The True Woman
by
Justin D. Fulton
Part 1 out of 3
Team
THE TRUE WOMAN:
A SERIES OF DISCOURSES
BY REV. J. D. FULTON, (TREMONT TEMPLE, BOSTON.)
TO WHICH IS ADDED
WOMAN VS. BALLOT.
BOSTON, 1869
TO
THE TRUE WOMAN,
WHO, THROUGH CHRIST, BLESSES MAN, AND HELPS TO MAKE HIS HOME A JOY AND
HIS LIFE A PRIVILEGE,
THIS BOOK
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
This book grew. Its history is very brief. The lecture entitled "Woman
_versus_ Ballot," while well received by the majority, has met with
a strong opposition from those who do not believe in the position
assigned to Woman in the Word of God. This turned the attention of
the author to the scriptural argument more and more, and resulted in
producing the impression that the effort to secure the ballot for
woman found its origin in infidelity to the Word of God and in
infidelity to woman.
In "Woman as God made Her" we saw Eve as she was brought to Adam, and
familiarized ourselves with the purposes He had in her creation, which
were chiefly embodied in the one word "_Helpmeet_." In "Woman as
a Tempter" we saw the _ideal_ woman despoiled of her glory, and
influencing the world to turn from the worship of the Creator to that
of the creature. For ages woman suffered the consequences of sin. In
Eve she lost her recognition; through Christ she regained it. The
study of the Bible has convinced the writer that the purpose of God,
in creating woman, still lives, and is to find its complete fulfilment
under the New Dispensation. We have seen that Christ--the embodiment
of all manly properties--turned his face towards and lavished his
blessings upon womanly characteristics, such as meekness, purity,
love, and humility, and that, because of His influence, woman is
invited to take her place in the church on an equality with man, to
help on the cause of truth by an illustration of those virtues which
received the glory shed upon them by the life of the Son of Man and
the Son of God.
In the work devolving upon mankind, woman has a distinct mission to
fulfil. Society owes to her love, honor, and protection. Every right,
social and religious, should be guarded. Associations calculated to
secure for her every privilege enjoyed by man, should be formed and
supported. Above all else, efforts should be made to lead her to
recognize in Christ her Saviour, for Christ in woman is her hope of
glory, her joy and strength. Said Florence Nightingale,--
"I would say to all women, Look upon your work, whether it be an
accustomed or unaccustomed work, as upon a trust confided to you. This
will keep you alike from discouragement and from presumption, from
idleness and from overtaxing of yourselves. Where God leads the way,
he has bound himself to help you _to go the way_. I would say to
all young ladies who are called to any peculiar vocation, Qualify
yourselves for it, as man does for his work. Don't think you can
undertake it otherwise.
"And again, if you are called to do a man's work, do not exact a
woman's privileges--the privileges of inaccuracy, of weakness, of the
muddle-head. Submit yourselves to the rules of business, as men do, by
which alone you can make God's business succeed. For he has never said
that he will give his blessing to sketchy, unfinished work. And I
would especially guard young ladies from fancying themselves like
Lady Superiors, with an obsequious following of disciples, if they
undertake any great work. I would only say, Work, work, in silence at
first, in silence for years. It will not be time wasted. And it is
very certain that without it you will be no worker--you will not
produce one 'perfect work,' but only a botch, in the service of God."
In the above spirit, and with a kindred desire, this volume was
written. For good or ill, for better or worse, the book is sent forth
in the hope that it may recall attention to the Divine IDEAL for
Woman, and aid in inducing man, to prize her as the first gift of God
to him, designed "as a helpmeet for him."
CONTENTS.
WOMAN AS GOD MADE HER
Man's Faith in a Helper suited to him
Woman Man's Complement
What Man desires to have loved
Woman is God's Gift to Man
What the Fact implies:--
1. The Father's Right to give away the Child
2. The Purpose for which God created her
WOMAN A HELPMEET
Man's Longing for Companionship
Meaning of the Word Woman
Woman dislikes to give a Reason for her Faith
Requisites to Companionship
Count Zinzendorf's Tribute to his Wife
Irving's Description of a Wife
The Advantages derived from Culture
Mrs. Thomas Carlyle and others
Why the Ballot injures Woman
WOMAN AS A TEMPTER
Satan undermines Woman's Confidence in God
Satan raises Suspicion
Ritualism the Outgrowth
Mother Superior and Sisters of Charity
Satan employs Mystery
Spiritualism
Satan's Influence deceived Woman
The Girl of the Period
Woman's Peril and her Hope
The Effects of Sin
Characteristics of Woman's Power as a Tempter
Influence of Married Women
How Rome uses Woman
The Remedy
THE GLORY OF MOTHERHOOD
Woman's Hope of Triumph
Man's Destiny and Mission
Woman ignored in Eve
Woman recognized in Mary
Woman in Nestoria and the East
Trials of Motherhood
The Glory of Motherhood
MARIOLATRY NOT OF CHRIST
The Worship of the Virgin Mary
Woman's Position previous to the Advent
The Place she fills in the Scheme of Redemption
The Influences set in Motion by the Life of Christ
Christ's personal Relations to Mary reviewed
A Lesson for Woman
Peril arising from Perversions of Truth
Mary's Glory
WOMAN'S WORK AND WOMAN'S MISSION
Woman's Work and Mission go hand in hand
Love lightens Labor
Woman's Work a Work of Charity
Cause of Trouble with Servants
Education must fit Woman for the Home
Woman's Mission inferred from the Wants of Man
A proper Conception of the Truth a Help to Woman
Woman's Mission social as well as domestic
Woman's Help needed in the Cause of Reform
Woman needs Help
A Mother's Power--her Mission religious
The Value of her Sympathy
Woman's Power a Glory and a Joy
WOMAN vs. BALLOT,
Three Facts which stand in the Way of Woman's being
helped by the Ballot--God, Nature, and Common
Sense
The Scriptural Argument
God's Care for Woman
Her Condition in other Countries
An Illustration of Woman's Nature
Teachings of Nature
Teachings of Common Sense
Gail Hamilton vs. Ballot
Woman not a Lawmaker
Education essential for her
Woman not in Captivity
WOMAN AS GOD MADE HER.
The biography of our first parents, as God made them, and described
them, before sin ruined them, is very brief and truly suggestive. It
is as follows:--
"And Jehovah God created the man in his image; in the image of God
created he him; a male and a female created he them. And God blessed
them; and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the
earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the
earth. And God said, Behold, I have given to you every herb scattering
seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree, in
which is the fruit of a tree scattering seed, to you it shall be
given."--Gen. i. 27-30.
"And Jehovah God formed the man of the dust of the ground, and he
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a
living soul. And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden, on the east,
and there he put the man whom he formed, ... to till it and to keep
it. And God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden
thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die. And God said, It is not good that the man should be
alone. I will make for him a helper, suited to him. And God caused a
deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his
ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. And of this rib which he
took from the man, Jehovah God formed a woman, and brought her to the
man. And the man said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my
flesh. This shall be called Woman, because from man was she taken.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall
cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh. And they were both
naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."--Gen, ii. 7, 8,
15-18, 21-25.
Brief as are these utterances, and familiar as is this language, it is
interesting to notice that God has crowded into them every essential
fact concerning the origin of woman, the purpose of her creation, and
the sphere marked out for her by the Creator's hand.
The simple outline of the story is given us, yet how wonderful is the
picture! In the first chapter the origin of man is proclaimed, and
his work, "to fill earth and subdue it," is placed before him. In the
second chapter, the relation of the sexes is given, and the nature of
marriage is explained. What arrests the attention most surely is the
resemblance that exists between the experience of our first parents
and of their descendants, or between Adam and Eve and ourselves. The
"It is not good for man to be alone," spoken by God in Eden, embodies
a truth which has lived with the ages, and sets forth an experience
felt by every son of Adam. The words "I will make for him a helper
suited to him," is man's authority for the faith, that somewhere on
the earth God has made a helper suited to him, whom he will recognize,
and who will return the recognition. For in all true marriages, now as
in Eden, the man and woman do not deliberately seek, but are brought
to one another. Happy those who afterwards can recognize that the hand
which led his Eve to Adam was that of an invisible God. Man knows that
it is not good for him to be alone. Separated from woman's influence,
man is narrow, churlish, brutal. Woman is a helper suited to him. With
her help he reaches a loftier stature; for love is the very heart of
life, the pivot upon which its whole machinery turns, without which no
human existence can be complete, and with which it becomes noble and
self-sacrificing.
Woman's origin is thus declared:--
"And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he
slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its
place. And of the rib which he took from the man God formed a woman,
and brought her to the man. And the man said, This now is bone of my
bones, and flesh of my flesh. This shall be called Woman, because from
man was she taken. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh."[A]
_Woman was taken out of man_. It is man's nature to seek to get her
back. He feels that a part of _him_ is away from him, until he obtains
her. Long years before he sees the woman whom he feels God designed to
be his wife, if he be a Christian, believing that she is on the earth,
he prays for her weal.
[Footnote A: Gen. ii. 21-24.]
