The Yale expositor., 1895-06-28

| ed was. ActS y: 30: This woman was
| full of good works and almsdeeds which
| she did"
Starting now where I left off last Sab
! bath in reciting womans opportunities,
1 have to say that woman has the spe-
cial and superlative right of blessing
and comforting the sick. What land.
what street, what house, has not felt
| the smitlngs 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
| 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 wake
| full enough to be a watcher. The Lord
| God sent Miss Dix into the Virginia
| hospitals, and the Maid of Saragossa to
| appease the wounds of the battlefield,
has equipped wife, mother, and daugh-
ter for this delicate but tremendous
mission. You have known men who
| have despised woman, but the moment
disease fell upon them they did not
send for their friends at the bank, or
! their partner in business, or their world
ly 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:
20 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 Observation-Disclosures
his hands on his temples and crying out:
20, 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 a while 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 mid
night 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 UNI
| TIL his family got there. He tried to
bride the doctor to make him live a little
| while longer. He said: II am willing TO
I die, but not alone" But the pulse fiut-
/ tered, the eyes closed, and the heart
, stopped. The express trains met in the
| midnight; wife and daughters going
; Observation-Disclosures remains of husband
! and father coming eastward. o, II was
q sad, pitiful, overwhelming spectacle!
I 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 comforting promises OF
! Jesus.
In our last dreadful war men cast the
! cannon; men fashioned the musketry:
men cried to the hosts, Forward,
march, men hurled their battalions on
the sharp edges of the enemy, crying;
"Chargel charges" but woman scraped
dials; woman watched by the dying
couch; woman wrote the last message
I to the home circle; woman wept at the
solitary 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 any
| where, save in the chronicles of heaven,
/ of Mrs. Brady, who came down among
| the sick in the swamps of the Chicka-
| hominy; Of Annie Ross, in the cooper
| shop hospital; of Margaret Breckin-
! ridge, 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 "hurrah!'-of Mrs
| Hodge, who came from Chicago with
| blankets and with pillows, until the
men shouted: Three cheers for the
| Christian Commission 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 well; tell her
to bear my loss like the Christian wife
of 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
carbine and howitzer; women did their
work with socks. and slippers, and ban
dages. 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: ION
which side did you fight?" 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 light In yonder loft; there will
be grooming In that dark alley; there
will be cries OF distress in that cellar.
Men will sleep. and women will watch.
Again, woman has a superlative right
| to take care OF the poor. There are hun
dreds and thousands Of them in all our
/ cities. There is kind of work that men