_Religious Differences_.
In no respect do we find the characteristical differences between the
sexes more marked than in regard to religion; and certainly, we see
woman in no attitude more engaging, more interesting or useful, than
in the quiet, but graceful performance of her duties to her Maker.
The belief in the providence of some superior being or beings, has
ever been a source of obligation to mankind in all ages and countries.
Man may be pronounced to be emphatically a religious being. Every
where, whether savage or civilized, do we behold him looking to the
god or gods of nature, and dreading their punishment, not only in the
world to come, but even in this. It is this spirit of devotion which
"calls forth the hymn of the infant bard, as well as the anthem of the
poet of classic times. It prompts the nursery tale of superstition, as
well as the demonstration of the school of philosophy." "If you search
the world," says Plutarch, "you may find cities without walls, without
letters, without kings, without money; but no one ever saw a city
without a deity, without a temple, or without some form of worship;"
and Maximus Tyrius, another of the ancients, declares that, "in such a
contest, and tumult, and disagreement of opinions on other subjects,
you may see this one law and speech acknowledged by common accord,
that there is one God, the king and father of all, and many gods, the
children of God, and ruling together with him. This the Greek says,
and this the Barbarian says; and the inhabitant of the continent, and
the islander, and the wise and the unwise."
This universal consent in the operation of a superintending and
controlling providence, is one of the most luminous and important
facts of our nature. It rests the evidence of natural religion not
upon the unsteady basis of argument or reason--not upon the sophisms
of philosophers, or the edicts of monarchs, or popes, or councils; but
upon the immoveable basis of nature--upon _instinct_ itself. "There is
no era," says Mr. Allison, "so barbarous, in which man has existed, in
which traces are not to be seen of the alliance which he has felt
between earth and heaven; and amid the wildest as amid the most genial
scenes of an uncultivated world, the rude altar of the barbarian every
where marks the emotions that swelled in his bosom, when he erected it
to the awful or beneficent deities whose imaginary presence it
records."
But although there be that within us which leads directly to the
contemplation of divinity, and of the retribution which awaits us in
another world, yet we are not to conclude that this belief is not
strengthened and confirmed by reason and experience. On the contrary,
the argument in favor of a God and rewards and punishments hereafter,
gains strength, with the increasing age, experience and knowledge of
the world. Religion, in the midst of ignorance and barbarism,
degenerates into gross superstition and revolting idolatry. By means
of reason and knowledge, we are the better enabled to overleap the
vast chasm interposed between us and the divine nature; to
contemplate, in the detail and in the aggregate, both the minute and
the great throughout the universe; to observe their beautiful
arrangement and harmony, and the wondrous unity of design in all the
parts: a unity which at once prostrates all the absurdities and
contradictions of the far famed polytheistical religion of the Greek
and the Roman--the fanciful idolatry and star gazing worship of the
Chaldean Shepherd, and the Magi of Babylon--or the more fearful, more
mysterious, and yet more ridiculous superstition of the Egyptian
priests of old, who at a period far back, when time was yet young, and
the history of other nations was scarce begun, officiated in those
mighty temples upon the banks of the Nile, whose awful ruins, now
scattered through the land of Egypt, tell us of the mighty of the
earth, who have lived, and strutted, and bustled for a season, but at
the appointed hour, have been cut down like the flower of the field.
It is this great, this beautiful unity of design, which we see
manifested throughout the works of creation, which proclaims the
existence of the one indivisible God, "Who hath measured the waters in
the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and
comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the
mountains in a scale, and the hills in a balance." It is this same
unity of design, proclaimed by philosophy and comprehended by reason
alone, which so powerfully supports the monotheistic religion of the
christian, and sustains that beautiful, humane and generous scheme of
salvation foretold by the Jewish prophets of old, and consummated by
the sacrifice on Mount Calvary, of the meek and humble Saviour of the
world.
Again, when we look abroad to animated creation, and see that man
alone has placed within him a principle which guides and directs him,
independently of instinct--a principle which, in spite of all the arts
of sophistry and self-delusion, tells him in language which cannot be
mistaken, that he is responsible for his acts; and when we further see
the immense amount of vice and wickedness in this world which does not
meet with its deserved punishment here, and virtue failing to receive
its reward;--when we behold all this, and reflect, as we cannot fail
to do, that the Creator of the world is a God of justice and
impartiality, we are at once driven into the belief that there must be
a hereafter, where all these things will be equalized. It is when we
see the wicked son, the unnatural father, and the fiendish
mother--when we peruse the histories of such monsters as Nero,
Caligula, Commodus, Louis XI of France, or Richard III of England--of
the Tullias, the Messalinas and the Macbeths, that we are forced to
acknowledge that there must be a _Tartarus_. Again, we meet with
humble virtue and piety in this world, possessed by those who labor
and toil through life, sometimes groaning under the oppression of a
cruel persecutor, who, bloated with vice, is nevertheless wallowing in
apparent luxury and ease, while the victims of his oppression are
overwhelmed with every calamity and misfortune "which flesh is heir
to"--each one of whom, in the hour of death, may truly say, in the
pathetic language of the patriarch of old, "short, but replete with
woe has been my day." When we contemplate this, the mind does not rest
satisfied, without an _elysium_ where the weary are to be at rest, and
the wicked to cease from troubling. "Wherefore do the wicked live,
become old--yea, are mighty in power? Is there no reward for the
righteous? is there no punishment for the workers of iniquity? is
there no God that judgeth in the earth?" It is only the awful
retribution of a hereafter which can satisfactorily explain to all
"Why unassuming worth, in secret lived
And died neglected; why the good man's share
Was gall and bitterness of soul;
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In starving solitude; while luxury,
In palaces, lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants; why heaven-born truth
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of superstition's scourge; why licensed pain,
That cruel spoiler, that imbosom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our bliss."
Not only, however, does our belief in the supreme benevolence and
justice of the deity, force upon us the conviction of a future state
of rewards and punishments; but the very contemplation of the human
mind, with its faculties and passions, points us to another world. We
have faculties which are capable of ranging beyond the sphere in which
we move. We have longings which this world, with all its stores of
provisions, cannot satisfy. These faculties and these longings point
distinctly to another world. Lord Bacon has truly asserted, that if
the child in its mother's womb could reason like a philosopher--could
survey its little hands, mouth, eyes, feet, lungs, &c. and perceive
that they discharged no adequate functions in the womb, he would, if
impressed with the belief of the wisdom and design of creation, come
necessarily to the conclusion that this was not the place of his
permanent abode--that he was ultimately to be ushered into some other
world, where all his physical energies and intellectual powers would
be brought into play, and have an ample field to range in. So
likewise, if I may use the beautiful language of Dugald Stewart, "When
tired and disgusted with this world of imperfections, we delight to
contemplate another, where the charms of nature wear an eternal bloom,
and where new sources of enjoyment are opened, suited to the vast
capacities of the human mind." And thus do we find both instinct and
reason contending alike for the truth of the great principles of
religion.
With these preliminary remarks, I will now proceed to examine into the
differences between the sexes in a religious point of view; and here I
may assert at once, without the fear of contradiction, that woman
always has been, and is now, in almost every country upon the face of
the globe, more religious than man. This difference between the sexes
is still more striking under the christian dispensation, than under
any other religion perhaps, which has ever existed in the world. In
our own country, we all know that the female communicants form an
immense majority in all our churches. "Very many of them (says Timothy
Dwight in the 4th vol. of his Travels, and no one was better qualified
to speak on this subject)--very many of them are distinguished for
moral excellence--are unaffectedly pious, humble, benevolent, patient
and self-denying. In this illustrious sphere of distinction, they put
our own sex to shame. Were the church of Christ stripped of her female
communicants, she would lose many of her brightest ornaments, and I
fear, _two-thirds_ of her whole family."[1]
[Footnote 1: I have no doubt that President Dwight has underrated the
number of female communicants in the United States. From conversations
with the most intelligent of the clergy, I should be disposed to say
they formed three-fourths, or four-fifths of the communicants.]
