The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-05-13

aloflS LII dILSI AhC
number of father Jethro's sheep and
camels will make proposal that will be
accepted, and neither Of them having
done anything more practical than to
chew chocolate caramels the two moth
ings will start on the road OF life to-
gether, every step more and more a
failure. That daughter of the Midian-
itish sheik will never find her Moses.
Girls of America, initiate Zipporah. Do
something practical. Do something
helpful. Do something well. Many
have fathers with great fiocks of alb
sorbing duties, and such a father needs
help in home or office or field. Go out
and help him with the flocks. The
reason that so many men now condemn
themselves to unbalanced and solitary
life is because they cannot support
the modern young woman h rises
at half past 10 in the morning and
retires after. midnight, one of the
trashiest of novels in her hands most
Of the time between the late rising
and the late retiring-a thousand of
them not worth ne Zipporah.
There are questions that every father
and mother ought to ask the daughter
at breakfast or tea table and that all
the daughters Of the wealthy sheik
ought to ask each other: What would
you do if the family fortune should
fail, if cknes shout PROSTATE the
bread-winner, If the fiocks of Jethro
should be destroyed by a sudden ex-
cursion Of wolves and bears and ny
enas from the mountain? What would
you do for a living? Could you sup
port yourself? Can you take care of
an invalid mother or brother or sister
as we'll as yourself? Yea, bring it down
to what any day might come to a
prosperous family. "Can you cook a
dinner if the servants should make a
strike for higher wages and leave that
- NV @y0~1
our of every day Of every year there
! are families flung from prosperity into
hardship, and, alas, If in such exigency
| the seven daughters of JethrO can do
nothing but sit around and cry and
| wait for some one to come and hunt
them up a situation for which they
| nave no qualification! Get at something
useful, get at it right away. Do not
say, IF | were thrown upon my. own
| resources, / would become a music
teacher" There are now more music
teachers than could be supported if
they were all Mozarts and Wagners and
Handles. Do not say, II will go to
| embrOidering slippers" There are
more slippers now than there are feet.
Our hearts are every day wrung by the
| story of elegant women who were once
affiuent, but through catastrophe nave
| fallen helpless, with no ability to take
care of themselves.
Our friend and Washingtonian
| toWnsman. w. w. Corcoran, did
| a magnificent thing when ne
| built and endowed the Louise
| home for the support Of the untOrtu-
| nate aristocracy of the south-Ihe peo-
| pie who once had everything, but have
| come to nothing. We want another w.
| w. COrcOran to build a Louise home
| f.. the unfortunate aristocracy off the
north. But institutions like tina in ev-
| cry city in the land could not take
| care of one-half the unfortunate aris-
| tocracy of the north and south whose
| large fortunes have failed and who,
| through lack of acquaintance with any
| style of work, cannOt now earn their
| own bread.
There needs to be peaceful yet rad
! ical revolution among most Of the pros
| porous homes of America by which the
| elegant DO nOthings may be transform
| ed into practical do something's. Let
/ useless women go to work and gather
| the flocks. Come, ZippOrah, let me in
trOduce 0 to Moses. But do you not
mean that this man affianced to this
| country girl was the great Moses of
| history, do you? You do not mean that
| he WaC the man who afterWard
wrought such wonder there? Surely
] you do not mean he whose staff dropp-
| ed, ~Wriggled into a serpent and then,
] again 1iALo " SNoiA +"
You do not mean the challenger OF
Egyptian thrones and palaces? o do
not mean he Who struck the rock so
hard it went in a stream for thirsty
hosts? Surely you do not mean the
man who stood alone with God In the
quaking Sinaitic ranges, not him of
I-that most famous funeral of all time,
| God coming down out of the V
to bury him? Yes, the same Moses de-
Tending the seven daughters of the
Midianftish sheik, who afterWard res
cued all nations.
PREPARATION FOR SPECIAL
WORK.
Why. do you : ct know that this is
the way men and women get prepared
for special work? The wilderness of
arabia was the law school, the theOlOg-
ical seminary, TIE university of rock
ami sand, from which he graduated for
a mission that Will vbalk seas and
drown armies and follow the cloud of
fire by night and start the worl1men
with bleeding backs among Egyptian
brick kilns toward thu pasture lands
that flow with milk and trees of Can
aan dripping with honey. Gracious
God. teach all the people this lesson.
You must go into humiliation and re-
treat and hidden closets of prayer if
you are to be fitted for special useful
ness. How did John the Baptist get
prepared to become a ~forerunner of
Christ? Show me his wardrobe. 1t
will be hung with sil,.en socks n EN-
broidered robes and attire of Syrian
purple. Show me his dining table.
On it the tankards ablush with the
richest wines of the vineyards Of En-
gedi and rarest birds that were ever
caught in net end sweetest vension
that ever dropped antlers before the
hunter. No; we are directly told the
same John had his railment Of camel
hair"-not the fine hair of the camel
which we call camlet, but the long