The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-07-23

Mother is the chief presiding spirit. With
her hands she knits all the stockings for
the little feet. and she is the mantua-
maker for the boys, and she is the mil
liner for the girls. There is only one
musical instrument lie the house-the
spinning wheel The food is very plain,
but it is always well provided. The win
tiers are very cold but are kept out by the
blankets she quilted. On Sunday, when
she appears in the village church, her
children around her, the minister looks
down, and is reminded of the Bible de-
scriptiOn of a good ousewife-''Her chill
dren arise and call her blessed; her hus-
band also, and he praiseth her"
Some years go by, and the two eeldest
boys want collegiate education, and the
household economies are severer, and the
calculations are closer, and until those
two boys get their education there is
hard battle for bread. One of these boys
enters the university, stands in a pulpit
widely intiuen tia, and breaches righteous
ness, Judgment ana temperance, and
thousands during his ministry are blessed.
The other lad who got the collegiate edu-
cation goes into the law, and thence into
legislative halls, and after while he
commands listening senates as he makes
a plea for the down-trodden and the out
cast. One of the younger boys becomes
merchant, starting at the foot of the lad
der but climbing on up until his success
and his philanthrOpies are recognized all
over the land. The other son stays at
home because he prefers farming life, and
then he thinks he will be able TO take
care of father and mother when they get
old.
OF the two daughters, when the war
broke out one went through the hospitals
of Pittsburg Landing and Fortress Mon
roe, cheering up the dying and homesick,
and taking the last message 10 kindred
far away. So that every time Christ
thought of her he said, as of old, THE
same is my sister and mother" The
other daughter has bright home of her
own, and in the afternoon of the forenoon
when she has been devoted TO her house
hold, she goes forth to hunt up the sick
and to encourage the discouraged, leaving
smiles and benediction all along the way.
But one day there start five kilograms
from the village for these five absent
ones, saying: Come, mother is danger
Ously ILL.," But before they can be ready
to start, they receive another telegram,
saying: Come, mother is dead" The
old neighbors gather in the old farm
house to do the last Offices of respect.
But as that farming son, and the clergy
man, and the senator, and the merchant,
and the two daughters stand by the
casket of the dead mother taking the last
look, or lifting their little children to see
once more the face of dear old grandma,
l want to ask that group around the cas-
ket one question: do you really think
her life was worth living?" A life for
God, life for others, a life of unseltish
ness, useful life, a Christian life is al
ways worth living
would not find it hard to persuade you
that the poor LAD, Peter Cooper, making
glue for a living, and then amassing a
great fortune, until he could build
philanthrophy, which has had its echo in
10000 philanJropies all over the country
I would not find it hard TO persuade
you that his life was worth living.
Neither would find it hard to persuade
you that the life of Susannah Wesley was
worth living. She sent out one son to or
ganize Methodism and the other son to
ring his anthems all through the ages |
would not find it hard work to persuade
you that the life of Frances Leere
was worth living, as she established in
England a school for the scientic nurs-
ing of the sick, and then when the war
broke out between France and Germany,
went to the front, and with her own
hands scraped the mud off the bodies of
the soldiers dying in the trenches, with
her weak arm-standing one night in the
hospital pushing back a German soldier
| to his couch, as, all frenzied with his
wounds, he rushes toward the door, and
said LET me go, let me go to my 'lebe
| let pass this angel of mercy.
Neither would / have hard work to per-
| suade you that Grace Darling lived life
worth living-the heroine of the lifehoat.
| You are not wondering that the Duchess
of Northumberland came to see her, and
that people of all lands asked for her
lighthouse, and that the proprietor of the
Adelphi theater in London offered her a
hundred dollars night just to sit in the
lifeboat while some shipwreck scene was
being enacted.
But l know the thought in the minds of
hundreds who read this. You say: ''While
know all these lived lives worth living.
| don't think my life amounts to much. :"
All my friends, whether you live life
conspicuous or inconspicuouS, it is worth
| living if you live Alright. And | want nv
next sentence to go down into the depths
of all your souls. You are to be rewarded,
not according to the greatness of your
work, but according to the holy indus
tries with which you employed the tai
ents you really possessed. The majority
of the crowns of heaven will not
be given to people with ten tai
ents for most of them were tempted only
to serve themselves. The vast majority
of crowns of heaven will be given to peo-
pie who had one talent, but gave it all to
God. And rememb Der that our life here is
introductory to another. 1t is the vesti-
bule to a palace; but who despises the
door of the Madeleine because there are
grander glories within? Your life. if
rightly lived, is the first bar of an eternal
oratorio, and who despises the first note
of Haydn's symphonies And the life
you live now is all the more worth living
because it opens into a life that shall
never end, and the last letter of the word
time" is the first letter of the word
eternity