How then does it happen that woman is more religious than man--that
she is every where found yielding a more ready and more perfect
devotion to the God of nature? We have seen that instinct, feeling and
reason concur in the support of religion. Which of these is the main
impelling cause with woman? I am disposed to say the two former. She
is not so much disposed to skepticism as man; she does not wait for
the slow deductions of reason, before she is willing to yield her
assent. She does not withhold her belief, like man, until she can
contemplate the power, majesty and unity of the deity, in the
countless millions of bright orbs, rolling in harmony and
magnificence, along those complicate and luminous paths which have
been assigned to them in the infinitudes of space. She does not wait
until she can descend from the contemplation of this grand, this
sublime prospect, to the infinitesimally minute parts of nature, and
view with the eye of philosophy, their order, harmony and design,
where she may behold the existence of deity proclaimed in those
countless millions of millions of animalculæ, which escape the
unassisted vision of man--each one displaying a form, a structure, a
complexity of organs as perfect, as beautiful, as well adapted to the
sphere in which he moves, on that little atom of creation, which is a
world to him, as the grandest and most imposing animals of nature. No!
She does not require for the generation of her faith, thus to be able
to range from the bottom to the top of creation--from the infinitely
small to the infinitely great--to behold in the vast and the minute
"The unambitious footsteps of the god
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,
And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds."
She looks into her own heart, and finds there the want of a consoling
religion. She looks into the pages of holy writ, and builds her faith
on the revealed will of her Maker. "Thus saith the Lord," is the
simple but stable foundation on which her hopes are rested. With man,
religion is much more a matter of speculation, of reason and
philosophy, than with woman.
Let us now investigate, if possible, the causes of this very
interesting difference between the sexes.
_Causes.--1st. Education_.
And in the first place, it is in a great measure attributable to the
peculiar education of the sex. I mean the education which woman
receives from her parents and teachers. The education of man is much
more scientific, according to the present custom of society, than that
of woman. Science, as we shall soon see, whilst it enlarges the powers
of comprehension and ratiocination, by leading us into the mysteries
of nature, and teaching us the "_causas rerum_," is calculated at the
same time rather to curb the feelings, and to control the imagination.
The consequence is, that a scientific education fortifies the mind
against the too ready admission of doctrines, whatever they may be,
and prevents us from yielding assent to truths, when we are not
prepared to give a reason for the faith that is within us. In the
education of woman, every thing is done to preserve her native
feelings in all their original purity and strength. Her studies are of
a more light and literary cast, such as administer to the imagination
or warm the sensibilities. In her case the play of the instincts and
of the feelings is not cramped by the controlling influence of logic
and reason; and hence, no doubt, one cause of the religious
differences between the sexes.
For the same reason, the religious enthusiasm of woman, is very apt to
degenerate into superstition--that of man, into dogmatism and
fanaticism. Woman, generally, cares very little for mere creeds and
doctrines, but is apt to believe in miraculous interpositions, and a
special providence. Woman possesses more devotion and more genuine
love for her God--her eye is fixed on heaven, and the ardor of her
religious aspirations always points her to the glorious mansion
prepared on high; where, in the fulness of her devotion and piety,
surrounded by the bright effulgence of the throne of omnipotence, she
may pour forth the torrent of her love in hymns sung to the praise of
her Maker. She looks to this grand, this glorious end, and prays to
her God that it may be hers, and that he will direct her into the
right path.
Man, on the other hand, is so much taken up by the study and
investigation of the circumstances which attend him on his religious
journey through life, that he forgets in the scrupulous study of his
means, the end and object of all his devotion. It is not only
necessary with him, that he should go to heaven, but he is too often
resolved to go there in no other way than his own. And we may almost
assert with the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
that by his vain reasonings, and quibbles, and sophisms, he sometimes
so narrows the bridge which is to conduct us to a blissful eternity,
as almost to reduce its width to that of a razor's edge, to be walked
over only by those whose sophisticated intellects can comprehend the
absurd jargon of his theologico-metaphysical creed. It was very
difficult during the middle ages, to engage the females in those
tremendous, but nonsensical disputes between the Realists and
Nominalists, which involved the peace and happiness of whole nations.
What cared they about _universals genera and species_. Little did they
concern themselves with the learned disputes of the Thomists, the
Scotists, and the Occamites. The amors of Peter Abelard, were much
more interesting to them, than his voluminous dissertations upon the
Scholastic Theology. And we can well imagine, that few women would
care to read that mighty production of the _Angelical Doctor_ Saint
Thomas Aquinas, bearing the imposing title of _Summa Totius
Theologiæ_, containing the formidable amount of 1,250 folio pages of
very small print in double columns, with 19 more of errata, and 200 of
index. But enough of this. Some of the other sex even may _now_ sicken
at the idea of encountering a work so formidable as this, although it
be upon the vital subject of theology.
Women are much more superstitious, generally, as I have already
remarked, than men. They much more readily believe in dreams, visions
and miraculous interferences. Women deeply in love, have often been
known to die from the effects of unfavorable dreams about a distant
lover, in a perilous situation. McNish, in his interesting work on the
Philosophy of Sleep, tells us of a young lady, a native of Ross-shire,
who was deeply in love with an officer who accompanied Sir John Moore
in the Peninsular war. The constant danger to which he was exposed,
had, of course, a very great effect on her spirits. One night, after
falling asleep, she imagined she saw her lover pale, bloody, and
wounded in the breast, enter her apartment. He drew aside the curtains
of the bed, and with a look of the utmost mildness, informed her that
he had been slain in battle, desiring her at the same time to comfort
herself, and not take his death too seriously to heart. "It is
needless," says McNish, "to say what influence this vision had upon a
mind so replete with woe. It withered it entirely, and the unfortunate
girl died a few days thereafter." Many such instances as these might
be adduced, where all the explanations and consolations of philosophy
have been rejected, and the unfortunate lady has actually died from
the grief produced by the confident expectation of the realization of
a dream or vision. I can well imagine the eagerness with which the
females of antiquity would crowd around their seers, and their
oracles, to have unveiled to them the mysteries of the future. Even
now, women are much more disposed to consult gypsies and fortune
tellers, than men. But they are most apt to incline to these petty
superstitions, if I may use the expression, when under the influence
of strong passion, such as that of love. We all know, that one deeply
in love, is apt to be a little superstitious; and many there are
besides the Phebe of Irving, who can wander forth in the "stilly
night," when the moon is pouring her silvery radiance over the world,
and kneel upon the "stone in the meadow," and repeat the old
traditional rhyme
"All hail to thee, moon, all hail;
I pray to thee, good moon, now show to me
The youth who my future husband shall be."
_2nd. Religious Wants_.
