The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-09-19

judgment to cone. How many men
there have been in high political sta
tion who would have been insufficient
to stand the test to which their moral
principle was put had it not been for
a wife's voice that encouraged them
to do right and wife's prayer that
sounded louder than the clamor of
partisanship! Why, my friends, the
right of suffrage, as we men exercise
it, seems to be feeble thing. You,
Christian man, come up to the ballot
box and drop your vote. Right after
you comes libertine or a sot, the Off
his vote, and his vote counteracts
yours. But if in the quiet of home life
a daughter by her Christian demeanor,
a 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. l 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 comparative
ly little while, but she all day long
governs it, beauties it, sanctifies it.
most attractive place on earth. 1t is
the only calm harbor in this world.
You know as well as l 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. Un-
derselling. Buyers depreciating;
statesmen exaggerating. Tenants
seeking less rent; landlords demand
ing more. Gold idgety. Struggles
about Office. Men who are in trying
to keep in; men out trying to get in.
Slips. Tumbles. Defalcations. Pan
les. Catastrophes. o woman, thank
God you have home, and that you
may be queen in it. Better be there
than wear 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 gild it with splendors such
as an upholsterer's hand never yet
kindled.
There are abodes in the city
humble, two stories, four plain, un-
papered rooms; undesirable neigh
borhood, and yet there is a man here
to-day who would die on the thresh-
old rather than surrender it.
Why? 1t 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. 1t is home.
|
awhile, and they may win high posi-
tion, and they may have an afluent
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 filial, fraternal,
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
flanks, 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 fled from the Spanish throne
pursued by the nations anathema
but she who is queen in a home viii
never lose her throne, and death it.
self will only be the annexation OF
heavenly principalities.
When you want to get your grand
est idea of queen, you do not thinl
of Catherine of Russia, or of Anne o.
England, or Maria Theresa of Aus
tria, but when you want to get you,
grandest idea of a queen you thinl
of the plain woman who sat opposit.
your father at the table, or walked
with him arm in arm down life'
pathway, sometimes to the thanks
giving banquet, sometimes to tn,
grave, but always together-soothini
your petty griefs, correcting you
childish waywardness, joining in you
infantile sports, listening to you
evening prayers, toiling for you will
needle, or at the spinning wheel, an,