"I now see
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself
Before me; Woman is her name, of man
Extracted: for this cause he shall forego
Father and mother, and to his wife adhere;
And they shall be one flesh, one heart, one soul."
The imagination paints this scene. In fancy we behold Adam winning
Eve, "for she would be wooed, and not unsought be won." Won she was,
and Adam was brought to the sum of earthly bliss. They dwell together
in sweet accord, Adam fears for her safety when apart from him. Evil
threatens them. Together they would be strong, he thinks, apart they
would be weak, and so in fear he speaks of the enemy lurking in the
garden, and seeking to find them asunder.
"Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need;
Whether his first design be to withdraw
Our fealty from God, or to disturb
Conjugal love, than which, perhaps, no bliss
Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee and protects.
The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures."
Eve resents the imputation of weakness, and insists on being left
forever fancy free to roam at will. In self-confidence she goes forth
and falls, and in falling introduces sin into the world.
Let us review the past, and recall a few facts which, deserve
consideration, before we enter upon the contemplation of Woman's Work
and Woman's Mission. It will not be denied that Eve was created to be
a helpmeet. That Satan tempted her, and converted the helpmeet into a
tempter. In that light we have considered her power. We have seen that
Eve, in bringing ruin to man, turned her back upon the Creator and
Preserver of mankind, and paved the way for the introduction of
idolatry, the shadows of whose multiplying altars shrouded the old
world in the gloom of night. From the ruin of Eve to the restoration
in Mary, the history of this world resembles a deep valley filled with
death and sorrow and gloom. In Adam all died, in Christ all shall be
made alive. Bethlehem with its manger is set over against Eden with
its bower. During that old dispensation, manly qualities were honored
and womanly qualities were ignored. The effects of sin are seen. God
doth not hold guiltless the sinner. The consequences of sin run on.
They made woman's life wretched. They changed the helpmeet into a
slave. Do not rebel, woman, at the utterance, nor suffer yourself to
feel that God does not care for woman, or that he willingly afflicts
her.
It is at this point you do well to survey the field. We know that
God's purposes run on. That God was not and will not be defeated. That
the plan formed in the councils of eternity is sure to be successfully
executed.
Hence God's idea of woman is yet to bless the world. What sin
destroyed Christ came to restore, and more than to restore. In heaven
if not on earth we shall see woman as God made her, and as God
glorified her. This brings us to the consideration of what Christ did
for her. He did not permit Mary to become Intercessor, and so give a
sanction to Mariolatry, which in evil is second only to idolatry.
He did not lift woman to the position of ruler, nor did he give any
sanction to the wild vagaries of the Christless ones, who are striving
to overturn the foundations of society, and who rebel against
motherhood, wifehood, and sisterhood; but he did turn the attention
of the world towards the graces of womanhood, and while he turned his
back upon those manly qualities of labor, of pluck, of brute courage,
he turned his face towards meekness, gentleness, and love, and made
the vales of life to blossom with a new beauty. He welcomed woman as a
companion. He sought her for sympathy's sake, and opened his heart to
her in the fullest confidence.
Let us notice this truth. In making woman's work a work of charity, he
continued in the New Dispensation the work which was commenced in the
Old. He lifted the thread where woman broke it, and reuniting it again
sent her forth into the world to bless it with love, with sympathy,
with ministrations of tenderness, with an elevating companionship,
which makes man worthy of his origin, and helps him to fulfil the
mission of God's anointed.
And though Satan has taken this new thought and perverted it, as he
has perverted all the rest, and though he has employed the Church of
Rome, by organizing women into orders and sisterhoods of charity, so
that woman may again be enslaved and destroyed; though the story of
her confinement in nunneries and establishments little better in form
than prisons, and far more cruel in character, has been written, let
us not be discouraged, but believing that Christ's plan is best, let
us learn what his will is, and then let us do it in the fear of God
and in the love of truth, assured that his ways are higher and better
and grander than ours, and that it is safe to trust God even where
we cannot trace him, remembering that "he doeth great things, past
finding out; yea, and wonders without number."
In considering Woman's Work and Woman's Mission, we discover that they
go hand in hand, and faith is the bond which unites them. Separate
woman's work from her mission, and you divorce it from that which
makes it honorable and praiseworthy. It is the spirit of faith, and
love, and hope, and charity, which pervades the life of the true
woman, that is her glory and her praise. The difference between woman
as a drudge and woman as a helpmeet, describes the relation existing
between her work and her mission. Work separated from this path of
faith, love, and charity, becomes unholy to the world and unbearable
to her. The holiest of all work for a mother is to care for her child.
That child, so helpless now, is to reward her by acts of love and
deeds of valor. Take away from woman her faith, let her feel that her
work is a degradation, and there is nothing more beautiful in her
attentions to a child than there would be in her attentions to a pig.
When in the country the children and their parents were floating in a
little boat on a river's surface, they admired the lilies with their
white leaves spread out on the wave. After they had looked upon the
flower, I asked them to observe the roots, and see in what they
were embedded. They replied, "The roots are in the mud." That lily
illustrates truthfully the spiritual character of woman's work. Though
her life may be passed in drudgery, yet the flower of her life is
seen in the neatness, beauty, and comfort of the home, and her joy
is derived from the commendation received by her diligence and toil.
Truly has the poet told, in this homely way, how