Another reason, no doubt, of the religious differences of the sexes,
is the greater demand or want, if I may use the phraseology of
political economy, which woman experiences for religion. Her whole
education, physical and moral, and her consequent position in society,
contribute to the creation of these religious wants. There are times
and situations in which we all feel in a very peculiar manner the want
of religion. There are periods when the billows of adversity are
rolling high and threatening to overwhelm us with ruin--when all our
ordinary resources have failed--when there is in this world no arm
that can save, no power that can protect us--then does the voice of
nature whisper to us to turn to him who hath promised to be a father
to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow, and to him in the hour
of our peril do we address the fervent prayer. There is no part of the
Journal of the Landers with which I have been more affected, than that
in which John Lander speaks of the disaster of Kirree, while
descending the Niger. Himself and brother had been separated, they met
again on the river, but in the moment of the most heart-rending peril,
when a savage enemy was upon the point of immolating them, and of
destroying at once all those bright visions of glory and usefulness,
which ever float in the ardent imagination of the traveller, and urge
him over seas, and lands, and mountains, and deserts. "This day (says
John Lander,) I thought was to be my last, when I looked up and saw my
brother at a little distance gazing steadfastly upon me; when he saw
that I observed him, he held up his arm with a sorrowful look, and
pointed his finger to the skies. O! how distinctly and eloquently were
all the emotions of his soul at that moment depicted in his
countenance! Who could not understand him. He would have said 'trust
in God.' I was touched with grief. Thoughts of home and friends rushed
upon my mind, and almost overpowered me. My heart hovered over the
scenes of infancy and boyhood. Recollecting myself, I bade them as I
thought an everlasting adieu; and weaning my heart and thoughts from
all worldly associations, with fervor I invoked the God of my life,
before whose awful throne I imagined we should shortly appear, for
fortitude and consolation in the hour of trial. My heart became
subdued and softened; my mind regained its serenity and composure; and
though there was nothing but tumult and distraction without, within
all was tranquillity and resignation." And thus do we find that
adversity often leads us to pay devotion to our God. When the
treasures of this world in which the heart dwelt are swept away, we
are more disposed to look to the imperishable treasures of another
world. "When there is no object on this side the grave on which to fix
our hopes, we delight to extend them beyond the troubled horizon which
bounds our earthly prospects, to wander unconfined in the regions of
futurity,"
"Where all is calm as night, yet all immortal day
And truth, forever shines; and love forever burns."
On the other hand, how truly dismal and appalling at such hours as
those I have been describing, is the condition of the genuine Atheist.
When the plans, and projects, and schemes of this world have failed
him, and all his earthly hopes are untimely blighted by the sad
strokes of cruel fortune; where is his consolation--where his refuge?
Shall he turn to those whom the world once called his friends? Alas!
they were with him in summer and sunshine, when his flocks were
feeding on a hundred hills--when his indiscriminate and boundless
hospitality was the theme of praise on the tongue of the selfish and
sycophantic sensualist, who delighted in his "glutton meal;" and his
splendid mansion was the scene of music and of revelry. In the hour of
his bereavement they turn from him, and even mock him in his
misfortunes! Shall he attempt again to mend his broken fortunes and
rise once more in the world's thought? Perhaps some insuperable
barrier stands before him; friends have deserted him, and old age may
be fast incapacitating him to run again the race of earthly ambition;
and the base treachery of friends, and the mortifying neglect of a
cold and selfish world, may have implanted in his heart, the deep and
uneradicable feeling of dark and gloomy misanthropy, which may forever
unfit him for wearing the world's honors, or coveting the world's
praise. Shall he throw his thoughts beyond this world's horizon, and
look with the spirit of prayer and supplication to heaven for that
support and consolation which is denied him here? No! no! His fatal
skepticism prevents his hopes from resting on another world. It shuts
him up here amid all the gloom and horror of his terrestrial
mansion--concentrates all his dismal thoughts within his own
overwhelmed soul, and leaves him a prey to misery and despondency.
"A woe stricken being, to whose heart
The visions of earth can no rapture impart,
On whose brow the pale garlands of Hope have all faded,
While his soul by the midnight of sorrow is shaded;
What balm could you bring to his bosom's deep sorrow,
If eternity promised no glorious to-morrow?"
I hope then I have said enough to show that there are times and
seasons when the heart of man turns instinctively to the God of nature
for support; that there are times when philosophy, and science, and
friendship, all must fail to administer consolation to the oppressed
heart:--it is then that religion and religion alone can furnish the
balm that can neutralize woe. Under its benign influence the billows
of adversity may roll on--they may break over our heads, but cannot
overwhelm the soul when sheltered securely under its divine panoply.
Now let us inquire whether woman experiences oftener than man those
moments of sorrow and affliction, which religion alone can assuage;
and this inquiry, I think, must be answered by all, in the
affirmative. The sorrows, and griefs, and trials of woman, are not of
so palpable, conspicuous, and sometimes violent a character as are
those of man. They do not attract so universally the gaze of the
world--their consequences are not so extensive--they do not so much
occupy the pen of the historian, or draw forth the speculations of
philosophy; but they are more numerous, more secret; and for this very
reason more calculated to turn her to her God for consolation. I have
already in the preceding number shown, that woman, from her position
in society, is obliged to conceal more than man. She experiences many
sorrows and afflictions, which like the Viola of Shakspeare, she never
tells to any one, but keeps them locked up in her own bosom to brood
over in solitude. Rousseau says, a man truly happy, neither speaks
much nor laughs much--he hugs, so to speak, the happiness to his
heart. "_Il reserre, pour ainsi dire, le bonheur autour de son
coeur._" The assertion which Rousseau here makes concerning the
happiness of man, is strictly true, when applied to the misery of
woman--especially to that most numerous class of her griefs which
spring from wounded affections. This species of misery, if I may
borrow the pencil of Rousseau "elle reserre autour de son coeur." Her
shrinking modesty dares not confess it to the world; sometimes even
the penetrating scrutiny of an affectionate mother is shunned and
deceived. What then is her resource? She knows there is a God who
inhabiteth the high and lofty places of eternity, who has promised to
turn from none who seek him--she feels that all her sorrows are known
to him. She can truly exclaim in the language of the Psalmist, "thou
hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting, mine
uprising: thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compasseth my
path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there
is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord! thou knowest it
altogether." With this being then, who already knows all her
afflictions, does she commune--to him she pours forth the torrent of
her feelings, and tells the tale of her concentrated woe, which no
vulgar ear shall ever hear. This communion becomes sweet to her in the
hour of her afflictions, and she bestows upon him who has promised to
be the friend of the disconsolate and broken-hearted, that love which
perhaps has been slighted and despised by another. "As the dove (says
Irving,) will clasp its wings to its sides, and cover and conceal the
wound that is preying on its vitals--so is it the nature of woman, to
hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. Even when
fortunate she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she
buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and
brood among the ruins of her peace."
It is at such times as these she feels the great want of religion; and
accordingly we find that on tracing the history of woman, we often see
her religious career commencing after some great disappointment--after
some cruel stroke which has been inflicted on the feelings and
affections. In Catholic countries we frequently see women, after these
great disappointments, retiring from the world and immuring themselves
for the remainder of their lives within the walls of a nunnery, where
at a distance from the world and free from the rude gaze of an
inquisitive society, they may spend the remainder of their days in
silent and pensive melancholy, softened and ameliorated by sweet
communion with God. You rarely hear of this on the part of man. If he
survives the misfortunes that for a time have oppressed him, he
plunges into the active business and bustle of the world, and in the
midst of his employments he finds new occupation for his mind--he
summons it away from the contemplation of his grief. New feelings are
called into play, and often succeed in banishing the old. How often do
we find _ambition_ becoming the succedaneum of _love_.
But woman has not this opportunity of withdrawing herself from the
scenes of her misfortunes and griefs. Every object around her reflects
back their images upon her mind; and, go where she will, she is still
like those unfortunate beings, laboring under the illusions of
spectral apparitions;--the phantoms are around her still, gazing on
her with lurid glare whilst awake, haunting her whilst asleep. Nothing
but religion can afford her solace, under afflictions so oppressive
and crushing. Without it, she may well exclaim in the language of the
"Dirge,"
"Vain is the boasted force of mind,
When hope has ta'en her flight;
Then memory is most unkind--
And thought is as the dread whirlwind
That works on earth its blight."
In addition to what is said above, it may be observed that the
physical infirmities of woman, are greater than those of man; she is
liable to sudden changes in health, which endanger her life. Every
child which comes into the world, is an admonition to the mother on
the precariousness of human life, and the necessity of living in a
state of constant preparation for another world.
_3d. Dependence and Physical Weakness_.
