The semi-weekly messenger., 1898-10-21
The MOTHERS OF MEN.
DIR. TALMAGE SHOWS HOW WOMEN
SHAPE DESTINY
What L. Bred In the Rone-The Infu.
ences of Heredity II Is the Home
That Makes the Ma. -,n-Nature Never
FOrgets.


(Association.)
The augmentation Of parental infiu-
ence as the centuries go by, Dr. Tall
mage here sets forth, while discours-
ing about one Of the grandmothers of
Bible times. The text is II = -mothy
l, 5, THE unfeigned faith that is in
thee, which dwelt first in thy grand
mother Lois" In this pastoral letter
which Paul, the old minister, is writ
ing to Timothy, the young minister, the
family record is brought out. Paul
practically says: Timothy, what a
good grandmother you had! You
ought to be better than most folks, be-
cause not only was your mother good,
but your grandmother was good also.
Two preceding generations of piety
ought to give you mighty push in
the right direction" The fact was
that Timothy needed announcement.
He was in poor health, having a weak
stomach, and was a dyspeptic, and Paul
prescribed for him a tonic, "a little
wine for thy stomach's sake'-not
inch wine, but al title wine, and only
as medicine. And if the wine then
had been as much aduIterated with
lOgWOOd and strychnine as our mod
ern wines he would not have prescribed
any.
But Timothy, not strong physically,
is encouraged spiritually by the recit-
al of grandmOtherly excellence Paul
limiting to him, as | hint this day to
you, that God sometimes gathers up
as in a reservoir, away back Of the ac-
tive generations of today, gOdly in
fuence, and then in response to prayer
let's down the, power upon children and
grandchildren and great-grandchildren
The world is WOefully in want of ta-
BILE of statistics in regard to what is
the prOtractedness and immensity OF
influence Of one good woman in the
church and world. We have accounts
of how much evil has been wrought by
woman who liver nearly 100 years ago
and of how many criminals her de-
scendants furnished for the peniten-
tiary and the gallOWs, and how many
hundreds Of thousands of dollars they
cost our country in their arraignment
and prison support as we'll as in the
property they burglarized and destroy
ed. But will not some one come out
with brain comprehensive enough and
heart warm enough and pen keen
enough to give us the facts in regard
to some good woman Of 100 years ago
and let us know how many Christian
men and women and refOrmerS and
useful people have been found among
her descendants and how many asy-
lums and colleges and churches they
built and how many millions Of dollars
they contributed for humanitarian and
Christian purposes?
THE WOMEN WHO WON.
The good women whose tobmstones
were planted in the eighteenth century
are more alive for good in the nine
teenth century than they were before,
as the good women of this nineteenth
century will be more alive for good in
the twentieth century than now. Mark
you, I have no idea that the grand
mothers were any better than their
grand daughters. You cannot get very
old people to talk much about how
things were when they were boys and
girls. They have a reticence and a
nOn-cOmmittalsm which makes me
think they feel themselves to be the
custOdians of the reputation of their
early comrades. While our dear old
folks are rehearsing the follies of the
present if we put them on the witness
stand and cross examine them as to
how things were seventy years ago
the silence becomes oppressive.
The celebrated Frenchman, VOlney,
visited this country in 1896, and he
says of wOmans diet in those times,
IF premium was offered for a regi
ment most destructive to health, none
could be devised more efficacious for
these ends than that in use among
these people" That eclpses our lob
ster salad at midnight. Everybody
talks about the dissipation of modern
society and how WOmanly health goes
down under it, but it was worse 100
years ago, for the chaplain of a French
regiment in our Revolutionary war
wrote in 1882 in his Book of American
Women" saying: They are tall and
well prOportioned, their features are
generally regular. their compilations
are generally fair and without color
At 20 years ofage the women have no
longer the freshness of youth. At 80
or 40 they are decrept." In 1912 a for
eign consul wrote book entitled, "A
Sketch of the United States at the
Commencement of the Present Cen
tury.' and he says of the women of
those times, AT the age of so all their
charms have Disappeared One glance
at the portraits of the women 100 years
ago and their style of dress makes us
wonder how they ever got their
breath. All this makes me think that
the express train is no more an i'm
prOvement on the old canalboat or the
telegraph no more an Improvement on
the old time saddlebags than the wom-
en- of our day are an Improvement on
the women of the last century.
HONOR THE DEAD.
But still. Notwithstanding that
those times were so much worse than
ours, there was a glorious race of god
ly women 20 and 100 years ago who
held the world back from sin and lift
ed 1T toward virtue, and without
influence before this the last good in
Huence would have perished from the
earth. Indeed all over the land there are
seated tOday-nOt so much in churches,
for many OF them are TOO feeble to
cOme-a great many aged grandmoth-
ers. They sometimes feel that the
world has gone past them, and they
have an idea that they are of little ac-
count. Their head sometimes get ach-
ing from the racket of the grand
children down stairs or in the next
room. They steady themselves by the
banisterS as they go up and down.
When they get cold, it hangs on them
longer than it used to. They cannot
bear to have the grandchildren punish
ed even when they deserve it and have