A good wife rose from her bed one morn,
And thought, with a nervous dread,
Of the piles of clothes to be washed, and more
Than a dozen mouths to be fed.
There were meals to be got for the men in the field,
And the children to fix away
To school, and the milk to be skimmed and churned;
And all to be done that day.
It had rained in the night, and all the wood
Was wet as it could be,
And there were pudding and pies to bake,
And a loaf of cake for tea.
The day was hot, and her aching head
Throbbed wearily as she said--
"If maidens but knew what good wives know,
They would, be in no hurry to wed."
"Jennie, what do you think I told Ben Brown?"
Called the farmer from the well;
And a flush crept up to his bronzed brow,
And his eye half bashfully fell;
"It was this," he said, and coming near,
He smiled, and stooping down,
Kissed her cheek--"'twas this, that _you were the best
And dearest wife in town_!"
The farmer went back to the field, and the wife,
In a smiling and absent way,
Sang snatches of tender little songs
She'd not sung for many a day.
And the pain in her head was gone, and the clothes
Were white as foam of the sea;
Her bread was light, and her butter was sweet,
And golden as it could be.
"Just think," the children all called in a breath,
"Tom Wood has run off to sea!
He wouldn't, I know, if he only had
As happy a home as we."
The night came down, and the good wife smiled
To herself, as she softly said,
"'Tis sweet to labor for those we love--
'Tis not strange that maids will wed!"
There is a glory in motherhood which robes woman in beauty, and fills
the home with the light of heaven. The mother, busy with her cares,
and attending to the wants of her children, is honored wherever Christ
is loved.
Now, because the world links woman's work and mission together,
the world is full of pictures of the mother and the child. To a
true-hearted man, it is almost impossible to find any picture to which
his nature turns with fonder delight than to that of a mother with
a child sleeping on the breast, full of sweet trust and enjoying a
dreamless repose, or being ministered to in his nude state in the
morning bath. The spiritual covers the common with a halo of glory,
and robes woman in the light of love.
The same is true of the housewife. In the daily routine of duty, which
is essential to the comfort and bliss of home life, there is nothing
very attractive in the ordinary occupations of the home. Let a woman
attempt the task with no outlook, with no hope. Let her do it for so
much money, and nothing more, and she becomes morose, discontented,
sad and cheerless. Let her do this for love. Let her feel that she is
contributing to some one's joy, or that she is to use the money earned
for some worthy purpose, and at once the loftiness of her purpose
sanctifies her deed, and renders that which would have been
unbecoming, if done without a motive, right and noble when performed
under the pressure of a great and noble aspiration, for "'tis sweet to
labor for those we love."
Woman's work is defined by her Creator to be a work of charity. She is
a helpmeet. A gift she came to man. Her life is a constant giving up
of rights and privileges for the happiness of others. She waits on man
not for pay, but for love. She ministers to him in sickness and in
health. It is not the deed, but the spirit which sanctifies the deed,
that makes it lovely. Compel her by force, by fear, or by rewards, to
do what she performs because of love, and you destroy all the beauty
of the action, and convert the ministering angel into a menial, the
God-appointed woman into a brutalized slave. God made her a gift, and
the law of her life is in giving. She fulfils the functions of her
life by living in harmony with the law of love. The woman, described
with such inexpressible tenderness by Luke (vii. 37-50), attracts
attention by this feature. She came to Christ while he was reclining
at table. She had sinned. Still she loved. Here were Christ's feet
hanging over the table's edge, while Christ reclined. As he was
talking, behold this woman bending over them, her hot tears raining
on them, and she busy wiping off the tear-drops with her hair, and
kissing them, anointed them with costly ointment. She loved, and
therefore evidenced it by deeds. Her love, blossoming into action,
won Christ. He saw that she loved. Perhaps love had led her astray at
first. No matter. Love she possessed, and love she desired to lavish
on some object worthy of her regard. That object she discovered in
Jesus. She took her alabaster-box of precious ointment, and went after
him. She enters the Pharisee's house; it may have been the house where
she had fallen. The Pharisee seemed to know her character, and so he
said, "This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what
manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner."