Another cause, no doubt, of the more religious character of woman, is
her greater feebleness and dependence upon the powers around her, than
that felt by man. When we look to the stupendous mechanism of the
heavens and the earth, and contemplate the mighty powers that are at
work in the universe, the mind naturally turns, in the spirit of
devotion and prayer, to that infinite, incomprehensible, mysterious
being, who guides and directs those powers. When we contemplate, for
example, the globe on which we stand--think of it as moving at the
rate of more than sixty thousand miles per hour, around that luminous
orb, which at the distance of millions of miles, binds it down to its
prescribed orbit; when we think again of this mass on which we stand,
vast and grand to us, but an atom to him who placed it here, rolling
on its axis, carrying us forward with a compound velocity, which if it
could be suddenly arrested by some opposing mass competent to the
resistance, would be sufficient to tear from their bases all the
mountains and hills of the earth, and hurl their scattered fragments
o'er the vallies--a velocity, whose sudden cessation would prostrate
alike the animal and vegetable kingdoms, burying all in one common
chaotic ruin, from which no one being would escape to sing the funeral
dirge of a _dead world_. When we contemplate all this, and know that
there is a hand competent to the control of these mighty powers; that
under its influence, while thus rapidly hurled along through the
illimitable regions of space, the busy operations of men are going
forward; that the grand tower, the enormous pyramid, the slender reed,
and the delicate spire of grass, stand alike unaffected and unshaken
by this velocity; that the slumbers of the infant on its little couch,
and the spider weaving her delicate web in the "autumnal fields," are
alike undisturbed;--when we look again, and contemplate that thin
elastic medium which we breathe, covering the earth like an invisible
mantle, all quiet and calm at the sunset hour, so that even the
thistle-down lies still and motionless on the earth's surface; then
think again of that same medium, lashed into the fearful tempest,
spreading dismay and destruction along its desolating track, and
scattering the mariner and his cargoes over the billows of the sea; or
when we contemplate that principle of heat which pervades the
universe, constituting the great _vis vivica_, or enlivening power of
nature,--so placid, so sweet, and it would scarcely be metaphor to
add, so _tender_, as it exists around us in the mild and bland
atmosphere of a summer's morning, when
"The lark,
Shrill voiced and loud, the messenger of morn,
Calls up the tuneful nations. And ev'ry copse
Deep tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy moisture o'er the heads
Of the coy quiristers that lodge within,
Are prodigal of harmony."
And then think again of this same agent confined in the earth's mass;
by its sudden action laying hold on the globe with the grasp of more
than ten thousand giants, upheaving the dense and mighty stratum which
lies above it, shaking whole continents by its power, and burying the
toppling cities with the accumulated wealth of ages under its fearful
ruins; when we contemplate, I say, all these powers around us, we see
our dependence on _them_, and again _their_ dependence on omnipotence.
The feeling of dependence forced upon the mind, begets a spirit of
devotion and trust towards the God of nature. At first, overwhelmed by
the evidences of mighty power exerted around and over us, we are
almost disposed to cry out in the language of holy writ, "what is man
that thou shouldst be mindful of him, or the son of man that thou
shouldst deign to visit him." But our confidence revives when we
recollect the promise that "if God so clothe the grass of the field,
which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O ye of little faith."
This spirit of dependence, wherever felt, always begets more or less a
religious spirit of devotion. It is this spirit which, in ages of
ignorance and superstition, begets the worship of heroes, of
statesmen, and philanthropists. It is this spirit which has added such
as Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Isis, Osiris, &c. to the vast catalogue
of the gods in the polytheistic religions of antiquity. It is this
same spirit, which makes the subordinate officer and the soldier, look
with awe and the most confident reliance on the successful military
chieftain, who has so often manoeuvred them like a machine, and has
gained victory after victory by those rapid combinations and skilful
evolutions, which to the mind that does not comprehend, appear to be
the result of inspiration rather than the effects of human wisdom.
Wherever in fine, there is a system of dependence, there you will find
always more or less a spirit of reverence. How intensely does this
spirit manifest itself in a father or mother, who has knelt before an
emperor or king, and obtained the pardon of a condemned son. Now, as I
have already observed, woman feels this dependency much more strongly
than man. She is the weaker vessel, and hence there is a devotional
feeling excited by this dependence, which follows the chain of
dependence up, link by link, until it reaches the throne of
omnipotence. Woman does not feel this dependence from a contemplation
of the mighty physical energies exerted around her by the great powers
of nature; but it arises from her greater weakness and dependency when
compared with the other sex.
Do we not all know that there is something much more devotional in the
love of woman than man--a something much more nearly allied to
religion? Do we not know that this same weakness and consequent
dependence, makes woman more confiding, more trusting, more submissive
than man? She feels much greater veneration for the great and the
powerful, and acquiesces much more readily in the tyranny and
oppression of rulers. Even women of the very first order of intellect
feel this reliance and trust on the greater powers around them. Mrs.
Jameson says, in speaking of the Portia of Shakspeare, "I never yet
met in real life, nor ever read in tale or history, of any woman
distinguished for intellect of the highest order, who was not also
remarkable for this _trustingness_ of spirit, this hopefulness and
cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the most serious
habits of thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady Wortley
Montague was one instance; and Madame de Stael furnishes another much
more memorable."
The physical weakness of woman and her consequent dependence on man,
makes religion more necessary to her for another reason. It is her
interest that every restraint should be imposed on the passions of
man; that he should walk in the paths of virtue and morality; that his
superior strength should be subdued and tempered by motives of
humanity. He is then more kind, more attentive, and more loving to
her. He is then a better father, a better economist,--in fine, a
better citizen, fulfilling more perfectly all the relations of life.
The Christian religion, as we shall soon see, is eminently calculated
to produce this happy result, and consequently woman is deeply
interested in its spread. Let no one start forward with the objection,
that in this way she is the better enabled to _govern_ her husband. I
admit this, if, to govern him, means to restrain him from vice and
immorality; but surely this is a government which no honest good
citizen can object to. Every lady has a fearfully deep interest in the
whole character and temperament of her husband's mind and feelings.
Upon them depend, indeed, her weal or woe. Her condition may be
deplorable, and sometimes irremediable, if a wicked husband choose to
oppress her. But that is certainly a holy and a virtuous selfishness,
if selfishness it can possibly be called, which secures our own
welfare and happiness while adding to that of another, by curbing and
controlling his more violent and malignant feelings and passions, and
attuning the whole inner man to harmony and concord.
_4th. Seclusion and Meditation_.
Again, the life of woman, as has been before remarked, is much more
sedentary, more secluded, and consequently more contemplative than
that of man. Solitude and contemplation are very favorable to the
production of religious impressions and the generation of a spirit of
piety and devotion. Man is so constantly occupied amid the busy scenes
of active employment, so much engrossed with his schemes of ambition
and self-aggrandizement, so rapidly whirled forward by the eddying
current of active life, that he scarcely will take time to pause in
the hurry and bustle of existence to contemplate his Maker, and render
to him the homage that is his due. Public devotion even often breaks
in upon his regular routine of life, and frequently mars some little
pet scheme of the day. He is a Sabbath-day worshipper; a worshipper at
spare times and leisure seasons. But the solitary chamber of a woman,
is often by day and by night, the temple from which in her lone hours
she sends her silent prayers to heaven; the temple from which, in her
silent meditations, her thoughts wander forth and hold sweet communion
with the God of nature.
But, let us investigate a little more philosophically, the effects of
this secluded, meditative, contemplative life of woman. And, in the
first place, all will acknowledge that occasional solitude and
consequent meditation are extremely favorable to the cause of virtue
generally. Whilst we are running our dissipated career, under the
excitement of the passions, we rarely have time, leisure, and
reflection sufficient to determine on reform. "It is not in the
madness of intemperate enjoyment," says Dr. Brown, in one of his most
brilliant lectures, "that we see drunkenness in the goblet, or disease
in the feast. Under the actual seduction of the passion we see dimly,
if we see at all, any of the evils to which it leads." It is in the
hour of solitude and reflection, that the remorseful thought of our
errors and vices, comes across the mind; then, in the coolness and
calmness of solitude, can we trace out the blighting evils that are
likely to follow on our career; then, and then alone, can we
dispassionately view, in the vista of the future, our loss of
character, of health and riches, by the course we are pursuing; then
we behold the melancholy consequences, widening out, until they
embrace our family, friends, neighborhood, and state; we then can
summon, in gloomy review before the mind's eye, our wives and
children, dearer to us than life, living in penury and misfortune, and
perhaps dependent for a scanty subsistence upon the cold hand of
charity. When the mind is capable of reflection--of sketching out this
sad picture, there may be hopes of reform. The individual is never
absolutely, hopelessly lost, who indulges in silent meditations on the
past; such an individual may even be saved at the eleventh hour.
