Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-12-06

|
sermon after all prayer and all research,
| putting nerve and muscle and brain and
| soul into its very paragraph, these inter-
mittent attendants are not there to hear
| it.
But, oh, how the gadabouts injure the
churches! Instead of staying in their own
prayer meeting or Sunday school they af-
fict other prayer meetings and Sunday
| schools. l meet them on the street going
| the wrong way on Sunday morning and
| evening, and | accost them in the words
of the text, ''Why gaddest thou about so
much to change thy way?"
My text also addresses those who in
search of happiness are going hther and
yonder looking for that which they find
not. Their time is all taken up with
''musicales" and progressive euchres" and
teas and yellow luncheons and "at homes"
and dances and operas and theatres, and
instead of finding happiness they get pale
cheeks and insomnia and indigestion and
neuralgia and exhaustion and an abbre-
waited lifetime.
| There is more splendid womanhood sac
| rificed in that way in our cities than in
any other way. The judgment day can
only reveal the awful holocaust of tangled
nerves and the suicidal habits of much of
| our social life. The obituary of such reads
well, for the story is suppressed about how
they got their death while standing in at
| tire of gauze waiting for the carriage on
a raw night on the front steps.
| While in their lifetime they possessed
| all the ability for the relief of pain and
| impoverishment, yet they have no time
| for visitation of the poor or to win the
| blessing OF such as comes upon those who
| administer to those who are ready to per-
| ish. Enough flowers in their dining halls
| to bewitch prince, but not one tuft of
| heliotrope to perfume the room of that
rheumatic on the back street, to whom
the breath of one flower would be like
the opening of the front door of heaven.
Find me one man or one woman who in
all the rounds of pleasure and sel6shness
has found piece of happiness as large as
| that half dollar which the benevolent and
| Christlike soul puts into the palm of the
| hand of that mother whose children are
crying for bread. Queen Victoria, riding
in triumph through London at her jubi-
lee, was not so sublime figure as Queen
| Victoria in hut near Balmoral Castle
reading the New Testament to poor dy-
! ing man.
Let all the gadabounts for happiness
know that in kindness and usefulness and
| self abnegation are to be found a satisfac-
| ton which all the gayeties of the world
| aggregated cannot afford.
| Among the race of gadabouts are those
who neglect their homes in order that
they may attend to institutions that are
really excellent and do not so much ask
for help as demand it.
| | am acquainted as you are, with wom-
| en- who are members OF so many boards of
| direction of benevolent institutions and
| have to stand at booth in so many fairs
and must collect funds foI so many orphan
ages and preside at so many philanthropy
| lc meetings and are expected to be in so
| many different places at the same time
that their children are left to the care of
| irresponsible servants and if the little
ones waited to say their prayers at their
mothers knee they would never say their
evening prayers at all. Such a woman
| makes her own home so unattractive that
the husband spends his evening at the
| clubhouse or the tavern. The children of
| that house are as thoroughly orphan as
| any of the fatherless and motherless lit
tie ones gathered in the orphanage for
which that gadabout woman is toiling so
| industriously.
| By all means let Christian women fos-
| ter charitable institutions and give them
as much of their time as they can spare,
but the first duty of that mother is the
duty she owes to iier homes-'-
| The book of Samuel gives a photograph
| of Mephibosheth lame in both feet. When
| we see any one lame in one foot or lame
| in both feet, we always wonder by what
| accident he was amed. Perhaps it may
have been in battle for his country, or
| he may have been run over by some reck.
| less driver or some explosion did the dam.
| age. So you wonder how Mephiboshetb
became lame in both feet. The Bible for
good reason gives us the particulars. 1t
| tells us that when he was child his
nurse dropped him. She must have
| dropped him very hard, for he never again
| got over the effect of that fall. Long at.
ter the accident we find him at King
! David's table. but still our attention is
| called to the fact that his feet were Grip.
| pied, though so long before his nurse
| dropped him. And mark you that to-day
| in all departments of life there are those
crippled in habits, crippled in morals, Grip.
in this way: Their mothers were gada-
bouts and neglected their homes, and the
| work OF training them was given over to
| incompetent nurses, and the nurses let
| them fall into bad habits, told them de-
praving stories and gave them wrong no.
tions of life and practically ruined them.
But Mephibosheth was taken by King
David into the palace and seated at the
| royal table, so by the grac, of the heav-
emily King these unfortunate ones may yet
be seated at the Kings table in the Kings
palace, though the nurses did drop them
so that morally they were lame in both
feet.
Now, what is the practical Use of the
present discourse? This Whereas so
others by becoming gadabouts among oc.
equations, among religious theories. among
churches, among neighborhoods, therefore
resolved that we will concentrate upon
what is right thought aud right behavior
and waste no time in vacilations and in
decisions and uncertainties. running about
in places where we have no business to
be. Life is short we have no time To
play with it the spendthrift. Find out
whether the Bible is true and whether
YOUR nature is immortal and whether
Christ is the divine and only Saviour and
whether you must have Him or be dis
comlited and whether there will probably
ever be more auspicious moment for
your becoming His adherent and then
make this II O'Clock at noon OF November
%. the most illustrious minute that YOU
will ever have passed since the day of
your birth rntil the ten millionth cycle of
the coming eternity. because by complete
surrender OF thought and win and affec-
tion and life to God, through Jesus
Christ you became new man. n new