The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-01-14
DOMESTIC HAPPINESS
Rev. DR.. Talmage Tells How It
May Best Be Secured.
The OId-Fashioned Religion of desns christ
viii smooth Many OF the trials, Per-
PIe1ikIes and AnxIetles Of
thS HOuusekeeper.

through whose daily efforts the hotrie
life is made or married. Tie text is:
lord dost Thou not care that my sister hath
LETT he 70 serve alone? bid her, therefore, tn al
she help me.-Luke K, 40
Yonder is beautiful village homo
stead. The man of the heuse is dead; and
his widow Is taking Charge of the
! premises. This is the widow, Martha
of Bethany. Yes, will show you also
the pet of the household. This Is
Mary, the younger sister, with book
under her arm, and her face having no
appearance Of anxiety 81 Sere. Com
pahy has come. Christ stands outside
the door, and, of course, there is a
| good deal of excitement inside the
door. The disarranged furniture is
hastily put aside, and the hair is
brushed back, and the dresses are ad-
tusted as well as in SO short time
Mary and Martha can sttehd to these
matters. They did not keep Christ
Rtending at the door until they were
newly appareled, or until they had
deliberately arranged their tresses,
then coming out with their affected
surprise as though they had not
heard the two or three previous
lnoclsinGA saying: why is. that
you?" No. They were ladies; and were
always presehtable, although they
may not Rave always had on their best,
for none of us always has on our best;
II we did, our best would not be worth
having on. They throw open the door
and greet Christ, They say! "dood
morning, Mastefi COME Id and be
Ia lord Il ~ oil 10
had a group of friends with Him, and
such an influx of city visitors would
throw any country home into pertur-
baton. 1suppose also the walk from
the city had been d good appetizer.
The kitchen department that day was
very important department, and
sup pose that Martha had no sooner
greeted the guests than she fed to that
room. Mary had no worriment about
household affairs. She had full con-
fdence that Martha could get UP the
best dinner in Bethany, She seems to
say! Now let us have division OF
labor Martha, you cook, and I'll sit
down and be good So you have often
seen a great difference between two
sisters,
There is Martha, Woodworking,
painstaking, a good manager, ever in
ventive of some new pastry, or dis
covering some thing in the art of cook |
cry and housekeeping. There Is Mary, |
also fond of Conversation, literary, SO |
engaged in deep questions of ethics
she has no time to attend to the ques- |
tions of household welfare. 1t is noon. |
Mary is in the parlor with Christ. |
Martha is in the kitchen. 1t would |
have been better if they had divided |
the work, and then they could have
divided the opportunity of listening to |
Jesus; but Mary mOnopolizes Christ |
while Martha swelters at the fire. 1t |
was a very important thing that they |
should have good dinner that day. |
Christ was hungry, and He did not
often have luxurious entertainment.
Alas me! if the duty had devolved upon
Mary, what a repast that would have
been! But something went wrong in
the kitchen. Perhaps the fire would
lot burn, or the bread would not
bake, or Martha scalded her
hand, or something was burned
black that ought only to
have been made brown; and Martha
lost her patience, and, forgetting the
of the occasion, with be-
sweated brow, and, perhaps, with
pitcher in one hand and tongs in the
other, she rushes out of the kitchen
in to the presence of Christ, saying:
'LCrd, dOst Thou not care that my sis
ter hath left me to serve alOne?"
Christ scolded not a word. If it were
1 should rather have His
than anybody else's blessing.
There was nothing acerb. He knew
Martha had almost worked herself to
leath to get Him something to eat, and
10 lie throws world of tenderness
nto His intonation as He seems to say:
My dear woman, do not worry; let
he dinner go; sit down on this otto
nan beside Mary, your younger sister.
Martha, Martha, thou art careful and
roubled about many things, but one
hing is needfuL" As Martha throws
open that kitchen door ! look in and
zee a great many household perple XII .
les and anxieties.
First, there is the trial of nonappre- I
station. That is what made Martha ]
% mad with Mary. The younger sis
er had no estimate of her older sisters
ahgues. AS now, men bothered with
he anxieties of the store, and office, {
md shop, or coming from the stock
Exchange, they say when they get {
lome: ''Oh, you ought to be in our
actory a little while; you ought to Z
lave to manage eight, or ten, or {
wenty subordinates, and then you t
would know what troubles and anxi- {
ty arew Oh, sir, the wife and the i
mother has to conduct at the same t
ime a university, clothing estab-
a restaurant, a laundry, Y
library, while she is health officer, DO i
ice, and president of her realml She t
must do a thousand things, and do L
hem well, in order to keep things GO /
ng smoothly; and so her brain and 7
Ter nerves are taxed to the utmost. G
know there are housekeepers t
Fho are so fortunate that they f
an sit in an arm chair in the library, '
lie on the belated pillow, and throw t
If all the care upon subordinates, who, C
aving large wages and great expe- /
fence, can attend to all the affairs of i
he household. Those are the excep- s
ions. l am speaking of the great t
lass of housekeeperS-the women to a
Thom life is struggle, and who, at 80 e
ears of age, look as though they were v
o. and at 10 as though they were SO, O
nd at so as though they were CO. The u
allen at Challons. and Austerlitz, and t
and Waterloo are a small 1
lumber, compared with the slain in t
be great Armageddon of the kitchen. t
-ou go out to the cemetery and you I
I'LL see that the tomb stones all read +