WOMEN IN WHITE RAIMENT,
BY
JOHN LEMLEY,
EDITOR OF
THE ZION’S WATCHMAN,
AND AUTHOR OF
“THE CHRIST LIFTED UP,” “LAND OF SACRED STORY,”
“WONDERS OF GRACE,” “PERSONAL
RECOLLECTIONS,” ETC.
“They shall walk with me in white; for they shall be worthy, ... and
shall be clothed in white raiment.”--REV. iii: 4, 5.
THE FIRST EDITION.
ALBANY, NEW YORK,
1899.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1898, by
JOHN LEMLEY,
in the office of the Librarian at Washington.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
CHARLES VAN BENTHUYSEN & SONS,
Printers, Electrotypers and Binders,
ALBANY, N. Y.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY.
WOMEN OWE THEIR ELEVATION TO THE BIBLE--THE CONDITION OF
WOMEN IN HEATHEN LANDS CONTRASTED WITH THE CONDITION OF
WOMEN IN BIBLE LANDS--GOD’S THOUGHT OF WOMAN IN THE
CREATION--HER RIGHTS UNDER THE HEBREW ECONOMY--CHRIST’S
TENDERNESS TOWARDS WOMANHOOD--BLESSING OTHERS. 7-19
CHAPTER I.
The Paradise Home in Eden.
MAN’S FIRST HOME A GARDEN--EVE THE ISHA--THE SCENE OF THE
TEMPTATION--HIDING FROM GOD--REFUSING TO CONFESS, JUDGMENT
IS PRONOUNCED--THE SAD RESULTS OF SIN--EVE BELIEVED
THE PROMISE. 21-35
CHAPTER II.
Womanhood in the Patriarchal Age.
SARAH THE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS--HER FAITH TESTED--THE MISTAKE
OF HER LIFE--HER LOVELY CHARACTER--REBEKAH--AN ORIENTAL
WOOING--ELIEZER’S PRAYER--THE BRIDE’S ANSWER--MEETING
ISAAC--A MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER SON--JACOB’S
FLIGHT--REBEKAH, THE BEAUTIFUL SHEPHERDESS--SEVEN YEARS’
SERVICE FOR HER--LABAN’S DECEPTION--LEAH, THE
TENDER-EYED--HUMAN FAVORITES--DIVINELY HONORED--RACHEL’S
TOMB THE FIRST MONUMENT TO HUMAN LOVE. 36-70
CHAPTER III.
Womanhood During the Egyptian Bondage and in
the Desert of Sinai.
JOCHEBED--HER REMARKABLE COURAGE--THONORIS--HER
COMPASSION--HEROIC LABORS SEEMINGLY UNREWARDED--ZIPPORAH, THE
MIDIANITE SHEPHERDESS--GLORIFYING DAILY LABOR--AT A WAYSIDE
INN--MIRIAM--HER SONG OF TRIUMPH AT THE RED SEA--HER
AFFLICTION AT HAZEROTH--AN EVENTFUL LIFE. 71-89
CHAPTER IV.
Womanhood During the Conquest and the Theocracy,
or Rule of the Judges.
RAHAB--GREAT GRACE FOR GREAT SINNERS--THE FALL OF JERICHO--THE
COVENANT REMEMBERED--DEBORAH--HER REMARKABLE
COURAGE--SISERA’S IRON CHARIOTS BROKEN--THE DAUGHTER OF
JEPHTHAH--HER LOVING DEVOTION AND SACRIFICE--THE STORY
OF NAOMI--ORPAH’S KISS--THE LOVING RUTH--GLEANING
AMONG THE REAPERS--HER RICH REWARD--HANNAH--HER
CONSECRATION--YEARLY VISITS TO SHILOH--STITCHING BEAUTIFUL
THOUGHTS INTO SAMUEL’S COAT--HER BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 90-117
CHAPTER V.
Womanhood During the Reign of the Kings.
ABIGAIL--CHURLISH NABAL--CHIVALROUS APPRECIATION--DAVID’S
MESSENGERS--SAUL’S DAUGHTERS--HIS TREACHERY--MICHAL’S
STRATAGEM--RIZPAH--HER HEROIC ENDURANCE AND LOVING
FIDELITY--THE QUEEN OF SHEBA--HER VISIT TO JERUSALEM--THE
GLORY AND WISDOM OF SOLOMON--THE HALF NOT TOLD--THE
QUEEN’S ROYAL GIFTS. 118-137
CHAPTER VI.
Womanhood in the Time of the Prophets and During
the Captivity.
THE WICKED JEZEBEL--THE WIDOW OF SAREPTA--THE TISHBITE AT
THE CITY GATE--HIS STRANGE REQUEST--THE WIDOW’S UNFALTERING
OBEDIENCE--AN APPEAL TO ELISHA--A POT OF OIL--THE
WIDOW’S WONDERFUL FAITH--THE RICH WOMAN OF SHUNEM--HER
MODEST LIFE--BARLEY HARVEST--A RIDE TO CARMEL IN
THE GLARE OF THE SUN--ESTHER--HER BEAUTIFUL TRAITS OF
CHARACTER--CROWNED AS QUEEN--PLEADING FOR THE LIFE OF
HER PEOPLE--FOUND FAVOR WITH THE KING. 138-161
CHAPTER VII.
Womanhood in the Time of the Saviour’s Nativity.
AN ANGEL BY THE ALTAR OF INCENSE--HIS MESSAGE--AN ISRAELITISH
HOME--IN THE SPIRIT OF ELIJAH--THE DESERT TEACHER--THE
ANNUNCIATION--THE VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH--MARY’S
MAGNIFICAT--JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM--THE NATIVITY--HOME
LIFE IN NAZARETH--AFTER SCENES IN MARY’S LIFE--HER
RESIDENCE AND DEATH AT EPHESUS--THE PROPHETESS
ANNA--HER WAITING FOR REDEMPTION IN JERUSALEM--THE
LESSON OF HER PURE AND BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 162-189
CHAPTER VIII.
Womanhood During our Lord’s Galilean Ministry.
CHRIST AND WOMANHOOD--NOONTIDE AT JACOB’S WELL--THE LORD’S
WONDERFUL TACT--FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST--AN UNINVITED
GUEST AT SIMON’S FEAST--COLD HOSPITALITY--A CONCISE
PARABLE--FORGIVING SIN--A STREET SCENE--HUMBLE
CONFESSION--MOST GRACIOUS WORDS--COAST OF TYRE AND
SIDON--SYRO-PHŒNICIAN WOMAN--STRANGELY TESTED--HER
HUMILITY--WENT AWAY BLESSED. 190-222
CHAPTER IX.
