The Monitor-register., 1897-09-17
the spinning wheel. The food is

profit. He gives you what you ask for.
house, the spinning wheel. The food is
very plain, but it is always we'll pro-
vided. The winters are very cold, but
are kept out by the blankets she quilt
ed. On Sunday, when she appears in
the village church, her children around
her, the minister looks down and is re-
minded of the Bible description of a
good housewife, "Her children arise up
and call her blessed; her husband also,
and he praiseth her"
Some years go by, and the two Oldest
the household economies are severer,
and the calculations are closer. and n
til those two boys get their education
there is a hard battle for bread. One of
these boys enters the university, stands
in a pulpit widely influential and
breaches righteousness. judgment and
temperance, and thousands during his
ministry are blessed. The other lad
who got the collegiate education goes
into the law, and thence into legisla-
tive halls, and after awhile he COM
mands listening senates as he makes a
plea for the downtrodden and the out
cast. One of the younger boys becomes
a merchant, starting at the foot of the
ladder, but climbing on up until his
success and his philanthropies are rec
ognized all over the land. The other
son stays at home because he prefers
farming life, and then he thinks he
.-,l1 10 ,L14 - toIrn n - IS &o&t,au a,,1
mother when they get old.
Of the two daughters, when the war
broke out, II went through the hospi-
tails of Pittsburg Landing and Fortress
Monroe, cheering up the dying and the
homesick and taking the last message
to kindred far away, so that every time
Christ thought of her he said, as of old,
"The same is my sister and mother"
The other daughter has a bright home
of her own, and in the afternoon-the
forenoon having been devoted to her
household-she goes forth to hunt up the
sick and to encourage the discouraged,
leaving smiles and benediction all along
the way.
But Il day there start five kilograms
from the village for these five absent
ones, saying, Come, mother is danger
ously ILL" But before they can be ready
to start they receive another telegram,
saying, Come, mother is dead" The
old neighbors gather in the old farm
house to do the last offices of respect.
But as that farming son, and the cler-
gyman, and the senator, and the mer-
chant, and the two daughters stand by
the casket of the dead mother taking
the last look, or lifting their little chill
dren to see once more the face of dear
Old grandma, l want to ask that group
aroun the casket one question, "Do
you really think her life was worth liy-
lng?" A life for God, a life for others,
a life of unselfishness, a useful life, a
Christian life, is always worth living.
Right Living.
l would not find it hard to persuade
you that the poor lad, Peter Cooper,
making glue for a living, and then
amassing a great fortune until he could
build a philanthropy which has had its
echo in 10, 900 philanthropies all over
the oountry-I would not find it hard
to persuade you that his life was worth
living. Neither would / find it hard to
persuade you that the life of Susannah
Wesley was worth living. She sent out
n son to organize M%ethodism and the
other son to ring his anthems all
through the ages. l would not find it
hard work to persuade you that the life
OF Frances Leere was worth living, as
she established in England a school for
the scientific nursing of the sick, and
then when the war broke out between
France and Germany went to the front
and with her own hands scraped the
mud off the bodies of the soldiers dying
in the trenches and with her weak arm
standing n night in the hospital
pushing back a German soldier to his
couch, as, all frenzied with his wounds,
he rushed to the door and said, "Let
me go, let me go to my liebe mutter,"
major generals standing back to let
pass this angel of mercy.
Neither would 1 have hard work to
persuade you that Grace Darling lived
a life worth living-the heroine of the
lifeboat. You are not wondering hat
the Duchess of Northumberland came
to see her and that people of all lands
asked for her Lighthouse and that the
proprietor of the Adelphi theater in
London offered her 800 a night just to
sit in the lifeboat while some shipwreck
scene was being enacted.
But | know the thought in the minds
of hundreds Of you today. You say,
While / know all these lived lives
worth living, 1 don't think my life
amounts to much" All, my friends,
whether you live a life conspicuous or
lnconspicuous, it is worth living, if
you live Alright. And l want my next
sentence to go down into the depths of
all your souls. You are to be rewarded
not according to the greatness of your
work, but according to the holy indus
tries with which you employed the tai
ents you really possessed. The majority
OF the crowns of heaven will not be
given to people with ten talents, for
most Of them were tempted only to
serve themselves, The vast majority of
the crowns of heaven will be given to
people who had n talent, but gave it
all to God. And remember that our life
here Is Introductory to another. 1t is
the vestlbule to a palace, but who de
spises the door of a Madeleine because
there are grander glories within? Your
life, if rightly lived, is the first bar of
an eternal oratorio, and who desrises
the first note of Haydn's symphonies?
And the life you live now is all the
more worth living because it opens into
a life that shall never end, and the last
letter OF the word time" is the first
letter of the word eternity"