Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1893 — AN OLD TIME HOSTESS. [ARTICLE]

AN OLD TIME HOSTESS.

' The Strong Minded Woman of - - Bible Timesrrr^fe—: Tho Hospitable Matron Who Entertained Elisha When Ho Journeyed to Shuneni. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn, last Sunday. Subject: A Great Woman.” Text: II Kings iv, B—“ And it fell on a. v day that Elisha passed to Shunem. where was a great woman." Here comes Elisha, a servant of the Lord, on a divine mission, and he must find shelter. A balcony overlooking the valley of Esdraelon is offered him, in a private house, and it is especially furnished for his occupancy—a chair to sit on, a table from which to eat, a candlestick by which to read and a bed on which to slumber, the whole establishment belonging toa great and good woman. Her husband, it seems, was a godly man. but he was entirely overshadowed by his wife’s excellencies. If a man marry a good honest soul, he makes his fortune. If he marry a fool the Lord help him! The wife may be the silent partner in the firm, there may be only masculine voices down on exchange, but there oftentimes comes from the home circle a potential and elevating influence. This woman of my text was the superior of her husband. Her name has not come down to us. She belongs to that collection, of people who need no name td distinguish them. In the first place she was great in her hospitalities. Uncivilized and barbarous nations honor this virtue. Jupiter had the surname of the hospitable, and he was said especially to avenge the wrongs of strangers. Homer extolled it in his verse. The Arabs are punctilious upon this subject. Again, this woman in my text was great in her kindness toward God’s messenger. Elisha may have been a stranger in that household, but as she found out he had come on a divine mission he was cordially welcomed. We have a great many books in our day about the hardships of ministers and the trials of Christian ministers. I wish somebody would write a book about the joys Qf the Christian minister, about the sympathies all around him, about the kindnesses, about the genial considerations of him. This woman of the text was only a type of thousands of men and wo- • ’men who come down from the man-* sion and from the cot to do kindness to the Lord's servants. I suppose the men of Shunem had to pay the bills, but it was the large-hearted Christian sympathies of the women of Shunem that looked after the Lord’s messenger. Again, the woman in the text was great in her behavior under* trouble. Her only son had died on her lap. A very bright light went out in that household. The .sacred writer puts it very tersely when he says: ’Tie sat on her knees until noon, and then he died.” But, thank God, there are those who can conquer as this woman of the text conquered, and say“lt is well! though my property be gone, though my children be gone, though my health be sacrificed, it is well, it is well!” There is no storm on the sea but Christ is ready to rise in the hinder part of the ship and hush it. There4s no darkness but the- constellations of God’s eternal love can illuminate it, and though the winter comes out of the northern sky all ablaze with auroras that seem to say: “Come up this way, <Up this wav are thrones of light, and seas of sapphire, and the splendor of an I eternal heaven. Come up this way. ” I heard an echo of my text in a very dark hour, when my father lay dying, and the old country minister said to him, ‘’Mr. Talmage, how do you feel now as you are about to pass the Jordan of death?” He replied—and it was the last thing he. ever said —“I feel well: I feel very well; all is well.” lifting up his hand in benediction, a speechless benediction. which I pray God may go down through all the generations. It was well! Again, this woman of my text was great in her application to domestic duties. Every picture is a home picture, whether she is entertaining an Elisha or whether whether she is giving careful attention to her sick boy, or whether she is appealing for the restoration of her property — every picture in her case is a home picture. Those are not disciples of the Shunemite woman who, going out to attend to outside charities, neglect the duty of home —the duty of wife, of mother, of daughter. No faithfulness in public benefaction can ever atone for domestic negligence.

There has been many a mother who by indefatigable toil has. reared a large family of children, equipping them for the duties of life, with good mantiers and large intelligence and Christian principle, starting them out, who has done more for the world than many another woman whose name has sounded through all the lands and through all centuries. When this prophet wanted to reward her for her hospitality by asking some preferment from the king, what did she say? She declined it. She said, “I dwell among my own people” —as much as to say: “I am satisfied with my lot. All I want is my family and my friends around me. I dwell among my own peoHow many there are who want to get great architecture, and homes furnished with all art. all painting, all statuary, who have

not enough taste to distinguish between Gothic .and Byzantine,and wKo could not tell a figure in plaster of paris from Palmer’s “White Captive,” and Bierstadt’s “Yosemite”— men who buy large libraries by the square foot, buying these libraries when they have hardly enough education to pick out the day of the almanac! Oh, how many there are striving to have things as well as their neighbors, or better than Ifheir neighbors, and in the strugglejvast fortunes a#=e exhausted and business firms thrWh into bankruptcy and men of reputed honesty rush into astounding forgeries! Yea, the woman of the text was great in her piety. Faith in God, and she was not afraid to talk about it before idolaters. Ah, woman will never appreciate what she owes to Christianity until she knows and sees the degredation of her sex under pagan ism and Mohammedaqism. Her very birth considered a m&fortune. She like cattle in the shambles. Slave of all work, and at last her body fuel for the funeral pyre of her husband. Above the shriek of the fire worshipers in India and above the rumblings of the jugger nauts, I hear the million, voiced groan of wronged, insulted, bre kenhearted, downtrodden woman. Her tearshave fallen in th* Nile land Tigris and the La Plata, and on the steppes of Tartary. She hasbeeriidishonored in Turkish garden and Persian palace and Spanish alhambra. Her little ones have been sacrificed in the Ganges. There is npt a groan, or a dungeon, or an island, or a mountain, or a river, or a lake, or a sea but could tell a story of the outrages heaped upon her. About eighty-seven years ago and just before their marriage day, my father and mother stood up in the old meeting house at Summerville,N. J., and took upon them the vows, of the Christians. Through a long life of vicissitude she lived harmlessly and usefully and came to her end in peace. No child of want ever came to her door and was turned empty away. No one in sorrow came to her but was comforted. No one asked her the way to be saved, but she pointed him to the cross. When the angel of life came to a neighbor’s dwelling she was there to rejoice at the starting -of another immortal spirit. When the angel of death came to a neighbor’s dwelling she was there to robe the departed for the burial. We had often heard her when leading family prayers in the absence of my father say, “O Lord. I ask not for my children wealtn or honor,but Ido ask that they all may be the subjects of Thy comforting grace!” Her eleven children brought into the kingdom of God, she had but one more wish, and that was that she might see her long absent missionary son, and when the ship from China anchored in New York harbor and the long-absent one passed over the threshold of his paternal home she said, “Now, Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” The prayer was soon answered. It was an autumnal day when we gathered from afar and found only the house from which the soul had fled forever. She looked very natural, the hands very much as when they were employed in kindness for her children. W hatever else we forgot, we never forgot the look of mother’s hands. As we stood there .by the casket we could not help but sav, "Don't she look beautiful?” It was a cloudless day when with heavy hearts we carried her out to the last resting place. The withered leaves crumbled under hoof and wheel as we passed and the sun shone on the Raritan river until it looked like fire. But more calm and beautiful and radiant was the setting sun of that aged pilgrim’s life. No more toil, no more sickness, no more tears, no more death. Dear mother! Beautiful mother!