Womanhood During Our Lord’s Judean Ministry.
THE SISTERS OF BETHANY--THEIR CHARACTERISTICS--NOT GOOD, BUT
BEST GIFTS--THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF LOVE--SALOME’S STRANGE
REQUEST--HER FIDELITY--JOANNA--THE POOR WIDOW’S GIFT--HOW
ESTIMATED--THE SAVIOUR’S WORDS OF PEACE. 223-244
CHAPTER X.
Womanhood During the Apostolic Ministry.
TABITHA--GLORIFIED HER NEEDLE--THE RESULTS OF LITTLE
ACTS--LYDIA--HER HUMILITY--PHILIP’S FOUR DAUGHTERS--
PHŒBE--PRISCILLA--EUNICE--LOIS--EUDIA--SYNTYCHE--HULDA--
THE HEBREW MAID--TAMAR--MOTHERS OF GREAT MEN--THE AUTHOR
OF THE BIBLE WOMAN’S BEST FRIEND. 245-266
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
THE ACCEPTED OFFERING 31
JACOB’S STRUGGLE AT THE JABBOK 67
THE ISRAELITES IN BONDAGE 73
MOSES RESCUED FROM THE NILE 75
MIRIAM’S SONG OF TRIUMPH 84
THE FALL OF JERICHO 95
RUTH, THE FAITHFUL FRIEND 108
THE BEAUTIFUL ABIGAIL MEETING DAVID 121
SOLOMON’S MERCHANT SHIPS 130
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA 133
HADASSAH IN THE PERSIAN COURT 153
ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE 157
THE ANGEL’S MESSAGE 164
THE MINISTRY AT EPHESUS 181
ANNA, THE PROPHETESS 185
CHRIST AND WOMANHOOD 193
THE NOONTIDE HOUR AT JACOB’S WELL 198
THE UNINVITED GUEST 208
SEEKING THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD 237
THE CITY BY THE ANGHISTA 253
CORINTH, THE GATE OF THE PELOPONNESUS 260
INTRODUCTORY.
It has long been in our mind to write this book, in which we seek
to set forth the beautiful lives of representative women of the
Bible. There has been much written about prophets, kings and priests,
about our Lord and His Apostles, about scenes, of different types of
character, customs and manners of Oriental life, but so far as we know,
nothing has been written about the womanhood of the Bible. We believe
a study of these lovely Princesses of God will be both profitable and
instructive.
That we may have a suitable background for our pen pictures of these
Daughters in Israel, and also, by way of contrast, show what the Bible
has done for womanhood, let us briefly take a glance into countries
where the Bible has been a sealed book, for the position of women among
the Hebrews has always afforded a pleasing contrast with that of their
heathen sisters. The position of Jewish women is just what we would
expect among a people who were indebted for their laws to the Creator.
It has always been Satan’s shrewdest trick to degrade motherhood, and
to cause her to be treated with contempt, knowing that she it is who
stands at the fountain head of the race, and her hand always shapes
the life and forms the civilization, hence the universal oppression of
womanhood in all heathen lands.
The effect of religion (for all nations worship something) upon the
people affords overwhelming evidence of its origin. In all heathen
lands the people are exceedingly religious. In India alone they worship
360,000,000 gods, but they know nothing about morality. Their religion
offers no light in life and no hope in death. The condition of women
in India is indescribable. If a man speaks of his wife he never says
“wife,” but “family”; and if away, he never speaks of going home, but
he is going to his house. There is no home life, as we look upon it, in
all that heathen land. Women are considered by the Hindus as a thing
that exists solely for their use. She is given away like a lifeless
thing to the man who is to be her husband, but who does not consider
her his equal. He is commanded by his religion to “enjoy her without
attachment,” and never to love her or put his confidence in her. Some
women are set apart religiously for the use of the men of all classes
and castes. They are consecrated and “married” to the idols in the
temples, and are brought up from their girlhood to live as prostitutes.
Hindoo sacred law reaches its climax of cruelty and degradation in the
rules it lays down for the control of a woman after her husband has
died. She may be young and beautiful, she may belong to a wealthy and
powerful family; it matters not; custom is as relentless as death in
its weight of woe to crush her completely down.
One of the Hindoo sacred books says: “It is unlawful for any man to
take a jewelless woman,” whose eyes are like the weeping cavi-flower;
being deprived of her beloved husband, she is like a body deprived of
the spirit. She may have only been a betrothed infant or a child of a
few years. It makes no difference. The Shasters teach that if a widow
burns herself alive on the funeral pile of her husband, even though
he had killed a Brahmin, that most heinous of deeds, she expiates the
crime. For long centuries widows have been a literal burnt offering for
the redemption of husbands.
Another law is laid down after the following fashion: “On the death of
their attached husbands, women must eat but once a day, must eschew
betel and a spread mattress, must sleep on the ground, and continue
to practice rigid mortification. Women who have put off glittering
jewels of gold must discharge with alacrity the duties of devotion, and
neglecting their persons, must feed on herbs and roots, so as barely to
sustain life within the body. Let not a widow ever pronounce the name
of another man.”
There are, in India, twenty-three millions of widows, of these fourteen
thousand are baby widows under four years of age, and sixty thousand
girl widows between five and nine years of age. Nearly one-fourth of
the whole number of widows are young. Besides, there are many millions
of deserted wives, whose condition is as bad, and in some cases worse,
than that of the widows. The lives of many millions of these poor women
are made so miserable that they prefer death to life, and thousands
commit suicide yearly.
And all these helpless women have never heard the message of salvation
from God’s Holy Word.
It so happens in these days of missionary work among the heathen that
now and then the light of the Gospel finds its way into these benighted
hearts. Such was the case of a Brahmin widow, who had lived in the home
of her uncle, but, for a fancied offence, was beaten and turned into
the street naked. She was a woman of commanding manner and appearance,
such as few suffering widows possess. She was tall, elegant of bearing,
and attractive. Her story, in short, is this: “I was married when only
five years of age. I soon became a widow, and then my father and mother
took care of me, though I was kept secure in their home. My father and
mother died, and since I was fifteen years of age I have been with
their relatives, who let me work in the fields and earn an honorable
living. Then my mother’s own brother came along, and persuaded me to
come to his house. I hoped for kindness, but I have been their slave
from that day.”
