Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1896-03-12

HIS nuu1b HaCduHb NO was Ill, IQere
occurs this line-which may be true or
untrue" His wife would have been
with him, but her social duties pre-
vented her, Her social duties What
is the world coming to? Are the social
duties of a woman to rise superior to
her duty and her devotion to her
husband2 Shall your social duties,
or my social duties make us the less
loving, the less quick to recognize that
which is really right, or that which q
woman should do? OF how much worth
is society when put in the balance
against true love? There fell on the
newspaper as ] read this, little valen-
tine sent me by child lover, and below
the flaming heart and the smiling
Cupid were tho words, TITS love
q that makes the world go round" ia
it? Or is it ones social dutiesP Did
the wonderful women of the past, who
gave their lives not by merely dying,
but by living from day to day in such
way that life was a daily death ibid
these women consider their social duties
as most important, or did they believe
that it was love that made the world go
round? Think of all the grea. women
in history think of all the women of
tradition of all the women of
Biblical lore, and he sure it was love
of God or man that ruled them, and not
their social duties.
Bah uPHoLDs MoTHERs.lN-LAw.
Do you suppose that when Ruth
chung to her mother.in- law, claiming
that "Thy people shall be my people,
thy God, my God" it was because she
thought it a social duty; or was it a re-
Election of the love she bore her hus.
band, of tho duty she felt she owed
him, and which made her help the
woman who bore his name and needed
her helpY The comic papers and the
vulgar people laugh and jest about
mothers in -law-it always seems to me
a dreadful thing. A woman wins the
love of your son tho pride of your heart
the child that has been cared for by
you through long illnesses, possibly
nursed back by you when close to death,
and to whom you taught everything
that was beautiful and noble. Be-
cause of this new love, shall he love
you any the less? And shall not the
woman to whom he has given the
strongest love of his life, and who feels
honered by bearing his name, shall not
this woman give to you who bore him,
and cared So much for him, great love,
an enduring love, love not governed
by the law, but by the heart and its
rules? Think it all over. Haven't you
known mothers-in law who were verit-
able refugees in distress? | sometimes
wonder il woman ever thinks of her
son when she is disagreeable to the
mother of her husband. My friend,
even in this world, the law of compen-
sation holds good, and as you treat the
mother of your husband, SO your daugh-
ter-in-law will treat you. If you find
that your social duties are too great to
allow you 20 consider the woman who
is the mother of your husband, you can
look into the future and you will see
that to you will come just such treat
ment from the one who wins the heart
of that son who, to-day, is nothing but
a baby boy. | despise these So recalled
mother-in -law jokes, and | cannot
imagine how woman with either heart
or brain can smile at them.
DUTY AND SOCIETY.
But that wasn't the text of my SER
monitor | am moved to sermonize a
bit to-day. Suppose the social duties
of the two Marys had kept them from
arising early that morning-would thoy
have met the angel at the tomb? Sup
pose his social duties had kept Christ
so busy that lie could pay no attention
to the poor and the blind, and the sick
of body and the sick of soul? What
would have happened then? My friend,
did you ever try to think out what your
social duties were? Plainly put, they
are simply what you owe to tho society
in which you live But sometimes,
think they go further than that,
and tho society in which we really lige
is that in which love reigns, and no
other society can demand duty from
.us. Women are wonderfully true to the
demands of tho heart, but sometimes
there comes curious, a mean ambi.
tion. 1t is TO be at the head of COS
siping, frittering, silly set who are
friends, dear friends in prosperity, and
who are indifferent when sorrow comes
unless that sorrow is draped in the
most expensive Grape and lived down
according to the rules of etiquette, to
burst out at the proper time in a great
gladness and in overwhelming merri-
ment This society, it is true, is made
OF men and women; men and women
with hearts, but hearts so well covered
with social draperies that, except in a
physical way, they scarcely know how
to beat l don't know whether it is for
good or for ill that in the social world
you and | and our neighbor wear the
conventional mask-we teach ourselves
to smile when our hearts acho; we teach
ourselves to overlook neglect
WHEN WE ARE IN TROUBLE,
because it is wise to be on good forms
with the social rulers; we throw our
selves down before the social car oil
Juggernaut, and are rolled over,
crushed, wounded, hurt, and we rise
up with smile.
But always somebody is misiudged
by society. Yesterday 1t was woman,
who throwing back the great Grape
veil that society ordered she should
wear, claimed her right la God Al
mighty's sunshine and to hope. The
day before it was woman seen coming
out of a pawnshop- looker-on tolo
the story, and society made up It's
mind that she had pawned her iewels
to pay her dressmaker's bill, whereas
in truth they had been put there tC
get the moEey to bury tho dead. The
day before that it was "a girl-society
criticised her because it said sht
affected religion--she knelt so many
hours in church-and the truth wal
thai the church WAS warm, and hel
tiny COON in the fashionable boarding
house was cold and cheerlcss Ant
she had not tho courage to go wherl
life was simpler and more comfortable
because she feared society, and be
cause she believed she must live up Il
her social duties. Another day. 1t II
man, and somebody laughs because HI
always seems SO hungry at dinner or a
supper-he will not work, and the pit
tonoa that pomea IN him monthly haral,