Marble Hill press., 1894-01-25

der, and not few were killed by theil
own chariotS"
Hence, my hearers. the bad new:
brought to the mother of Sisera look
ing out at the window. And oul
mother, whether sitting at window
of earth or a window of heaven. will
hear the news of our victory or defeat
Not according to our talents or educa
tional equipment or our opportunities
but according as to whether God is fol-
or against us.
where's mother?" is the question
most frequently asked in many house.
holds 1t is asked by the husband as
well as the child coming in at night
fall Where's mother?" 1t is asked
by the little ones when they get hurt
and come in crying with the pain:
where's mother?" 1t is asked by
those who have seen some grand sight
or heard some good news or received
some beautiful gift: Where 6
mother?' She sometimes feels wearied
by the question. for they all ask it and
keep asking it all the time. She is not
only the first TO hear every case OF per-
plex,ty. but she is the judge in every
court of domestic appeal That's what
puts the premature wrinkles on so many
maternal faces, and powders white
so many maternal foreheads. You see
it is question that keeps on for all
the years of childhood. 1t comes from
the nursery and from the evening
stand where the boys and girls are
learning their school lesson, and from
the starting out in the morning, when
the tippet or hat or slate or book or
overshoe is lost, until at night all out
of breath the youngsters come in and
shout until you can hear them from
cellar to garret, and from front door
to the back fence of the back yard.
"Where's mother?' Indeed a child's
life is so full of that question that If
he be taken away one of the things
that the mother most misses and the
silence that most oppresses her, is the
absence of that question. except she
hears it in dream which sometimes
restores the nursery just as it was and
then the voice comes back so natural,
and so sweet, and so innocent, and so
inquiring, that the dream breaks at the
words, Where's mother?"
If that question were put to most of
us'this morning. we would have to say,
if we spoke truthfully, like Slsera's
mother, she is at the palace window.
She has become queen unto God for
ever, and she is pulling back the rich
folds of the kings upholstery to look
down at us. We are not told the par
ticulars about the residence of Sisera's
mother, but there is in that scene in
the Book of Judges" so much about
and needle work and
ladies in waiting, that We know her
residence must have been princely and
palatial. So we have no minute and
particular description of the palace
at whose window our glorifed mother
sits, but there is so much in the clos
ing chapters of the good old book
about crowns, and pearls big enough
to make gate out of one of them. new
songs, and marriage suppers. and
harps, and white horses with kings in
the stirrups, and golden candle-sticks,
that we know the heavenly residence
of our mother is superb is unique, is
is domed, is embowered, is
fountained, is glorifed, beyond the
power of pencil or pen or tongue to
present, and in the window Of that pal
ace the mother sits. watching for
news from the battle. What contrast
between that celestial surrounding
and her once earthly surroundings.
What work to bring up a family in
the old-time way, with but little or no
hired help. except perhaps for the
washing-day, or for the swine-slaugh-
tering, commonly called the killing
day." There was then no reading of
elaborate treatises on the best modes
of rearing children, and then leaving
it all to hired help, with one or two
visits day to the nursery to see
if the principles announced are being
carried out The most of those old
folks did the sewing, the washing, the
the patching, the millinery,
the darning, the mantua-making, the
housekeeping, and in hurried harvest
time helped spread the hay or tread
down the load in the NOW. They were
at the same time caterers, tailors,
doctors. chaplains and nurses for a
whole household all together down
with measles or scarlet fever. or round
the house with whooping coughs and
groups and run-round fingers and ear
aches, and all the infantile distempers
which at some time swoop upon every
large household. Some of those moth
ers never got rested in this world. In
stead of the self-rocking cradles of our
lay, which, wound up, will go hour
after hour for the solace of the young
it was weary foot on the
'ocker sometimes half the day or half
he night - rock - rock-rock-rock.
instead of our orug stores filed with
III the wonders of materia medica, and
.alled nm throuph a telephope. with