The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1895-07-04
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
MISSIONS FOR WHICH WOMEN
HAVE BEEN ESPECIALLY
EQUIPPED. "
The Woman at the Sick Red, as the
dispenser of Charity, AS the Com
fOrter in Dire Disnster-Her Indu-
ence in Christian Work.

mon to-day Kew. Dr. IalmaSe, VINO Is
now on his summer Western tour, has
chosen a subject that must awaken
the sympathies Of all lovers Of hui
mainly, viz, SISTERS Of Charity" The
text selected was, Acts tx, SO: ''This
woman was full Of good works and
almsdeeds which she did,"
Starting now where I left off last
Sabbath in reciting woman's opportu-
mites, T have to say that woman has
the special and speculative right of
blessing and comforting the sick.
What land, what street, what house,
has not felt the smitings 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 can
not 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 sent
Miss Dix into the Virginia hospitals,
and the Maid of SaragOSa to appease
equipped wife, mother and daughter,
for this delicate but tremendous mis-
sion. You have known men who have
despised women, but the moment dis
ease 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, '"Take
me to my wife" The ,dissipated young
man ut 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 moth
er?' Sir 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,
A ministering angel thou.
I think the most pathetic passage in
all the Bible is the description of the
lad who went out into the harvest field
of Shunem and got observation-disclosures
ing his hands on his temples and cry
ing out: 80, my head! my head" 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 awhile
men coming 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 homes for several weeks
business absence in the West. A tel
egram came at midnight that he was
on his death-bed far away from home
BY express train the wife and daugh-
tiers went Westward; but they went
too late. He feared not to die; but he
was in an agony to live until his fam
lily got there. He tried to bribe the
longer. He said: II am willing to die,
but not alone" But the pulses f1utter-
ed, the eyes closed, and the heart
stopped. The express trains met in
the midnight; wife and daughters 60
ing Observation-Disclosures remains of hus-
band and father coming eastward. Oh,
it was a sad pitiful, overwhelming
spectacle! 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 veryl1umble,
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 comforting
promises of Jesus.
In our last dreadful war men cast
the cannon; men fashioned the mus
kerry; men cried to the hosts, ''For-
ward, march!7 men hurled their bat
talions on the sharp edges of the
enemy, crying, "Charge! charger but
woman scraped lint; woman admins
tered the cordia1s; woman watched by
the dying couch; woman wrote the
last message to the home circle; wom-
an wept at the solitary burial attend
ed by herself and four men with a
spade. We greeted the general home
with brass bands and triumphal arch
es and wild huzzas; 1but 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 |Chickahom-
my; Of Annie Ross, in the cooper shop
hospital; of Margaret rBreckinridge
who came to men who had been flor
"CCho Will llCll "OluuS uuuIcSSSu-
some of them frozen ITO the ground
and when she turned them over, those
that had an arm left waved it and
filed the air with their "hurrahv' -of
Mrs. Hodge, who came from Chicago
with blankets and with pillows, until
the men shouted, 'SIMree cheers for
the Christian commissiou! 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 so we'll:
tell her we shall meet again in the
good Iand; tell her to bear nv loss
tiike the Christian wife Of a Christian
ssoldier;;' and Of Mrs. Shelton, into
whose face the convaleseent soldier
llooked and said, "Your grapes and
cologne cured Eae." Men did their
work with shot and shell and earbine
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, 'tOn which
side did YOU GghtY Women kneit