"_Taken out of man!_" How significant these words! Man, without woman,
wants completeness--physically, mentally, and spiritually. First,
physically. The fact is noticeable that short men often marry tall
women, and tall men marry short women. Nervous men marry women who are
opposites to them in temperament. This is not a happen so, for that
which so often to the unreflecting mind seems unnatural and absurd,
to the thinking soul appears as an evidence of God's provident care.
Second, mentally. Man desires in his wife that which he lacks. A
bookish man seldom desires a wife devoted to the same branch of
literature, unless she works as a helpmeet. In taste and in sentiment
there must be harmony without rivalry. They must bring products to
the common garner, gathered from varying pursuits and from different
fields of thought. In music the same law rules. Man, from his very
nature, finds in woman a helper in song. Their voices blend in
harmony, and give volume, symphony, and variety to the melody
produced. Jenny Lind married her assistant, because in sympathy they
were one. He was essential to her womanly strength, and without her,
he was a mere cipher in the musical world. Together they were a power,
felt and acknowledged.
A man full of thought and of genius requires for a wife, not only one
who can understand his moods and enjoy his creations, but one who is
content to take care of the home, and, perhaps, to manage the business
affairs; while many a woman of genius and ability links her fortunes
with a plain and appreciative husband, who gladly affords her every
means in his power to work in her special sphere. When the wife
refuses to act thus wifely, because of her talent, the happiness
of the home is imperilled, and the children suffer quite as much,
comparatively, as they do in those manufacturing neighborhoods where
the wife forsakes the home for the shop, and gives up the vocation
of woman to do the work which belongs to man. God made them male and
female. He fitted each for separate duties, not for the same duties.
Each fills a sphere when each discharges the duties enjoined upon them
by their Creator and by society. Wonderful women there are; few of
them care to duplicate their power. They prefer to obtain by marriage
that which they have not, and which must be supplied by material from
without. Homely people oftentimes find beautiful ones to mate them.
The rugged seeks the weak. The nervous, the lymphatic. Counterpart
that which makes itself complete. This tendency to assimilate is
often carried to extremes, because all naturally love that which they
possess, and come to prize highly those who regard it with favor.
Hence, poor men sometimes marry rich wives, and seldom fail to give
something in return. The story is familiar of the two foppish young
men who were said to have met at a noted hotel or on change, when one
accosted the other by the question, "Who did you marry?" "Ah," said
he, "I married fifty thousand dollars. I forget her other name."
Such men, however, are exceptions to the rule. There are brainless
creatures called men, who will marry a pretty face, though the heart
and brain be uncultured, provided there be associated with her
sufficient of this world's goods to gratify a mercenary ambition; but
the majority, both of men and women, wisely prefer to marry money in
a partner rather than money with a partner. The world has a profound
contempt for shallow, fussy, empty people, no matter what positions
they may occupy.
All sympathize with the rebuke administered to a so-called lady of
quality by a Quaker gentleman, who occupied a seat near her in a
public coach. She wore an elegant lace shawl, and was dressed to the
top of the fashion, but was suffering from the cold. Shivering and
shaking, she inquired, "What shall I do to get warm?" "_Thee had
better put on another breastpin_," answered old Broadbrim. The rebuke
was timely. Woman degrades herself when she surrenders to fashion that
which helps the woman, and which aids her in securing the confidence,
the friendship, the respect, and admiration of sensible men.
The truth embodied in the words, "This shall be called Woman, because
_from man was she taken_" sheds light upon many a mysterious chapter
in life, reconciles the union of contraries in accordance with the law
of God, and fills wide realms of life with the radiance of hope, which
otherwise would remain mantled in perpetual gloom. If we depended upon
those who are like ourselves to sympathize with us, and gird us with
strength, we should utterly fail. Oaks cannot lend support to oaks.
The vine can do this for the oak, and the oak can give support to the
vine; but an oak cannot give strength to its kindred while fulfilling
the functions of its life. The same law rules in the mental world.
Genius seldom applauds genius, working in its own realm. Very likely
it loathes it. The tributes paid to labor are given by the soft-handed
rather than by the hard-handed sons of toil. This principle lies back
of the appreciation, the commendation, and the support rendered by the
different classes of a community to each other.
The God-given and Christ-restored thought of equality between the
sexes is seen in the household partnership, where the woman looks for
a "smart, but kind" husband, the man for a "capable, sweet-tempered"
wife. The man furnishes the house, the woman regulates it. Their
relation is one of mutual esteem, mutual dependence. Their talk is of
business; their affection shows itself by practical kindness. They
know that life goes more smoothly and cheerfully to each for the
other's aid; they are grateful and content. The wife praises her
husband as a "good provider;" the husband, in return, compliments her
as a capital housekeeper. This relation is good as far as it goes;
but the heart of the man or woman is unsatisfied, if to household
partnership intellectual companionship be not added.
Men can hire their houses kept. Love cannot be purchased. Soul
communion is the gift of God. It is very often enjoyed on earth. Men
engaged in public life, literary men and artists, have often found
in their wives companions and confidants in thought, no less than in
feeling. And as the intellectual development of woman has spread
wider and risen higher, they have, not unfrequently, shared the same
employments.
Thirdly, spiritual. The highest grade of marriage union is the
spiritual, which may be expressed as a pilgrimage towards a common
shrine.
There is something in every man which he feels to be the essential
thing about him. This it is which he desires to have loved. Neglect
what else you choose, you must not neglect that. It is the spiritual
part of man,--the God-given characteristic which longs for sympathy.
Men feel that this want has been met when they say, "Such a one
understands me, knows me, sees me, is in sympathy with me." Such
moments are to all of priceless value. Whoever meets this want is a
boon from God. No matter what the complexion, nor how the features
seem: soul meets soul. The heart feels a new life. The union is
formed. _Call it affinity, or what you will_, they love in one another
the future good which they aid one another to unfold. This includes
home sympathies and household wisdom. Such fellowship makes of home a
joy, and of toil a delight. When first the joy is reached, a foretaste
of heaven is enjoyed. "For it is the one rift of heaven which makes
all heaven appear possible; the ecstasy of hope and faith, out of
which grows the love which is our strongest mortal instinct and
intimation of immortality."
Women are as conscious of this feeling as are men. There are times
when women meet their counterpart. The nature they long for and seek
after with unutterable longing, is before them. Finding it, they
recognize their lord, under whose protection they take shelter, and
to whose rule they submit, because of love which masters and controls
them. The heart cries out for a person--not for things. Spirit
desires spirit; soul yearns for soul. It is the genius of woman to be
electrical in movement, intuitive in penetration, and spiritual in
tendency. She excels not so easily in classification or recreation as
in an instinctive seizure of causes, and a simple breathing out of
what she receives, that has the singleness of life, rather than the
selecting and energizing of art. More native is it to her to be the
living model of the artist, than to set apart from herself any one
form in objective reality. More native to inspire and receive the poem
than to create it. In so far as soul is in her completely developed,
all soul is the same; but in so far as it is modified in her as
woman, it flows, it breathes, it sings, rather than deposits soil,
or furnishes work; and that which is especially feminine, flushes in
blossom the face of the earth, and pervades, like air and water, all
this seeming solid globe, daily renewing and purifying its life. Such
is the especial feminine element which man desires as a helper, and
which is suited to him, and which compels him to exclaim, "O, my God,
give it to me _for mine_!"
It is said, "A woman will sometimes idealize a very inferior man,
until her love for him exalts him into something better than he
originally was, and her into little short of an angel; but a man
almost invariably drops to the level of the woman he is in love with.
He cannot raise her; but she can almost unlimitedly deteriorate him."
This was true of Adam. Eve, sinning, brought him to her level. Why
this should be, Heaven knows; but so it constantly is. We have but
to look around us, with ordinary observation, in order to see that a
man's destiny, more than even a woman's, depends far less upon the
good or ill fortune of his wooing than upon the sort of woman with
whom he falls in love.
Before a man loves, he is under obligations to himself, to his future,
and to the world, to ask himself, Is this woman suited to me? Will she
help me to fulfil my mission? Does she supply my want? Can I recognize
her as God's gift to me? If Yes, then he is right in loving; for
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
And win or lose it all."
A woman, writing of woman, has truly said, "There are but two ways
open to any woman. If she loves a man, and he does not love her, to
give him up may be a horrible pang and loss; but it cannot be termed
a sacrifice: she resigns what she never had. But if he does love her,
and she knows it, and if she loves him, she has a right, in spite of
the whole world, to hold to him till death do them part. She is bound
to marry him, though twenty other women loved him, and broke their
hearts in loving him. He is not theirs, but hers; and to have her for
his wife is his right and her duty." "And in this world are so many
contradictory views of duty and exaggerated notions of light, so many
false sacrifices and remunerations, weak even to wickedness, that
it is but fair sometimes to uphold the right of love,--love sole,
absolute, and paramount,--firmly holding its own, and submitting to
nothing and no one, except the laws of God and righteousness." Well
and truthfully spoken. Lift up this principle, and behold how it
showers benedictions upon all classes and upon all men.
Much is said against amalgamation, as though it were a crime. There is
no crime in it or about it. There is much of prejudice, but no crime.
Soul marries soul. If a white man loves the soul of a black woman,
there is no law in God's code forbidding the union. God made of one
blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.
Complexions may differ, owing to climate, or temperament, but the
blood is the same. The race has a common Father in God.
