The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-06-08
NEEDLE MARTYRS.
Dr.. Talmage Discourses on the Sub
iect Of Womans Tolls.
She Has the Right to Do Anything She
Can Do Well-Industry Will BE
Her Salvation-PeriIs of
Idleness.

In a sermon chosen for the Sunday
after he sailed for Europe. Rev. L.
Dewitt Talmage took for his subject
Martyrs of the Needle" the text be-
ing Matthew xix, "a: 1T is easier for
camel to go through the eye of a
needle" Following is the sermon:
Whether this "eye of the needle be
the small gate at the side of the big
gate at the entrance of the wall of the
ancient city, as is generally inter
preted, or the eve f needle such as is
now handled in sewing garment, do
not say. In either case it would be a
tight thing for camel to go through
the eye of needle, But there are
whole caravans of fatigues and hard
ships going through the eye of the sew
ing woman's needle.
Very long ago the needle was busy.
1t was considered honorable for women
TO toll in olden time. Alexander the
Great stood in his palace showing gar
ments made by his own mother. The
finest tapestries at Bayeux were made
by the queen of William the Conqueror.
Augustus the Emperor would not wear
any garments except those that were
fashioned by some member of his royal
family So let the toiler everywhere
be respected!
The greatest blessing that could have
happened to our first parents was being
TUNED out of Eden after they had done
wrong. Adam and Eve, in their per-
feet state, might have got along with
out work, or only such slight employ
ment as a perfect garden, with no
weeds in it, demanded. But, as soon
as they had sinned. the best thing for
them was to be turned out where they
would have to work. We know what
a whitening thing it is for a man to
have nothing TO do. Good old Ashbel
Green. at four-score years, when asked
why he kept on working, said: II do
so to keep out of mischief"
But l am now to tell you that indus
try is just as important for a woman's
safety and happiness. The most I'M
happy women in our communities to-
day are those who have no engage
ments to call them up in the morning;
who, once having risen and breakfasted,
lounge through the dull forenoon in
slippers down at the heel and with
disheveled hair. reading the last novel;
and who, having dragged through a
wretched forenoon and taken their
afternoon sleep, and having spent an
hour and half at their toilet, pick up
their card ease and go out to make calls;
and who pass their evenings waiting
for somebody to come in and break up
the monotony.
There is no happiness in an idle
woman. 1t may be with hand. it may
be with brain, it may be with foot; but
work she must, or be wretched forever.
The little girls of our families must be
started with that idea. The curse of
our American society is that our young
women are taught that the first, second,
third, fourth. fifth, sixth, seventh,
tenth, fiftieth, thousandth thing in
their life is to get somebody to take
care of them. Instead of that the first
lesson should be, how, under God, they
may be able to take care of themselves.
The simple fact is that a majority OF
them do have to take care of them
selves, and that, too, after having,
through the false notions of their
parents, wasted the years in which
they ought to have learned how sue
cessfully to maintain themselves. We
now and here declare the inhumanity,
cruelty and outrage of that father and
mother, who pass their daughters into
womnnhood, having given them no IA
cility for earning their livelihood.
You say you have u fortune to leave
them. o man and woman! have you
not learned that, like vultures, like
hawks, like eagles. riches have wings
and fly away? Though you should be
successful in leaving a competency be-
hind YOU. the triclzery of executors may
swamp it in a night; or some elders or
deacons of our churches may get up a
fictitious company and induce your
orphans to put their money into it, and
if it be lost, prove to them that it was
eternally decreed that that was the
way they were to lose it, and that ii
went in the most orthodox and heaven
" style. o, the damnable schemes
that professed Christians will engage
in-until God puts his fingers into the
collar of the hypocrite's robe and rips
it clear down to the bottom! You have
no right, because you are well off, to
conclude that your children are going
to be well off.
Have you nothing better than money
to leave your children? If you have
not, but send your daughters into the
world with empty brain and unskille6
hand, you are guilty of assassination
homicide, regicide, infanticide. There
arc women toiling in our cities for 8;
and 81 per week, who were daughter:
of merchant princes. These suffering
ones now would be glad to have the
crumbs that once fell from theil
fathers table. That worn-out. broker
shoe that she wears is the lineai de
scendant of the S12 CATERS in which
her mother walked; and that torn and
faded calico had ancestry of magnifi
cent brocade that swept broadway
clean without any expense to the street
commissioners.
As far as ] can understand, the line
of responsibility lies between thai
which is useful and that which is use
less. If women do that which is of nc
value, their work is honorable. If they
do practical work it is dishonorable.
That our young women may escape
the censure of doing dishonorable
work, shall particularize. You may
knit q tidy for the back of an arm
chair. but by no means make the
money wherewith to buy the chair
You may, with delicate brush, beau
tify a mantel ornament, but die rather
than earn enough to buy a marble
manfel Nou may learn artistic music