Connecticut western news., 1899-01-19


 starting them out, who has done more for the world than many woman whose name has sounded through all the lands and through the centuries. I remember when Kossuth was i'll this country there were some ladies who got honorable regulations by presenting him very gracefully with bouquets of flowers on public occasions, but what was all that compared with the plain Hungarian mother who gave to truth and civilization and the cause of uni versal libeRty Kossuth? Yes, this wo- man of my text was great in her sim plicity. When this prophet wanted to reward her for her hospitality by ask ing some preferment from the king, what did she say? She declined it. She said, II dwell among my own people, IS much as to say, II am satisfied with my lot; all 1 want is my family and my friends around me; 1 dwell among my own people.
 Oh, what rebuke to the strife for precedence in all ages! How many there 2re who want to get great architecture md homes furnished with all art, all painting. all statuary, who have not enough taste to distinguish between Gothic and Byzantine and who could not tell figure in plaster of paris frcm Palmer "White Captive, and would not know boys penciling from Bier ytadt's Yosemite " Men who buy large libraries by the square foot, buy ing these libraries when they have scarcely enough education to pick out 5he day of the month in the almanac Oh, how many there are striving to nave things as well as their neighbors 1r better than their neighbors, and in the struggle vast fortunes are exhausted and business firms thrown into bank ruptcy and men of reputed honesty rush into' astounding forgeriesl Of course, I say nothing against refine ment or culture. Splendor of abode, 5umptuousness of diet, lavishness in art, neatness in apparel-there is noth- ing against them ill the Bible or out of the Bible God does not want us to prefer mud hovel to English cottage or untanned sheepskin to French broad cloth or husks to pineapple or the clum- siness of a boor to the manners of a gentleman. God, who strung the beach with tinted shell and the grass of the field with the dews of the night and hath exquisitely tinged morning cloud and robir redbreast, wants us to keep our eye open to all beautiful sights and our ear open to all beautiful cadences and our heart open to all elevating sen timents.
 Great In Piety.
 But what I want to impress upon you, my hearers, is that you ought not to inventory the luxuries of life among the indispensable, and you ought not to depreciate this woman of the text, who, when offered kingly preferment, responded, 'I dwell among my own people," Yes, this woman of the text was great in her piety. Just read the chapter after you go home Faith in God, and she was not ashamed to talk about it before idolaters. An, woman will never appreciate what she owes to Christianity until she knows and sees the degradation of her sex under pagan ism and Mohammedanism Her very birth considered misfortune, Sold like cattle on the shambles. Slave of all work, and at last her body fuel for the funeral pyre of her husband Above the shriek of the fire worshipers in India, and above the rumbling of the Jugger- nauts I hear the million voiced groan of wronged insulted, broken hearted. downtrodden woman. Her tears have fallen in the Nile and Tigris, the La Plata, and on the steppes of Tartary. She has been dishonored in Turkish gar den and Persian palace and Spanish AL hambra Her little ones have been sac rifced in the Indus and the Ganges There is not groan, or dungeon, or an island, or a mountain, or a river, or lake, or a sea but could tell story of the sutrages heaped upon her. But, thanks to God, this glorious Christianity comes forth, and all the chains of this vassalage are snapped, and she rises from ignominy to exalted sphere and becomes the affectionate daughter, the gentle wife, the honored mother, the useful Christian. Oh, if Christianity has done so much for woman, surely woman will become its most ardent ad- vocate and its sublimest complication