Christ did not at once recognize the suspicion, but supposing the case
of the two debtors, and having obtained from Simon the declaration,
that the one would love most who was forgiven most, turned upon him
the force of the logic, by saying, "Seest thou this woman? I entered
into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she both
washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
Thou gavest me no kiss; but this woman, since the time I came, hath
not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint;
but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. And he said to the
woman, _Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace_."
Let woman's work be regarded as a work of charity by man, and the
larger portion of women will be satisfied. The servant finds pleasure
in service, when the obligation is recognized as a debt not to be paid
for in money.
No wife would do what she is compelled to perform, or suffer what she
is compelled to endure, for her board and clothes. It is when man
refuses to give her more than these, she revolts. Man never won woman
to leave her single life and her home comforts to enter his house as a
helpmeet by a consideration of the work to be done. It was not in the
contract. He talked then of love, of companionship, of help. The other
was in the bond by mutual consent, but it was regarded as beneath
their notice to talk about it. Her nature yearned for love, and lives
on love.
Now, when a man forgets that love, companionship, and the thousand
attentions which sweeten and brighten life, are due to his wife, and
when he lifts up the drudgery and the slavery of life into prominence,
and tells her that she is only fitted to hold a menial place, he
insults, if he does not destroy the woman, and degrades himself. On
the other hand, let a woman refuse to be influenced by this law of
charity, and she becomes a curse instead of a blessing, a hinderance
instead of a helpmeet.
It is a very common complaint that a good servant is difficult to
find. Some are slovenly, some are dishonest, while those who are both
able and truthful, are pronounced intolerable, frequently because of
their impertinence. All can understand the reason. The servant has no
interest in her employer who refuses to _give_ anything. The servant
works for so much money. "As to rights, privileges, and perquisites,
it is not unfrequently either a battle or a sort of armed treaty
between kitchen and parlor." Many will admit this, and will forget or
ignore the cause. Listen to the servants' story, and you will find
them complaining of the stinginess, or tyranny, or selfishness of the
employer.
Let the law of charity rule both employer and employed, and behold the
change. The mistress recognizes her weight of obligation to a good
and faithful domestic. She feels that her services are beyond price,
invaluable to her. The effect is seen at once. The sluggish step is
quickened. Love takes the place of indifference if not of dislike, and
the relations of friendship are at once recognized. No mistress has a
right to expect that her servants will be bound to her by the ties of
friendship, if she manifest no friendly feeling for them; or that they
will become devoted to her interests, if she take no interest in their
welfare. The law of mutual dependence must be recognized and obeyed.
God is love. God loves. Therefore, it is a pleasure to love and serve
God. It is a pleasure to serve whoever is appreciative and lovable. It
is a task to serve those who are unappreciative and unlovable. At the
same time a Christian servant has no right to slight her work, or be
unfaithful, because of the harshness or unkindness of her employer.
Live for God, and serve Christ in serving well those by whom you are
employed, and you will not lose your reward on earth nor in heaven.
Trusty and true, your services will become of immense importance, and
doors to usefulness will open before you because of the superintending
care of Him who is too wise to err and too good to be unkind. Let not
woman dislike the term _service_ or _servant_. Christ honored it by
becoming the servant of all, and made it honorable by commanding that
he who would be chief must serve, and by his service rise.
Woman sometimes revolts because her work is classed under the head
of _domestic_, and yet this is the chief characteristic that must
distinguish it. That is, her work must have a look homeward, whether
she toils in the store or factory or printing-office or kitchen.
Somehow the stream of love must sing as it goes babbling by, "Home,
home, there is no place like home," else woman fails in her life-work.