When asked whether she had been led astray, she replied, “I might
have been, and sat with jewels on my neck and arms, with a frontlet
on my brow, and gems would have bedecked my ears had I yielded to the
machinations of my uncle and the desires of his friends to betray me
into a life of glittering slavery! Because I would not, I am in rags,
and now turned homeless into the streets.”
Such is the suffering of women in India. And the saddest of all is, the
only heaven they look for after this world, is a place where they can
be their husband’s servants. Sad and terrible is their state!
The condition of womanhood in China is but little better. In fact she
is unwelcome at her birth. If she is suffered to live, she is subjected
to inhuman foot-binding. The feet are supposed to merit the poetical
name of “golden lilies.” But how sad it is to discover that such a
result is produced by indescribable torture, and that the part of the
foot that is not seen is nothing but a mass of distorted or broken
bones!
This binding process commences when the girl is about six years old.
There is a Chinese proverb that says, “For every pair of bound feet has
been shed a _kong_ full of tears.” And yet, the most important part of
a Chinese girl’s dress is her tiny shoe of colored silk or satin, most
tastefully embroidered, with bright painted heels just peeping beneath
the neat pantalets. Missionary ladies tell us how they themselves have
seen three strong women holding a little girl by force to compel her to
submit to this awful torture. It is not an uncommon thing for a mother
to get up in the night and beat a poor child of seven or eight for
keeping her awake by her stifled sobs from the terrible pain produced
by the bandages. Through the weary summer days, instead of romping and
enjoying the fresh air and sports with brothers, the poor little girl
will lie, restless with fever, upon her little couch, and when the cold
nights of winter come, she is afraid to wrap her limbs in any covering,
else they grow warm and the suffering becomes more intense.
At last the much desired smallness is obtained, the feet are deformed
for life and she is greatly admired by all her friends. If she is not
betrothed until she is ten or more years of age, one of the first
questions is, “What is the length of her feet?” Three inches is the
correct length of the fashionable shoe, but some are only two.
But this has respect only to those girl-babies who are suffered to
live. The horrors of heathenism permits the new-born girl baby to
be disposed of. There is outside the city walls of Fuchan, China, a
structure of stone without doors, but with two window-like openings.
This well-known and frequently visited building is the baby tower--not
a day nursery for the care of the infants of the poor, not an orphanage
where the little waifs are clothed and fed and educated, but a place
where girl-babies can be thrown and left to die. In larger cities,
such as Pekin, carts pass through the streets at an early hour of the
day and gather up the babies abandoned to the streets by their inhuman
parents.
Women in the common walks of life are the slaves of their husbands.
The wife rises early in the morning, does the housework for the day,
and prepares the morning meal for her husband, who always eats it by
himself while she serves. Having finished her own meal, after her
husband has eaten his, she cleans up the dishes, and then hastens to
the fields to toil all day under a burning sun. The husband, meanwhile,
spends the day in sleeping, or gambling, or when opportunity occurs,
in thieving or marauding. Sometimes, frequently indeed, the women are
carried off by other tribes while out in the fields, and are only
released at a price, varying with the excellencies of the woman in
question. And yet, if any one were to offer to relieve these women of
their work, their offer would be rejected, for this life of toil is
what they have been brought up to and trained in, and they know of
nothing better. They especially like to be in the fields by themselves,
for then they are alone, and are free from the hated presence of man
(curiously enough they are said to hate their men), and surely no one
would grudge them their liberty.
In dark Africa, where lives one-sixth of the heathen population of the
globe, human sacrifice is something awful. And the saddest of all is,
the victims are mostly from the ranks of women. Of the languages and
dialects, five hundred have never been reduced to writing. What scenes
of horrors are locked up in oblivion among these wild tribes of that
dark land. Almost daily, the numerous wives of the rulers, as they
die, are buried alive in their graves, being compelled to hold the
dead bodies of their husbands on their laps, until they themselves
are relieved by death. The witch doctors annually slay thousands of
innocent women. Among the Masai, a woman has a market value equal to
five glass beads, while a cow is worth ten of the same.
Woman’s life in the harem of the Mohammedan is but little better. The
code of morals is a very loose one, and the degradation of women beyond
our pen to describe. The women of the harems are divided into three
classes: The Rhadines, or legitimate wives. The Ikbals, or favorites,
out of whose ranks the Rhadines are chosen, and Ghienzdes or “women
who are pleasing to the eye of their lord,” and who have the chance
to advance to the rank of Ikbals. If the wife of a Turkoman asks his
permission to go, and he says, “go,” without adding, “come back,” they
are divorced. If he becomes dissatisfied with the most trifling acts of
his wife, and tears the veil from her face, that constitutes a divorce.
In the streets, if a husband meets one of his numerous wives, he never
recognizes her, or ever introduces her to a male friend. A Mohammedan
never inquires after the female portion of the household of his friend.
The system is full of cruelty and despotism. In Mohammedan countries
women suffer from the low opinion held of them by men. The prophet
said: “I stood at the gates of hell, and lo! most of its inhabitants
were women!” And yet, strange to say, while the religion of Islam
denies that woman has a soul, it teaches a sensual paradise.
In fact, in all nations where the Bible is unknown, woman is the slave
of man’s lust. She is a drudge or a toy, whose reign is as short-lived
as her personal charms. She may not be trusted out of sight of her
guardians, though the masculine members of the family are anything but
choice in their associations. Indeed, in some countries a woman can
not visit even her own mother without being carried in a palanquin or
guarded by slaves.
One of the strangest, saddest sights we ever saw was at Mersina,
in the Levant. Passing a field one day there were six native women
(noble in form and of beautiful olive complexion) hoeing what looked
to be cucumbers, while a step or two in their rear stood a negro, a
full-blooded Nubian, with a long stick, like an ox-goad, in his hand,
evidently their master.
In Ceylon, when it was proposed by a missionary to teach women to read,
one native said to another, “What do you think that man is talking
about? He wants to teach the women to read! He’ll be wanting to teach
the cows next!”
Such is the disrespect in which women are held by heathen people. Five
words describe the biography of women in all lands where the Bible is
not known: Unwelcomed at birth; untaught in childhood; uncherished in
widowhood; unprotected in old age; unlamented when dead.
Such, in brief, is the treatment of womanhood in lands where the Bible
is a sealed book, and truly, in comparison with their heathen sisters,
women living under the blessed teachings of Christianity are “clothed
in white raiment.”
