The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-02-09

MA 2 VI OllC OOu-0CAy ing Il lldTdOH lON
Princess Thermutis of the bathing
house would have inherited the crown
of Egypt; and as she had no child of
her own, this adopted child would have
come to coronation.
Had there been no Miriam there
would have been no Moses. What a
garland for faithful sisterhoodl For
how many lawgiver, and how many
a hero, and how many deliverer and
how many saint are the world and
the church indebted to watchful, low
ing, faithful, godly sister, Come up out
of the farm houses, come up out of the
inconspicuous homes, come up from the
banks of the Hudson, and Penobscot,
and the Savannah, and the Mobile, and
the Mississippi, and all the other Niles
of America, and let us see you, the
Miriams who watched and protected
the leaders in law, and medicine, and
merchandise, and art, and agriculture,
and mechanics, and religion! If l
should ask all physicians, and attor-
neys, and merchants, and ministers of
religion, and successful men of all pro-
fessions and trades, who are indebted
to an elder sister for good influences
and perhaps for an education or pros
porous start, to let it be known, hun
dreds would testify. God knows how
many of our Greek lexicons and how
much of our schooling was paid for by
money that would otherwise have gone
for the replenishment of sisters ward
robe. While the brother sailed off for
a resounding sphere, the sister watched
him from the banks of self-denial,
Miriam was the eldest of the family;
Moses and Aaron, her brothers, were
younger. Oh the power of the elder
sister to help decide the brothers. char
acter for usefulness and for Heaven!
She can keep off from her brother more
evils than Miriam could have driven
back waterfowl or crocodile from the
ark of bulrushes. The older sister de-
cides the direction in which the cradle
boat shall sail. By gentleness, by good
sense, by Christian principles she can
turn it toward the palace, not of a
wicked Pharaoh, but of holy God;
and brighter princess than Thermutis
should lift him out of peril, even re-
ligion, whose ways are ways of pleas
antness, and all her paths are peace.
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.
If there is anything that excites my
sympathy it is little girl Juggling
round great fat child and getting her
ears boxed because she cannot keep
him quiet By the time she gets tc
young womanhood she is pale and worn
out, and her attractiveness has been
sacrificed on the altar of sisterly fidel-
ity, and she is consigned to celibacy,
and society calls her by an unfair name
but in Heaven they call her Miriam
In most families the two most unde.
sirable places in the record of births
are the first and the last; the first be-
cause she is worn out with the cares o1
home that cannot afford to hire help
and the last because she is spoiled as Q
pet. Among the grandest equipage.
that sweep through the streets o.
Heaven will be those occupied by
sisters who sacrificed themselves fol
brothers. They will have the finest OF
the Apocalyptic white horses, anG
many who on earth looked down upor
them will have to turn out to let then
pass, the charioteer crying: 'Clear
the way! A queen is coming"
Let sisters not begrudge the time and
care bestowed on a brother. 1t is hard
to believe that any boy that you know
so well as your brother can ever turn
out anything very useful. Well, he
may not be Moses. There is only one
of that kind needed for 5000 years. But
l will tell you what your brother will
be-either blessing or curse to so
ciety, and candidate for happiness OF
wretchedness. What you do for your
brothers will come back to you again.
If you set him an ill-natured, censo-
rious, accommodating example, II
will recoil upon you from his own irri-
tated and despoiled nature. If you, by
patience with his infrmities and by
nobility of character, dwell with him,
in the few years of your companion
ship, you will have your counsels re-
fected back upon you some day by his
splendor of behavior in some crisis
where he would have failed but for you.
Don't snub him. Don't deprecate his
ability. Don't talk discouragingly
about his future. Don't let Miriam get
down off the bank of the Nile and wade
out and upset the ark in the bullrushes.
Don't tease him. Brothers and sisters
do not consider it any harm to tease.
That spirit aboard in family is one OF
the meanest and most devilish. There
is teasing that is pleasurable and is
only another form of innocent raillery;
but that which provokes and irritates
and makes the eye flash with anger is
to be reprehended. 1t would be less
biameworthy to take bunch of thorns
and draw them across your sisters
cheek, or take q knife and draw its
sharp edge across your brothers. hand
till the blood spurts, for that would
damage only the body, but teasing is
the thorn and the knife scratching and
larcerating the disposition and the
soul. 1t is the curse of innumerable
households that the brothers tease the
sisters, and the sisters the brothers.
Sometimes it is the color of the hair or
the shape of the features, or an affair
of the heart. Sometimes it is by re-