The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-03-01
GRANDMOTHER LOIS.
DR.. TALMAGE'S EIGHTH SERMON TO
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.

DR.. TALMAeE'S EIGHTH SERMON TO
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.
This Is Hard World for Women, and
Also for Men-A Mothers influence of
Immense and Lasting Importance ON
Unborn Generations.
BEooKI YIN, Feb. 26.-The Rev. T. De
Witt Tal mage, D. D., preached in the
brooklyn Tabernacle today the eighth of
Iis series Of Sermons to the women of
America, with important hints to men,"
lis subject was: ''Fhe 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.
DIR. Talmages text was from II
Timothy i, 5: ''The unfeigned faith that is
in thee, which dwelt first in thy grand
mother 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 a good grandmother you
had. You ought to be better than most
folks, because not only was your mother
good but your grandmother. Two pre-
ceding generations of piety ought to
give you mighty push in the right di-
rcction." The fact was that Timothy
FannHn1 .n,,4 IL,
health, having a weak stomach, and was
dyspeptic, and Paul prescribed for him
tonic, ga little wine for thy stomach's
isake'-not much wine, but little wine,
and only as 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 l hint this day to you, that
God sometimes gathers up as In reser-
voir away back Of the active generations
OF today godly influence, and then, in
response to prayer, let's down the power
upon children, and grandchildren, and
great-grandchldren. The world is woe
IL
gard to what Is the protraetedness and
immensely Of influence of one good wo-
man 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 hun
dred years ago, and of how many hun
dreds of criminals her descendants fur
nished for the penitentiary and the gal
lows, and how many hundreds of thou
sands of dollars they cost this country in
their arraignment and prison support, as
well as in the property they burglarized
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 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
her descendants, and how many asylums
and colleges and churches they built, and
how many millions of dollars they con-
tributed for humanitarian and Christian
purposes2
The good women whose tombstones
were planted in the Eighteenth century
are more aGve for good in thSNineteenth
century than they were before, as the
good women of this Nineteenth century
will be more alive for good in the Twen-
tieth century than now. Mark you.
have no idea that the grandmothers were
any better than their granddaughters.
You cannot get very old people to talk
much about how things were when they
were boys and girls. They have reti-
cence and a non-committahsm which
makes me think they feel themselves to
be the custodians of the reputation of
their early comrades. While our dear
old folks are rehearsing the follies of the
present, if you put them on the witness
stand and s~oss-examine them as to how
becomes oppressive.
A celebrated Frenchman by the name
of yolney visited this country in 1796,
and he says of woman's diet in those
times: ''If a premium was offered for q
regimen most destructive to health, none
could be devised more efficacious for
these ends than that in use among these
people" That eciipses our lobster salad
at midnight. Everybody talks about the
dissiqations of modern society and how
womanly health goes down under it, but
1t was worse hundred years ago, for
the chaplain of French regiment in oul
revolutionary war wrote in 1889, in his
book of American women, saying: ''They
are tall and well proportioned, their feat
ures are generally regular, their complex
ions are generally fair and without color
At 90 years of age the women have nc
longer the freshness of youth. AT 81
or 40 they are decrepit." In 1912 a for
eign consul wrote a book entitled ga
Sketch of the United States at the Com
mencement of the Present Century, " an(
he SAYS of the women of those times
At the age Of 80 all their charms have
disappeared Cne glance at the por
traits of the women a hundred year,
ero and their style of dress makes u
wonder how they ever got their breath
All this makes me think that the express
rail train is no more an Improvement OF
the old canal boat or the telegraph NJ
more an improvement on the old time
saddlehags than the women Of our day
ora an Improvement on the women of tn,
last century.
But still, notwithstanding that thos,
times were SO much worse than orHs
there was a glorious race of godly
women, seventy and hundred year
aco. who held the world back from sh
and lifted it toward virtue, and withou
their exalted and saneti1ied influence be
fore this the last good influence woul'
have perished from the earth. Indee,
oil over this land there are seated to-da
NOT so much in churches, for many O
them are too feeble to come-a grea
many aged grandmothers. They some
times feel that the world has gone pas
them. ard they have an idea they are c
G;tle account. Their head sometime
gets aching from the racket of the grand
chillren down stairs or in the next room
They steady themselves by the banister
ms they go up and down. When the
get a cold it hangs on to them longe
fhan il used TO. They cannot bear I
haze The grandchildren punished eve