But, perhaps, we ought not to think it so very strange that men who
dishonor God, and who want Him blotted out of their thoughts, should
abuse God’s best gift to man. This much we know, that God created man
in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female
created He _them_. And God blessed _them_, and God said unto them,
“Have dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
When the Pharisees, in their malignity, framed the question, “Is it
lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?”--a problem
beset with many difficulties, our Lord very promptly asked a counter
question, “What did Moses command you?” Instead of entering into their
vexed question, He appeals at once to the law and the testimony, and
requires them to recite the provision made by Moses for such cases;
not as settling the difficulties, but as presenting the true _status
quaestionis_, which was not what the Scribes taught or the Pharisees
practiced, but what Moses meant and God permitted. They said, “Moses
suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.” Quickly
Jesus replied, “For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this
precept.” The substance of our Saviour’s answer was, Moses gave you
no positive command in the case; he would not make a law directly
opposite to the law of God; but Moses saw the wantonness and wickedness
of your hearts, that you would turn away your wives without any just
and warrantable cause; and to restrain your extravagancies of cruelty
to your wives, or disorderly turning of them off upon any occasion,
he made a law that none should put away his wife but upon a legal
cognizance of the cause and giving her a bill of divorce. “From the
beginning,” that is, in the very act of creation, God embodied the idea
of equality. Capricious divorce is a violation of natural law.
What a beautiful picture Solomon gives us of womanhood. “Her price,” he
says, “is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust
in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good
and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool, and flax, and
worketh willingly with her hands.” After the grace of God in the soul,
a good wife, one planned on the Divine model, is the Lord’s best gift.
To the husband who has such a woman to stand at the head of his home,
nothing can measure her value. His heart rests safely in her integrity.
He has no need to add to his wealth by spoils, for she will do him good
and not evil all the days of his life. She is industrious. She not only
works into comfort the wool and flax that are at hand; she seeks to
add to her store from the outside world. She does not ask to be kept
in idleness. She worketh willingly with her hands. Not content to be a
consumer, she becomes a producer. Not satisfied with home production,
she brings suitable comforts and luxuries from afar into her home. She
is careful in the use of her time. She is not feebly self-indulgent.
She riseth while it is yet night to look after her domestic affairs.
She is a business woman, knowing the laws that underlie the rise and
fall of real estate. She considereth a field, and buyeth it. Then with
her hands she planteth a vineyard.
She does not produce inferior goods, neither is she cheated in a
bargain. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good. She loves to
share her husband’s business burdens, that he may share her society;
and they twain are one in service and one in recreation. Like our
Lord, she delights not to be ministered unto, but to minister. She is
benevolent. Being a recognized producer, she has the luxury of giving
of her own means to the poor. She provides well for her household,
keeping her dependents in comfort, and even in luxury. As the Revised
Version puts it, “She maketh herself carpets of tapestry.” Her own
clothing is of the best.
The husband of such a wife has the gentle manners that belong with such
a home, and he can but succeed in life. He is known and honored among
the best in the land. As her business grows, her products become finer
and more expensive; and as she puts them upon the market, her profits
increase. This woman is clothed with strength and honor. She has no
anxiety about the future. She knows that though her beauty may fade,
and her social charms become a thing of the past, her strength and
honor will become richer and more glorious as the years go by. “In her
tongue is the law of kindness.” She is too busy with her own affairs to
look after those of her neighbors. In heathen countries it is a great
disgrace for a woman’s voice to be heard in the presence of men. Where
women are held back from the real interests that concern them and for
which they have so often proved themselves fully qualified, what else
could take up their active minds but the pettiness of gossip?
Such are the beautiful tributes paid to women by Solomon, the wisest
of men. Nor are the prophets behind in acknowledging the worth and
quality of women. Eight hundred years before the Christian era, the
prophet Joel wrote, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith
God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my
handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall
prophesy.” In the Christian dispensation, the daughters as well as the
sons were to be filled with the Spirit of God, and the Spirit would use
their lips in the declaration of His truth as certainly as the lips of
men, and Paul defined prophecy to be speaking “unto men to edification,
and exhortation, and comfort.” It has been one of the devices of the
evil one to padlock the lips of that half of the race who are most
loyal to God and who have the most helpful knowledge of human nature.
Aside from all these high social and spiritual relations of the Hebrew
women, they had a legal status. The rights of the Jewish wife were
carefully guarded. Her husband was not allowed to go to war for a
year after they were married; and though the eastern institution of
polygamy was not utterly prohibited, yet it was so restricted that it
must not in any way invade the rights and privileges of the wife. If a
husband became jealous of his wife’s fidelity, the legal presumptions
were all in her favor. The husband was not allowed to inflict summary
punishment; but she was subjected to an ordeal which could by no
possibility work injury to her, unless through the guilt of her own
conscience or the interposition of divine Providence.
As a mother, the Jewish woman must be honored by her children. As a
daughter, she had rights and an inheritance. If the wife or daughter
uttered rash and foolish vows, the husband or father had a right
to disannul them, provided he did it from the day it came to his
knowledge. Even the Gentile woman taken captive by a young Israelite
warrior must have been surprised to receive treatment so strangely
different from that received by captives in her own country, or even
among modern nations who profess to be civilized. Her captor could
not offer her an insult; she must be taken, not to a prison, but to
his home, where she must neither be abused nor outraged, but treated
with patient consideration; and she could not be taken, even as a
wife, until a full month had elapsed, during which he might secure her
affections or reconsider his determination. And if after her marriage
she was discontented and made herself disagreeable, she could never
again be held as a servant, but must be allowed to go free. Widows, who
in heathen lands have been degraded and sometimes murdered or burned,
were to be treated with the utmost tenderness. They shared in the
tithes, and were admitted to the public festivities. They had a right
to glean in the fields and gather up the forgotten sheaves, to gather
which the owner was not allowed to go back. Injustice against widows
was treated with fearful punishment. “Thou shalt not take the widow’s
raiment to pledge” (Deut. xxiv, 17), was a benevolent law which can not
be paralleled in any modern code. The command to lend to an Israelite
in his poverty was imperative, but no pledge of raiment could be
exacted from a widow.
Thus in a variety of ways was the Lord pleased to manifest his kindness
and compassion for the fatherless and the widow, and in consequence
womanhood was honored and honorable in the Jewish nation, beyond
anything known in the heathen world. From the vile and degrading orgies
of heathenism the women of Israel were exempt. They feared the Lord,
and at his hand received blessings and mercies without number.
Thus it is seen that Hebrew women had rare privileges. They tower like
desert palms above the women in pagan lands. In her home she is honored
and respected. In India a woman eats her first and last meal with her
husband on her wedding day. In the Hebrew home her children are like
“olive plants” round her table. In China they may kill their little
daughters by the thousands. She has legal rights in her Hebrew home. In
all Mohammedan lands a man has the same power over the life of his wife
that he has over the life of his horse.
