Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1900-11-30

waited lifetime.
There is more splendid womanhood sac
rifced 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 a prince, but not one TUT OF
heliotrope to perfume the room OF that
rheumatic on the back street, to whom
the breath of one flower would be IKE
the opening of the front door OF heaven.
Find me one man or one woman who In
all the rounds of pleasure and selishness
mas 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 Jubl-
lee, was not so sublime figure as queen
Victoria in a 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 satlsfac,
ton which all the gayeties OF the world
aggregated cannot afford.
Among the race of gadabouts are those
who neglect their hImes in order that
they may attend to institutions that are
really excellent and do not so rnuch ask
for help as demand it.
am acquainted, as you are, with WON.
en- who are members of so many boards OF
direction of benevolent institutions and
have to stand at booth in so many fairs
md must collect funds for so many orphan
ages and preside at so many philanthropy
ic 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 her home.
The book of Samuel gives 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 famed. Perhaps 1T 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 Mephlbosheth
became lame in both feet. The Bible for
good reason gives us the particulars IL
tells lis that when he was child his
nurse dropped him. She must have
dropped him vel. hard, for he never again
got over the effect of that fall. Long af-
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
pied for all time. The accident happened
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-
PRAYING 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-
'enly King these unfortunate ones may yet
be seated at the Kings table in the Kings
ipaace, 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
many have ruined themselves and ruined
others by becoming gadabouts among oc-
equations, among religious theories, among
churches, among neighborhoods, therefore
Iresolved that we will concentrate upon
what is right thought and right behavior
and waste no time in vacillations and in
decisions and uncertainties, running about
in places where we have no business to
be. Life is so 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
comfted and whether there will probably
ever be more suspicious moment for
your becoming His adherent, and then
make this IL o'clock at noon of November
25, the most ilustrious minute that you
will ever have passed since the day of
your birth "ntil the ten millionth cycle of
the coming eternity, because by complete
surrender of thought and will and affec-
ton and life to God, through Jesus
Christ you became new man, a new
woman, new soul, and God the Father
and God the Son and God the Holy
Ghost and all angeldom, Cherubim and
iSeraphm and archangel became your al.
lies.
Found among the papers of the learned
Samuel johnson was a prayer inscribed
with the words, when my eye was re-
stored to its use," and it is great mo-
ment when we get over our moral blind
ness and gain spiritual eyesight. That is
a moment from which we may well date
everything. All the glory of Henry II. of
France vanished when in a tournament
a lance extinguished his eye, and the worst
ulSdbICl tndI CdH udPpcu W uS 10 w hofS
the vision of our soul put out. If you
have gone wrong SO far, now go right. II
the morning. and noonl of your life have
been moral defeat, make the evening of
your life victory. The battle of Maren-
go, lost at 3 o'clock in The afternoon, was
gloriously won at 6, and in your life and
mine it is not too late to achieve some
thing worthy of an immortal. Start right
and keen on Do not spend too much time
in lacking ship. David felt the impor-
lance of fxedness of purpose when he
cried out, My heart is fixed, o God, my
heart is fxed!"
Lord Curzon's Alleged InciviIity.
In, Tor 20