In this intermingling of races, coming to this land from all climes,
we perceive the seedling of a glorious hope. The future American is to
be the product of this blending of the distinctive features of all the
various nations of earth.
Against this result there is an immense amount of prejudice, born
of slavery; but in Europe it does not exist, nor is it in fact so
universal in this land as many suppose. Many a white man has found his
helpmeet in a black woman, and many more will find helpmeets from the
same source.
2. "_Woman was taken out of man_." There is significance in the
locality from which she was taken. Not from the superior part, that
she might think herself superior to man, or endowed with the right to
rule him. Her sin consisted in her failing to recognize the position
assigned. She was created an associate and an equal, and acted
independently, and as an adviser. She took advantage of her position
as wife, and became an ally of Satan.
She was not taken from an inferior portion of his body, that he might
think her inferior to himself, and to be trampled on by him, but out
of his side,--from his rib,--that she might appear to be equal to him;
and from a part near his heart, and under his arm, to show that she
should be affectionately loved by him, and be always under his care
and protection.
Wherever man has failed to recognize this truth society has gone back
to barbarism, and the very conception of a home has been banished from
the mind. In the East man rules woman as lord. She is his slave; and
in the Arabic language there is no word meaning "home." Christian
civilization lifts woman up, and thrones her in the heart of a _home_.
She was made from "bone and flesh,"--quickened dust,--and so in her
make and constitution she is of superior quality and of finer mould.
The Hebrew word translated "made," means _built_. From the rib God
built this woman. How instructive the fact! Woman added to man is the
foundation of the home or family. She is built out of man. Man is
necessary to her development. A man can continue the work begun by
God. He can build up a woman; and as he builds her up he builds up
himself. She is also a builder. She builds up a home, or degrades it.
If woman is honored in a home, she makes it honorable.
At the outset she was man's equal: perhaps she may have thought
herself to be superior to him--more refined, of better material. She
forgot her place, and ignored her sphere, and lost all. She was not
created as things were, out of nothing. She was meant to be something
better than a _thing_; and she must be something better than a thing,
or she is nothing. She was not formed as Adam was, out of the dust of
the earth. Had she been, perhaps she would not have disliked dust so
terribly. She is a part of man's life. This describes her mission. The
life of a woman who does not care to be a man's toy or ornament, but
desires rather to be his helpmeet,--supplying all he needs, as he
supplies all she needs,--is but the continuance, the flowing out and
flowing on of man's higher life, into the flowers of love, which
decorate the home, and make that chosen retreat the very portals of
heaven.
As man feels that in woman he finds the complement to himself, and
almost his other self, woman finds in man the same complement to
herself, and recognizes in him the ruler of her life, her friend,
her lover; and happy is she if she finds in him her husband, who
rightfully assumes his rights and his sovereignty.
3. "_God brought her unto man_." Woman is God's first gift to man.
She must never occupy a second place. In the heart she holds a first
place, or she holds none at all. The moment she holds a secondary
place she is ruined. It is in her power to hold the first place. To do
this, she must prize it; make sacrifices to keep it; almost, at times,
deny herself, and bear a cross, to hold on to it. Yet it is hers, and
God will see to it that she maintains her right.
"_God brought her_." Every husband in this world should feel that
his wife is God's gift to him, and it is his duty to study its
characteristics, and minister to them. Every man can make the partner
of his life a good wife, and can feel that she was God-given, and must
be used in such a manner that when the day of reckoning comes, he can
give a good account of the manner in which he has used this blessing.
To go to the judgment, and meet a broken-hearted woman, over whom man
has exercised tyranny, and to whom he has been a monster, until hope
died, and the grave became a refuge, will not be a pleasant meeting.
In this bestowal of woman upon man, we recognize two facts.
1. The father's right to give away his child--a right which exerts its
influence at the present time, and which every young man who seeks
properly the hand of woman is compelled to recognize. In that act of
Eden lie the rule and example to be followed by parents and children:
the one to dispose of their children, and the other to have the
consent of their parents in reaching conclusions upon which hinges the
destiny of the individual for time, and perhaps for eternity. Happy
the child that trusts a wise parent, and refuses to walk a path over
which the shadow of parental disapproval rests! Happy the parent who
finds pleasure in the fresh young love of the child, and watches the
opening flower and the ripening fruit with pride and pleasure.
This giving away of the child requires the enjoyment of perfect
confidence between father and daughter and mother and son.
God knew Eve, for he built her. He knew her heart, her mind, her
aspiration. A parent knows something of the child; and well it is for
both parent and child when this knowledge is perfect, and when the
relation subsisting between parents and children is such that home is
a place of consultation. A home without secrets, without closed doors,
and locked drawers and sugar-boxes,--a home where thought is free, and
mind is untrammelled, is the very gate of heaven.
There are homes where the children are excluded from counsel, from
love, from plan, from association. Those children live in a world
apart from their parents, and it will not be strange if they are swept
out by the waves of evil to ruin.
There are homes where the father shuts himself away from the wife and
children. To the children he is harsh, unsympathetic, and morose. Ah!
there is sorrow in that house. The mother--God bless her!--has a hard
time. She has to keep in with the father, and she will keep in with
the children. In that bundle of life the tendrils of her nature are
bound up. She fights a prolonged battle in regard to expenditure and
education. Happiness only comes when the household is one, and the
relations between father and children are perfect, as God designed
them to be.
Again, God gives his sanction not only to the truth that man's wants
can only be met by the gift of woman,--a fact which every man has
felt, and which causes every man to feel that somewhere on earth his
wife is living, who will recognize and welcome him to the bliss of
love and to the joy of companionship,--but this additional truth is
taught: Man has a right to marry. Love is no disgrace. It is the
pretence of it, for base purposes, which is disgraceful. The nuptial
vow was first whispered in the garden. God was sponsor, and all Eden
witnesses. This bond of union was God's gift to the race. The curse
did not touch it. The marriage vow and marriage rite, with the faith
in woman as a helpmeet, have survived the fall, and are our joy and
rejoicing at this time.
In conclusion, think of God's care for man, in providing woman as a
blessing. There is no necessity for man's being alone. Some one waits
to bless or has blessed him. Let us make more of our wives and sisters
than ever before. Let us build them up in love and in those generous
qualities which fit woman for her high destiny in this fallen world.
2. Think, woman, of your noble mission. You are to be a help to man.
You are to help him morally and spiritually. For this God created you.
For this he preserves you. "You are queens and bondmaids too, as royal
when you serve as when you rule." Man must respect you, for when
man loses his respect for woman he is lost. He goes down, down to
irremediable ruin. With woman as God designed her, man gets much of
Eden back, for in Christ she is reconciled to God. It is for man and
woman to get back Eden. Christ came to be our common helper. He is
woman's Saviour as well as man's, and offers to all that help which
changes life's desert into a garden, and life's gloom into the
brilliancy of an eternal day.
"Hail, woman! Hail, thou faithful wife and mother,
The latest, choicest part of heaven's great plan.
None fills thy peerless place at home, no other
Helpmeet is found for laboring, suffering man.
Hail, thou home circle, where, at day's decline,
Her moulding power, her radiant virtues shine!
Not in the church to rule or teach, her place;
Not in the mart of trade, or senate halls;
Not the wild, festive scene is hers to grace;
Not Fashion's altar her its victim calls;
Not here her field of triumph; but alone
She moves the queen of her own quiet home."
REV. MARK TRAFTON.
WOMAN A HELPMEET.
The purpose of God in the creation of woman was to provide man with a
helpmeet. The language is unmistakable. "And the Lord God said, It is
not good that the man should be alone. I will make for him a helper
suited to him." Woman was made to be man's helpmeet in Eden; that
purpose survives the _fall_. For right or wrong, for good or ill, her
influence is felt. She lifts man up or drags him down. Scoff at it,
oppose it, cast opprobrium upon this ancient utterance, the fact
remains, woman is made for man. Helpmeet she was, helpmeet she must
be, or leave her work undone, and suffer the blight that results from
the lack of love. God placed man in the garden to keep it, and he
placed woman there to fill the bower with love, and his home with joy.
The coming of Eve to Adam is a beautiful story. He had been taught to
realize his need of her. It was a part of his constitution. The same
is true now wherever woman is appreciated. The felt want is the
recognition of the fact. A wife chosen by one's parents, not by
himself, is devoid of all of those special characteristics which
distinguish her where processes of love begin, go on, deepen and
tighten, until the bond is woven and the union formed.
"Nothing so delights man as those graceful nets,
Those thousand delicacies that daily flow
From all her words and actions, mixed with love
And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned
Union of mind, or in them both one soul."[A]
[Footnote A: Paradise Lost, Book VIII.]
The knowledge of congeniality of tastes can only be obtained by mutual
acquaintance, and by a careful study. It is said nothing is so blind
as love. Nothing is so foolish as a blind love. Man needs a helpmeet,
and woman needs a man she can help. It is possible to know before
marriage that the parties are able to fulfil this trust. If they
cannot fulfil it, marriage is a sin, which brings forth continuous
sorrow and discontent.
