The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1900-11-30

to us that we went to them in child
hood and told them all our griefs and
all our joys, and they sympathized
with copious tears and resounding
laughter.
The MISTAKE of Mothers.
But no one can take mothers
place, and it is an awful mistake that
that mother makes who sacrifices
home duties for any church meeting,
however important, or any hospital,
however merciful, or any outside bene-
ticence, however glorious and grand.
Not understanding this, we mistake
when we try to give statistics as to
how many Christians there are in our
churches in the world. We understate
the facts. We look over our church
audiences on the Sabbath or our
weekly 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 scarlet fever or have
colds that threaten now one kind OF
disease and now another? That moth
er watching at home as much pleases
the Lord as the mother who at church
takes the sacrament or in the mission
school tells the waits of the street how
they may become sons and daughters
Of the Lord Almighty. That mother
at home is deciding 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 philanthropic, planning for the
destitute and the outcast, while their
own children went unwashed and I'M
kempt, their garments needing repairs,
their manners impudent and them
selves a general nuisance to the COM
munity in which they live.
The Distribution of Scandal.
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 behavior 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
woman 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 re-
tainer 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 of moral mishap, or have
aroused suspicion of embezzlement.
All gadabouts are peddlers, who I'M
|
pack in your presence their large store
of nux vomica and nightshade. Such
gadabouts have little prospect of hea-
ven. If they got there, they would try
| to create jealousy among the different
ranks of celestials, and make trouble
among the heavenly neighbor5, 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 on
the walls, and now in the gates, until
they would be chased down and push
ed out into the pandemonium of back
biters and slanderers after jeremiah
had addressed them in the words,
WHY gaddest thou about so much to
change thy way?"
Practical Suggestions.
Now, what is the practical use OF
the present discourse? This: Where
as, so many have ruined themselves
and ruined others by becoming CAD
abouts among occupations, among re-
ligious theories, among churches,
among neighborhoods; therefore, re-
solved that we will concentrate upon
what is right thought and right be-
havior and waste no time in vacilla-
lions and indecisions and uncertain
ties, 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 Savior, and
whether you must have him or be dis
comfted, and whether there will
probably ever be more suspicious
moment for your becoming his adher-
ent, and then make this II o'clock at
noon of November 25 1900 the most
illustrious minute that you will ever
have passed since the day of your
birth until the ten millionth cycle of
tho coming eternity because by COM