Connecticut western news., 1900-11-29

spare, put the UrSt uuty or Indt ulOtneT
 Is the duty she owes to her home.
 Hired help Is a great advantage to
 the homestead that can afford 1t, and
 we have all had in our homes a fidelity
 on the part of such employees as will
 stir our gratitude as long as life shall
 last How they watched in time of
 sickness and always gave the medicine
 at the right time, and but for their
 vigilance there are members of our
 families now living who would long
 ago have disappeared from the home
 circle Blessed the ships that brought
 those employees to our shores! Blessed
 the day when they entered our house
 holds! And who will ever do justice to
 those who were affectionately called
 and, I believe, are still called the
 "mammies' of the south2 l have had
 governors and senators of the United
 States with tears in their eyes talk to
 me about those old colored women of
 the south who rocked them in their
 cradles and bound up their wounds
 when they got hurt and wept with
 them at graves and looked In from the
 hall door at the weddings and greeted
 them home from college or from the
 wars with motherly endearment. Ask
 those who know them best about those
 old mammies. We have all had In our
 employment those so near and dear to
 us that we went to them in childhood
 and told them all our griefs and all our
 joys, and they sympathized with copi- ous tears and resounding laughter.
 Mothers Mistakes.
 But no one can take mothers place,
 and it is an awful mistake that that mother makes who sacrifices home du- ties for any church meeting, however important, or any hospital, however merciful, or any outside beneficence, however glorious and grand. Not un- derstanding this, we mistake when we try to give statistics as to how many Christians there are in our churches
 and in the world. We understate the facts. We look over our church au diences on the Sabbath or our week night service and conclude that they
 represent the amount of piety in that neighborhood. Oh, no! There are
 many most consecrated souls that are not found in churches. Look into those
 houses with large families of children
 and little or no hired help. For much
 of the year there Is some one i'll, and a
 special, guardian care Is requisite. How
 much time can that mother give to churches and prayer meetings when most of the family are down with scar let fever or have colds that threaten now one kind of disease and now an- other? That mother watching at home as much pleases the Lord as the moth CT who at church takes the sacrament or Tn the mission school tells the waifs of the street how they may become sons and daughters of the Lord Al mighty. That mother at home is de ciding the destiny of the state by the way she leads that boy into right thinking and acting and Is deciding
 the welfare of some future home by the example she Is setting that girl, and though the world does not appreciate the unobserved work heaven watches and rewards. On the other hand, you have known women who are off at meetings humanitarian and philan- thropic planning for the destitute and the outcast while their own children went unwashed and unkempt, their gar ments needing repairs,. their manners impudent and themselves a general
 nuisance to the community in which they live.
 The book of Samuel gives a photo graph of Mephibosheth lame in both feet. When we see any one lame in one foot or lame in both feet, we ai- ways wonder by what accident be was lamed. Perhaps it may have been in
 battle for his country, or he may have been run over by some reckless driver
 or some explosion did the damage. So you wonder how Mephibosheth became
 .ame in both feet. The Bible for good
 reason gives us the particulars. It tells
 us that when he was a child his nurse dropped him. She must have dropped him very hard, for he never again got | over the effect of that fall. Long after the accident we find him at King Da- vid's table, but still our attention is | called to the fact that his feet were crippled, though so long before his nurse dropped him. And mark you that today in all departments of life there are those crippled in habits, crip- pied In morals, crippled for all time. The accident happened in this way: Their mothers were gadabouts and | neglected their homes, and the work of | training them was given over to incom- | petent nurses, and the nurses let them | fall into bad habits, told them deprav- | ing stories and gave them wrong mo- 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
 grace of the heavenly King these un- | fortunate 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.
 One bad habit these gadabouts, mas | culine or feminine, are sure to get, and | that Is of scandal distribution. They hear so many deleterious things about | others and see so much of wrong beha- | vior that they are loaded up and loaded | down with the faults of others, and | they have their eyes full and their ears | full and their hands full and their | mouths full of defamation. The wom-
 an who is endowed of gossip can so | easily unite her bonnet strings and sit down to spend the afternoon. A man can afford you cigar as a retainer if | you will patiently hear all he has to say about those who cannot pay their | debts or are about to fail or are guilty | or moral mishap or have aroused suspi-
 cion of embezzlement. All gadabouts
 are peddlers, who unpack In your pres ence their large store of nux vomica and nightshade. Such gadabouts have | little prospect of heaven. If they got
 there, they would try to create jealousy | among the different ranks of celestials
 and make trouble among the heavenly
 neighbors and start quarrels seraphic and would be on perpetual run, now down this street and now up that, now
 in the house of many mansions and now in the choir of the temple and now