The purpose of God to provide a helpmeet was avowed, but Adam did not
know the fact. Under the arch of God's promise we discover the working
of God's providence. The Bible, if properly studied, is a more
thrilling narrative than any novel, because in it we can behold the
infinite God working with man and for man. "It is not good that man
should be alone." This is the general proposition. As a counterpart we
find man feeling that it was very sad to be alone. In his heart there
is a want at work, making him ready for the blessing which God is
preparing for him.
The want of the soul means a purpose on the part of God to supply
it. This is true in regard to all that vitally interests man in this
world. My want is the basis of my hope. God, who is above and around
me, would not send forward the desire unless he had purposed to grant
it.
Prayer stirring in the soul, is to man spiritually what a bill
of goods preceding the payment is to a merchant. Do we long for
salvation, for a revival, for any spiritual outpouring? have faith
in God. There is a motive in it. Expect the blessing, and you will
receive it.
"The Spirit itself," said Paul, "beareth witness with our spirit, that
we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God,
and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we
may be also glorified together." This is enjoyed despite the curse.
"Jesus sent us the Comforter, who helpeth our infirmities, for we know
not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he
that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit,
because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of
God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are thus called according to his purpose." This
fatherhood of God comes to us under all circumstances and in all
conditions. In the home, in the heart with all its wails, in the
battle, in the victory, on earth and in heaven. Notice how Adam was
made ready for his helpmeet.
"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field,
and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he
would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature,
that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to
the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam
there was not found a helpmeet for him."
Imagine Adam feeling this want of companionship as the beasts of earth
in their pristine beauty pass before him. There are those who mate
with a horse or a dog. Who make a pet of a brute, and, ignoring their
higher relations, live for their lower nature. We know that animals
can be brought to do almost anything but talk, and some birds have the
gift of speech. It was doubtless true of Eden. The serpent's talking
did not surprise Eve.
Perhaps Adam may have found animals that could have kept him company.
Yet he could find none who could meet his want as a helpmeet. Milton
has fancifully described Adam expressing his want to the Infinite. It
grew upon him. Then he has pictured him asleep, and seeing, as in a
trance, the rib, with cordial spirits warm, formed and fashioned with
his hands, until
"Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Manlike, but different sex, so lovely fair
That what seemed fair in all the world seemed now
Mean, or in her summed up, in her contained,
And in her looks, which from that time infused
Sweetness into my heart unfelt before,
And into all things from her air inspired
The spirit of love and amorous delight."
Then she disappeared. The dream haunted him in his waking hours. In
the gallery of the Louvre there is a picture of Henry IV becoming
entranced by the picture of his future wife, and next to it is the
picture of the proud man being married to the woman whose face in
the picture had once captivated his fancy. Those pictures were the
realization of the one described in Milton's verse. Adam saw in Eve
the realization of his dream, and was happy when he welcomed to his
embrace this first gift of God, which met his want and answered his
prayer. God created man not only a social being but an intellectual
being. A beast can mate with beasts. They do so. A distinguished
writer says, "the family relation is almost universal among the higher
classes of animals." Adam's immortal nature longed for a kindred
spirit. One to commune with, one to love, one to guide, one to look at
life from another standpoint, one whose opinions should be diverse,
and yet alike in difference, one to help in all the affairs of life,
not only for the propagation of the species, but to provide things
useful and comfortable for him, and like himself in temper, in
disposition, and destiny. One to whom God shall be a loving Father,
and heaven a common home. One with whom soul can join with soul in
worship and love. A kindred spirit. A spirit having a common love, a
common purpose, a common aspiration, and a common interest.
This longing for companionship was the earliest recorded emotion of
the soul. It comes earliest to us and stays longest. In childhood,
very often, instinct and desire rule wisely, and matches formed in
heaven are recognized in life's morning on earth far oftener than we
are accustomed to think. This longing never ceases. The child wants
companionship, and old age, shattered and broken, feels the need of
this loving support which God provides in the opposite sex quite as
much as does the youthful heart. Our perfect humanity is made up of
the two, and is not complete without this union.
The most magnificent scenery is tame, unless you can point out its
beauties to the one you love. The picture gallery is worthless, unless
some other lip can press the goblet of your pleasure, and sip
nectar from the flower of beauty which blossoms in your thought or
imagination. It is not good for man to be alone, even in Eden. Eden is
not Eden without its Eve. Before Eve came, Eden was the pastureland of
beasts; after it, the place took on home-like properties, bowers of
love were formed, and the place became the house of God, and the gate
of heaven.
The characteristics of woman as a helpmeet deserve our notice.
1. _Consider this word "Woman._" Woman was the name given to our
mother because she was taken out of man. The word itself means
_pliant_. In this definition we discover the first characteristic of a
womanly nature. She is pliant. She adjusts herself to circumstances.
She is adapted to meet man's wants, because she finds it in her nature
to adapt herself to meet them.
It is gentlemanly to avow an opinion. We feel that it is womanly to
waive one. We never think less of a woman for not forcing her opinions
upon a company. We do not desire her to be without opinions, nor is it
expected that she will desist from expressing an opinion, but if one
must yield, it is womanly in woman to do so.
Indeed, oftentimes a woman of strong mental calibre, whose opinions
are derived from thought and study, has built her husband up by
permitting his expression to stand even though her own judgment might
differ from him. If she be a true wife or sister, she will seek, in
retirement, to correct an opinion which could not be avowed in public
without weakening a husband's or a brother's influence. A woman that
builds up another is herself a power and a praise.
The word _pliant_ does not demand an absence of quality. The Damascus
blade is pliant; it can be bent but it is not easily broken, while
its edge is the keenest and its strength is a marvel. So woman is not
necessarily weak because she is pliant. She may be the very reverse,
and yet be pliant. Oftentimes her power of control is the more potent
because it is unseen and unostentatious. An opinion held, to be
uttered in the moment of cool and calm reflection, may be more telling
than if spoken while the storm of debate was raging. The still, small
voice came after the lightning and the thunder and the earthquake, and
God spake in it with power and effect. It is the quiet utterance in
the home which is of marvellous power in the world. It is womanly to
adorn rather than to plan.
She fits herself for companionship rather than for leadership. By her
tact and by her very nature she is enabled to harmonize antagonistic
elements, and promote concord, if she cannot secure union. Like the
lily living in the water, she feeds on her native element, love. The
lily, though it floats on the wave, opens wider its leaves to the rain
and dew. So woman, though living on love, finds pleasure and rapture
in fresh manifestations of love day by day. It is her nature to love.
It is her life to be beloved.
2. Think of this other title, _feminine_. This word, in its meaning,
furnishes the second characteristic. It pertains to woman, and denotes
a soft, tender, and delicate nature. Effeminate means destitute of
manly qualities.
A woman truly feminine is thus described: "No coarseness was mingled
with her plainness of speech; no boisterousness with her zeal. Her
feelings, her sensibilities, her tastes were all characterized by a
gentleness and delicacy seldom surpassed. While her heroic daring
and unconquerable energy excited admiration, her love of birds and
flowers, and indeed of all that is beautiful in nature, made her seem
almost childlike." This characteristic, so loved and admired, is
woman's glory, and yet it is effeminate. Woman's mind is quicker, more
flexible, more elastic than man's, though the brain, in weight, is
much lighter. Man's brain weighs, on an average, three pounds and
eight ounces. Woman's brain weighs, on an average, two pounds and four
ounces. The female intellect is impregnated with the qualities of her
sensitive nature. It acts rather through a channel of electricity than
of reasoning. Its perceptions of truth come, as it were, by intuition.
It is under the influence of the heart, that has deep and unfathomable
wells of feeling; and truth is felt in every pulse, rather than
reasoned out and demonstrated. You cannot offend a woman so quick, in
any way, as to ask her why she wishes to do thus, or why she reaches
such a conclusion. Her reply is, invariably, "'_Cause!_" And that is
about all she knows about it; and yet woe be to the man who ignores
her intuitions, or treats with disdain her advice. Woman reads
character quicker and better than man. Her policy lies in her heart.
She feels rather than reasons. Man reasons rather than feels. Hence
she is a helpmeet. She fills a lack, and supplies a want.
In her the imagination and fancy have such a lively play, that the
homeliest principles assume forms of beauty. In intellectual pursuits
she is destined to excel by her fine sensibilities, her nice
observations, and exquisite tastes, while man is appointed to
investigate the laws of abstruse sciences, and perform in literature
and art the bolder flights of genius. She may surpass him in
representing life and manners, and in the composition of letters,
memoirs, and moral tales, in descriptive poetry, and in certain styles
of music and painting, and even in sculpture. But she will never write
an Iliad or a Paradise Lost, or tragedies like those of Aeschylus. She
will never rival Demosthenes in producing a political oration, nor
a massive philosophic history like Thucydides. She will not paint a
Madonna like Raphael, nor chisel an Apollo Belvedere. The logic of
Aristotle, the polemics of Augustine, the prodigious onsets of a
Luther, the Institutes of a Calvin, the Novum Organum of Bacon, the
Principia of Newton, the Cosmos of Humboldt--the like of these she
will never achieve, nor is it desirable that she should.
Women seldom invent. There are all manner of inventions, often
hundreds of applications in a single day, for patents at the Patent
Office, yet among them there are no female applicants. Woman cannot
compete with man in a long course of mental labor. The female mind is
rather quiet and timid than fiery and driving. It admires rather than
covets the great exploits of the other sex. Woman never excelled
in architecture. To her belong the gentler arts of quiet life and
retirement, where she has power to soften and refine the heart of
him who is accustomed to battle with the elements and the forces of
external nature.