Her education must fit her for a home and for home work. Let a man
learn that he married a toy, a plaything, a lay figure, useful only
for the purposes of exhibiting his taste in jewelry and dress, who
desires to be petted and fondled, to be caressed and flattered, but
who is incapable of doing anything to contribute to his happiness at
home or to his influence abroad, and he comes to feel that she is
an encumbrance. If he clings to the old love, and cherishes the old
conviction, he learns to treat his wife as a plaything, and to forget
her as a helpmeet. He thinks of her as of a toy, which may be used or
cast aside at pleasure. She knows and feels the lack of his love. If
she becomes dissatisfied, and refuses to make the effort to become a
helpful wife and a loving companion, or to be influenced by the law
of charity; if she determines to seek happiness in obtaining the
admiration of others, which once unwittingly came from her husband;
then is she probably ruined, and becomes a "body of death" fastened to
one who looks forward to the grave as a refuge and a release, or who
finds in the society of other women that pleasure which is denied him
at home. Perhaps nothing is more disgusting than to see an empty brain
hidden behind a pretty face, or an empty heart concealed beneath
costly drapery. A woman who is handsome and is illiterate, who is
incapable of speaking entertainingly, is far more homely than a plain
face in front of a well cultivated intellect; and a plain dressed
woman, with a heart full of love, is to be preferred to a splendidly
dressed form which is destitute of soul. Jewels, laces, and silks are
not a fit dress for a corpse, and yet a heartless woman is to a man
who knows her as soulless as an inanimate body coffined for the tomb.
Having thus briefly considered the necessity of linking woman's work
and mission together, let us define her work, and consider what is her
mission.
Woman has work to do. Though idleness does not destroy her as it does
a man, yet it does not become her. Merely to display her charms for
the admiration of others cannot be the destiny of one created with a
woman's hand and head, and endowed with woman's soul. From the nature
of the case, her work should be womanly in its character; that which
is within doors rather than without; which belongs to the ornamental
rather than to the mechanical. There is no sense in woman's working in
the field while man measures tapes or counts thimbles, or in his doing
other in-door work for which woman's light touch renders her better
qualified. When we look at women who have become coarse in the
expression of their features, and ungainly in form and movement,
through the weight of their daily toil, we see the folly of those who
would make the woman the equal, or the rival, instead of the helpmeet
of man; and feel indignation that, since many of our women must earn
their own livelihood, we have not a more natural division of labor,
which would assign to man the heavier, and to woman the lighter
kinds of work. As woman's faith blesses as well as saves her; it is
essential that her work be linked in some way to the exercise of
faith, and to the unfolding of love. For the character of the work
exerts an influence upon woman's body as well as upon her soul. If
you will contrast the looks of a happy housewife or domestic with the
looks of a majority of the faces that are seen in factories, the truth
of the position taken will be abundantly sustained. It matters not so
much where the roots of woman's life-work grow, if up through it all,
and above it all, the vine may twine its tendril, and send forth its
flower, and yield its fruit. For this cause the love of Christ and
the hopes of a Christian life seem so essential to her growth and
development, that it is almost impossible to write of a happy,
contented woman, without describing a woman whose faith in Jesus has
regenerated and disinthralled her. Love is the prime requisite to
successful endeavor on a woman's part to be her husband's true
helpmeet; and so, in discharging the duties incident to a life of
toil, woman must be soothed and sustained in her tasks by the joys of
a Christian life. Hence the ruin wrought in shops and factories, in
stores, and homes where Christ is cast out, and where the bliss of
high and holy living is denied.
Woman's mission is to be inferred from a consideration of the wants of
man. Created to be a helpmeet for man, it is essential, if we would
determine her mission, that we ascertain for what purpose man needs
her influence.
God declared, "It is not good for man to be alone," and woman was
brought to him as a companion, to charm his life, to prolong it by
sharing it with him. Her vocation, by birth, is a vocation of love. To
be his helpmeet, not his rival; not to increase, but to lighten, or to
support him, under his cares; to recognize him as the immediate object
of her existence, instead of fancying that he was formed to wait on
her; this is the end for which God has called her into being. As has
been said, "This representation may not satisfy the ambition of some,
who do but degrade themselves by aspiring to occupy a position for
which they are neither intended by God nor qualified by nature,--even
as men and angels fell when they sought to become as gods,--but in
reality it tends to woman's elevation; and, as the whole history of
Christianity doth show, where its truth is most recognized and relied
upon, there woman is happiest and greatest."
