The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-08-16

Chicago. August 9-In this sermon the preacher suggests new solution of the much vexed servant question" which should appeal to housekeepers and heads of families everywhere. The text Is Psalm cxxiii, 2, "As the eyes of a maid en unto the hand of her mistress"
 Two weeks ago "The Privilege of Be- ing consecrated Domestic was my subject. Today I preach from another standpoint of this vitally important theme-namely '"The Relations of Wives, Mothers and Housekeepsrs to Their Ser vants" We would try to show that the antagonisms and difficulties and es- arrangements existing between the parlor and the kitchen are due to faults upon both sides. It is easy enough for the complaining housewife to develop such keenness of censorious vision that she can see innumerable imperfections in her servants life. but when plucking the notes from out her humble sisters eyes it is not always so easy for the mistress to perceive the beam the huge destruct- i've beam, projecting from under her own overarching eyebrows.
 That the housekeeper as well as the SeTNdnL Cdn pc negligent III her uuly there is no doubt. The psalmist as a weaknesses. asserts it. He fguratively seems to place the mistress as a proto- type before her domestics. Then, as young artist crosses the seas to study at the feet of the old masters and sits day in and day out copying a Raphael's '.Sistine Madonna" or a Paul Veronese's "Last Supper or Rubens Descent From the Cross" or a Michael Angelo's Last Judgment" the psalmist raises the mistress upon a pedestal as model for her servants. Day in and day out the actions of the parlor are being dupli- cated in the kitchen. Adam Clark the great commentator. interprets these words of my text in the following way .As servants look to their masters and mistresses to see how they do their work. that they may do it in the same way" so may we correct some of the evils found in the kitchen by exposing the evils practiced in the parlor. All vir- tues are not clothed in broadcloth All feminine unfaithfuness and injustice do not warm themselves near a kitchen stove or center in stupid and stoid head with a waitress cap or nestle in the selfish heart of the girl who, wear ing a nurses apron, pushes the baby's carriage along the avenue. If the head of the house wishes her servants to be faithful and true to her then she must first set an example of faithfulness. She must be true and kind and loving and Christianlke 'to her servants and to all the people with whom she comes in con tact in her domestic walk of daily life.
 Inculeate Honesty by Precept.
 The housekeeper is her servants mQdel. That implies that the mistress must be honest if she wants her servants to be honest. Plato the philosopher, once tried to convey the idea that an evil 1- a1 oct for a time. He illustrated this thought by the story of the fabled Gxges' ring which could make the false actions of it's wearer invisible to the naked eye. Thus" wrote Plato the Greek, 'the truly honest man is the one who would be honest at all times when he could be dishonest and his dishonesty never be found out. But is such contingency possible? Who can ever be that his dishonesty is safely hidden? The eyes of rivals, of subordinates, of employees, are keen and see more than we know. They are apt to initiate. too, both the good and the bad, so that one wrongdoer may cause deterioration through whole circles of his social interiors. In his home, as in business the example of dis honesty has always the tendency to re- coil on the wrongdoer. The merchant who connives at his clerks cheating of the customers in his interests must not
 
 their own interest. If a farmer knowing ly sends false weights to market and when he is packing a barrel of apples places the good apples upon the top of the barrel and a lower grade of fruit beneath, that farmer is teaching his farm hands to be deceitful in their rela- tions to him when they are gathering the fruit. He is teaching his men to lie as he has lied and be dishonest as he was dishonest If the bank officials criminal ly misplace the institutions trust funds. there is likely to come time when one of those bank employees will default. and in the emptied safe of that bank the sins of that financial institution will, like the proverbial chickens, come home to roost.
 step further, If a housewife will bid her waiting maid answer the front door bell and tell the would be caller that she Is out, when she is in that mistress is teaching her servant to be n liar in all things well as in part. If a wife Is false in her dealing with her grocer and butcher and washerwoman and false in her financial dealings with her servants. she need not be surprised If the laundress steals the stray hand kerchiefs and collars and the cook sin fully wastes the butter and filches the cupboard, and perhaps goes so far as to sell the potatoes ane the eggs. If a housewife, to protect herself, is unjust to her servants, and turns them off at moments notice when she Is leaving for the country vacation, then she would not grumble If her servants treat her in the same way.
 Dishonesty is Contagious.
 Dishonesty is contagious. Dishonesty is an immoral germ which is apt to spread through a whole family as the diphtheria germ often in the olden times lsed destroy all the children of ona household. The sinful plague of dishon-