Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1889-09-14

A Short Sermon on Idle Women.
Kate Epson Clark in Womans Magazinel
It is not probable that any of the women who
read this article are among the ''idle women who
are meant That is the discouragng thing about
sermonizing, both to those who preach from pull
pits and those who try to do missionary work with
the pen Somehow the one at whom the arrow is
sped does not seem to recognize himself as the tar
get or else the right one does not, as the archers
say, ''cross the field
Perhaps it has not occurred to many of us that
there are far more idle women in America to-day
than there are idle men. Just think how many
merchants and other active business and profess
sional men toll in the city through the summer,
while their wives and children are, as the Southern
darkes say "off indie cool, :" enjoying themselves!
Just think how many men strain every nerve
throughout the year in order that their wives may
live lives of ease and comfort!
1t is true that perhaps majority of the wives
of these men work as hard as their husbands. In
the care of their houses the rearing of little children
and the performance of charitable and church
work, and social duties, many of the women who
have one or more servants to do the household
drudgery are kept as busy as is perhaps, well for
them. But there is still large remnant of
women whose time either hangs heavy on their
hands, or else is worse than wasted in gossip and
dissipation. 1t is an undoubted fact that large
proportion of the ptable scandals which deface
the columns of the daily papers, are the result
of the idleness of women. There is no cues
ton but that very large part of the chronic
invalldsm among women-four times as large
says prominent Boston physician as among
mems due to the lack of sufficient food for
thought.
A certain woman, of excellent principles and
good mind and education, was complaining of the
shortcomings of relative. Her remarks did great
s. !,
cause for them.
81 wonder" said her nephew, ''what ails Aunt
Celestia. She is such fine woman that | cannot
understand why she does not see she is simply
stirring up strife, without much basis of fact to
work on and with no good end in view.'
cit u.s." remarked thoughtful woman, who had
known of the affair throughout, ''because she has
nothing else to do. Her children are grown up,
she has plenty of help to do the work, and her
naturally active mind has too little to do"
"You are right" said the nephew. "That ac-
counts fully for all the phenomena"
Labor is life. TITS the still water faeth
Ideness ever despaireth-bewaleth.
Keep the watch wound, or the dark rust assalleth;
Play the sweet keys, would you keep them in tune"
These lines have become trite through much
quotation, but they are well worth the learning bv
the heart of every woman.
"When we rest, we darken,"
and the remainder of the exquisite poem in which
this line occurs are also entirely worth committing
to memory.
1t is said by Mr.. Henry George that he looks
forward to the time when nobody will have to
work more than an hour a day. O miserable race
1t seems as though even a cursory study of DR..
Watts well-known lines, concerning Satan and
idle hands, would show to Mr. George or any,
body else that human beings cannot, as constituted
throughout all history and as presumably to he