Hence, too, there is virtue in mere intelligence, because intelligence
can always think and meditate. Hence, too, the efficacy of solitary
confinement in the gloomy walls of the prison, and the very
deleterious influence of all prison discipline not based on the
principle of solitary confinement.
Again, any scene of distress, any monuments or associations, which
remind us of the instability of the boasted works of man; anything
which forces a comparison in the mind between the transitory character
and nothingness of the things of earth, when compared with the
eternity of ages that are to follow, or with the perfections and
immutability of God; all such reflections as these are calculated to
make a deep religious impression upon the mind. What classic scholar,
for example, can stand upon the Capitol on the Capitoline Mount, in
Modern Rome, and look over the mouldering but still magnificent ruins
of the imperial city, as they lie scattered and confused over the
vallies and the seven hills, and cast a retrospective glance at the
ages which have gone by, without a deep feeling of religious awe and
of veneration towards the God of nature? When he reflects that the
poet of antiquity describes this classic ground, over which the eye of
the traveller is now wandering in pensive and bewildering gaze, as a
solitary wilderness; when Evander, and afterwards when Æneas came to
the Latian Coast; that the brier and the bramble then grew together in
wild luxuriance on the Tarpeian Hill; that the foxes had their holes
and the birds their nests on the Palatine and the Aventine. When he
looks again to the time of the poet, and beholds the proud imperial
city, the mistress of the world, enthroned in all her gorgeous
splendor and costly magnificence upon the seven hills, wielding the
sceptre of her dominion over the earth,
"Until the o'ercanopied horizon fail'd,"
and sees upon the Tarpeian hill, the splendid temple with its golden
ornaments and its stately columns, instead of the brier and the
bramble, and beholds,
"Pretors, proconsuls to their provinces
Hasting, or on return, in robes of state,
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings:
Or embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits on the Appian road,
Or on the Emilian."
And then looks to her again--when in the awful language of the poet,
"The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood and fire
Have dealt upon the seven hill'd city's pride,"
and sees that the temple upon the Tarpeian mount has been overthrown
and rifled, and the brier and the bramble have come back again, that
owl answers owl upon the Palatine, that the din of arms and the active
bustle and hum of citizens and functionaries of imperial Rome, have
ceased forever on the Appian and Emilian ways, that no stately triumph
mounts the Capitoline hill, to administer to the insatiate ambition of
the rapacious and remorseless Roman, that
"Cypress, and ivy, weed and wall flower grown
Matted and massed together, hillocks heap'd
On what were chambers, arch'd crush'd, columns strown
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd
In subterranean damps,"
now meets his eye where'er it turns. Well may he exclaim with such a
prospect before him, in the language of the same poet,
"The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless in her voiceless woes.
* * * * *
Alas! the lofty city! and alas!
The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
The conqueror's sword, in bearing fame away.
Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
And Livy's pictured page!"
When he sees all these mutations and revolutions on a single spot of
earth, in the hour of his meditations his mind reverts to Him who
alone is immutable and unchangeable, upon whose brow, time writes no
wrinkles. "Alas, the pride of man goes down with him into the dust! it
withers when the lamp of his transient existence flickers out into the
long slumbering of the tomb." Eternal youth, eternal majesty, eternal
duration, belong only to the great, the unchangeable I AM. The
bustling transitory career of the mighty of the earth, when duly
contemplated, should but the more strongly impress on the mind the
infinity, eternity, and omnipotence of Deity. "Where now are they who
sounded the clarion of war along the plains of Thessaly, the mount of
Marathon and Samos's rocky isle. The trumpet's voice hath died upon
the breeze; the thousands which it aroused have gone to rest; the
castles which have been subdued and won, on whose walls the spear
glittered and the cannon pealed, have crumbled into dust; the ivy
lingers about the decaying turrets; the raven builds her nest in the
casement, and sends upon the ear of midnight her desolate wailings;
the owl hoots where the song was heard; and man, proud man, who once
fought and won--he who reared the structure,"
"Sleeps where all must sleep."
There is religion, yes a deep abiding religion in such a retrospect as
this, and the mind which can trace back in its reflections the history
of man along the pathway of ages, and see how dynasties have been
overthrown, and thrones crumbled, how nations have risen, flourished
for a day, then have declined and fallen, and been numbered among the
things that are past and gone, cannot fail to turn, upon the principle
of contrast, to the God of nature, whose throne is eternal, and whose
dominion can never pass away.
Such may be the salutary effect of the reflection of man, when man
reflects. Let us now turn to woman, and see the character of her
meditations and reflections. She perhaps may not, in her solitary
musing, so much delight, as man, to look to the history of nations,
and draw the mighty moral from their fluctuations and vicissitudes.
But there are scenes around her--there are events constantly occurring
in her own limited sphere, which much more frequently, upon the
principles just explained, excite her meditations, and lead her on to
religious devotion. Woman, as I before remarked, is the tender,
constant, and affectionate nurse of our race. Hers is the heavenly
office to watch the sorrows of man and mitigate them, by her sweet,
her benevolent ministrations.
"The very first
Of human life must spring from woman's breast.
Your first small words are taught you from her lips,
Your first tears quenched by her, and your last sighs
Too often breathed out in woman's hearing,
When men have shrunk from the ignoble care
Of watching the last hour of him who led them."
Now this contemplation of pain and suffering, notwithstanding all the
magnificence which pride or grandeur may spread around the couch of
sickness and death, is calculated to force upon the mind the gloomy
truth of the instability of the things of earth, and that there is
nothing but God upon whom we can rely amid all the vicissitudes of
earthly scenes. "The sight of death," says Dr. Brown, "or of the great
home of the dead, seldom fails to bring before us our common and equal
nature. In spite of all the little distinctions which a churchyard
exhibits in mimic imitations, and almost in mockery of the great
distinctions of life, the turf, the stone with its petty sculpture,
and all the columns and images of the marble monument; as we read the
inscription, or walk over the sod, we think only of what lies beneath,
_in undistinguishable equality_." Here then is the scene to which
woman in her meditations is oftener transported than man. Our last
sufferings are longer remembered by her than by man--they produce a
more mighty influence on her mind, and frequently do we see that the
death of a child, of a husband, of a brother, sister, parent, or even
friend, produces a sudden but lasting impression on woman's mind,
arrests her in her gay and thoughtless career--makes her reflect upon
the vanities of this world, and in the end is the cause of her being
gathered into the fold of the faithful and the righteous, where she
can ever after, with truth and feeling, amid all her earthly
prosperity, exclaim in the beautiful language of Gray, in his
Churchyard,
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave
Await alike the inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
_5th. Peculiar Character of the Christian Religion_.
But one of the most important causes of the religious differences of
the sexes, remains yet to be told. _It is the character of the
christian religion, and its peculiar suitability to the whole female
nature and economy._ It may boldly, without fear of contradiction be
asserted, that never since the foundation of the world, has there been
propagated a religion so consolatory to woman in all her sorrows and
difficulties--so liberal in promises--so congenial, in fine, with all
the undefined wants and longings of her heart, as the _Religion of
Christ_. Throughout the world, in all ages and countries where this
religion has not been preached, it may be truly said, that the great
religious wants of woman have not been administered to. She has pined,
if I may use the expression, for the want of religious culture, and
has entirely failed to accomplish, in consequence of it, her sweetest
and most graceful destinies on earth.