The word "mission," as applied to woman, refers to the purpose for
which she was created and brought to man. In considering her mission,
we are safe in avowing that woman found her mission, 1. At home.
Her mission is in the home. Her training must fit her for the home,
whether she serves as a wife or as a domestic. Her life is a success
when she makes home a pleasure and a joy to those to whom the home
properly belongs. It is for this reason that there is deep concern on
the part of many thoughtful minds because the drift of the times is
against educating women for the home. Of the women who are compelled
to earn their own subsistence many prefer the factory and the store to
the work in the family, and, as a result, there are large numbers of
young women who cannot make a loaf of bread or cook a meal, who would
not hesitate to become wives of working-men, who expect to find in
them a helpmeet in building a home like that which blessed their
childhood. The result is dissatisfaction and recrimination, leaving
the wife for the club, and turning from the joys of the home to the
revel of jovial companions.
The same is true of the class of young ladies who know something of
music, vocal and instrumental. They can dance. They have studied
drawing sufficiently to be able to sketch a few flowers and figures.
Perhaps they can speak French and translate German. They know in what
position to sit, and how to move gracefully. All very well these
things in their places, and fitted to increase the charm of manner
when the eyes are lighted up by the informing soul; not undeserving
notice either in their influence upon man, when they are accompanied
by something better, for, amid all the weighty cares of life, he
is sometimes in the mood when such things do please; but sadly
over-estimated when they are made the sole substance and end of a
woman's education. They might nearly all be done by a being without
a soul. They do nothing to draw out the noble qualities of her deep
womanly nature. They leave her altogether unfitted for her peculiar
mission of a wife and mother.
Now, there are times when a woman, despite her imperfect education,
acquires after marriage the knowledge which fits her for the duties
appertaining to wifehood. But where nature yields to such training,
the woman fails both in filling her sphere and in fulfilling her
mission, and falls beneath her true position as the helpmeet of man.
How bitter his disappointment, who, having been smitten by these
gewgaw attractions, and having put faith in the mother of the child
that with this outward attraction she had corresponding qualifications
to fill the home with helpful counsel and sustaining sympathy, when he
comes to find that, instead of a _wife_, he has married a plaything,
and that his children are being committed to the care of a helpless,
unformed companion, rather than to the guidance of a true and noble
wife.
A proper conception of woman's mission as the helpmeet of man would
tend greatly to her elevation. A man who knows for what woman has been
made, and what advantage he should look for from the woman whom he
calls wife, will not select a mere toy as the partner of his life; and
when woman properly recognizes her place, mothers will not be content
to give their daughters, nor will daughters be ambitious, or even
content to receive only such a training as fits them for amusing or
pleasing man in his playful hours, but leaves them altogether unfit
to be his companion under the weightier cares and graver concerns of
life.