What makes this difference? We answer, It is God’s thought of
womanhood, for there was nothing in the Hebrew men to bring about such
thoughtful consideration. There were periods in the history of the
Hebrew nation when they departed from God, and sank into the vices of
the heathens around them. It was during these periods that womanhood
was degraded to that of their pagan sisters. There were times when the
Hebrews had taken on heathen manners to such an extent as to regard
it a disgrace for a rabbi to recognize his wife if he met her on the
street. It was commonly said that he was a fool who attempted the
religious instruction of a woman, and the words of the law had better
be burned than given to a woman.
So it was not Hebrew manhood that saved the daughters of Israel from
the suicidal injustice practiced among the heathens, but the sure Word
of God. Under its wise provisions and recognized equality they became
prophetesses, leaders of armies, and judges. And they taught a pure
morality, trained their children according to principles of justice and
righteousness, and lived in expectation and hope of the coming of the
Messiah in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed.
And above all, Christ was the true Friend of womanhood. No teacher
in any age of the world or in any land ever taught woman as He did,
when He came that glorious morning to Jacob’s well, or in the house
of Simon the Pharisee, when the sin-stained woman of the street, who
had unobserved entered the banquet hall, and taken up her position at
the feet of Jesus, and there poured out the great sorrow of her heart
in a paroxysm of humble and grateful love, and bathed His feet with
her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, anointing them
also with ointment, when He personally addressed her and said, “Thy
sins are forgiven.” How beautiful is all this, and how grandly these
women showed their gratitude and appreciation by following Him and
ministering unto “Him of their substance.” They were last at the cross
and first at the tomb, and first to publish the Saviour’s resurrection.
From that day to this, women owe their spiritual elevation and their
opportunities of usefulness to the recognition Christ gave them in
His ministry. In all places untouched by Christian light they are not
sure that they have souls. Where the light shines clearly they have
equal rights with the men by whose side they are privileged to labor
for God’s glory. This being so, how ought they to love God, and in
every way possible, spread the light of Christianity through all the
earth. We would say to every woman who loves her Lord, the field is
wide enough, and opportunities present themselves in every passing
hour, therefore, if you have a message which will help and bless some
struggling soul heavenward, tell it.
With these brief, introductory words, we come to our subject proper.
And should you, dear woman, whom we seek to glorify in the following
pages, be blessed and comforted in the unfolding of God’s love towards
womanhood, and your own faith take a firmer hold upon the Father’s
thought of you, do not, after reading this book, put it away in your
book-case, but place it in the hands of some tempted, discouraged,
struggling soul, and thereby let others become sharers of the same
helpful words, and, possibly, in so doing, you may not only save
precious souls, but add many stars to your own crown of life.
As ever, respectfully,
THE AUTHOR.
ALBANY, N. Y.
WOMEN IN WHITE RAIMENT.
CHAPTER I.
The Paradise Home in Eden.
MAN’S FIRST HOME A GARDEN--EVE THE ISHA--THE SCENE OF THE
TEMPTATION--HIDING FROM GOD--REFUSING TO CONFESS, JUDGMENT IS
PRONOUNCED--THE SAD RESULTS OF SIN--EVE BELIEVED THE PROMISE.
Perhaps there never lived a woman who has been “talked about” so much
as this first woman in White Raiment, for who has not said, If Eve had
not been beguiled into a violation of the one commandment by partaking
of the fruit of the forbidden tree, we would all be as happy and
sinless as was she and her husband before that act of disobedience. But
we shall miss the great lesson Eve’s experience intended to convey if
we fail to recognize that God put humanity on probation, and the fact
of the first temptation is the symbol of every temptation; the fact of
the first fall is the symbol of every transgression; the great mistake
that lay in the first sin is the symbol of every effect of sin.
After the Lord God had formed man, we read that He “planted a garden
eastward in Eden; and there He put the man.” What pen could describe
the garden of the Lord’s planting? There were splashing fountains.
There were woodbine, and honeysuckles, and morning-glories climbing
over the wall, and daisies, and buttercups, and strawberries in the
grass. There were paths with mountain mosses, bordered with pearls
and diamonds. Here and there cooling streams sparkled in the sunlight
or made sweet music as they fell over ledges and rippled away under
the overstretching shadows of palm trees or fig orchards, and their
threads of silver finally lost amid the fruitage of orange groves.
Trees and shrubs of infinite variety added their beauty to the
many picturesque scenes everywhere spread out. In the midst of the
overhanging foliage were all the bright birds of heaven, and they
stirred the air with infinite chirp and carol. Never since have such
skies looked down through such leaves into such waters. Never has
river wave had such curve and sheen and bank as adorned the Pison, the
Havilah, the Gihon and the Hiddekel, even the pebbles being bdellium
and onyx stone. What fruits, with no curculio to sting the rind! What
flowers, with no slug to gnaw the root! What atmosphere, with no frost
to chill and with no heat to consume! Bright colors tangled in the
grass. Perfume filled the air. Music thrilled the sky. Great scenes of
gladness and love and joy spread out in every direction.
We know not how long, perhaps ever since this man had been created in
the “image” of his God, he had wandered through this Eden home, had
watched the brilliant pageantry of wings and scales and clouds, and may
have noticed that the robins fly the air in twos, and that the fish
swim the waters in twos, and that the lions walk the fields in twos,
and as he saw the merry, abounding life of his subject creatures, every
one perfectly fitted to its environment, and each mated with another of
the same instincts and methods of living, he felt the isolation of his
own self-involved being, and, possibly, a shadow of loneliness may have
crept into his face, and God saw it. And so He said, “It is not good
that the man should be alone.” So “He caused a deep sleep to fall upon
Adam,” as if by allegory to teach all ages that the greatest of earthly
blessings is sound sleep.
When he awoke, a most beautiful being, the crowning glory of creation,
stood beside him, looking at him with heaven in her eyes, her exquisite
form draped with perfect feminine grace and strength. As Adam looked
into the face of this immaculate daughter of God, this Woman in White
Raiment, he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my
flesh. She shall be called Woman” (Hebrew Isha), because God had
clothed in separate flesh the gentler and more conscientious part of
Adam’s nature, that it might share the work and bliss of Paradise.
How long that first married pair lived in Paradise we are not informed.
