The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-03-29
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Eighth Sermon Of the Series to
the Women of America.
The Influence of q Good Grandmother
on a Househo1d-Good and Bad
Influences of Early Train
ing on Children.

discourse of his series to the women of
America took for his subject "The Gran d.
mother and Her Grandchildren" His
text was:
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 mot her
good, but your grandmother. Two pre-
ceding generations of piety ought to give
you a mighty. push in the right direc-
tion." The fact was that Timothy needed
encouragement. He was in poor health,
having weak stomach, and was dys-
peptic, and Paul prescribed for him a
tonic, ga little wine for thy stomach's
sake"-not much wine, but little wine,
and only as a medicine. And if the wine
then had been as much adulterated with
logwood and strychnine as our modern
wines, he would not have prescribed any.
But Timothy, not strong physically, is
encouraged spiritually by the recital of
grandmotherly excellence, Paul limiting to
him, as hint this day to you, that God
sometimes gathers up as in reservoir
away back Of the active generations of
to-day a godly influence, and then in re-
Spouse to prayer lets down the power up.
on children and grandchildren and great.
grandchildren. The world is woefully in
want of table of statistics in regard to
what is the protractedness and immensity
of influence of one good woman in the
church and world. We have accounts of
how much evil has been wrought by Mar.
garet, the mother of criminals. who
lived near one hundred years ago,
and of how many hundreds
Of criminals her descendants fur
nished for the penitent iaries and the
gallows, and how many hundreds of
thousands of dollars they cost this coun-
try in their arraignment and prison sup
port, as well as in the property they burg
larized or destroyed. But will not some
one come out with brain comprehensive
enough and heart warm enough and pen
keen enough to give US the facts in regard
to some good woman of one hundred
years ago, and lot US know how MANY
Christian men and women and reformers
and useful people have been found among
her descendants, and how many asylums
and colleges and churches they built, and
how many millions of dollars they con.
fributed for humanitarian and Christian
purposes?
The good women whose tombstones
were planted in the eighteenth century
are more alive for good in the nineteenth
century than they were before, as the
good women Of this nineteenth century
will be more alive for good in the TWEEN.
tieth century than now. Mark you,
have no idea that the grandmothers were
any better than their granddaughters.
You can not get very old people to talk
much about how things were when they
were boys and girls. They have a reti.
cence and non-committalism that
makes me think they feel themselves to
be the custodians of the regulations of
their early comrades. While our dear
old folks are rehearsing the foIlies 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 Gel ebrated Frenchman by the name
OF Volney visited this country in 1895,
and he says of woman's diet in those
times: "lf premium was offered for q
regimen most des tructive to health, none
could be devised more efficacious for these
ends than that in use among these peo.
ple." That eclipses our lobster salad at
midnight Everybody talks about the
dissipation of modern society and how
womanly health goes down under it, but
u was worse hundred years ago, for the
chaplain OF a French regiment In our
Revolutionary War wrote in 1882 in his
book OF American women, saying: "They
are tall and we'll proportioned, their
features are generally regular,
tneir compilations are general.
ly fair and without color. At
twenty years of age the women have
no longer the freshness of youth. At
thirty or forty they are decrepit" In 1872
foreign consul wrote a book entitled ga
Sketch OF the United States at the Com.
mencement of the Present Century, and
he says of the women of those times: cat
the age OF thirty all their charms have
disappeared" One glance at the DOR.
traits OF the women hundred wears ago.
and their style of dress makes us wonder
now they ever got their breath. All this
MAKES me think that the express rail
tram Is no more an Improvement on the
old canal boat, or the telegraph no more
an improvement on the old.time saddle-
bags than the women of our day are an
Improvement on the women of the last
century. -"''
But still, notwithstanding that those
times were so much worse than ours.
there was glorious race of podIv wom-
en-, seventy aud a hundred years ago. who
held the world back from sin and lifted IL
toward virtue, and without their exalted
and sanctified influence before this tho
last good Influence would have perished
from the earth. Indeed all over this land
there are seated TO- day--not so much in
churches, for many of them are too feeble
TO come-a great many aged grandmoth.
ers. They sometimes feel that the world
has gone past them. aud they have an
idea that they are of little account. Their
head sometimes gets aching from the
racket OF the grandchildren down. stairs |
or in the next room. They steady them.
selves by the banisters as they go up and |
down. When they get cold it hangs ON |
to them longer than 1t used to. Thew can |
not bear TO have the grandchildren pun
lshed even when they deserve it, 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 troubles come, and