The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1898-11-05
THE FAMILY RECORD.
The Effect of Parental Influence on
Generations 10 Come.
Rev. DIR. Taimage Declares that the Seed
Planted III the Child VIII Germinate
and Bear Fruit in Coming
Generations.

|
Dewitt Talmage pictures parental in
fuence and its effect on children's
children. The text is: The unfeigned
faith that is in thee, which dwelt first
in thy grandmother Lois.-II. Tim
9th, l., 5.
In this pastoral letter which Paul,
the old minister, is writing to limo
thy, the young minister, the family
record is brought out. Paul practical
ly says: Timothy, what a good
grandmother you had You ought to
be better than most folks, because not
only was your mother good, but your
grandmother was also good. Two pre-
ceding generations of piety ought to
give you mighty push in the right
direction. "The fact was that limo
thy needed encouragement. He was
in poor health, having weak stom-
ach, and was dyspeptic, and Paul
prescribed for him a tonic, "a little
wine for thy stomach's sake"-not
much wine; but 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 re-
cital of grandmotherly excellence,
Paul limiting to him, as hint this day
to you, that God sometimes gathers up
as in reservoir, away back of the
active generations of to-day, a goodly
influence, and then, in response to
prayer, lets down the power upon
children and grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. The world is
woefully in want of table of Stats
tics in regard to what is the protract-
edness and immensely of influence of
one good woman in the church and
world. We have accounts of how
much evil has been wrought by a
woman who lived nearly 100 years ago,
and of how many criminals her de-
scendants furnished the penitentlary
and the gallows, and how many hun
dreds of thousands OF dollars they cost
our country in their arraignment and
prison support, as well as in the prop
erty they burglarized and destroyed,
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 peo-
pie have been found among her de-
scendants, and how many asylums
and colleges and churches they built,
and how many millions of dollars they
contributed for humanitarian and
Christian purposes?
The good women whose tombstones
were planted in the eighteenth cen
fury are more alive for good in the
nineteenth century than they were be-
, fore, as the good women of this nine
teenth century will be more alive fol
good In the twentieth century than
, now. Mark you, l have no idea that
, the grandmothers were any better
' than their granddaughters. You can
not get very old people to talk much
about how things were when they
were boys and girls They have re
ticence and a non-committalism which
, makes me think they feel themselves
, to De the custodians of the reputation
of their early comrades. While ouI
dear old folks are rehearsing the fol
lies of the present, if we put them or
the witness stand and cross-examine
them as to how things were 20 years
ago, the silence becomes oppressive.
, The celebrated Frenchman, Volney
visited this country in 1896, and he says
, of woman's diet in those times: "If /;
! premium was offered for a regimen
most destructive to health, none coul(
, be devised more efficacious for thes,
ends than that in use among these PEG
, pie. "That eclipses our lobster salad a
midnight. Everybody talks about thu
dissipation of modern society and how
womanly health goes down under it
!, but it was worse 100 years ago. for tn,
. chaplain of French regiment in ou
revolutionary war wrote in 1852, in hi
"Bool1 of American Women" saying
!, "They are tall and we'll proportioned
their features are generally regular
: their compilations are generally fai
e and without color At 20 years of ag
t the women have no longer the fresh
e ness Of youth. At 80 or 40 theey ar
| 6ecrepit." In 1912 foreign consu
D wrote book entitled, "a Sketch of tn
| | United States ut the Commencement o
: the Present Century" and he says o
: the women of those times: AT tn
age of 80 all their charms have disap
| peared." One glance at the portrait
E of the women 100 years ago and thei
, style of dress makes us wonder HOY
I they ever got their breath. All thi
: makes me think that the express raj
train is no more of an improvement
!, on the old canal boat, or the TELEGRAPH
t no more an improvement on the old
e time saddle-bags, than the women Q
( 4 our day are an improvement on tn
4, women of the last century.
Y But still, notwithstanding that thos
: times were so much worse than our.
; there was a glorious race of good
e women, 70 and 100 years ago, VIII
held the world back from sin and lif-
v ed it toward virtue, and without thei
{ exalted and sanctified influence befor
: this the last good influence woul
: have persisted from the earth. Indee,
Y all over this land there are seated t.
d day-not so much in churches, fc
many of them are too feeble to come