Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-08-23

Ills tOlC, anu Ills tOtC COuAtCIdCtS
yours. But if in the quiet of home life
a daughter by her Christian demeanor,
wife by her industry, mother by
her faithfulness, casts a vote in the
right direction, then nothing can re-
sist it, and the influence of that vote
will throb through the eternities.
My chief anxiety, then, is not that
woman have other rights accorded
her, but that she, by the grace of
God, rise up to the appreciation of
the glorious rights she already pos
sesses. I shall only have time to
speak of one grand and all absorbing
right that every woman has, and that
is to make home happy. That realm
no one has ever disputed with her.
Men may come home at noon or at
night, and they tarry a comparative
ly little while, but she all day long
governs it, beauties it, sanctifies it.
1t is within her power to make it the
| most attractive place on earth. It is
the only calm harbor in this world.
You know as well as I do that this
outside world and the business world
is long scene of jostle and conten-
ton. The man who has a dollar
struggles to keep it; the man who
has it not struggles to get it. Prices
up. Prices down. Losses. Gains.
Misrepresentation. Gougings. I'm
derselling. Buyers depreciating;
| statesmen exaggerating. Tenants
seeking less rent; landlords demand
ing more. Gold fdgety. Struggles
about Office. Men who are in trying
to keep in; men out trying to get in.
Slips. Tumbles. Declarations. Pan
les. Catastrophes. o woman, thank
God you have~a home, and that you
may be queen in it. Better be there
than wear a queens coronet. Better
be there than carry the purse of a
princess. Your abode may be hum
BILE, but you can by your faith in
God and your cheerfulness of de-
meanor gid it with splendors such
as an upholsterer's hand never vet
kindled.
There are abodes in the city
humble, two stories, four plain, un-
papered rooms; undesirable neigh
borhood, and yet there is man here
to-day who would die on the thresh-
old rather than surrender it.
Why? It is home. Whenever he
thinks of it he sees angels of God
lowering around it. The ladders of
Heaven are let down to this house.
Over the child's rough crib there are
the chantings of angels, as those that
sounded over Bethlehem. It is home.
These children may come up after
awhile, and they may win high posi-
ton, and they may have an affluent
residence, but they will not until
their dying day forget that humble
roof under which their father rested
and their mother sang and their sis
ters played. Oh, if you would gather
up all tender memories, all the lights
and shades of the heart, all banquet
ings and reunions, all f1ial, fraterna1,
paternal and conjugal affections, and
you had only just four letters to
spell out that height and depth and
length and breadth and magnitude
and eternity of meaning, you would,
with streaming eyes and trembling
voice and agitated hand, write it out
in those four living capitals, HOME.
What right does woman want that
is grander than to be queen in such
a realm? Why, the eagles of heaven
cannot fly across that dominion.
Horses, painting and with lathered
TANKS, are not swift enough to run
to the outpost of that realm. They
say that the sun never sets upon the
English empire, but I have to tell you
that on this realm of woman's influ-
ence eternity never marks any bound.
Isabella fed from the Spanish throne
pursued by the nations anathema,
but she who is queen in home will
never lose her throne, and death it.
| co1f 10 he -
heavenly principalities.
When you want to get your grand
est idea of a queen, you do not think
of Catherine of Russia, or of Anne of
England, or Maria Theresa of Aus
tria, but when you want to get your
grandest idea of a queen you think
of the plain wom,.n who sat opposite
your father at the table, or walked
with him arm in arm down life's
pathway, sometimes to the thanks
giving banquet, sometimes to the
grave, but always together-soothing
) your petty griefs, correcting your
childish waywardness, joining in your
infantile sports, listening to your
evening prayers, toiling for you with
needle, or at the spinning wheel, and
on cold nights wrapping you up snug
and warm. And then at last, on that
day when she lay in the back room
dying, and you saw her take those
thin hands with which she toiled for
you SO long and put them together
. in dying prayer that commended
you to God. whom she had taught
you to trust-oh, she was the queen!
The chariots of God came down to
. fetch her, and as she went in all
|, Heaven rose up. You cannot think
of her now without rush of tender