Let it be understood that woman's life and labor, mission and work,
point ever homeward, and whether she serve in the store or shop,
in the factory or in the home, she will be ready, whenever God's
providence opens the way, to make home bright for another, because it
has been made bright for herself. In her reading, in her planning, in
her waking dreams and in her night visions, let her live to make
her own home joyous, and she will not live in vain. To do this
successfully in the future, she must make home bright and beautiful in
the present. It is the girl, whose hand is skilful in the home, who
is prized as a companion, because of the substantial linked with
the ornamental. The same is true of a man. Talent, genius even, is
valueless unless it can earn bread. There must be something to make
home pleasant with, which it is the duty of man to provide, else woman
finds it hard to do her work or fulfil her mission. This does not
disparage woman. Her intellect should not be regarded as inferior to
man's because it differs from his. Her mind is formed for a distinct
work and sphere, just as truly as is her body. In that sphere she
is endowed with faculties superior to that of man. Here she has her
requital: here she proves herself mistress of the field, and employs
those secret resources which might be termed admirable, if they did
not inspire a more tender sentiment, both towards her, and towards
God, who has so richly endowed her. "Her practical survey, equally
sure and rapid; her quick and accurate perception; her wonderful power
of penetrating the heart in a way unknown and impracticable to man;
her never-failing presence of mind, and personal attention on all
occasions; her numerous and fertile resources in the management of her
domestic affairs; her ever ready access and willing audience to all
who need her; her freedom of thought and action in the midst of
the most agonizing sufferings and accumulated embarrassments; her
elasticity,--may I say her perseverance,--in spite of feebleness; her
tact to practise it, were it not instinctive; her extreme perfection
in little things; ... her incomparable skill in re-awakening a
sleeping conscience, in re-opening a heart that has long been closed;
in fine, innumerable are the things which she accomplishes, and which
man can neither discern nor offset without the aid of her eye and
hand. Thus, mentally as well as physically, is she predestined for a
work and sphere different from those of her stronger companions. And,
as everything is beautiful in its place and season, so is woman most
beautiful and useful when, like a modest flower, she blooms in
the privacy for which her nature fits her, and perfumes, with the
fragrance of her character, the hallowed precincts of home."[A] "No
man," says Mr. Jay, "was ever proof against the kindness of a sensible
woman; but where, in all history, can an instance be produced in which
an ascendency over him has been obtained by forwardness, scolding, and
strife for preeminence? No wife has such influence with, or even such
control over, her husband, as
"'She who never answers till her husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submission sways,
Yet has her humor most when she obeys.'"
[Footnote A: Woman's Sphere and Work, by Rev. Wm. Landels, D.D.,
London.]
2. Woman's mission is social as well as domestic. The domestic part
of her life is the garden, in which the seed is planted, which brings
forth the flower of social joy. A woman who is the soul of a beautiful
home is a power in society. No matter what her talents may be, let it
be known that she is a slattern at home, and she is without influence.
The pen may serve as a feather to adorn her social life, but it looks
mean when the use of it causes the neglect of the needle.
Woman may be a secret power in the home. She may make home attractive
to the refined and cultured, and thus prove to be the magnet
attracting to herself and to her fireside those gifted sons and
daughters, the scintillations of whose genius and the dissemination of
whose beautiful thoughts make the home luminous with a light which is
inextinguishable. The influence of such a woman over her children and
over the young cannot be overestimated.
"Such a sphere, so far from being insufficient to satisfy a true
woman's ambition, is well fitted, by its tremendous responsibilities,
to excite her fears. There is not one, perhaps, which a human being
can occupy, on which hang more stupendous issues. Though less public,
it is still more potential than man's."
The influence of a true woman cannot be confined to the home. Home
is the fountain, and the world gladly furnishes channels for the
diffusion of her influence. In promoting the cause of reform, in
alleviating the woes of the unfortunate, in carrying forward the cause
of temperance, in ministering to the sick, either as a nurse or a
physician, in using her pen to delight and guide the thoughts of the
young and old along the garden paths of her own loving life, thick
with the blossoms of hope, and made glorious by deeds of charity,--in
these, and in numberless other ways, woman, finding her throne in the
house, is welcomed as a ruler in the world.
For woman there is a felt a necessity which should send her forth as a
missionary to those like herself in everything but blessings. Think of
our large factory towns, where women are congregated by hundreds and
thousands. Let it be remembered that there is something unnatural in
all this. Woman was made for man, for home, for love. Separate her
from them all, herd her with her kind, subtract from her the incentive
to endeavor, leave her mind to brood in fancy, to welcome unholy
aspirations and degrading thoughts to her soul, and you leave her to
prey upon herself. Let woman see to it that reading-rooms for women be
established in our factory towns, that their boarding-houses be warmed
and rendered inviting, that the talented be encouraged to exertion,
and that tidiness and neatness be made an incentive for all, and woman
will do a work of immeasurable importance,--a work on which God's
blessing will rest,--and those who toil to accomplish it will obtain
an abundant reward from Him who declares, "Inasmuch as ye did it to
one of the least of these, ye did it unto me."
