The abject condition of the female sex, in all, out of Christian
countries, is universally known and admitted. In all savage and pagan
tribes, the severest burdens of physical toil are laid upon their
shoulders; they are chiefly valued for the same reason that men value
their most useful animals, or as objects of their sensual and selfish
desires. Even in the learned and dignified forms of Eastern paganism,
"the wife," says one who has spent seventeen years among them, "is the
slave, rather than the companion of her husband. She is not allowed to
walk with him, she must walk _behind_ him; not to eat with him, she must
eat _after_ him, and eat of what he leaves. She must not sleep until he
is asleep, nor remain asleep after he is awake. If she is sitting, and
he comes in, she should rise up. She should, say their sacred books,
have no other god on earth than her husband. Him she should worship
while he lives, and, when he dies, she should be burnt with him. As the
widow, in case she is not burnt, is not allowed to marry again, is often
considered little better than an outcast, and not unfrequently sinks
into gross vice, her life can scarcely be considered a blessing."
The same author remarks, that "there is little social intercourse
between the sexes; little or no acquaintance of the parties before
marriage, and consequently little mutual attachment; and as there is an
absolute vacuity and darkness in the minds of the females, who are not
allowed even to learn to read, there is no solid foundation laid for
domestic happiness."
If we pass into the dominions of the crescent, we find the condition of
females, in some respects, rather worse, it would seem, than better.
For, in pagan India, debased and abused as woman is, she is still
allowed some interest in religion, and some common expectations with the
other sex, concerning the future state. But in Mohammedan countries,
even this is nearly or quite denied her. "It is a popular tradition
among the Mohammedans, which obtains to this day, that woman shall not
enter Paradise;" and it requires some effort of the imagination to
conceive how debased and wretched must be the condition of the female
sex, to originate and sustain such a horrible and blasphemous tradition.
Even in the refined and shining ages of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, where
the cultivation of letters, the graces of finished style, the charms of
poetry and eloquence, the elegances of architecture, sculpture,
painting, and embroidery, the glory of conquest, and the pride of
national distinction, were unsurpassed by any people before or
since--even then and there, what was the woman but the abject slave of
man? the object of his ambition, or his avarice, or his lust, or his
power? the alternate victim of his pleasures, his disgust, or his
cruelty? the creature of his caprice? and, what is worse, the menial
slave of her own mental darkness, moral debasement, and vicious
indulgences? If history is not false, the answer is decisive. This, and
only this, was she!
But how entirely has our religion reversed all this, and rendered her
life a blessing to herself and to society. And as Christianity has done
so much for woman, she ought in return to do much for Christianity.
Every thing that can render life desirable, she owes to Christ. Think
for one moment of the hole of the pit from which Christ has taken you!
Think of what would be your present condition, had it not been for the
Christian religion! You might have been with the debased and wretched
victims of pagan oppression, cruelty, and lust; burning alive upon the
funeral pile; or sacrificed by hands of violence or pollution; or cast
out, and neglected, to pine in solitary and hopeless grief. Or, with the
female followers of the false prophet, or, in more refined but
unchristian nations, you might have been little else than the slave or
the convenience of man, and left to doubt whether any inheritance awaits
you beyond the grave.
From these depths of debasement and wretchedness, Christianity has taken
you, and placed you on high, to move, and shine, and rejoice, in the
sphere for which the Creator designed you. Not only has it made your
condition as good as that of man, but, in a moral view, in some respects
superior to it. How much, then, do you owe to Christ! To turn away from
him with indifference or neglect, what ingratitude is this! How
preposterous, how base, how unlovely, is female impiety! There was much
sense in a remark made by an intelligent gentleman, who, although not
pious himself, said: "I cannot look with any complacency upon a woman
who does not manifest gratitude and love to Jesus Christ. Above all
things, I hate to see so unnatural an object as an irreligious woman."
Such being the constitution and circumstances of woman, it is the
manifest intention of God that she should be pre-eminent in moral
excellence; and, through the influence of this, take a glorious lead in
the renovation of the world. This she has to some extent ever done. Let
all females of Christian lands consider well their high calling, their
solemn responsibility, and their glorious privilege. While many of their
sex have proved recreant to their trust, and wasted life in vanity and
in vice, others--an illustrious constellation, the holy and the good of
ancient time, the mothers and the sisters in Israel, "the chief women,
not a few," of apostolic times, the bright throng, that have since
continued to come out from the world, and tread in the steps of Jesus,
and lead on their fellow-beings to the kingdom of purity and joy--have
proved to us that, as woman was first to fall, so she is first to rise.
Yes; though it is not hers to amass wealth; to aspire to secular office
and power; to shine in camps and armies; to hurl the thunders of our
navies, and gather laurels from the ocean, or to receive the vain
incense offered to public and popular eloquence: yet, hers it is, to be
robed with the beauty of Christ; to shine in the honors of goodness; to
shed over the world the sweet and holy influences of peace, virtue, and
religion; to be adorned with those essential and imperishable beauties,
those unearthly stars and diadems, whose lustre will survive, with
ever-increasing brightness, when all earthly glory will fade and be
forgotten. Come, then; come to your high duty, your glorious
privilege--come, and be blessed for ever!