Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1895-06-29
SISTERS OF CHARITY.
REV. ;pR. TALMAGE CONTINUES THE
SUBJECT OF WoMEN's RIGHTS.


Divine. Forgiveness and to Wear the
Crown Of Glory In Heaven.
BEATRICE, Neb, June 23.- In his SER
mon for today, Rev. Dr.. Talmage, who
is now, on his summer western tour, has
chosen, a subject that must awaken the
sympathies of all lovers Of humanity
viz, gtSisters of Charity" The text Sc
lected was Acts tx, SO, "This woman
was full of good works and almsdeeds
which,she did"
Starting now where left off last
Sabbath in reciting woman's opportuni-
ties, Ihave to say that woman has the
special and superlative right of blessing
and comforting the sick. What land,
what street, what house, has not felt
the snitings Of disease? Tens Of thou
sands Of sickbeds What shall we do
with, them? Shall man, with his rough
hand and heavy foot and impatient bear
ing, minister? No He cannot soothe the
pain He cannot quiet the nerves He
lmowsnot where to set the light. His
hand Is not steady enough to pour out
the dtops.. He is not wakeful enough to
be watcher. The Lord God sent Miss
Dix into the Virginia hospitals, and the
Maid ef Saragossa to appease the wounds
of thebattlefeld, and has equipped wife,
mother and daughter for this delicate
but tremendous mission. You have
known men who have despised women,
but the moment disease fell upon them
they did not send for their friends at the
bank, or their partner in business, or
their worldly associates. Their first cry
was, 1sTake me to my wife!' The dis
sipated young man at the college SCOTS
at the idea of being under home inhu-
ences, but at the first blast of the ty-
phoidfever OH his cheek he says, "Where
is mother?" Walter Scott wrote partly
in satire and partly in compliment when
he said:
o woman, In our hour of ease.
Uncertain, coy and hard to please,
When pain and anguish wiring the brow,
Administering angel thou!
"A Pathetic Scriptural Story.
think the most pathetic passage in
all theBible is the description of the lad
who went out to the harvest field Of
Shunem and got misunderstanding
his hands on his temples and crying out:
"Oh, my head My headl" And they
said, sssCarry him to his mother. u And
then the record is, He sat OH her knees
till noon, and then died.. " 1t is an aw-
full thing to be i'll away from home in a
strange hotel, once in awhile men COM
ing to look at you, holding their hand
over their mouth for fear that they will
catch the contagion. How roughly they
turn you in bed How loudly they talk !
How you long for the ministries of
home! I knew one such who went away
from one of the brightest of homes for
several weeks business absence at the
west. A. telegram came at midnight
sthaAhe was on his deathbed. far away
from home BY express train the wife
and daughters went westward, but they
went too late He feared not to die, but
he was in an agony to live until his
family got there. He tried to bride the
doctor to make him live little while
longer. Ho said, II am willing to die,
but not alone. But the pulses flutter-
ed, the eyes closed and the heart stop
ped. The express trains met in the mid
night-wife and daughters going west
ward, lifeless remains of husband and
father coming eastward. Oh, it was a
sad, pitiful, overwhelming spectacle!
When we are sick, we want to be sick
ut homo. When the time comes for us
to die, we want to die at home. The
room may be very humble, and the faces
that look into ours may be very plain,
but who cares for that? Loving hands to
bathe the temples. Loving voices to
speak good cheer. Loving lips to read
the comforting promises of Jesus.
In our last dreadful war men cast the
cannon; men fashioned the musketry;
men cried to the hosts, Forward,
marchl" men hurled their battalions ON
the sharp edges of the enemy, crying,
"Charge, charged but woman scraped
the lint; woman administered the cor
dials; woman watched by the dying
couch woman wrote the last message to
the home circle; woman wept at the soil
tary burial attended by herself and four
men with spade. regretted the general
home with brass bands and triumphal
arches and wild huzzas, but the story is
too good to be written anywhere, save
in the chronicles of heaven, Of Mrs.
Brady, who came down among the sick
in the swamps of the Chickahominy; OF
Annie Ross, in the cooper shop hospital;
Of Margaret Breckenridge, who came to
men who had been for weeks with
their wounds undressed, some of them
frozen to the ground, and when she
turned them over those that had an arm
left waved it and filled the air with
their "Hurrahr' of Mrs. Hodge, who
came from Chicago with blankets and
with pillows, until the men shouted:
"Three cheers for the Christian COM
mission! God bless the women at
home;" then, sitting down to take the
last message: "Tell my wife not to fret
about me, but to meet me in heaven.
Tell her to train up the boys whom we
have loved 30 we'll Tell her we shall
meet again in the good land Tell her
to bear my loss like the Christian wife
of a Christian soldier, and of Mrs.
Shelton, into whose face the GONZALES
cent soldier looked and said, your
grapes and cologne cured me" Men did
their work with shot and shell and car
bine and howitzer, women did their
work with socks and slippers and band
ages, and warm drinks, and Scripture
texts, and gertle stockings Of the hot
temples, and stories of that land where
they never have any pain. Men knelt
down over the wounded and said, ION
which side did you fight?" Women knelt
down over the wounded and said:
Where are you hurt? What nice thing
T l.. G. - l,,+ mo