We might speak at length of woman's gentle nature, present striking
examples of female submission, endurance, and heroism, and speak in
general of her charms and of her beneficent influence in domestic
and social life. It would be equally pertinent, perhaps, to exhibit
brilliant specimens of female genius and culture in the more graceful
walks of literature, science, or art. These gay flowers of humanity
lie scattered all over the vast field of history. But our subject
leads us in another direction. Woman as a helpmeet finds in her own
nature the natural introduction to the spheres of usefulness and
influence ever open to her. She has a body, a mind, and soul. She must
help, physically, mentally, and spiritually. The household partnership
is opened to her physical nature. This relation is good as far at it
goes. But it is only the beginning. It is rather the result than the
commencement of the union. There is a closer tie found in intellectual
companionship. Mind comes in contact with mind; the wants of the
intellect are met, and a union is the result. Men engaged in public
life, literary men and artists, have often found in their wives
companions and confidantes in thought no less than in feeling. And
as the intellectual development of woman has spread wider, and never
higher, they have been mutual helpers, suited to each other. Roland
and his wife in Paris, William and Mary Howitt of England, and Mr. and
Mrs. Browning, are beautiful illustrations of this principle, though
they are exceptional in their character. As a rule, when men find
helpers in women, there is no community of employment. Harmony exists
in difference no less than in likeness, if only the same key-note
governs both parts. Woman the poem, man the poet! Woman the heart, man
the head! Such instances lie all about us. Man rides to battle, while
his wife is busy in the kitchen; but difference of occupation does
not prevent that community of inward life, that perfect esteem which
causes him to say,--
"Whom God loves, to him gives he such a wife"
And yet there is a still higher realm open before woman, because of
her spiritual nature.
Woman as a helpmeet needs something besides a well-stored mind. She
requires a heart filled with pure affections. Here we perceive how
essential to her well being is submission to Christ.
The assumption of the New Testament is, that we possess an animal
nature. The meaning of the word _flesh_, in all the New Testament
writings, is, that the human family are living in an animal condition.
It is taught that in that condition it is impossible for them to
understand higher truths, or to feel higher influences, or to enter
into the experiences which belong to the full development of the
higher faculties. Christ came to us, suffered, and died for us, that
an escape from this lower into the higher realm might be possible. It
is possible. There is inherent under the divine influence the power of
recreating, so that the soul shall escape from the prison-house of the
flesh, and shall henceforth lead the mind and the body into a higher
realm of thought and action. The very nature of woman makes her
susceptible to religious impressions. Her lively imagination, her
quick sensibilities, and her ready sympathy enable her readily to
give Christ, the personification of every manly attribute and the
embodiment of every virtue, a welcome to her soul.
It is possible for woman's spiritual nature to so marry Christ, that
her physical nature can, without a great sacrifice, forego the joys of
earthly companionship. Hence some women mated with a brute of a man,
shine as Christians, and make excellent mothers. Woman as a Christian
is a helpmeet indeed and in truth. Her power as such is felt in the
church and in the world. She is peculiarly adapted to carry forward
enterprises which have to do with meliorating the condition of
society. Who is so adapted as she to manage an orphan's home, or to
minister to the sick in hospitals, or to give support and sympathy to
the aged, or to train children up in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord? The first requisite to companionship is a heart imbued with the
love of Christ. _A heart must be emphasized_, for a heartless woman
is a terror in society, but a woman with a great heart, reverent
and obedient to God, and full of love for Christ and his work, is a
benefaction to a man, to a home, to a community, and to the world.
"Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the
Lord, she shall be praised." And a woman that feareth the Lord and
serveth him, is praised and prized beyond rubies. The next requisite
to holiness may be said to be skilfulness in the home. Woman must be
trained to household duties. If she lacks here, she is wanting in much
that makes her a real wife or mother or sister.
America, the land of homes, finds the housewife essential to its
future. Housework in woman is ever honorable. It ought to be her glory
and her pride. Let us make it so more and more.
The second requisite is intelligence. A woman must keep up with man
in literature, in general news, in what interests the community, and
especially in growth in grace, and in the knowledge of the word of
God, if she would make her home attractive. Thus shall they
"Sit side by side full sunned in all their powers
Dispensing harvests;
Self-reverent each and reverencing each
Distinct in individualities;
But like each other even as those who love,
Then comes the statelier Eden back to man.
For it is possible in wedded pair a harmony
More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear."
Said Count Zinzendorf, in regard to his wife, "Twenty-five years'
experience has shown me that just the helpmeet whom I love is the
only one that could suit my vocation. Who else could have so carried
through my family affairs? Who lived so spotlessly before the world?
Who so wisely aided me in my rejection of a dry morality? Who so
clearly set aside Pharisaism, which, as years passed, threatened
to creep in among us? Who so deeply discerned as to the spirits of
delusion which sought to bewilder us? Who would have governed my
whole economy so wisely, richly, and hospitably, when circumstances
commanded? Who have taken indifferently the part of servant or
mistress without, on the one side, affecting an especial spirituality;
on the other, being sullied by any worldly pride? Who, in a community
where all ranks are eager to be on a level, would, from wise and real
causes, have known how to maintain inward and outward distinctions?
Who, without a murmur, has seen her husband encounter such dangers by
land and sea? Who undertaken with him and sustained such astonishing
pilgrimages? Who, amid such difficulties, would have always held _up
her head and supported me_? Who found such vast sums of money and
acquitted them on her own credit? And, finally, who, of all human
beings, could so well understand and interpret to others my inner and
outer being, as this one, of such nobleness in her way of thinking,
such great intellectual capacity, and so free from the theological
perplexities that enveloped me?" Let any one peruse, with all
intentness, the lineaments of this portrait, and he will be impressed
with the fact, that it is possible for woman to fulfil her mission,
and become a true helpmeet. This woman was not a copy. She was not
a cipher. She was an original; and while she loved and honored her
husband, she thought for herself on all subjects, with so much
intelligence, that he could and did look on her as a sister and friend
also.
The third and highest grade of marriage union is the religious,
which may be expressed "as a pilgrimage round a common shrine." This
includes the other,--home sympathies and household wisdom,--for these
pilgrims know how to assist each other along the dusty way.
These facts should be remembered in her education. The beautiful forms
which everywhere exist in nature should be impressed upon the female
mind, and the treasures of elegant literature should be opened to her
in no stinted measure.
A well-disciplined and a well-stored mind she does indeed require;
but a heart of pure affections, a lively imagination, and quick
sensibilities to give depth, and form, and beauty, and vivacity to the
character of her mind, are so peculiarly feminine accomplishments,
that without them a woman of the greatest intellect is, as it were,
unsexed and disrobed of her loveliest charms. She may be a Queen
Elizabeth, and conquer a Spanish Armada, but she will never conquer
the heart, nor be recognized as a model of female character. She is to
be the mother of her race. This fixes the sphere of her duties in the
home. Think of Helen Olcott, the wife of Rums Choate; of the first
Mrs. Webster, and of her influence upon that man who won the proud
appellation, "The Great Expounder."
The story is told of Daniel Webster meeting a woman with her two boys
loaded down with bundles, at the Jersey Ferry, in New York. The lady
had lost her fortune through the failure of her husband. She was poor,
and the old set ignored her. But she lived in a little cottage in New
Jersey, and made it bright with her face of love. She was tired and
sad. Many had passed her. Mr. Webster, seeing her perplexity, offered
to relieve her of her bundles, and take charge of one of the boys.
They entered the cars. He talked to her of her God-given trust, of her
work, and of the results that would naturally flow from her efforts;
of the province of a mother, of the trust reposed in her by God
himself. She was encouraged and strengthened, and when she came to the
depot, she said, "Please, sir, give me your card, that I may mention
your name to my husband." She hurried out, and looked at it, and saw
the name of Daniel Webster. The woman was thrilled with the joy that
came to her in her sphere of service. Earth knows no fairer, holier
relation than that of mother; and she turned with delight from the
bubbles and froth of fashion to the grand work before her of raising
men for God and humanity.
"The treasures of the deep are not so precious
As are the concealed comforts of a man
Locked up in woman's love. I scent the air
Of blessings when I come but near the house.
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth!
The violet bed's not sweeter."
Think of the realm in which woman may rule. If she be elegant and
refined; if she has learned how to govern, first herself, and then
those about her, there is a charm diffused through the home which
reveals itself in the good order of the establishment, in the
politeness of the servants, in the genial disposition of the children,
in the delightful intercourse of the different portions of the
household, and in the fact that "her husband is known in the gates
when he sitteth among the elders of the land. Strength and honor are
her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her
mouth with wisdom, and her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh
well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of
idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also,
and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously; but thou
excellest them all."
In such words did King Lemuel praise this excellency of woman. Blessed
memory! Who does not remember that one form of the old-fashioned
mother,--the law of whose life was love; one who was the divinity
of our infancy, and the sacred presence in the shrine of our first
earthly idolatry; one whose heart was ever green, though the snows of
time had gathered in the boughs of her life-tree; one to whom we never
grow old, but in the plumed troop or the grave council are children
still; one who welcomed us coming, blessed us going, and forgets us
never; one who waits for the echo of our returning footstep, or who,
perhaps, has gone on to the better land, and keeps a light in the
window for those left behind.
