Marble Hill press., 1894-01-25

colors of needlework, of divers colors
of needlework on both sides?" She
makes no anxious utterance about the
wounded in battle. about the blood
shed, about the dying, about the dead,
about the principles involved in the
battle going on: battle so important
| that the stars and the freshets took
part, and the clash of swords was
answered by the thunder of the skies.
What she thinks most of is the bright
colors of the wardrobes to be captured,
and the needlework. ITO Sisera a
prey of divers colors, prey of divers
colors of needlework, of divers colors
of needlework on both sides"
Now neither Sisera's mother nor any
one else can say too much in eulogy of
the needle. 1t has made more useful
conquests than the sword. Pointed at
one end. and with an eye at the other,
whether of bone or ivory as in earliest
time, or of bronze, as in Pliny's time,
or of steel, as in modern time; whether
laboriously fashioned as formerly by
one hand. or as now, when a hundred
workmen in factory are employed to
make the different parts of one needle.
1t is an instrument divinely ordered
for the comfort, for the life, for the
health, for the adornment of the hu-
man race. The eye of the needle hath
seen more domestic comfort and more
gladdened poverty, and more Christian
service than any other eye. The mod
ern sewing machine has in no wise
abolished the needle, but rather en-
throned it. Thank God for the needle
work, from the time when the Lord
Almighty from the heavens ordered in
regard to the embroidered door of the
ancient tabernacle: Thou shalt make a
hanging for the door of the tent of blue
and purple and scarlet and fne-twined
linen, wrought with needlework,
down to the womanly hands which
this winter in this tabernacle are pre-
senting for benevolent purposes their
needlework. But there was nothing
except vanity and worldliness and
social splash in what Sisera's mother
said about the needlework she ex-
pected her son would bring home from
the battle. And l am not surprised to
find that Sisera fought on the wrong
side, when his mother at the window
of my text, in that awful exigency had
her chief thought on dry goods achieve
ment and social display. God only
knows how many homes have made
shipwreck on the wardrobe. And that
mother who sits at the window watch
ing for vain-glorious triumph Of milli-
merry and fine colors, and domestic
pageantry, will after while hear as
bad news from her children out in the
battle of life, as Sisera's mother heard
from the struggle at Esdralon.
But if you still press the question
"Where's mother?" I will tell you
where she is not, though once she was
there. Some of you started with her
likeness in your face and her principles
in your soul But you have cast her
out. That was an awful thing for you
to do, but you have done it. That
hard, grinding, dlssipated look you
never got from her. If you had seen
any one strike her you would have
struck him down without much care
whether the blow was just sufficient
or fatal, but, my boy, you.ha struck
her down-struck her inn ocence from
your face and struck her principles
from your soul You struck her down.
The tent-pin thai Jael drove three
times into the skull of Sisera was not
SO cruel as the stab you have made
more than three times through your
mothers heart. But she is waiting
yet, for mothers are slow to give up
their boys-waiting at some window,it
may be window on earth or at some
window in heaven. All others may
cast you off. Your wife may seek
divorce and have no more patience
with you. Your father may disinherit
you and say, Let him never again
darken the door of our house" But
there are two persons who do not give
you up-God and mother.
How many disappointed mothers
waiting at the window. Perhaps the
panes of the window are not great glass
plate, bevel edged, and lowered over by
exquisite lambrequin, but the window
is made of small panes, / would
say about six or eight of them, in sum-
mer wreathed with trailing vine, and
in winter pictured by the Raphaels of
the frost, real country window. The
mother sits there knitting, or busy
with her needle of homely repairs,
when she looks up and sees coming
across the bridge of the meadow brook
a stranger who dismounts in front of
the window. He lifts and drops the
heavy knocker of the farm house door.
"Come in!' is the response. He gives
his name and says, Il have come on a
sad errand." ''There is nothing the
matter of my son in the city, is there?'
she asks. "Yes!" he says, your son
got into an unfortunate encounter with
a young man in liquor saloon last
night, and is badly hurt. The fact is
ha <,c< x~nn lox~