In the cause of Reform woman's help is needed. From the earliest
commencement of the temperance movement, appeals, arguments, and
expostulations have been addressed by earnest reformers to woman,
because it was felt that on any great social question the power of
woman to help, or to hinder, was all-important. When it is remembered
that woman is the greatest sufferer from the vice of intemperance,
that she regulates the customs of society, it is apparent that she
should seek to abolish bad, and promote good customs. More than others
she trains the young and builds up character, and therefore she
should, by example and precept, implant such habits as may be not
only a safeguard in childhood and youth, but become fixed as moral
principles in those she has reared, when the responsibility arrives;
because of these, we find reasons in abundance why woman must help, or
aid cannot reach the imperilled and undone.
Again: Woman needs help. Addison well said, "Women are either the
best or the worst of human beings." The very feelings which, rightly
directed, prompt her to soar even to the apex of the pyramid of human
virtue, warped from their right exercise, precipitate her to the
lowest and most grovelling depths of human vice. Is woman intemperate,
she differs from man in the gratification of her appetite. He seeks
the social club. Woman seeks retirement, and drinks alone and apart.
Her appetite, from this very cause, becomes unmanageable. Men will
stop drinking, oftentimes, when the open bar is closed. Woman, with
an appetite formed, drinks the more, because she drinks in secret.
Because of this fact, woman is in peril if she form an appetite for
strong drink.
Woman as a Mother has work to do as a teacher. "We hear a great deal
about education in the present day; but," said Mrs. Ellis, "my strong
impression is that there will have to come a teaching out of the
mother's heart and life,--herself being taught of God,--such as alone
can save us as a nation and a people from falling from our high
material prosperity into a condition of moral degradation, which it is
terrible to contemplate." Such being the case, every woman should ask,
What have I done in those opportunities which God gave me with the
young? What did I pour into that open heart and mind? Was my influence
for Christ or against him? Which way did I point out to those
uncertain feet? Who can estimate a mother's influence! There is a
power in a mother's love greater than any other human power,--a power
to suffer, to serve, and to save; a power which many waters cannot
quench, and which is stronger than death. As she leads, the broodlings
will follow. Does she sanction card-playing, theatre-going, dancing,
and what are called innocent recreations, or does she set herself
against them, and turn the thoughts of her children to books that
treat of science, of philosophy, and of religion? Upon the answer to
this question the future of children and the young depends. Many a boy
has been checked in a career of shame by a mother's sad look; many
have been encouraged by a mother's smile. God help women to know
how to use their power for home, for woman-kind, for man-kind, for
country, and for God!
"No one has such power over a river as he who stands near its source.
No one has such power over the tree as he who plants and tends it
while yet it is a pliant sapling. And no earthly power is to be
compared with that which, humanly speaking, determines the course
and destiny of an immortal soul. Under God the mother is the first
guardian of the child's eternal interest. It is from the mother, who
moves constantly among her little ones, much more than the father,
whose vocation necessitates his absence from home, and prevents his
being much in their presence, that children receive their bias. Her
gentle hand gives to our ductile natures the impress which we wear
through life; her loving voice awakens in the soul those sweet echoes
which never cease to sound; and her look and manner fill the mind with
images which haunt our memory until our dying day."
"O, Mother! sweetest name on earth;
We lisp it on the knee,
And idolize its sacred worth
In manhood's ministry."
A mother's hand gave us our first welcome, and hers was the last we
grasped in our farewell. She is the nurse of both of our childhoods;
the queen of the home, and the friend of the heart.
"And if I e'er in heaven appear,
A mother's holy prayer,--
A mother's hand and gentle tear,--
That pointed to a Saviour here,
Shall lead the wanderer there."
Woman's mission is religious. Christ recognized her as a helpmeet, as
a comforter, and a companion. Woman ministered to him with delight,
and gladly made a resting-place for him in the quiet retreat of the
home in Bethany. He recognized her faith as an element of strength,
which saves her when properly exercised. The spiritual life of woman
is her glory. We think of the woman who had sinned looking in love and
faith on Jesus, bathing his feet with her tears, and wiping them with
her hair, kissing and anointing them, with a feeling akin to devotion.