The story of their disastrous disobedience is given in as few words as
possible. Eve may have sauntered out one beautiful morning and as she
looked up at the fruit of the various trees of the garden must have
recognized “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and doubtless
she had heard Adam say that this was the forbidden tree, and possibly
may have cautioned her, “For,” said he, the Lord had said, “in the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” As she looked up at
the tree and saw the beautiful fruit hanging on the branches, she may
have admired its bright, fresh color without any thought of evil in
her heart. It is the characteristic of woman to admire the beautiful.
Indeed her finer feelings can better appreciate than man, the blendings
of color and shadings that combine to give expression to the beautiful.
But it was Satan’s moment. We do not know how long he had been in
hiding among the recesses of the garden waiting for just such an
opportunity. Quickly he entered a serpent, which, it is declared, “was
more subtle than any beast of the field,” and came up to Eve as she
admired the tree and its fruit, and in most questioning surprise said,
“Yea hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” The
query is very cautiously made, expressing great surprise: Yea, truly,
can it be possible? The query, with its questioning surprise, had in it
now a yes, and now a no, according to the connection. This is the first
striking feature in the beginning of the temptation. The temptation
of Christ, in the wilderness, was very similar to this. Satan twice
challenged our Lord on the point of his divine Sonship: “If thou be
the Son of God.” As if he had said, “You claim to be the Son of God, I
doubt it, and challenge the claim. If you are, prove it by doing what
I suggest.” This was also a blow at the confession of God Himself,
“This is My beloved Son.” So here, Satan, in the most cautious manner,
would excite doubt in the mind of Eve. Then the expression also aims to
awaken mistrust at the goodness and wisdom of God, and so weaken the
force of the temptation. As if he had said, “What, not eat of every
tree of the garden? I doubt it. Such a prohibition seems unreasonable.”
Here Eve would assure the tempter that she was not mistaken in regard
to the prohibition. “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the
garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, _neither shall ye
touch it, lest ye die_.” Notice the Italic words are added by Eve to
the command of God concerning the tree. No doubt, as she stood there
admiring the tree, the monitor of her heart kept saying, “Don’t touch
it, don’t touch it,” and, in her guileless simplicity, she adds the
words to the prohibition. And yet by this very addition does her first
wavering disguise itself under the form of an overdoing obedience. The
first failure is her not observing the point of the temptation, and
allowing herself to be drawn into an argument with the tempter; the
second, that she makes the prohibition stronger than it really is,
and thus lets it appear that to her, too, the prohibition seems too
strict; the third that she weakens the prohibition by reducing it to
the lesser caution. God had said, “Thou shalt surely die.” She reduces
it to “_lest ye die_,” thus making the motive of obedience to be
predominantly the fear of death.
Her tempter, who could quote Scripture to our Lord in his second
temptation, after he had failed in the first, was quick to take up
the woman’s rendering of the prohibition, and makes answer, “Ye shall
not surely die!” What an advance over the first suggestion, “Yea,
hath God said.” No doubt he had noted her wavering, and, instead
of turning promptly away from the author of her wavering, saw her
disposed to inform him of what God had said concerning this “tree of
the knowledge of good and evil,” and he promptly steps out from the
area of cautious craft into that of a reckless denial of the truth of
God’s prohibition, and a malicious suspicion of its object. Eve had
not repeated the words of the prohibition, and of the penalty, in its
double or intensive form, but Satan repeats it, in blasphemous mockery,
as though he had heard it in some other way, and stoutly denies the
truth of the threatening, that is, the doubt becomes unbelief.
The way, however, is not prepared for the unbelief without first
arousing a feeling of distrust in respect to God’s love, His
righteousness, and even His power. So the tempter denies all evil
consequences as arising from the forbidden enjoyment, whilst, on the
contrary, he promises the best and most glorious results from the
same. “Instead of your eyes closing in death,” he said, “they shall
be opened.” The tempter would have the woman believe that, in eating
of the fruit, she would become wonderfully enlightened, and, at the
same time, raised to a divine glory--“shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil.” And so, in like manner, is every sin a false and senseless
belief in the salutary effects of sin.
We tremble for Eve at this point of her interview with her tempter. It
is an awful moment, a moment in which her own happiness and that of her
husband’s and all the generations of earth are in the balances.
“And when the woman saw.” She was now looking at the tree and its fruit
from a far different standpoint from that in the morning. She beheld
it now with a look made false by the distorted application of God’s
prohibition by her tempter. In fact, she had become enchanted by the
distorted construction put upon God’s plain commandment. The satanic
promises seemed to have driven the threatening of that prohibition out
of her thought. Now she beholds the tree with other eyes. Three times,
it is said, how charming the tree appeared to her.
But where has Adam been all this time? Doubtless he was busy with
his duties, for God had set him “to dress and to keep” the garden in
which he had been placed. He may have seen Eve passing down one of the
beautiful paths of the garden in her morning walk, beguiled by the
splash of the fountains, the song of the birds, and the beauty of the
flowers at her feet. He may have observed her stay longer than usual,
and so turned aside from his duties to see what had become of her, and
following down the path over which he had last seen her disappear among
the trees and shrubbery of the garden, soon came to the place where
“the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” stood, and then, from
the lips of his own pure, sweet wife, learned what had taken place.
Possibly she was holding the very fruit of which she had said, “neither
shall ye touch it,” in her hands, admiring its beauty and wondering how
it tasted. And, while examining the fruit, she told her husband what
had passed between her and her tempter, and as she finished her story
she said, “I do not think there can be any harm in my just breaking the
rind of it, to see how it looks inside.” Prompted by womanly curiosity,
she broke open the fruit, and, before she was really conscious, she
“did eat!” “Why, how nice!” she exclaimed, at the same time handing the
other half to her husband. As a good gardener, he would naturally share
the curiosity of his wife to taste this fruit, “and he did eat!”
The next statement we have, “And the eyes of them both were opened.”
But how were they opened? Each of them had two good eyes before eating
the fruit; in fact, Eve had been admiring the fruit as it hung among
the branches of the tree, and as she had turned it over in her hands.
Before they tasted they saw with their natural eyes. Now they see with
a higher knowledge of sense--there is added a con-sense--a conscience
or self-consciousness. In the relation between the antecedent here
and what followed there evidently lies a terrible irony. The promise
of the tempter becomes half fulfilled, though, indeed, in a sadly
different sense from what they had supposed. They had attained, in
consequence, to a moral insight. Self-consciousness was awakened with
their knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil. It belongs to the
very beginning of moral cognition and development.
