The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-06-28
WOMAN'S MISSION.
A Companion Sermon to "Woman's
Opportunity"
DR.. Talmage Paints q Picture Familiar to
Suffering Humanity-True Sisters of
Charity in Christian Work
Their Heavenly Reward.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, who has
been visiting the west, recently
preached at Beatrice, Neb., upon sub
ject calculated to awaken the sympa-
thies of all lovers of humanity, viz:
Sisters of Charity" The text select
ed was Acts, tx. SO: "This woman was
full of good works and almsdeeds
which she did" Following is the SER
mon:
Starting now where 1 left off last
Sabbath in reciting woman's oppor-
tunities, have 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 shifting of disease.
Tens of thousands of sick-beds! What
shall we do with them? Shall man,
with his rough hand and heavy foot, and
impatient bearing, minister? No. He
cannot soothe the pain. He cannot quiet
the nerves. He knows not where to
set the light. His hand is not steady
enough to pour out the drops. He is
not wakeful enough to be watcher.
The Lord God who sent Miss Dix into
the Virginia hospitals, and the Maid of
Saragossa to appease the wounds of
the battlefield, has equipped wife,
mother and daughter for this delicate
but tremendous mission You have
known men who have despised wom-
an, but the moment disease fell upon
them they did not send for their
friends at the bank, or their partners
in business, or their worldly associates;
their first cry was: Take me to my
wife" The dissipated young man at
the college SCOTS at the idea of being
under home influences, but at the first
blast of the typhoid fever on his cheek
he says: Where is mother?" Walter
Scott wrote partly in satire and partly
in compliment when he said:
30, woman, in our hour of ease.
Uncertain, coy and hard to please;
When pain and anguish wiring the brow,
A minstering angel thou"
think the most pathetic passage in
all the Bible is the description of the
lad who went out to the harvest field
of Shunem and got sunstruck-throw-
ing his hands on his head and crying
out: 80, my head! my headr' and they
said: Garry him to his mother" And
then the record is: HE sat on her
knees till noon and then died" 1t is
an awful thing to be i'll away from
home in a strange hotel, once in a
while men coming to look at you, hold
ing 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 homel l knew
one such who went away from one of
the brightest of homes for sew
eral weeks business absence at the
west. A telegram came at midnight
that he was on his death-bed, 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 a
little while longer. He said: II am
willing to die, but not alone" But the
pulse futtered, the eyes closed and
the heart stopped. The express trains
met in the midnight; wife and daugh-
tiers going westward-lifeless remains
ward. o, it was sad, pitiful, over
whelming spectaclel When we are sick
we want to be sick at home. 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 battle the
temples. Loving voices to speak good
cheer. Loving lips to read the COM
forting promises of Jesus
In our last dreadful war men cast
the cannon; men fashioned the musket-
ry; men cried to the hosts, Forward,
march, men hurled their battalions
on the sharp edges of the enemy, cry
ing: Charge! charged" but woman
scraped the lint; woman administered
the cordials; woman watched by the
dying couch; woman wrote the last
message to the home circle; woman
wept at the solitary burial attended
by herself and four men with spade.
Men did their work with shot and
shell. and carbine and howitzer; women
did their work with socks, and slippers
and bandages, and warm drinks, and
Scripture texts, and gentle stockings
of the hot temples, and stories of that
land where they never have any pain.
Men knelt down over the wounded,
and said: ''On which side did you fght?"
Women knelt down over the wounded
and said: Where are you hurt? What
nice thing can make for you to eat?
What makes you cry?' Tonight,
while we men are sound asleep in our
beds, there will be a light in yonder
loft; there will be grooming in that
dark alley; there will be cries of dis
tress in that cellar. Men will sleep
and women will watch.
Again, woman has superlative right
to take care of the poor. There are
hundreds and thousands of them in all
our cities There is a kind of work
that men cannot do for the poor. Here
comes a group of little barefoot chill
dren to the door of the Dorcas society.
They need to be clothed and provided
for Which of these directors of banks
would know how many yards it would
take to make that little girl dress?
Which of these muscular hands could
fit a hat to that little girls head?
Which of the wise men would know
how to tie on that little pair of shoes?
Man sometimes gives his charity in
rough way, and it falls like the fruit of
a tree in the east, which fruit comes
down so heavily that it breaks the
skull of the man who is trying to gath
er it.
But woman glides SO softly into the
house of restitution, and finds out all
the sorrows of the place, and puts so