The Magdalene, delivered of her seven demons, because of her devotion
to Christ, and the triumph won by her faith, achieved a position
which, in the regards of the church, is equal to that held by the
Mother of our Saviour.
Woman's daily life is to her spiritual life what the debris of the
stream is to the water-lily that floats upon the surface. What cares
the servant girl of Rome for the place where she toils? The cathedral,
and the wonderful pictures that hang upon its walls, are her glory
and pride. Look at her toil from that stand-point, and she becomes a
helper in the estimation of the world that cannot be ignored. We have
said woman's work is a work of charity. Satan has warped the truth and
wielded it against Christ; but as it is wrong to give up a good tune
because bad men sing it, so we must not give up a truth because Satan
takes advantage of it. This work of charity,--of giving up for others,
of denying self for another's advantage, of abandoning comfort to
assuage another's grief,--so wonderfully illustrated by a Florence
Nightingale, and by women quite as worthy in our own land, whose
presence in the hospitals was like a benediction from God, and whose
presence in our homes, in our churches, beside the sad and sorrowing
everywhere, is proof that woman has a mission which she alone can
fill, and a work which she alone can perform. "And now abideth faith,
hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity." Man has
faith, he has hope; but he lacks, to a large extent, in the charities
which come to woman as gifts of God, because of which Christ employed
her as an agency to win men back to faith in God. In the sick chamber
she moves with step noiseless as falling snow-flakes, and speaks in
a voice soft as an angel's whisper. Her touch is so gentle that it
soothes the sufferer, and her sympathy is more precious than rubies.
On this account she is man's first and last solace. Suffering never
appeals to woman in vain. "I never addressed myself," says Ledyard,
"in the language of decency and friendship to woman, whether civilized
or savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man
it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of
inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and
churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of
the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has
ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and, to add to this
virtue,--so worthy of the appellation of benevolence,--these actions
have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that if I was dry, I
drank the sweet draught, and if hungry, ate the coarse morsel, with
a double relish." Park, and many other travellers, bear similar
testimony.
"Woman all exceeds
In ardent sanctitude, in pious deeds;
And chief in woman charities prevail,
That soothe when sorrow or desire assail;
Ask the poor pilgrim on this convex cast,--
His grizzled locks, distorted in the blast,--
Ask him what accents soothe, what hand bestows
The cordial beverage, raiment, and repose.
Ah! he will dart a spark of ardent flame,
And clasp his tremulous hands, and Woman name.
Peruse the sacred volume. Him who died
Her kiss betrayed not, nor her tongue denied;
While even the apostles left Him to His doom,
She lingered round His cross and watched His tomb."
How precious is such sympathy in her who is to be the solace, because
the helpmeet, of man! How it qualifies her for being the priestess of
the temple of home; the gentle nurse of helpless infancy, manhood's
counsellor and comforter!
"O Woman! Woman! thou wast made,
Like heaven's own pure and lovely light,
To cheer life's dark and desert shade,
And guide man's erring footsteps right."
This is a power which monarchs well might envy,--a power to bless
mankind and honor God; a power which, working in obscure and limited
sphere, is yet felt in the high places of the earth, and identified
with the deeds of men whose names are renowned in the history of the
world, and shine as stars in the diadem of God.
WOMAN _versus_ BALLOT.
Three facts stand in the way of Woman's being helped by the
Ballot,--God, Nature, and Common Sense. The purpose for which God made
or "formed" woman is clearly avowed in the history of her origin and
in the assignment of her duties.
In discussing this question, whether the ballot, and all the
immunities growing out of the right to vote, shall be granted to
woman, it is essential that we inquire reverently and earnestly, on
which side is God. That the question in its philosophical treatment
can only be fathomed by the profoundest intellect, and that it can
be embraced, in all its details, only by the most comprehensive
knowledge, is but a partial statement of this truth. The question can
only be understood, measured, and gauged by that Being who sees the
end from the beginning, and can follow into its infinite ramifications
the influence which must result from our actions. God does understand
it. Being infinitely wise, there can be no new issues, no new facts,
or combinations of facts, to influence the decisions of the Omniscient
Mind. It becomes us then to inquire what sphere God assigned to woman.