Shall we turn for example to the boasted polytheistical religion of
Greece and Rome? how illy adapted do we find it to the wants, the
habits, the sensibilities, and I may add, the virtue and chastity of
woman. It is true, that in the innumerable host of their divinities,
they numbered some distinguished female goddesses. Minerva, Juno,
Diana, Ceres, Venus, &c. occupied very conspicuous stations in the
celestial hierarchy. But we are not to infer from this compliment to
the ladies, that the religion was one adapted to the female character.
When we come to examine it, we perceive at once its barbarous and
uncivilized origin, and see that the progress of science and
civilization in Greece and Rome, merely refined and polished it,
without adapting it to the real wants of society, or purging it of its
enormities and vices.
In the first place, Jupiter, the king of the gods, who could shake all
Olympus with his nod, was not omnipotent. He was restrained by the
fates, and in constant apprehension of combinations among other gods,
to resist or cheat him. Nor was Jupiter, with all the gods to back
him, omnipotent. On one occasion, they were all thrown into
consternation, by the formidable array of the giants, who were
attempting to pile mountain on mountain, Ossa upon Pelion, in order
that they might scale the ramparts of heaven. This great dread proved
the want of omnipotence. Again; Xenophon tells us that the
Lacedemonians used to send up their prayers early in the morning, to
be beforehand with their enemies. Sometimes, according to Seneca,
persons bribed the sexton in the temple to secure a place near the
god, so that he might the more certainly hear them. When the Tyrians
were besieged by Alexander the Great, they chained the Hercules in the
temple to prevent his desertion. Augustus Cæsar, after twice losing
his fleet by storm, determined to insult Neptune, the god of the sea,
publicly; and therefore ordered that he should not be carried in
procession with the other gods. And we are told, that after the death
of Germanicus in Rome, who was a great favorite with the people, they
were so much incensed with the gods, that they stoned and renounced
them.
In the Iliad, after the celebrated quarrel between Agamemnon and
Achilles, when the latter urges his mother Thetis, to lay his
complaints before Jupiter, she tells him that Jupiter has gone in
procession with the other gods, to pay honors to the Ethiopians, and
on his return, she will present his petition. But besides the want of
omnipotence in one or all the gods combined, the polytheistical
religion presented a multitude of gods, among whom reigned the wildest
disorders, the fiercest contentions, and the most revolting vices and
crimes. Jupiter was the king of heaven, and he ruled not like the
Jehovah of the christian, with mildness and love, but depended upon
his thunder and his might. By these terrible means and not by love for
him, his subjects were kept in awe. Listen to him in the 8th book of
the Iliad, where he forbids the gods to take any part in the contest
between the Greeks and Trojans. I give Pope's translation. Jupiter
does not speak in the language of mildness, but threatens and
denounces the most cruel punishment for disobedience, merely because
his power enables him to enforce it.
"What god but enters yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance or but wills to yield;
Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven
Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven," &c.
And the gods obeyed, not from love or affection to Jupiter, but from
absolute terror, inspired by his power.
"The Almighty spoke, nor durst the powers reply,
A reverend horror silenced all the sky;
Trembling they stood before the sov'reign's look," &c.
Poor Juno, the _ox-eyed Juno_, the unfortunate wife of the Olympic
thunderer, was the most unhappy of women, eternally quarrelling with
her imperial husband and complaining of his partiality to her enemies.
Minerva, too, more beloved by Jupiter than his own wife, complains of
him as raging with an evil mind, in perpetual opposition to her
inclinations. Old Vulcan, it is well known, got his lameness by being
thrown out of heaven by Jupiter in a mad fit, occasioned by Vulcan's
interference in behalf of Juno, when persecuted by her unreasonable
and irascible husband.
The gods, too, are represented as frequently engaged in actual strife
with men, and with one another. In the 20th book of the Iliad, when
Jupiter permits the gods to enter the hitherto forbidden field of
Troy, and take sides according to their inclinations, we have a
regular battle between them. Diomed wounds no less than two gods in
the engagement; Venus, who went off weeping to Jupiter, and Mars, the
great god of war. In the same engagement, we have Neptune pitted
against Apollo, the god of the sun, and Pallas or Minerva, matched
with Mars, and actually prostrating him by a huge rock, a most
unfeminine, _unlady-like_ act.
"Thundering he falls: a mass of monstrous size,
And seven broad acres covers, as he lies."
This wise, but most austere and forbidding old maid, appears truly
terrific in this battle of the gods, and seems an overmatch for all,
save the Olympic thunderer.
But again, the morals of the gods were of the most corrupt and
profligate character. Jupiter was the greatest rake of all the ancient
world. How many wives and maidens was he represented as seducing by
the most unfair means? and so regardless was he of his wife Juno, that
she was obliged to borrow the girdle and charms of Venus, when she
wished to captivate the thunderer. The historian tells us that the
Amphitrion of Aristophanes, was supposed in Greece, to be very
pleasing to Jupiter--that he was like all rakes, exceedingly fond of
the recital of his prowess in the arts of love and seduction. Venus,
the goddess of beauty, as we might well suppose, after hearing a
description of her ungainly hard favored husband, was no better than
the thunderer. Her levities _bred_ disturbances in heaven, and heroes
on earth.[2] In view of these circumstances, no one need wonder at the
account which St. Peter gives of the Gentiles in his time, that "they
walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revellings,
banquetings, and abominable idolatries."
[Footnote 2: The Trojan wanderer, the hero of the Æneid, was the son
of Venus, by Anchises a mortal.]
Besides all this, the polytheistical religion was entirely inattentive
to all those rules of morality which civilize and humanize the race of
man, while they bind them together in peace and harmony like a band of
brothers. Minerva, for example, is represented in the 4th book of the
Iliad, as advising Pandarus to endeavor to bribe Apollo with the
promise of a Hecatomb to assist him in assassinating Menalaus,
contrary to the faith of a solemn treaty; and even Jupiter himself
joins with that goddess and Juno in promoting so foul a murder. When
we consider the vices and immoralities of the heavenly host, and then
think of the virtues of the first Romans, we are almost disposed to
assert with Rousseau, that virtue seemed to have been banished from
heaven's confines, to take up her residence on earth. Did human nature
in the ancient world, ever appear in a more stern and dignified
attitude, than when Lucretia was represented as worshipping Venus, and
still plunging the dagger in her bosom, because she had lost her
virtue? What a practical rebuke was here given to the lascivious queen
of beauty.
I need scarcely conclude this little episode in which I have been
indulging, by the assertion that such a religion was unsuited to the
wants of the human race, but particularly of woman. She likes to send
from her closet, or from her silent and solitary chamber her prayers
to heaven. She therefore requires an all-seeing, all-searching eye,
which can behold her in the prayerful moments of her solitude. She
likes to commune with a God who is omnipotent and able to heal and
save. Her nature shudders at the conflicts and broils of the gods of
the heathen--at their immoralities and vices. The female deities are
all gross, lewd, masculine conceptions, unworthy of the delicacy,
chastity, modesty and grace of the virtuous female. The gods were all
unworthy of her confidence and entire _trustingness_. Where is the
virtuous woman of the modern world, who, in the hour of affliction and
trial, would unbosom herself before so terrible, so wicked, and so
licentious a being as the Jupiter of the ancients? Or what female
could bear to contemplate the amours of Venus, or to imitate the acts,
and the monstrous immorality of the goddess of wisdom. Well then might
the worshippers of such beings be described as "dead in trespasses and
sins," and well might St. John, in view of such a religion, exclaim
"the whole world lieth in wickedness."
If we turn from the Polytheistic religion of the ancient world, to the
Monotheistic religion of the Mohammedan, we shall find the whole of
this system more gloomy, more revolting, and more repugnant to woman's
feelings, than even the Polytheistical. The fiery warlike character of
the prophet, the propagation of the religion by fire and sword--the
total degradation of the female character--the seraglio and the
attendant eunuchs, and the low and sensual offices of the black-eyed
Houris in Mohammed's paradise, are all too revolting to the women of
christian countries, to be even contemplated with composure for a
moment. We are not to wonder at the implacable hostility of christian
females all over the world towards the moslem. Women have always
attended in considerable numbers the armies of Europe, when it was
threatened with invasion by the devastating armies of the Turks.
