Connecticut western news., 1893-08-24

| are exhausted and business firms thrown l into bankruptcy, and men of reputed
 honesty rush into astounding forgeries Of course say nothing against refine | ment or culture. Splendor of abode, sumptuousness of diet, lavishness in art, | neatness in apparel-there is nothing | against them in the Bible or out of the | Bible. God does not want us to prefer | mud hovel to English cottage, or un- | tanned sheepskin to French broadcloth, | or husks to pineapple, or the clumsiness | of boor to the manners of gentleman | God, who strung the beach with tinted shell and the grass of the field with the dews of the night and hath exquisitely | tinged morning cloud and robin red breast, wants us to keep our eye open to all beautiful sights, and our ear open to all beautiful cadences, and our heart | open to all elevating sentiments. But what l want to impress upon you is that you ought not to inventory the luxuries | of life as among the indispensables, and you ought not to depreciate this woman | of the text, who, when offered kingly preferment, responded, 'I dwell among my own people,"
 wOMAN'S DEBT TO CHRISTIANITY. Yea, this woman of the text was great
 in her piety, faith in God, and she was not ashamed to talk about it before idol
 aters. An, woman will never appreciate
 what she owes to Christianity until she knows and sees the degradation of her sex under organism and Mohammedan- ism. Her very birth considered mis- fortune. Sold like cattle in the sham bles. Slave of all work, and at last her body fuel for the funeral pyre of her hus- band.
 Above the shriek of the fire worship
 CTS in India and above the rumbling of the juggernauts I hear the million
 voiced groan of wronged, insulted, bro ken hearted, downtrodden woman. Her tears have fallen in the Nile and Tigris
 and the La Plata and on the steppes of of Tartary. She has been dishonored in Turkish garden and Persian palace and Spanish Alhambra. Her little ones have been sacrificed in the Ganges. There is not a groan, or dungeon, or an island, or a mountain, or river, or a sea but could tell story of the outrages heaped upon her. But, thanks to God, this glorious Chris tianity comes forth. and all the chains of this vassalage are snapped, and she rises up from ignominy to exalted sphere and becomes the affectionate daughter, the gentle wife, the honored mother, the useful Christian. Oh, if Christianity has done so much for woman, surely woman will become it's most ardent advocate and it's sublimest complication When come to speak of womanly in- fuence, my mind always wanders off to one model-the aged one who, 27 years ago, we put away for the resurrection. About S7 years ago, and just before their marriage day, my father and mother stood up in the old meeting house at Somerville, N. J., and took upon them the VOWS of the Christian. Through long life of vicissitude she lived harm lessly and usefully and came to her end in peace. No child of want ever came to her door and was turned empty away. No one in sorrow came to her but was comforted. No one asked her the way to be saved but she pointed him to the cross. When the angel of life came to neighbors dwelling, she was there to re- joice at the starting of another immortal spirit. When the angel of death came to
 
 robe the departed for the burial. E We had often heard her, when leading family prayers in the absence of my fa- ther, say, 70 Lord, ask not for my chil- dren wealth or honor, but do ask that they all may be the subjects of thy con- forting gracer' Her II children brought into the kingdom of God, she had but one more wish, and that was that she might see Ter long absent missionary son, and when the ship from China an- chored in New York harbor and the long absent one passed over the threshold of his paternal home she said, ''Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, l for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" The prayer was soon answered.
 It was an autumnal day when we gath cred from afar and found only the house from which the soul had fled forever. She looked very natural, the hands very
 much as when they were employed in kindness for her children. Whatever else | we forget, we never forget the look of | mothers hands. AS we stood there by | the casket we could not help but say, Don't she look beautiful?" It was a | cloudless day when, with heavy hearts, we carried her out to the last resting place. The withered leaves crumbled | under hoof and wheel as we passed, and the sun shone on the Raritan river until | it looked like fire; but more calm and beautiful and radiant was the setting
 sun of that aged pilgrims life. No more | toll, no more tears, no more sickness, no | more death. Dear mother! Beautiful | mother Sweet is the slumber beneath the sod, While the pure spirit rests with God. I need not go back and show you Zen | obia or Semiramis or Isabella or even ! the woman of the text as wonders of womanly excellence or greatness when
 in this moment point to your own pie ture gallery of memory, and show you
 the one face that you remember so well,
 and arouse all your holy "reminiscences, | and start you in new consecration to l God by the pronunciation of that tender, | beautiful, glorious word, Mother, moth | erp'
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