The Yale expositor., 1898-10-14

record is brought out. Paul practical
ly says: Timothy, what good grand
mother you had! You ought to be
better than most folks, because not
only was your mother good, but your
grandmother was good also. Two pre-
ceding generations Of piety ought to
give you q mighty push in the right
direction" The fact was that Timothy
needed encouragement. He was in
poor health, having a weak stomach,
and was a dyspeptic. and Paul pre-
scribed for him tonic, "a little wine
for thy stomachs sake"-not much
wine, but a little wine, and only as
medicine. And If the wine then had
been as much adulterated with logwood
and strychnine as our modern wines,
he would not have prescribed any.
But Timothy, not strong physically,
is encouraged spiritually by the recital
OF grandmotherly excellence, Paul
limiting to him, as l hint this day to
you, that God sometimes gathers up as
in a reservoir, away back of the active
generations Of today, a cody intiu-
ence, ard then in response to prayer
let's down the power upon children and
grandchildren and great grandchildren.
The world is woefully in want of ia
bic Of statistics in regard to what is
the protractedness and immensely OF
influence of one good woman in the
church and world. We have accounts
of how much evil has been wrought by
woman who lived nearly hundred
years ago, and of how many criminals
her descendants furnished for the pen
itentiary and the gallows, aud how
many hundreds of thousands of dollars
they cost our country in their arraign-
ment and prison support, as well as
in the property they burglarzed and
destroyed. But will not some one
come out with brain mprehensive
enough, and heart warm enough, and
pen keen enough to give us the facts
in regard to some good woman OF a
hundred 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 asylums and colleges
and churches they built, and how many
millions of dollars they contributed
for humanitarian and Christian pur-
poses?
The good women whose tombstones
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 the nineteenth
century will be more alive for good in
the twentieth century than now. Mark
you, l have no idea that the grand
mothers were any better than their
granddaughter. You cannot get very
old people to talk much about how
things were when they were boys and
girls. They have a reticence and non
commlttalism which makes me think
they feel themselves to be the custo-
dams of the reputation of their early
comrades. While our dear old folks are
rehearsing the follies of the present, II
We put them on the witness stand and
cross-examine them as to how things
were seventy years ago the silence be-
comes oppressive.
The celebrated Frenchmen, Volney,
visited this country in 1896, and he
says of woman's diet in those times;
IF a premium was offered for regi-
men most destructive to health, none
could be devised more efIlcacious for
these ends than that in use among
these people," That eclipses 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 a hun
dred years ago, for the chaplain of
French regiment in our revolutionary
war wrote in 1882, in his Book OF
American Women" saying: They are
tall and well-proportioned, their fea-
lures are generally regular, their COM
pleXions are generally fair and without
color. At twenty years of age the wom-
en- have no longer the freshness OF
youth. At thirty or forty they are de-
crepit." In 1872 a foreign consul wrote
a book entitled, "A Sketch of the Unit
ed States at the Commencement of the
Present Century" and he says of the
women of those times: AT the age OF
thirty all their charms have disap-
peared." One glance at the portraits
of the women hundred years ago and
their style of dress makes us wonder
how they ever got their breath. All
this makes me think that the express
rail train is no more an improvement
on the old canal boat, or the telegraph
no more an Improvement on the old
time saddle-bags, than the women OF
our day are an Improvement on the
women of the last century.
But still, Notwithstanding that those
times were SO much worse than ours,
there was glorious race Of godly
women, seventy and a hundred years
ago, who held the world back from sin
and lifted it toward virtue, and with
out their exalted and sanctified influ-
ence before this the last good influence
would have persisted from the earth.
Indeed, all over this land there are
seated to-day - not so much in
churches, for many of them are too
feeble to come-a great many aged
grandmothers. They sometimes feel
that the world has gone past them.
and they have an idea that they are
OF little account. Their head some