How strange it all is. Eden full of trees, fruits of every kind,
luscious and satisfying, but, excited by false and wicked statements in
respect to the prohibition of the fruit of one tree, she straightway
desires to taste for herself, and that curiosity blasted her and
blasted all nations. And thousands in every generation, inspired by
unhealthful inquisitiveness, have tried to look through the keyhole of
God’s mysteries--mysteries that were barred and bolted from all human
inspection--and they have wrenched their whole moral nature out of
joint by trying to pluck fruit from branches beyond their reach.
We may also learn that fruits which are sweet to the taste may
afterward produce great agony. Forbidden fruit for Eve was so pleasant
she invited her husband also to take of it; but her banishment from
paradise and years of sorrow and wretchedness and woe paid for that
luxury.
Sometimes people plead for just one indulgence in sin. There can be no
harm to go to this or that forbidden place just once. Doubtless that
one Edenic transgression did not seem to be much, but it struck a blow
which to this day makes the earth stagger. To find out the consequences
of that one sin you would have to compel the world to throw open all
its prison doors and display the crime, throw open all its hospitals
and display the disease, throw open all the insane asylums and show
the wretchedness, open all the sepulchres and show the dead, open
all the doors of the lost world and show the damned. That one Edenic
transgression stretched chords of misery across the heart of the world
and struck them with dolorous wailing, and it has seated the plagues
upon the air and the shipwrecks upon the tempest, and fastened, like
a leech, famine to the heart of the sick and dying nations. Beautiful
at the start, horrible at the last. Oh, how many have experienced it!
Beware of entertaining temptations to first sins! Turn away and flee
for thy life to the sure and only Refuge--Christ Jesus.
In the cool of the day, as the evening hours drew on, Adam and Eve
“heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.” They were
used to hearing that voice walking in the garden in the cool of the
day. Eden had become a dear spot to the heart of their Father, and
doubtless He often came down to converse with them. So now He seeks
companionship with the majestic human masterpieces of His creation. And
why should he not?
But, passing strange! instead of running to Him out of their Eden
home, as doubtless they had been wont to do, “Adam and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden.” This act, no doubt, was prompted by self-consciousness and the
shame and guilt which it brought. So we clearly see that sin separates
from God. They had pronounced judgment upon their transgression by
their very conduct. Instead of meeting God as they had been doing, a
feeling of distrust and servile fear entered their hearts, and a sense
of the loss of their spiritual purity, together with the false notion
that they can hide themselves from God. And so it has come to pass
that ever since the first transgression men have been hiding from God,
running away from his presence.
“And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art
thou?” The Lord is the first to break the silence; the first to seek
erring humanity. Not for His own sake does God direct this inquiry,
for He knew where Adam was, but that Adam might take courage and open
his mouth in confession--it was an invitation to tell the whole sad
story. But, instead, he multiplies the difficulties by his answer,
“I was afraid, because I was naked.” That is to say, Adam, instead
of confessing the sin, sought to hide behind its consequences, and
his disobedience behind his feeling of shame. His answer to the
interrogation is far from the real cause of the change that had
come over his conduct, which was sin, and made his consciousness of
nakedness to be the reason. To still make Adam see the true reason for
his hiding, God farther asked, “Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I
commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?” Observe this question is
so framed as to contain in it the eating and the tree from which he
ate, and could have been answered with, “Yes!” How easy God made it for
Adam to confess. But, alas! How far from it. He answered, “The woman
whom thou gavest unto me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.” How
deep the root of sin had taken hold upon Adam’s heart. What does he say
in this answer? Why this, he acknowledged the guilt, but indirectly
charges God as the author of the calamity. Eve is referred to as “the
woman” who is the author of his sin, and, since she was given to him
by the hand of the Lord, therefore it is the Lord’s fault, for if He
had not given her to Adam, he would not have partaken of the forbidden
tree! How passing strange is all this. And yet that is just what men
are doing after six thousand years of experience with sin. Instead of
breaking away from it, they say, God put it before them, and they could
not resist the temptation to sin. The loss of love that comes out in
this interposing of the wife is, moreover, particularly observable in
this, that he grudges to call her Eve (Isha--married) or my wife.
Failing to return unto God by way of confession, the Lord next deals
with Adam in judgment. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake ... thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” The very soil he had
been sent to cultivate, and to carry forward in a normal unfolding,
to imperishable life and spiritual glory, is now cursed for his sake,
and therewith changed to that of hostility to him. Referring to the
curse upon mankind, in consequence of the fall, Hugh MacMillan has
called attention to the remarkable fact that weeds, the curse of the
cultivator, accompany civilization. “There is one peculiarity about
weeds which is very remarkable,” says this writer, “namely, that they
only appear on ground which either by cultivation or for some other
purpose, has been disturbed by man. They are never found truly wild, in
woods or hills, or uncultivated wastes far away from human dwellings.
They never grow on virgin soil, where human beings have never been. No
weeds exist in those parts of the earth that are uninhabited, or where
man is only a passing visitant.” And what is true of mother earth is in
a sense true of the human heart. The youthful mind no sooner awakes to
thought and reason, than it gives evidence of abundance of weeds. In
surprise the mother asks where the little one has learned disobedience
and questions how so young a mind can assert such strong opposition to
wholesome discipline.
And now, lest a worse calamity should fall on Adam and his wife, by
stretching forth their hands “and take also of the tree of life, and
eat, and live forever,” God “drove out the man” from Eden, and placed
“cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the
way of the tree of life.” The act of driving Adam and Eve out of Eden
has always been looked upon as a harsh measure. If, however, we stop
to reflect what awful consequences would have followed the rash act of
eating of the tree of life, we shall see that it was an act of mercy.
For, after placing himself under the law of sin, what endless sorrow
would have come upon the race, if men could not be removed by death.
Think of such human monsters as history has time and again produced.
Men and women degraded by thousands of years in sin would indeed be
dangerous characters. So God cut off this possibility by guarding the
tree of life.
But there came a great change over all life. Beasts that before were
harmless and full of play put forth claw and sting and tooth and tusk.
Birds whet their beak for prey, clouds troop in the sky, sharp thorns
shoot up through the soft grass, blastings are on the leaves. All the
chords of that great harmony are snapped. Upon the brightest home this
world ever saw our first parents turned their back and led forth on a
path of sorrow the broken-hearted myriads of a ruined race.
[Illustration: THE ACCEPTED OFFERING.]