D'Israeli in his very interesting collection of the curiosities of
literature, has a chapter on "events, which have not happened," and
gives us some speculations on the fate of Europe, if the Saracens
under Abderam had beaten Charles Martel at Tours. What woman now
moving with freedom and grace in the social circles of christendom,
but shudders at the bare idea of such a result.
Let us now turn to the _religion of Christ_, and contemplate its
character for a moment. And here shall we find a religion in every
respect suited to the character of woman. It has been truly and
emphatically pronounced to be a _religion of love_. The very scheme of
salvation was conceived by the Almighty in a spirit of love. God is
represented as so loving the world, that he gave his only begotten Son
to save it. And when that Son came into the flesh, and was asked by
the Pharisees for the most important commandments of the law, Christ
answered, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with
all thy soul, with all thy mind; and the second is like unto it. Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all
the law and the prophets." Now I have already shown in my first
number, that woman loves more tenderly, more devotedly, and constantly
than man. This religion of Christ, then, above every other, is fitted
for that deep abiding love which woman feels so much oftener than man.
It is eminently and peculiarly adapted to that being whose whole
history has been pronounced to be a history of the affections. "There
is nothing surely on earth (says Mrs. Butler,) that can satisfy and
utterly fulfil the capacity for loving, which exist in every woman's
nature. Even when her situation in life is such as to call forth and
constantly keep in exercise the best affections of her heart, as a
wife and a mother; it still seems to me as if more would be wanting to
fill the measure of yearning tenderness, which like an eternal
fountain gushes up in every woman's heart; therefore, I think it is,
that we turn, in the plenitude of our affections, to that belief which
is a religion of love, where the broadest channel is open to receive
the devotedness, the clinging, the confiding trustfulness, which are
idolatry when spent upon creatures like ourselves, but becomes a holy
worship when offered to heaven."[3]
[Footnote 3: In an Epistle supposed to be written by the famous Abbé
Rencé, of la Trappe, this alliance between love and religion is well
described, though rather too much in the peculiar style of a
thoughtless Frenchman, "Je n'avois plus d'amante (says the Abbé,) il
me fallùt un dieu."]
But again--was there ever a being so congenial, so suitable to the
character of woman, as the Saviour of the world. He condescended to be
born of woman. Mary was his mother; and while executing the high
behests of his father on earth, he treated his mother with the most
affectionate and filial tenderness. And then his character was all
mildness and meekness. He who could come forth in all the might of his
father,
"Into terror chang'd,
With countenance too severe to be beheld;
And full of wrath,"
hurl the fearful host of fallen and rebellious angels into the
bottomless pit, and chain them there through the endless ages of
eternity--could, whilst in this world, bear the scoffings, the
revilings, the buffetings of sinful man, could beg his father to
forgive his persecutors, because they knew not what they did. His
dominion in this world was not based upon violence, devastation and
bloodshed. In his glorious career, he made no widows and orphans.
Wherever he moved, he carried consolation and healing to the lowly and
the humble. He restored the sick, and made the lame to walk, the blind
to see, and the dead to come forth from their sepulchres. His kingdom
was one of peace, and harmony, and forbearance. He commanded his
disciples to love one another, and to serve his father in spirit and
in truth. He did not, like Mohammed, exclude woman from an equal
participation in all the promises of the gospel; and he declared that
Mary and Martha had chosen that good part which should not be taken
from them. Woman ministered to him while on earth; she was with him at
the cross; she was with him at his grave:
"Not she with trait'rous kiss her Saviour stung--
Not she denied him with unholy tongue;
She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave--
Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave."
The religion of the cross has been very truly pronounced to be a
species of legislation in behalf of the rights of woman. The
promulgation of the new gospel elevated her at once to that station
which she deserves, and which adds so much to the refinement,
happiness and prosperity of the world. Compare the woman of the modern
with her of the ancient world; compare the woman of christendom with
her of the heathen, and then will you behold the mighty agency of the
religion of Christ in the amelioration of her destiny. Well then may
woman cleave to this religion, as the ark of her safety and
dependence. Well may she worship the Saviour of the world, for he was
the true friend of woman--the husband to the widow, and father to the
fatherless.
Woman is most deeply interested in the success of every scheme which
curbs the passions and enforces a true morality. She is the weaker
portion of the human family. When wickedness reigns in the land, and
might is recognized as constituting right, she is always the great
sufferer. Behold her among barbarians--among nations and people
engaged in deadly strife, and how miserable do you always find her
condition. Now the new gospel, in addition to the best religion which
has ever been given to the world, contains likewise the very best
system of morality. I have always thought that it was one of the most
beautifully characterising traits of the christian religion, that it
has ever been found better and better adapted to our condition, as the
human race advances in civilization, knowledge and morality; and in
this respect, no religion was ever found like it. The sermon of Christ
on the mount, contains a system of morality which will be more and
more appreciated as long as the world stands.
_6th. Nervous System_.
In giving an account of the causes of religious differences between
the sexes, I have not adverted to the effects produced by
physiological differences of the nervous systems of the sexes. The
whole frame and nervous system of woman, is said to be much more
delicate and sensitive than that of man. Hence an additional tendency
to the reception of quick and sudden impressions of all kinds. Hence
too, the great proneness of woman to irritation and to hysteric
affections,[4] and her liability to great and frequently overpowering
excitement, in those religious congregations where enthusiasm is
propagated by contagion. I have frequently seen indiscriminate
multitudes assembled together for worship, when every soul was
concentrated, and every mind was mingled in the same thought; when all
hearts were blended in song--"The poor man by the side of the rich,
without being jealous, had forgotten his miseries--the rich man had
learned his indigence." All seemed to have obtained intelligence of
their bright celestial destiny; all seemed prepared for it, rejoicing
together, and all seemed advancing towards it. On these occasions, I
have always witnessed more feeling, more earnestness, and more
enthusiasm among the women than the men; and not unfrequently have I
seen them cry aloud, and continue in a state of violent agitation for
many minutes. The greater nervous irritability of the female then,
must certainly be ranked among the causes of her peculiarly religious
temperament. But I will not dwell longer on the causes of the
religious differences between the sexes. It is sufficient to know that
woman is more religious every where than man, and that the causes
assigned for this difference, if not the only ones, are certainly the
most important and most powerful in their operation. I will conclude
my remarks on this deeply interesting subject, by a brief
consideration of some of the effects of religion on the character of
woman.
[Footnote 4: Babington tells us, that in orphan asylums, hospitals and
convents, the effect of contagion is so great, that the nervous
disorder of one female easily and quickly becomes the disorder of all.
He tells us, upon the authority of a medical work, on which he places
the most implicit reliance, of a large convent in France, where the
example of one female who imitated the mewing of a cat, set the whole
convent to mewing, so as to make every day a complete cat concert. And
upon the authority of Carden, he tells of a nun in a German convent,
who commenced biting her companions like a mad dog. The contagion
spread from one to the other, until all in the nunnery were affected
with this rabid humor, which spread from convent to convent until it
reached Rome. These cases, however, if they actually occurred, were of
a very extraordinary character, and could only happen under such
circumstances as generally attend on the secluded, contemplative and
eccentric life of a convent, which nature never intended to be the
life of a rational, active, social being.]
_Effects of Religion on Woman_.