Such women have power now as did the Hannahs and the Ruths of the
olden time. When thinking of them, you are convinced that, young or
old, they remain among the best of God's gifts to man. This leads us
to remark further, that woman's right to be a woman implies her right
to help woman. Woman must be true to her sex, or society will neglect
its duty. That old story of Ruth and Naomi has ploughed through the
world, because it reveals woman's power as a helper. Ruth clung to
Naomi, and Naomi helped her daughter to find Boaz, that noble prince
in Israel; and so she became identified with the succession of
promise. The life of Mrs. Sigourney illustrates the same truth. See
her among the young, calling forth their powers, and starting them in
a career of usefulness. Impressed with the importance of an education,
she aided by her pen, as by her example, to induce the ladies of her
acquaintance to obtain a thorough knowledge of the primary branches
that enter into daily use.
We want a woman to be intellectual without being puny. We ask that she
remain a pliant vine, and that she be not made into the rugged oak.
Woman owes it to herself that she be fitted to occupy any position
in society. In this land, as in no other, the barriers of caste are
removed, and every line of separation obliterated. The rich and the
poor meet together.
The cultured sewing-girl is quite likely to become the wife of the
future millionnaire; and the lady reared in the midst of every luxury,
and endowed with a fortune, amid the reverses of fortune may be
compelled to draw upon her own resources of labor, and of love, and
culture, to stay up the hands and encourage the heart of the man more
than ever dependent upon her for happiness and hope.
Such a woman Irving must have painted when he wrote, "I have often had
occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most
overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters which break down the
spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all
the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and devotion
to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity."
Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female,
who had been all weakness, and dependence, and alive to every trivial
roughness, while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly
rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her
husband under misfortunes, and abiding, with unshrinking firmness, the
bitterest blasts of adversity.
As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak,
and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the lordly plant is
rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with caressing tendrils,
and bind up its shattered boughs, so it is beautifully ordained by
Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man
in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with
sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his
nature, tenderly supporting the head and binding up the broken heart.
To fill this feature of the wife, education is essential in household
affairs, quite as much as education in books, in music, and the ways
of fashion is essential to the young wife whose husband has suddenly
become rich, and has given up his chambers and taken an elegant house
in some fashionable street.
It is as bad to fall from the heights of opulence, and know not how
to sweep a room, make a bed, or cook a meal, as it is to rise to an
exalted position, and know not how to welcome company or preside at a
feast.
The women in America who suddenly become elevated in rank, and buy
pictures by the yard and books by the cord, are quite as abundant as
are those who lose fortune and rank, and are compelled to seek menial
employments.
The happiness secured by the proper employment of time, and by the
cultivation of the mind, furnishes a high incentive to exertion.
Contrast the woman who is educated with the one uneducated. See her in
her home, reigning a queen, while her uneducated sister, though she
may have wealth and beauty, will constantly feel the lack of that
which gold cannot procure nor fortune provide. "We are foolish,
and without excuse foolish," said Ruskin, "in speaking of the
'superiority' of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in
similar things. Each has what the other has not; each completes the
other, and is completed by the other; they are in nothing alike;
and the happiness and perfection of both depend on each asking and
receiving from the other what the other only can give. Their separate
characters are briefly these: The man's power is active, progressive,
defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the
defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy
for adventure, for work, for conquest, whenever war is just, whenever
conquest is necessary. But the woman's power is for love, not for
battles; and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for
sweet ordering arrangement and decision. She sees the qualities of
things, their claims, and their places. Her great function is Praise;
she enters into no contest, but infallibly judges the crown of
contest. By her office and her place, she is protected from all danger
and temptation. The man, in his rough work in the open world, must
encounter all peril and trial. To him, therefore, the failure, the
offence, the inevitable error; often he must be wounded, or subdued,
often misled, and always burdened. But he guards the woman from all
this. Within his house, as ruled by her,--unless she herself has
sought it,--need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of error or
offence. This is the true nature of home,--it is the place of peace;
the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and
derision. In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as
the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the
inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the
outer world is allowed, either by husband or wife, to cross the
threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer
world which you have roofed over and lighted a fire in. But so far as
it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth, watched
over by household gods, before whose faces none may come but those
whom they can receive with love,--so far as it is this, and roof and
fire are types only of a nobler shade and light,--shadows of the rock
in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea; so far
it vindicates the name, and fulfils the praise, of home. And wherever
a true wife comes, this home is always round her. The stars only may
be overhead; the glow-worm in the night--cold grass may be the
only fire at her foot; but home is yet wherever she is; and for a
noble-woman it stretches far round her, better than ceiled with cedar,
or painted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light far, for those who
else were homeless."
Possess these qualifications and woman will be respected and beloved.
Her area of usefulness will be enlarged.
The man of brains and of industry and economy, has the promise of
wealth and position much more certainly than the indolent son of a
wealthy father. Respect such young men, and fit yourselves, young
women, to be worthy of them.
Remember position is emptiness itself, unless there be talent, piety,
and culture to adorn it.
We have asked the poor to help the rich. It is equally important that
the rich help the poor. It is impossible to overestimate the value of
those visitations of the noble few who leave their homes and seek out
the little room of the poor seamstress, and carry sunlight and love
and comfort into the abodes of the impoverished and the sorrowful.
Not only that, but it is possible and practicable for women of wealth
and culture to help their sex to reach positions of respectability and
usefulness.
Mary Lyon is known and honored throughout the world for her work in
behalf of women.
Imagine our first ladies opening their parlors to girls who earn by
industry and diligence in study, by purity of heart and blamelessness
of life, the right to attention and respect.
Let it be known that the woman who makes a good record in the shop
shall be respected in the home, and that she who becomes skilled in
thought and acquainted with scientific research, should find thereby
an introduction to society, that will ennoble her, and it is
impossible to describe the effect that would be produced upon the
minds of all. In this work women of culture can keep step with Jesus,
and become the benefactresses of their sex and blessings to mankind.
Let woman help woman, and society will be reformed. Let man be true to
woman, and society will be adorned.
Of late there have been going round the press pen portraits of Bulwer,
Dickens, and Carlyle. The two first are separated from their wives,
and their lives are sunless and their homes are empty. Carlyle, that
dry and laconic talker and that fierce hater, is made beautiful when
you read that he conducts his company to the pretty sitting-room of
his wife.
Mrs. Carlyle is a lively, pleasant creature, and a world of thought
beams from her dark eyes. She has learned a great deal; her father
gave her a most profound education, and she is possessed of a keen,
yet mild judgment, of which her husband himself is afraid. There she
sits sewing with her handsome fingers a new cravat for her Diogenes.
In these surroundings all feel at ease, and Carlyle becomes talkative
and witty, and displays his whole famous eloquence. Happy the man who
grows witty in the society of his wife, and finds there the atmosphere
calculated to promote his highest, grandest, and fullest development.
Mutual confidence is essential to happiness. The woman cannot confide
in the man unless he can sympathize in her tenderness; nor can the man
counsel with the woman, unless she can in some measure look upon the
world as he looks upon it.
Hence it is wisely ordained that in every great man there are to be
seen some of the feminine elements, and in every great, true woman,
there are always to be found some elements of the sterner sex.
It is because the ballot has a tendency to make woman the rival rather
than the companion of man, that it is opposed to the purest sentiments
of woman. She wishes no division, and cannot tolerate independence or
separation from the object of her love. Love cannot feed on strife.
The husband and wife are one, though God made them male and female. If
one acts in opposition to the other, domestic peace is slain on the
altar of love. What God hath joined, let not potentates or anything
else put asunder. It is an old truth, "Better a dinner of herbs where
love is, than a stalled ox with hatred therewith." Man asks that his
wife be pure, that she know but little of the deceptions and trials of
trade, that she come not in contact with the rough exterior of life,
that ever before the mind of man there might stand forth the beautiful
ideal woman, whose influence irradiates the faith, with the light of
love, in his journeyings through the wilderness.
"The family, and not the individual, is the true social integer.
This is implied in the inspired history of the creation of man.
God made of two 'one flesh,' or a unit of the human species.
Generals and legislators have not overlooked the fact that married
men and women can be relied on in emergencies where single persons
cannot be trusted. Either part of a social integer is a pledge
of the whole. The vitality of society lives in its integers. The
future grows out of its integers. They are, therefore, what ought
to be represented in its political structures. That it belongs
more properly to the man than to the woman to represent the
family, is manifest from revelation. 'The head of the woman is the
man, whom she is commanded to obey.'"
ANONYMOUS.
WOMAN AS A TEMPTER.
It will be admitted by all who will read the history of man's ruin, as
recorded in Genesis, the third chapter, and sixth verse, that woman
first partook of the forbidden fruit, and "gave also to her husband,
and he did eat." Admit the truth of history, and woman appears as
man's first tempter.
"Woman as a Helpmeet" described her condition before the fall; "Woman
as a Tempter" describes her in the fall; and, alas! while it is the
high privilege of woman to be a helpmeet in the midst of the ruin
wrought by sin, it is unwise to disguise the truth that as a _tempter_
she has not abandoned her vocation.
