The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1900-12-29

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guessing about the authority and value of
book which involves the lntinities? 1t is
either good book or a bad book. If it
| be bad book, you do not want it in your
| house nor have your children contamnat-
ed with its teachings. If it is good book
your eternal happiness depends upon the
| adoption of its teachings. Once and for
ever make un your mind whether it ls
the book of God or the book of villainous
pretenders.
So, alas, there are those who CAD about
among particular churches. No pastor
| can depend on them for a single service
At some time when he has prepared
sermon after all praye and all research,
putti~g nerve and muscle and brain ana
soul into its very paragraph, these inter-
mittent attendants are not there to near
| it.
Bat, oh, how the gadabouts injure the
churches. Instead of staying i'll their own
PRAYER meeting or Sunday school they al
| tict other prayer meetings and Sunday
| schools | 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?'
| Ny text also addresses those who IN
search of happiness are going hither and
yonder looking for that which they flnd
not their time is all taken up with
| "muslcales ana progressive eucireS ana
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 ana
neuralgia and exhaustion and an abbre-
waited lifetime.
There is more splendid womanhood sac
rificed in that way in our cities than in
anv 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 ls suppressed about now
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 relic, 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 tuft OF
helotrope 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 selhshness
has found piece of happiness as large as
that half dollar which the benevolent and
| Christlke soul puts into the palm OF the
hand of that mothe- whose children are
crying for bread Queen Victoria, riding
in triumph through London at her jubi-
! lee. was not so sublime a figure as Queen
| Victoria in a hut near Balmoral Castle
reading the New Testament to poor dy-
| ing man.
Let I'll .he gadatorr.s for happiness
know that in kindness and usefulness and
self abnegation are to be found satisfac-
ton which all the gayetes OF the world
! aggregated cannot afford.
| tmong 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 for so many orphan
| ages and preside at so many phllanthrop-
! ic meetings and are expected to be IN 50
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 ali n7eans let Christian women fos-
| ter charitable institutions and give them
| as much of their time as they can spare,
| but tne 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 lamed. 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 Mephibosheth
became lame in both feet. The Bible for
a good reason gives us the particulars. 1t
tells us 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 today
| 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: Thsir 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 kln9
David into the palace ard seated at the
royal table so by the gra'. of the heav-
, enly King these unfortunate ones may yet
be seated at the Kings table in the King
palace, though the nurses did drop them
so that morally they were lame in both
feet
Now, what is the practical use of tho
present discourse? This: Whereas Sc
many have ruined themselves and ruined
others by becoming gadabouts among oc
cupations among religious theories, among
churches, among neighborhoods, therefore
resolved that we will concentrate upor
what is right thought and right behavior
| and waste no time in vaciliations and in
decisions and uncertainties, running abou
in places where we have no business t.
be. Life is so short we have no time t
play with it the spendthrift. Find ou
whether the Bible is true and whethe
your nature is immortal and whethe