The Bossier banner., 1894-02-15
MOTHER LOVE.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Discourses Upon
a Homely Topic.
The Love of the Mother Ever Present In
the Human Characteristic Home
Question: "Whers Ii
Mother?"


cred by Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage in the
Brooklyn tabernacle, being based on
the text:
The mother Of Sisera looked out at q win
dow.-Jndges v, 28
Spiked to the ground of Jael's tent
lay the dead commander-in-chief of the
Canaanitish host, Gen. Sisera, not far
from the River Kishon, which was only
dry bed of pebbles when in 1889, in
Palestine, we crossed it, but the gull
lies and ravines which ran into it indi
Gated the possibility of great freshets
like the one of the text. Gen. Sisera
had gone out with nine hundred char
Its, but he was defeated, and his
chariot wheels interlocking with the
wheels of other chariots, he could not
retreat fast enough, and SO he
leaped to the ground and ran till
exhausted. He went into Jaels tent
for safety. She had just been churn-
ing, and when he asked for water she
gave him buttermilk, which in the
east is considered a most refreshing
drink. Very tired, and supposing he
was safe, he went to sleep upon the
floor, but Jael, who had resolved upon
his death, took a tent-pin, long and
round and sharp, in one hand and
hammer in the other, and putting the
sharp end of the tent-pin to the fore
head of Sisera, with her other hand she
lifted the hammer and brought it down
on the head of the pin with stout
stroke, when Sisera struggled to rise,
and she struck him again, and he
struggled to rise, and the third time
she struck him, and the commanderin-
chief of the Canaanitish host lay dead.
Meanwhile in the distance Sisera's
mother sits amid surroundings of
wealth and pomp and scenes palatial,
waiting for his return. Every mother
expects her son to be victorious, and
this mother looked out at the window,
expecting to see him drive up in his
chariot, followed by wagons loaded
with embroideries and also by regi-
ments of men vanquished and enslaved.
l see her now sitting at the window,
in high expectation. She watches the
for the flying dust of the swift hoofs.
The first flash of the bit of the horses
bride she will catch.
The ladies of her court stand round
and she tells them of what they shall
have when her son comes up-chains
of gold and carcanets of beauty and
dresses of such wondrous fabric and
splendor as the Bible only hints at but
leaves us to imagine. He ought to be
NV 4, l,
'that battle is surely over. hope that
freshet of the River Kishon has not
impeded him. / hope those strange
appearances we saw last night in the
sky were not ominous, when the stars
seemed to fight in their courses No
No! He is SO brave in battle know he
has won the day. He will soon be
here" But alas for the disappointed
mother; she will not see the glittering
head-gear of the horses at full gallop
bringing her son home from victorious S
battle. AS 4 solitary messenger ar
irving in hot haste rides up to the win
dow at which the mother of Sisera sits,
and cries: Your armies are defeated
and your son Is dead" there is scene
of horror and anguish from which we
turn away.
Now you see the full meaning of my
short text: ''The mother of Sisera
looked out of window" Well, nv
friends, we are all out in the battle of
life; it is raging now and the most of
us have mother watching and wait
Ing for news of our victory and defeat.
If she be not sitting at the window of
earth she is sitting at window of
Heaven, and she is going to hear all
about it.
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?" It 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's mother?''
She sometimes feels wearied by the
question, for they all ask it and keen
asking it all the time. She is not only
the first to hear every case of perplexi.
ty, but she is the judge in every
court of domestic appeal That is
what puts the premature wrinkles
on so many maternal faces, and
powders white so many maternal
foreheads. You see it is a 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 OF
hat or slate or book or overshoe is lost,
until at night all out of breath the
youngsters come in apd shout until
you can hear them from cellar to gar.
ret, and from front door to the back
fence of the back yard: where's
mother?" Indeed a child's life is sc
full of that question that if he be taken
away one of the things that the mother
most misses and the silence that most
Expresses her, is the absence of that
question, which she will never hear on
earth again, except she hears it in a
dream which sometimes restores the
nursery just as it was, and then the
voipa coYpa4 haoly