Year: 1879

From the Birmingham Dart,l


The following hits off pretty fairly the way
in which some discourses are constructed:


Brethren, the words of my text are


old Mother Hubbard, she went to the cupboard,


To get her poor dog bone;


But when she got there the cupboard was bare,


And so the poor dog had none.'


'These beautiful words, dear friends, carry
with them a solemn lesson. 1 propose this
evening to analyze their meaning and to at
tempt to apply it, lofty as it may be, to our
everyday life;


'Old Mother Hubbard she went to the cupboard,


To get her poor dog bone.


Mother Hubbard, you see, was old; there
being no mention of others, we may presume
she was alone; widow-a friendless, old, soli-
tary widow. Yet did she despair? Did she
sit down and weep, or read novel, or wiring
her hands? No; she went to the cupboard.
And here observe that she went to the cup
board. She did not hop or skip, or run, or
jump, or use any other peripatetic artifce; she
solely and merely went to the cupboard.


We have seen that she was old and lonely,
and we further see that she was Door. For,
mark, the words are the cupboard Not 'one
of the cupboards, or the right hand cupboard,
or the left hand cupboard or the one above,
or the one below, or the one under the floor,
but just the cupboard. The one humble little
cupboard the poor widow possessed. And why
did she go to the cupboard? Was it to bring
forth golden goblets or glittering precious
stones. or costly apparel, or feasts, OF any other
attribute of wealth. 1t was to get her poor
dog bone! Not only was the widow poor,
but her dog, the sole prop of her age, was poor
too. We can imagine the scene The poor
dog crouching in the corner, looking wistfully
at the solitary cupboard, and the widow going
to that cupboard-in hope, in expectation may
be-to open 1t, although we are not distinctly
told that it was not half open or aiar, to open
it for that poor dog


But when she got there, the cupboard was bare;


And so the poor dog had none.'


When she got there You see, dear brethren,
what perseverance is. You see the beauty of
persistence in doing right. She got there.
There were no turnings and twistings, no slip
pings and slidings no leaning to the right or
falterings to the left. With glorious SIM
plicity we are told she got there.


And how was her noble effort rewarded?


The cupboard was barel' 1t was bare
There were to be found neither oranges, nor
cheesecakes, nor penny buns, nor gingerbread
nor crackers, nor nuts, nor lucifer matches.
The cupboard was barrel There was but one,
only one solitary cupboard in the whole of that
cottage, and that one the sole hope of the
widow, and the glorious loadstar of the Door
dog was bare! Had there been a leg of mutton,
loin of lamb, a fillet of veal, even an ice from
Gunter's, the case would have been different
the incident would have been otherwise. But
it was BARE my brethren, bare as a bald head
bare as an infant born without a caul.


Many of you will probably say, with all the
pride of worldly sophistry-'The widow, no
doubt, went out and bought dog biscuit
All, no! Far removed from earthly ideas,
these mundane desires, poor Mother Hubbard,
the widow, whom thoughtless worldlings
would despise, i'll that she only owned cup
board, perceived-or might even say saw
at once the relentless logic of the situation,
and yielded to it with all the heroism of that
nature which had enabled her without devia-
tion to reach the barren cupboard. She did
not attempt, like the stiff-necked scoffers of
this generation, to war against the inevitable;
she did not try, like the so-called men of sci
ence, to explain what she did not understand.
She did nothing. The poor dog had nonel
And then at this point our information ceases.
But do we not know sufficient? Are we not
cogniZant of enough?


Who would dare to pierce the veil that
shrouds the ulterior fate of old Mother Hub
bard-the poor dog-the cupboard-or the
bone that was not there? Must we imagine
her still standing at the open cupboard door,
depict to ourselves the dog still dropping his
disappointed tail upon the floor, the sought-for
bone still remaining somewhere else? Ali no,
my brethren, we are not so permitted to at
tempt to read the future. Suffice it for us to
CLEAN from this beautiful story its many les
sons; suffice 1t for us to apply them, to study
them as far as in us lies, and bearing in mind
the natural frailty of our nature, to avoid be-
ing widows; to shun the patronymic of Hub
bard; to have, if our means afford it, more
than one cupboard in the house; and to keep
stores in them ALL And, oh! dear friends,
keeping in recollection what we have learned
this day, let avoid keeping dogs that are
fond of bones. But, brethren, if we do; if fate
has ordained that we should do any of these
things, let us then go, as Mother Hubbard did,
straight. without curveting or prancing, to our
cupboard, empty though it be-let us, like her,
accept the inevitable with calm steadfastness;
and should we, like her, ever be left with
hungry dog and an empty cupboard, may fu-
ture chroniclers be able to write also of us, in
the beautiful words of our text


And SO the Door dog had nome