The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1895-07-17
/ REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE
NOTED DIVINE.
Subject: " Sisters of Charity"

otdIlluS now Wnere l lelt ueT Oh laSt SdD-
path in reciting womans opportunities. I
have to say that woman has the special and
superlatire right of blessing and comforting
the sick. What land, what street, what
house, has not felt the smitings of disease?
Tens of thousands of sckbeds! 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 sent Miss Dix into the Virginia
hospitals, and the Maid of Saragossa to ap-
pease the wounds of the battlefield. 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, "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 be 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,
A ministering 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-throwing his hands on his tenn
piles and crying out: "Oh. 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." It
is an awful thing to be i'll away from home
in 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! 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 that
he was on his deathbed f&r 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
bribe the doctor to make him live little
while longer. He said, II am willing to die,
but not alone" But the pulses futtered,
the eyes closed and the heart stopped. The
express trains met in the midnight-wife and
daughters going westward, hfeless remains
of husband and father coming eastward. Oh.
it was 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
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.
Id our last dreadful war men cast the can
noN; men fashioned the musketry; men cried
to the hosts, Forward, march, men hurled
their battalions on the sharp edges OF the
enemy, crying, charge, charge" but
woman scraped the lint; woman admins
tered the cordials; woman watched by the
dying couch: woman wrote the last message
to the home circle woman wept at the soli-
tary burial attended by herself and four men
with spade. We greeted 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 ofthe Chicka-
hominy; OF Annie Ross, in the cooper shop
hospital of Margaret Breckinridge, 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 1t and
filled the air with their 'Hurrah!" of Mrs.
Hodge, who came from Chicago with blan-
kets and with pillows, until tbs men shouted:
"Three cheers for the Christian commission!
God bless the women at home :" then. Sit
ting 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 well. Tell her we
shall meet again in the good land. Tell her
to bear my loss like the Christian wife OF q
Christian soldier" and of Mrs. Shelton, into
whose face the convalesent solder looked
and said, "Your grapes and cologne cured
me-" 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 strokings of the hot temples,
and stories Of that land where they never
have any pain. Men knelt down over the
wounded and said, son which side did you
fght?" Women knelt down over the wound.
ed and said: "Where are you hurt2 What
nice thing can make for you to eat? What
makes you cry9' Tonight, while we mel
are sound asleep in our beds, there will be a
light in yondsr loft; there viii be groanilng
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 tc
take care Of the poor. There are hundreds
and thousands of them in all our cities
There is kind Of work that men cannot dc
for the poor. Here comes group OF little
barefoot children to the door Of the Dorcas
Society. They need. to be clothed and pro-
vided for. Which of these directors o.
banks would know how many yards it would
Of these masculine hands could fit hat t
that little girls head? Which Of the wise
men would know how to tie on that new
pair OF shoes? Man sometimes gives hi!
charity in rough way, and it falls like the
fruit of tree in the East, which fruit comes
down so heavily that it breaks the skull o.
the man who is trying to gather 1t. But
woman glides so softly into the house O.
destitution, and finds out all the sorrows OIL
the place. and puts so quietly the donation
On the table, that all the family come out or
the front steps as she departs, expecting that
from under her shawl she will thrust out two
wings and 60 right up toward heaven, from
whence she seems to have come down.
Christian young woman. if you would make
yourself happy and win the blessing o.
Christ, 60 out among the destitute. loa
OF bread or a bundle Of socks may make 6
homely load to carry, but the angels of Goo
Almighty will give His messenger hosts 6
charge. saying: "Look after that woman
Canopy her with your wings and shelter he
from all harm," and while you are seated IL
the house Of destitution and suffering tht
little ones around the room will whisl er
!'Who is she? Amt she beautifully and i
you listen right sharply, you will hear drip
ping down the leaky roof and rolling ore
the rotten stairs the angel chant that shool
Bethlehem, "Glory to God IN the highest. anC
on earth peace. good will to men," Car
you tell me why a Christian woman, goinl
down among the haunts of iuiquity on {
Christian errand, never meets with an.
indignity? I stood in the chapel of Heller
Chalmers, the daughter Of the celebrated DR.