Plain speaking may prove to be disagreeable. God grant that it may
prove to be profitable. There is need of it. Disguise it as we may
talk as we choose about man in his narrowness, in his degradation, a
wicked woman _was_, and to a large extent _is_, the means employed by
Satan in leading astray the unwary. The manner of her fall has been
declared. It may be profitable to review the steps of her downward
descent from the bliss of Eden to the woe of the desert; from the
position of an equal to the position of a subject.
1. _Satan, in the form of the serpent, undermines woman's confidence
in God_. The serpent, the most subtle beast of the field, said to the
woman, "Is it even so, that God has said, Ye shall not eat of every
tree of the garden?" Thus he attempted to weaken the child-like
confidence she reposed in her Creator, and endeavored to inspire in
its place a spirit of unbelief and distrust. This done, and the battle
was half won, and the work was well nigh accomplished. Truly has it
been said, "The sure basis of simple trust in God as the all-loving
and the all-wise, once shaken, there is little left to be done." This
is the rock on which character builds its hopes. There is nothing so
essential to woman as faith in God. Destroy this, or let woman attempt
to live without it, and she is in imminent peril. It was an infidel
woman who declared, "It has been said that marriage is a divine
institution, because all power comes from God. _We know very well
that all power comes from God', and therefore we wish neither God nor
power._" Shall professedly Christian women, by action, give their
assent to such an utterance?
2. _Satan rouses woman's suspicion_. "And the woman said to the
serpent. Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But of
the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God has
said, Ye shall not eat of it, and ye shall not touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said to the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God
knows that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes will be opened, and ye
will be as God, knowing good and evil."
"Your eyes will be opened," expresses the power of mentally
apprehending things before unperceived and unknown; but, of course,
both in an intellectual and moral sense. The position taken appeared
reasonable, and had a semblance of truth, and exerted its consequent
influence.
"_Will be as God, knowing good and evil._" Knowing for yourselves,
and able to choose between the evil and the good. Here ambition again
overleaped itself. Humility was slain, and a womanly virtue was
destroyed by the tempter, who aimed to infuse into the mind of the
woman, first, a doubt of the truth of the Word of God, and of the
certainty of the divine threatening; second, a suspicion that God was
withholding from her a good, instead of guarding her against an evil;
and, third, he attempted to induce her to believe that adherence to
this divine command stood in the way of her freedom, of her growth,
and so by the words, "Ye will be as God, knowing good and evil," he
strove to awaken the feeling of self-exaltation,--the longing for a
higher development, in which she should attain to self-discretion and
freedom of choice and action.
This suspicion is very common, even among our good women. When a woman
gets cold in her love for Jesus, she becomes suspicious of those
she loves. She permits the feeling, "My husband gives too much for
benevolence, too little to me, and he is away too much in meetings,
and is too little in his home," to influence her. She begins to talk
against the church, and loves to stay at home. Finds excuses for
keeping away from the prayer meeting or from the paths of endeavor,
and becomes a hinderance instead of a blessing to husband, to
family, and to society. A man finds it difficult to push the bark of
benevolence and of holy endeavor up against the current of womanly
opposition and suspicion, but when in the work of God she acts the
part of a helpmeet, everything moves smoothly. A recent writer uses
this language: "Expel woman as you will, she is in fact the parish.
Within, in her lowest spiritual form, as the ruling spirit she
inspires, and sometimes writes the sermons. Without, as the bulk of
his congregation, she watches over his orthodoxy, verifies his texts,
visits his schools, and harasses his sick." ... "The preacher who
thunders so defiantly against spiritual foes, is trembling all the
time beneath the critical eye that is watching him with so merciless
an accuracy in his texts. Impelled, guided, censured by woman, we can
hardly wonder if, in nine cases out of ten, the parson turns woman
himself, and the usurpation of woman's rights in the services of
religion has been deftly avenged by the subjugation of the usurpers.
Expelled from the temple, woman has simply put her priesthood into
commission, and discharges her ministerial duties by proxy." Woman is
the mainspring and the chief support of Ritualism. Things were at
a dead lock and stand still, until the so-called devotion gave an
impetus to the movement. The medieval church have glorified the
devotion of woman; but once become a devotee, it had locked her in the
cloister. As far as action in the world without was concerned, the
veil served simply as a species of suicide, and the impulses of woman,
after all the crowns and pretty speeches of her religious counsellors,
found themselves bottled up within stout stone walls, and as inactive
as before. From this strait woman released herself by the organization
of charity. The Sisters of Charity at once became a power. They
discovered the value of costume. The district visitor, whom nobody had
paid the smallest attention to in the common vestments of the world,
became a sacred being as she donned the crape and hideous bonnet of
the "Sister."
"The 'Mother Superior' took the place of the tyrant of another sex who
had hitherto claimed the submission of woman; but she was something
more to her 'children' than the husband or father whom they had left
in the world without. In all matters, ecclesiastical as well as civil,
she claimed within her dominions to be supreme. The quasi-sacerdotal
dignity, the pure religious ministration which ages have stolen from
her, was quietly resumed. She received confessions, she imposed
penances, she drew up offices of devotion. If the clergyman of
the parish ventured an advice or suggestion, he was told that the
sisterhood must preserve its own independence of action, and was
snubbed home again for his pains. The Mother Superior, in fact, soon
towered into a greatness far beyond the reach of ordinary persons.
She kept her own tame chaplain, and she kept him in a very edifying
subjugation. From a realm completely her own, the influence of woman
began to tell upon the world without. Little colonies of Sisters,
planted here and there, annexed parish after parish. Astonished
congregations saw their church blossom its purple and red, and frontal
and hanging told of the silent energy of the group of Sisters. The
parson found himself nowhere, in his own parish: every detail managed
for him, every care removed, and all independence gone. If it suited
the ministering angels to make a legal splash, he found himself landed
in the law courts. If they took it into their heads to seek another
field, every one assumed it a matter of course that their pastor would
go too." It is because of this influence that in certain quarters the
ecclesiastical hierarchy are taking, year by year, a more feminine
position. It is not impossible that a church who worships Mary as the
Mother of God may be brought to recognize woman as the proper head of
the church. True, as the writer quoted above adds, "she must stoop
to conquer heights like these." Yet the question has been seriously
asked, "Is not the Episcopal office admirably adapted to woman?"
Between a priest and a nun there is only the difference of a bonnet
in their dress, and we know how easily woman can be persuaded to go
without a bonnet, or to exchange it for a hat such as is worn by men.
In England, the curate is sometimes called the first lady of the
parish; and what he now is in theory, a century hence may find him in
fact. "It would be difficult, even now, to detect any difference
of sex in the triviality of purpose, the love of gossip, the petty
interests, the feeble talk, the ignorance, the vanity, the love of
personal display, the white hand dangled over the pulpit, the becoming
vestment, and the embroidered stole, which we are learning gradually
to look upon as attributes of the British curate. So perfect, indeed,
is the imitation, that the excellence of her work may, perhaps, defeat
its own purpose, and the lacquered imitation of woman may satisfy the
world, and for long ages prevent any anxious inquiry after the real
feminine Brummagem."
The tendency thus truthfully described furnished the seedling out of
which grew the Monasticism of the past, and in which the Ritualism of
the present finds its underlying cause. The Church of Rome harnesses
woman to her system, and compels her to contribute greatly to its
prosperity. In Europe the people tire of those great establishments
and endowments, which rest like an incubus on the national life.
In America we are so blind that we foster them by grants from our
legislatures, by giving up the care of hospitals to their use, where
the weak are subjected to the influences of superstition, and the
thoughtless are led astray. Another avenue to power is opened by the
ballot. Grant this to that church, which, through a fatherhood of
priests and a sisterhood of nuns, reaches every portion of the body
politic, and the promise of Religious Liberty and a Free Republic is
at once exchanged for the despotism of Rome and the imperialism
of France. Infidelity joins hands with Rome in asking this power.
Christianity, united with patriotism, must refuse to grant the
request.
3. Mystery was employed as an instrument in securing woman's fall.
Rouse a womanly curiosity, and there is little difficulty in leading
the excited one astray. Hold out to her a key which promises to unlock
the hidden and concealed glories of the unexplored future, and woman
will be tempted again to forego God's favor and the joys of paradise
to grasp or wield it. In every heathen religion women occupied a
prominent place. Priestess or prophetess, she stood in all ministerial
offices on an equality with man. Christianity rejects the ministerial
services of women, and selects for its standard bearers men acquainted
with life, filled with religious zeal, and capable of hardy endeavor,
assuring faith and martyr patience.
The Church of Rome dealt with women as the Empire dealt with its
Caesars: it was ready to grant her apotheosis, but only when she was
safely out of this world. It was only when the light of revelation
was extinguished in her midst that the teachings of the Bible were
ignored, and woman was welcomed back to the place she held in pagan
climes and at heathen shrines.
Spiritualism, that scourge of modern times, which has swept like the
breath of a pestilence over the land, found in woman its prophetess
and minister. Satan works in erring woman now, as in the past, to
destroy and to delude. That power was resisted by Christian woman.
