The Valentine Democrat. [volume] (Valentine, Cherry Co., Neb.) 1896-1898, 1898-02-10

and the MODlle and the MISSISSIPPI and al
the other Niles of America. and let us sec
you, the Miriams who watched and pro
tected the leaders in law and medicine
and merchandise and art and agriculture
and mechanics and religion. If | should
ask all physicians and attorneys and mer-
chants and ministers of religion and sue.
cessful men of all professions and trades
who are indebted to an elder sister for
good influences and perhaps for an educa-
| tiOn or a prosperous start to let it be
known, hundreds would testify. God
knows how many of our Greek lexicons
and how much of our schoolings were
paid for by money that would otherwise
have gone for the replenishing of a sis
ter's wardrobe. While the brother sailed
Off for a resounding sphere, the sister
watched him from the banks of self-de-
NAL.
The Elder Sisters Guiding Hand.
Miriam was the eldest of the family
Moses and Aaron, her brothers, were
younger. Oh, the power Of the elder Sis
ter to help decide the brothers character
for usefulness and for heaven! She can
keep off from her brother more evils than
Miriam could have driven back water
fowl or crocodile from the ark of bull
rushes. The older sister decides the dl-
rectiOn in which the cradle boat shall sail.
By gentleness, by good sense, by Chris
tan principle she can turn it toward the
palace, not of Il wicked Pharaoh, but of
a holy God, and q brighter princess than
Thermutis should lift him out of peril,
even religion, whose ways are ways of
The older sister, how much the world
owes her! Born while yet the family was
in limited circumstances, she had to hold
and take care of her younger brothers.
And if there is anything that excites my
sympathy it is little girl Juggling round
a great fat child and getting her ears box
ed because she cannot keep him quiet. By
the time she gets to young womanhood
she is pale and worn out and her attrac-
tiveness has been sacrificed on the altar
Of sisterly fidelity, and she is consigned
to celibacy, and society calls her by an un-
fair name, but in heaven they call her
Miriam. In most families the two most
undesirable places in the record of births
are the first and the last-the first be-
cause she is worn out with the cares Of
home that cannot afford to hire help, and
the last because she is spoiled as pet.
Among the grandest equipages that sweep
through the streets Of heaven will be those
occupied by sisters who sacrificed them
selves for brothers. They will have the
finest of the Apocalyptic white horses,
and many who on earth looked down up
on them will have to turn out to let them
pass, the charioteer crying: Clear the
way! A queen is coming!
Blessing Or Curse.
Let sisters not begrudge the time and
care bestowed on brother. 1t is hard to
believe that any boy that you know so
well as your brother can ever turn out
very useful. Well, he may not
be a Moses. There is only one of that
kind needed for 5000 years. But I tell
you what your brother will be-either
blessing or curse to society and can
didate for happiness or wretchedness. He
will, like Moses, have the choice between
rubies and living Goals, and your influence
will have much to do with his decision.
He may not like Moses, be the deliverer
of nation, but he may, after your father
and mother are gone, be the deliverer of
a household. What thousands of homes
to-day are piloted by brothers! There are
now we'll invested and yielding
income for the support of sisters and
younger brother because the older broth
ar rose to the leadership from the day the
father lay down to die. Whatever you
10 for your brothers will come back to you
again. If you set him an ill-natured. CEN
serious, unaccommodating example, it will |
recoil upon you from his own irritated and |
iespoiled nature. If you, by patience with
his infrmities and by nobility of charac-
ter, dwell with him in the few years of |
reflected back upon you some day
Dy his splendor of behavior in some crisis
where he would have failed but for you.
Don't snub him. Don't depreciate his
ability. Don't talk discouragingly about
lis future. Don't let Miriam get down
'ff the bank of the Nile and wade out and
upset the ark Of bulrushes. Don't tease
him. Brothers and sisters do not consider
t any harm to tease. That spirit abroad
n the family is one of the meanest and
most devilish. There is teasing that is
Measurable and is only another form of
innocent raillery, but that which provokes
md irritates and makes the eye flash with
niger is to be reprehended. 1t would be
ess blameworthy to take a bunch of
horns and draw them across your sisters
.heek or to take knife and draw its
sharp edge across your brothers hand till
he blood spurts, for that would damage
'nly the body, but teasing is the thorn and
he knife scratching and lacerating the
disposition and the soul. 1t is the curse
# innumerable households that the broth
RS tease the sisters and the sisters the
,rothers Sometimes it is the color of
he hair, or the shape of the features or an
lffair of the heart. Sometimes it is by
evealing a secret or by suggestive look
r guffaw or an "Ahemv' Tease! Tease.
Tease! Tease! For mercy's sake quit it.
Ihrist says, ''He that hateth his brother
S a murderer Now, when you, by teas
ng, make your brother or sister hate, you
urn him or her into a murderer or mur-
eresS.
Beware of Jealousy.
Don't let jealousy ever touch sisters
oul, as it so often does, because her broth
r gets more honor or more means.
Even Miriam, the heroine of the text,
vas struck by that evil passion of jeal-
usy. She had possessed unlimited influ-
nee over Moses. and now he marries, and
ot only so, but marries Il black woman
ron: Ethiopia, and Miriam is so disgusted