and often
stop and dwell tearfullv over the family
record half way between. We hail them
o.day whether in the house Of God or at
tho homestead. Blessed is that household
That has in It'll Grandmother Lois. Where
L, h.r.rni,,1. rnar,I md 4 u