The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-02-16
WIFELY AMBITION.
DR.. TALMAGE'S SIXTH SERMON TO
TIE WOMEN OF AMERICA.

DR.. TALMAGE'S SIXTH SERMON TO
TIE WOMEN OF AMERICA.
Wives of America Use Your Influence for
God and Home-Remember the Story
Advice to Your Husbands.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 12.-In the Taber
racle this morning the Rev. T. Dewitt
Talmage, ID. D., preached the sixth of his
Of Sermons to women of America,
with important hints for men, The
subject was: ''Wifely Ambition, Good
and Bad" and the text was from I
Kings, xxi, z: ''Arise, and eat bread, and
let thine heart be merry: will give thee
the vineyard of Naboth." DR.. Talmage
said:
One day King Ahab, looking out of the
window of his palace at Jazreel. said to
lis wife Jezebel: "We ought to have
these royal gardens enlarged. If we
could only get that fellow, Naboth, who
owns that vineyard out there, to trade or
seu, we could make it a kitchen garden
for cur palace"
Fetch in Naboth,'' says the king to
one Of his servants. -ss-. :.
= The&plain gardener, wondering why
lie should be called into the presence of
his majesty, comes in, little downcast
in his modesty and with very obsequious
manner bows to the king.
The king says; ''Naboth, I want to
trade vineyards with you. l want your
vineyard for a kitchen garden, and /
will give a great deal better vineyard
In place of it, or, if you prefer money for
it, will give you cash."
"Oh, no." says Naboth, 81 cannot
trade off nay little place, nor can sell it.
1t is the old homestead. got it of my
father and he of his father, and cannot
let the old place go out of my hands,"
In great state of petulancy King
Aiiab went into the house and flung him
self on the bed and turned his face to the
wall in a great pout.
His wife Jezebel comes in and she
says: ''What is the matter with you2
Are you sick?"
'Oh, y he says, 81 feel very blue. I
have set my heart on getting that kitchen
garden, and Naboth will neither trade or
sell, and to be defeated by common
gardener is more than can stand"
"Oli, pshaw, says Jezefel, 'don't go
on that way. Get up and eat your din
ner and stop moping. Twill get for you
that kitchen garden"
Then Jezebel borrowed her husbands
signet or seal, for then, as now, in those
lands kings never signed their names, but
had a ring with the royal name engraved
on it, and that impressed on royal let
ter or document was the signature. She
stamped her husbands s name on a proc
lamation which resulted in getting Ma
both 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
rending the dead body of poor Naboth,
Elijah, the prophet, tells them of other
c;lnines that will after while have
free banquet, saying: 'fWhere 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 the carnage, dogs stood
under it tapping his lifes blood. And a
little afterward his wife, Jezebel, who
had been his chief adviser in crirne,
stands at her palace window and sees
Jehu, the enemy, approaching to take
possession of the palace. And, to make
herself look as attractive as possible and
Queenly to the very last, she decorated
her person, and, according to Oriental
custom, closed her eyes and ran a brush
dipped in 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 he
shouted to the slaves in her ROOM ''Throw
her down." But no doubt the slaves
halted moment from such work of as
sassination, yet, knowing Queen Jezebel
could be no more to them and the con-
queror Jehu would be everything, as he
shouted again: ''Throw her down."
they seized her and bore her struggling
and cursing to the window easement, and
hurled her forth till she came tumbling
10 the earth, striking it just in time to
let Jehu's horses trample her and the
chariot wheels roll over her. While
Jehu is inside at the table refreshing him
self 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 appeared on the scene, and
they had removed all her body except
those parts which in all ages dogs are by
strange instinct or brutal superstition
kept from touching after death-the
palms of the hands and the soles of the
feet.
All this appalling scene of ancient his
tory was the result of wife's bad ad-
vice to husband, of a wife's struggle to
advance her husbands interests by un-
lawful means. Ahab and Jezebel got
the kitchen garden of Naboth, but the
dogs got them. The trouble all began
when this mistaken wife aroused her hus-
band out of his melancholy by the words
of the text: 'Arise, and eat bread, and
let thine heart be merry: / will give thee
the vineyard of Naboth.
The influence suggested by this subject
is an influence you never before heard
discoursed on and may never hear again,
but most potent and semi-omnipotent
Influence, and decides the course of indi-
viduals, families, nations, centuries and
eternities speak of wifely ambition,
good and bad. How important that
every wife have her ambition, an ele-
waited, righteous and divinely approved
ambition.
And here let me say what am most
anxious for is that woman, not waiting
for the rights denied her or postponed,
promptly and decisively employ the rights
she already has in possession. Some say
she win be in fair way to get all her
rights when she gets the right to the
ballot lox | wish that the experiment
might be tried and settled. would like
to see all women vote and then watch
the result. l do not know that it would
change anything for the better. Most
wives and daughters and sisters would
vote rs their husbands and fathers and
brothers voted. Nearly all the families
hat | know are solidly Republican ol