When Eve looked into the face of her first-born, she remembered the
words of the Lord, in His judgment upon Satan, “I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shalt
bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel,” and, misunderstanding
the meaning of the promise, she called him Cain, meaning, “I have
gotten a man from the Lord,” mistaking him for the Redeemer. But
how bitter must have been her disappointment as she saw the child
grow up, saw his characteristics manifest themselves in acts of
hatefulness and revenge. However, but little is said of Cain and his
younger brother Abel, until they bring their offerings to the Lord.
We read that Abel was a “keeper of sheep,” and Cain was a “tiller of
the ground.” While it is not stated, we must believe these brothers
knew what was, and what was not, an acceptable offering to the Lord,
that Cain could easily have exchanged his fruits of the soil for a
lamb of Abel’s flock. Evidently Cain was lacking in that fine moral
insight which would lead him to have respect as to the nature of the
sacrifice necessary to atone for sin. There must be the shed blood of
the victim, for, “without shedding of blood,” there is no remission.
Either Cain did not regard himself a sinner, or, if he did, he thought
one sacrifice as good as another, and so he brings “of the fruit of
the ground an offering unto the Lord.” God could not accept this act
of disobedience. Because his offering was rejected, and seeing Abel’s
offering accepted, Cain rose up and slew his brother. He failed to shed
the blood of a lamb for his sin, but was quick to shed the blood of his
brother, and thereby add to his sin. But what a crushing blow was this
to the hopes of the mother heart who had supposed that her first-born
was the promised “seed.” How she must have broken down under her
sorrow, as she saw the blood dripping from Cain’s fingers, and that,
too, the blood of his own brother. And sadder still as she looked upon
the face of death for the first time. However she might have understood
the lying words of her tempter, “Ye shall not surely die,” she now sees
in the lifeless body of her second child, the awful reality of death.
And when the first grave was made, how she must have daily wept over
the precious mound, not only over this her first experience in bitter
bereavement, but also over the circumstances under which it was brought
about, and as she plants the flowers on the tomb, she fancies she hears
the blood of the innocent victim continually crying unto heaven to be
avenged. Oh, the bitter, bitter fruits of disobedience, who can know to
what misery they bring us?
And then also observe Cain’s conduct in this awful crime. God’s
arraignment of this fratricide was analogous to that of Adam and
Eve. But Cain evades every acknowledgment of it. He not only tells
a barefaced falsehood, but in a most impudent manner asks, “Am I my
brother’s keeper?” What a fearful advance on the timid explanations of
Adam’s transgression as he spoke to the Lord out of his hiding place.
How men should tremble at the very thought of sin.
But the sorrowing Eve took heart once more in the birth of Seth, “for,”
said she, “God hath appointed another seed instead of Abel.” So hope
in the heart, like the perpetual altar fires in the sacrifices of the
temple, seemed to sing a sweet song of comfort, and every child born
seemed to outweigh the bitter disappointments in the realization of the
promised Redeemer.
With this hope in the heart of Eve, and this beautiful language upon
her lips, the Scripture account closes. How long she lived after the
birth of Seth we are not informed, but of this we are assured, she
believed God in His promise of the Messiah. That she misunderstood when
that promise was to be realized, is quite evident, but there is every
reason to believe she died in the faith of its ultimate realization,
for she judged God to be righteous in the promise.
What is the lesson the loss of Paradise has for us? Plainly this: The
perverted use of things good in themselves. Eve saw that the tree was
pleasant to the eyes. From that day to this there have been women
who would throw their health, their home happiness, their chance of
training their children for God, their life, their honor, their hope
of heaven, into a cauldron out of which might be brought something
pleasant to the eyes. Eyes are good, useful and necessary, but we need
to make a covenant with them not to see more than is good for our souls.
After she saw, she “desired.” This would seem to imply that the real
source of all sin is in the spirit of our own desires. The last of the
Ten Commandments strikes down to the very tap-root of all evil, “Thou
shalt not covet.” All sin commences with the kindling of desire. The
apostle James gives us the pedigree, “Every man is tempted when he is
turned away of his own lust and enticed; then, when lust and desire
hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished,
bringeth forth death.” The secret of victory, therefore, is not to
allow the mind and heart to dwell for a moment upon any forbidden
thing. The whole modern life is terribly fitted to stimulate unholy
desire. The little child is taught from infancy to covet the vain and
glittering attractions of the world--dress, equipage, pleasure, praise,
fashion, display and a thousand worldly allurements. The city bill
boards are covered with nude harlots. There are no less than 200,000
houses for these social outcasts in our fair land. These open gateways
to immorality, where the virtue of the nation is ground out, are not
only guarded by police force, but young girls by the 100,000 a year
are stolen from country homes by the paid agents, and sold into these
open dens of vice and crime, where these poor girls die in a short
time, the average length of this life of sin being only five years. And
still the people have not a word to say for the suppression of these
crime-breeding dens of vice, but legalize and protect them by law to
the ruin of our homes. These are the things that are eating out the
spiritual life of the nation, and for that reason many do not want to
retain the thought of God in their hearts. Hence the responsibilities
of life are pressing upon us. As you have seen the child trundling its
little hoop by touching it on both sides alternately to keep it from
either extreme, so God teaches us both with warning and with promise,
as our spiritual condition requires. Sometimes it is warning we need,
and He shouts in our ear the solemn admonition, as a mother would cry
to her babe in wild alarm if in danger of falling over the precipice.
But, again, when we are in danger of being too much depressed, He
speaks to us with notes of encouragement and promise, and tells us
there is no real danger of our failing utterly, and that He will never
suffer us to be tempted above what we are able. And so we hear Him
saying on one hand, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest
he fall;” but immediately after adding on the other side, “God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able,
but will, with the temptation, make a way of escape that ye may be
able to bear it.”
“Fear not! When temptations try thee
Trust the Saviour’s loving care;
No temptation will come nigh thee
More than thou has strength to bear.
“Fail not! In the hour of testing,
Christ is pledged to bring thee through
In His arms securely resting
There thou shalt thy strength renew.”
We are also impressed with the influence woman has for good or evil.
What we need as a nation is consecrated womanhood. When at last we come
to calculate the forces that decide the destiny of nations, it will
be found that the mightiest and grandest influence came from home,
where the wife cheered up despondency and fatigue and sorrow by her
own sympathy, and the mother trained her child for heaven, starting
the little feet on the path to the celestial city, and the sisters,
by their gentleness, refined the manners of the brother, and the
daughters were diligent in their kindness to the aged, throwing wreaths
of blessing on the road that led father and mother down the steep of
years. God bless our homes. And may the home on earth be the vestibule
of our home in heaven.