Female preachers have appeared among the most enlightened peoples,
and have risen to distinction and influence. In America, among the
Quakers, women have illustrated the finest pulpit oratory.
It has always seemed to me that women were especially adapted to the
pulpit. Their natural eloquence, their sweet persuasive voices,
their characteristic unselfishness, purity and piety constitute
their unanswerable claim to a place in the pulpit.
It is strange, how rapidly the prejudices of men against women
lecturers and women preachers have disappeared. These prejudices lie
on the surface; they do not rest upon organic instinct. So
completely has this prejudice disappeared from Boston, that a woman
is heard by many because she is a woman. If to-day one of our
churches should invite to its pulpit a woman of good capacity, of
fine pulpit manners, of a noble, sweet spirit, and of fine
personnel, its very aisles would be crowded. I should much prefer to
go there.
A few hundred educated women would find employment, and good
compensation, in New England pulpits.