Having found it, we shall see that Nature and Common Sense unite in
making manifest the wisdom in adhering to the Divine Plan.
The necessity of recalling attention to the portraiture of woman as
God made her, is the more apparent, when we remember that those who
ask the ballot for woman practically ignore the teachings of the Bible
and the right of God to rule, and claim by word, as well as by deed,
that they have outgrown the wisdom of the past, and have entered upon
a stage of progress in advance of old time precedents. We believe in
the rule of God, and in the wisdom of God, and claim that Omniscience
is not dependent either upon a morning newspaper, or upon the crude
conjectures of a godless Infidelity, for wisdom or light in adjusting
means to an end, or in assigning to woman her proper sphere.
Again. We are impelled to seek wisdom from God, because we seek for
it in vain elsewhere. As to how the ballot is to help woman, even its
advocates give us no light. Whether it is proposed to lighten by its
aid the penalties, and do away with the ruin of the fall, we are left
in doubt.
If we give to woman the ballot, shall the equality which woman lost,
when she ate of the forbidden fruit, be restored, and shall she be
made again the equal of man? Shall the sorrow in child-bearing be
removed? Can housework, or the duties of motherhood, and wifehood, and
sisterhood, be met and discharged by the use of the ballot?
These are questions which deserve to be answered. It is patent to
every one that this attempt to secure the ballot for woman is a revolt
against the position and sphere assigned to woman by God himself. It
is a revolt against the holiest duties enjoined upon woman. It is
an attempt to reorganize society upon a new basis; to change the
relations of men and women; to secure the millennium by a vote, and by
majorities to do away with the rule of God. The Bible declares that
the headship of the house devolves on man. Man is lawgiver. Woman is
not slave: she is helpmeet; the sharer of man's joys and sorrows; the
light of his home, if there be any light in his home; the solace of
his life, if his life have solace; the mother of his children, if
children there be. Now, as then, woman, in her natural state, before
she makes the attempt to unsex herself, and render herself a monster,
finds it in her nature to look to man as lawmaker, and expects to
submit to his rule in the home. We do not say that all women submit
cheerfully to this rule, for there are some who do not. But when this
is the case, from the nature of things, happiness takes its flight,
the marriage-bed is defiled, woman becomes an outlaw in her heart, and
the two bound together by a chain rather than by the silken cord of
love, are candidates for a peaceable divorce or a continuous battle.
The advocates of the ballot for woman hope through its aid to secure
an overthrow of this rule, or escape from this so-called bondage. They
demand a change in public sentiment regarding the sphere woman is to
fill, securing to her an equality before the law, in representation,
in privileges, and in wages.
In other words, there are women who hope and expect to do away with
the disabilities incident to the female portion of the community, and
by education and culture, obtain for woman this same strength, this
same ability to study, to think, to work, and to plan, that is enjoyed
by man. In short, some believe that a woman can be so changed that
she can, for all practical purposes, get on without man's help or
protection.
Against this revolutionary scheme we protest, because, by a reference
to the Word of God,[A] we find reasons for believing that it is in the
constitution and nature of woman, with some slight modifications, to
occupy the place assigned her in this land, where Christian influence
unites with the better instincts of humanity in lightening her
burdens, smoothing her pathway, and filling her lap with the tributes
of manly regard.
[Footnote A: I am aware that this sneer is often made: "The same class
oppose us who defended the divine right of slavery." This is untrue
so far as I am concerned. I was second to no man in condemnation of
slavery, because the Bible condemned it. That one utterance, "God hath
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face
of the earth," was the seedling out of which liberty, equality, and
fraternity grew. Liberty was won because of the faith, and prayers,
and efforts of a God-believing and a Christ-loving church. Their
prayers and their faith girded the nation with strength, and their
prowess, aided by those who followed their lead, secured victory.]