Religion, I mean the religion of the heart and of the feelings, such
as woman generally possesses, has undoubtedly a tendency to heighten
and improve all those qualities and attributes which we consider as
most essential to the female character. All the great duties of life,
those of wife, mother, friend, &c. she performs with a double relish,
and under the influence of a double motive. Religion furnishes a new
and powerful impulse to virtue. Virtue, it is true, has its own
charms, and may be said, by the happiness which it affords, to
constitute its own reward; but you have never so well fortified it and
guarded it against dangerous assault, as when you have thrown over it
the sacred panoply of the christian religion. Most of the religions of
the world have chimed in with the prevailing tendencies of the corrupt
portions of our nature, and have flattered and ministered to some of
the worst and most malignant passions of the human heart. Not so with
the christian religion; it has exalted the humble and meek in spirit,
and pulled down the proud and wicked: it has waged war on vice and the
indulgence of evil passions of every description, and has proclaimed
the great law on which the whole code of morality hangs, that
"whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them."
The religious female then, in addition to all the ordinary motives
which can incite to virtue, has the additional one of wishing to
please her God and of providing for her happiness hereafter. Religion
softens and disciplines the feelings, it quickens and heightens the
tender sensibilities, and increases all the sympathies of our nature.
It throws, in fine, a drapery of grace, of amiableness and loveliness
over the whole female character. Woman is never so lovely as in the
quiet unobtrusive discharge of her religious duties. "Men," says Dr.
Cogan, "contemplate a female atheist with more disgust and horror,
than if she possessed the hardest features embossed with carbuncles."
Even those who do not believe in the truth of christianity, turn
frequently with disgust from unbelieving women; they know too well the
value of religion and piety in the mother and the wife; they know full
well that the religious woman is generally the one who loves most
tenderly, most engrossingly, and most constantly. There is a
mysterious connection between even human love and religion. Rousseau
has long ago remarked upon the similarity of the languages of the
two.[5] How soon does a man in love, convert his mistress into an
_angel_; he is ready to make every _sacrifice_ for her; he kneels at
her _shrine_; he _worships_, he _adores_ her; 'tis _heaven_ where she
is, _torment_ where she is not.
[Footnote 5: He says that "the enthusiasm of devotion borrows the
language of love; the enthusiasm of love borrows the language of
devotion."]
I have already spoken of some of the effects of human love on man; it
is through the medium of the same powerful, mysterious agent, that
woman can frequently do so much for the cause of religion. There are
few men who can be deeply devoted to a pious female without a deep
sense of the beauty, the loveliness, and the holiness of true
religion. I once knew a being who loved, and loved devotedly a pious
lady. I have seen him gaze on her, as she moved before him in all the
loveliness of modesty and grace. Her looks, her words, her actions,
were all the subject of his intensest thoughts. I do believe he had
wrought them into a science, which he did most dearly love to study.
"She could bend him to her ev'ry will,
His soul's emotions all were in her power."
This being was not an unbeliever, but yet he was indifferent towards
religion. As soon, however, as he had felt the sweet influence of
human love, his mind assumed decidedly a religious cast; his thoughts
were more frequently turned on high. He declared, in the plenitude of
his affections, that he felt an indescribable pleasure in kneeling
beside the object of his affections at the altar, and mingling his
prayers with hers. He felt a deeper veneration and love for the God of
nature, because that God was loved by _her_, whose pure love, in his
mind at least, could sanctify and hallow every object which it
embraced. Reader! you who have wandered into distant climes, have you
not sometimes at sunset hour, when the great orb of day was pouring
his last flood of dimmed light over a world fast sinking into rest,
when every breeze had died away and every noise was hushed, reflected,
with feelings which no language could adequately describe, that the
same great luminary might be shedding his light on the dear friends of
your bosom, and that she whom you most tenderly loved, might then,
perhaps far away, be gazing on the same object? With feelings like
these, would the being just described direct his prayers and thoughts
to heaven. It almost seemed to him that they met _hers_ there, and
held communion together.
And yet, be not surprised, he never told his tale of love to her! She
might have known it, for acts and looks are more eloquent than words.
But the impression produced on this individual by the absorbing
affection which he felt for one pious woman, remained with him; he
declares that the bare remembrance of her who seems to him even now a
vision of loveliness and piety on earth, has made him a better and a
holier man. He can truly and feelingly declare in those exquisite
lines of Petrarch's, whose beauty no translation can express,
"Gentil mia donna, io veggio
Nel mover de' vostri occhi un dolce lume
Che mi mostra la via che al ciel conduce."
Yes, and there are thousands besides who, like him, have been indebted
to pious females for that "sweet light" which illumines the path to
heaven.
I have already said that the female communicants in our country, form
from two-thirds to three-fourths of the whole church. If you will
examine into this small comparative number of male communicants, you
will find that one-half, or perhaps three-fourths have been brought
into the church either directly or indirectly by female influence. But
we must remember that this great, this salutary influence of woman, is
exercised through the medium of her example, and of the sweet
propriety and purity of her demeanor before God and man. She need not
preach her own goodness, like the Pharisee; she need not obtrude her
sentiments, with the enthusiasm of the fanatic, on those around her.
It is not her province to go upon the highway and compel all to come
in to the feast. She is not the being to force you by denunciation and
terror, to enter the church; all this is offensive, but particularly
so in a modest female.[6]
[Footnote 6: St. Peter speaks in the following terms, to christian
ladies whose husbands were not yet converted to the new faith:
"Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your husbands, that if any obey
not the word, they also without the word, may be won by the
conversation of the wives, while they behold your _chaste conversation
coupled with fear_." This recommendation of the apostle, marks out the
true province of woman in matters of religion.]
Under the present system of education it is rarely the case that woman
can discuss with grace, and elegance, and truth, the doctrinal points
of religion. "Judge not that ye be not judged," is a text which every
woman should bear constantly in mind. A female persecutor is the most
odious of her sex. I have often thought that the bigoted,
bloody-minded Mary, queen of England, was the most unlovely woman
mentioned in the page of English history; and we can scarcely blame
her equally bigoted husband, in withholding all affection and love
from a woman who resembled him so closely. I do not believe that even
the bigoted husband can love a ferocious, blood-thirsty, bigoted wife.
Mrs. Sandford blames those enthusiastic females "who wander about from
house to house, retailing the spiritual errors of the day, feeling the
religious pulse, dispensing prescriptions, and giving notoriety, at
least, to every new nostrum which would impose on the credulity of
weak and wayward christians; going about with their little casket of
specifics, they excite and foster the diseases they affect to cure."
Such enthusiasm as this, she well observes, "bears not the rose of
Sharon, but the apple of discord: not clusters of the celestial vine,
but spurious berries, which have the form, but not the sweetness of
the genuine fruit." There is a something in the quiet, meek, gentle,
and unobtrusive aspect and demeanor of the truly pious woman, which,
of itself, produces a mighty influence on the other sex. In the
collection of Lely's famous Windsor Beauties, there is one which
strikes the eye of the beholder, and rivets it in steadfast and
extatic gaze, it is the picture of Mrs. Nott. In Mrs. Jameson's
description of those Beauties, I have been more struck with Mrs. Nott,
although her tale is untold, than with any in the collection, not
excepting even the beautiful, the lovely Miss Hamilton. This fair
creature is represented with her book, and her flowers, and her
_village church_, in the back ground. These are the beautiful and
graceful appendages of piety and virtue. "As for the picture," says
Mrs. J. "it is some satisfaction to know, that slander has never
breathed upon those features to sully them to our fancy; that sorrow,
which comes to all, can never come there." Gazing on such a lovely, I
had like to have said _holy_ picture, well might she exclaim, "Is
there no power in conjuration to make those ruby lips unclose and
reveal all we long to know? Are they forever silent? The soul that
once inhabited there, that looked through those mild eyes, the heart
that beat beneath that modest vest; are they fled and cold? And of all
the thoughts, the feelings, the hopes, the joys, the fears, 'the hoard
of unsunn'd griefs' that once had their dwelling there; is this--this
surface--where beauty yet lives, 'clothed in the rainbow tints of
heaven,' but mute, cold, impassive--all that remains." And such will
ever be the curiosity which a meek, beautiful, and pious female, will
excite in the bosom of sensibility and affection.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.