Many an irreligious man was saved from this delusion by the fidelity
of his wife. Many a good man has been ruined because his wife listened
to the siren voice of the tempter, and desired to explore and explain
this mystery. The forbidden fruit ever grows upon the tree beside her.
Those who would be wiser than that which is written, have plucked
and eaten it, and have given to others that which is so destructive.
Witchcraft is a womanly profession. The heathen divinities were nearly
all ministered unto by woman, and mystery was the influencing cause.
We know the result in the case of Eve. It led her away from God. It
caused her to listen to the enemy of her soul. Does it not become
woman to ask herself, "Am I losing my hold on God? Is suspicion that
some good is being withheld, or does the desire to pry into the
future, exercise an undue influence upon my heart and imagination?" If
so, your ruin has commenced, and a speedy return to God is your only
door of escape.
4. Deception was the result. "And the woman saw the tree was good for
food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to
be desired to make her wise; and she took of its fruit and ate, and
gave also to her husband and he ate." Sight deceived, desire allured,
and action born of a delusive faith destroyed her happiness. The
process of temptation culminated in deception. This is the end ever
kept in view by Satan. Every individual that refuses to be ruled
absolutely by God, in little or great affairs, may know of a truth
that the end is deception, and the consequent ruin is sure to follow.
There is no exception to the rule. Paul felt this when he wrote the
church in Corinth, concerning his interest in them, saying, "For I am
jealous over you with a godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ;" "But I
fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, by his subtlety,
so your minds should be corrupted from your simplicity toward Christ."
Many claim that error is not mischievous while truth is left free to
combat. Error poisons the mind, and so produces disease, and bars out
truth, which carries health to the mind and blesses the soul.
Eve knew the law, for she quotes it word by word. She deliberated as
to obeying it. Here she made her first mistake. A woman cannot do
this. The moment a woman hesitates in regard to discharging the duties
she owes to herself or to God she falls. She seems to be provided
with an almost self-acting nature. It is natural for her to protect
herself. She revolts against her higher self when she hesitates. Her
intuitions, allied to a sensitive nature, unite in defending against
evil. Had Eve said, "I do not need to sin to secure the development of
my higher nature; the Creator knows my wants much better than one who
seeks to be my destroyer," she would have been saved. Faith in God
would have been a sure defence against the tempter's wiles.
But she deliberated, yielded, and fell, and the world is still full of
the resounding echoes of that fall. The race fell with her. That fact
teaches its lesson. Some one falls with every ruined soul. We lift
up or drag down those associated with us. "For none of us liveth to
himself, and no man dieth to himself;" an influence goes out from
us, which is a felt power in the world either for or against God and
humanity.
Consider the effects of the temptation. 1. It caused Eve to become to
Adam an agent of Satan. Tempted herself, she became a tempter. Ruined
in her nature by this exclusion of God, and by this welcome of Satan,
she seeks to ruin her companion. This principle rules now. The carnal
heart is at enmity with God, the converted heart is in union with God.
Here is a significant fact. A man loves to have woman pure, if he is
impure. Temperate, if he is intemperate. Holy and Christian, if he is
the opposite in every particular. Not so a woman. Intemperate herself,
she seeks to induce others to be like her. Here is the peril of
society. If our fashionable women love wine, they become emissaries of
the wicked one to a fearful extent. It is almost an impossibility for
the tempted to withstand their wiles. In fashionable, perhaps, more
than in the other grades of life, woman as a leader in intemperance,
in extravagance, and in opposition to Christ, is to be feared. Her
power is fearful to contemplate. The Secretary of the Treasury
declares that the national debt is increased, and threatens to
increase, unless the fashionable world shall declare against the,
importation of that which costs gold, but which fails to contribute to
the prosperity of the community. This is by no means wholly chargeable
to women. Men share in the blame. A sadder fact is the expressed
dissatisfaction with woman's work and with woman's sphere. The home
of the olden time is passing out of mind, and in its place is the
fashionable boarding-house. The skilled housewife is felt to be
unappreciated. Men, they tell us, prefer a pretty face to a noble
heart, a delicate to a skilled hand, a girl who can play the piano
rather than one who can cook a dinner, a pretty doll instead of a
glorious woman capable of keeping the house, and of guiding the man
with womanly strength. Ah, it is a mistake. America is the land of
homes. Our undeveloped territory offers to every man a farm. Men and
women need not to be cooped up in garrets or shut up in cellars, if
they will but possess the spirit of those who sought in this Western
world a home, and who, as they toiled with the axe, the plough, and
the loom,
"Shook the depths of the forest gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer."
The cause of this discontent is apparent. There is something in the
commonplaces of fashionable life which turns woman from the real to
the unreal, from the substantial to the superficial, which smothers
all originality of thought, and makes her a simple reproduction
in appearance, if not in disposition, of the "Anonyma," with her
meretricious beauty and dashing toilets. Is it well for woman to
subject herself to be criticised as follows? "The girl of the period
is a creature who dyes her hair and paints her face, whose sole idea
of life is a plenty of fun and luxury, and whose dress is the object
of such thought and intellect as she possesses. Her main endeavor
is to outvie her neighbors. She cares little for advice or counsel.
Nothing is too extraordinary, and nothing too extravagant, for her
vitiated taste; and things which in themselves would be useful reforms
if let alone, become monstrosities worse than those which they have
displaced, so soon as she begins to manipulate and improve. If a
sensible fashion lifts the gown out of the mud, she raises hers midway
to the knee. If there is a reaction against an excess of hair oil, and
hair slimy and sticky with grease is thought less nice than if left
clean with a healthy crisp, she dries and frizzes and sticks hers out
on end like certain savages in Africa, or lets it wander down her back
like Madge Wildfire's, and thinks herself all the more beautiful the
nearer she approaches in look to a maniac or a negress! What the
_demi-monde_ does in its frantic efforts to excite attention, she also
does in imitation. If some fashionable courtesan is reported to have
come out with her dress below her shoulder blades, and a gold strap
for all the sleeve thought necessary, the girl of the period follows
suit next day, and then wonders that men sometimes mistake her for
her prototype, or that mothers of girls, not so far gone as herself,
refuse her as a companion for their daughters."
If the fashionable danseuse is imported from the brothels of Paris,
and is brought to our cities to exhibit herself to whoever is vulgar
and lewd enough to desire to see her, thousands of the fashionables go
with opera glass, and tolerate a disgusting play that they may enjoy
a sight which is a guarantee to every young man that the woman knows
little of and cares less about the virtue which distinguished the girl
of the olden time, before whom men bowed in admiration, and concerning
whom an impure thought seemed like an unpardonable sin. Women may say
that "men desire them to go, and they must gratify them." It is not
true. Every man loves to have his wife and daughters virtuous, and
unless he be besotted by intemperance, or given over to courses of
shame, will quietly and joyfully yield to the remonstrance of a
virtuous wife or daughter against patronizing scenes which degrade,
and against permitting the mind and heart to give welcome to thoughts
which pollute. True men desire to love, and to be influenced by pure,
tender, loving, retiring, and domestic women.
Woman, it is your fault if you do not retain the affections of a true
and noble man. Alas, how frequently young men mourn your fickleness,
your frivolity, your fondness for show and dress, and your total lack
of desire for the more solid attainments which enrich character, and
beautify life. "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far
above rubies." Whoever conforms to the requirements of fashion, at the
expense of culture, is false to her high nature, and degrades herself
in the estimation of every true man. A woman is constructed for
companionship, and in her normal condition her yearnings are more
mental than physical. It is natural for man to desire to enjoy this
God-given boon. A talented woman, that will talk sense, is the idol of
sensible men. Nothing displeases a true woman more than to waste an
evening on a brainless fop. Nothing is more needless. Let her develop
herself, and she will be sought after by men whose opinions are
valuable, and whose love is a recompense. Better far would it be for
women who are poor, to spend their evenings in reading, writing, and
study, in familiarizing themselves with those themes of ennobling
thought, which will fit them to win love by conversation, by culture,
by the graces of refinement, rather than by the outward adorning, by
plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold and of costly apparel; "for it
is the hidden man of the heart, even the ornament of a meek and quiet
spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."
Young women need to be reminded of this. They are in peril. Exposure
lines the paths of those who pass from the factory, or from the
workshop, to their little rooms and cheap boarding-houses. You see it
in the leering look of depraved men, and in the atmosphere of crime
that contaminates their shops. They show it by their themes of
conversation. Woman must be resolute, if she would change all this.
Let her be true to herself and to Christ, and there will be no danger.
The condition of women in many of our factory villages is frightful to
contemplate, and few seem to have any knowledge of it. They pass from
their factory to their boarding-houses. Their rooms are cold and
cheerless in winter. There is no common reading-room or sewing-room.
Unless they will suffer from cold, they must retire to their beds, or
seek warmth and companionship in the world without. As a result they
are watched by men who care not for their comfort or happiness,
but for the gratification of passion and the pleasures of social
excitements. Hence, thousands of good country girls are annually
ruined in many of our large factory villages and cities, for the
lack of comfortable houses or associations, where talents can be
cultivated, piety promoted, and virtue protected.
1. "_She gave to her husband, and he did eat._" It was altogether
natural. She was the provider in the home, as he was the keeper of the
garden. She gave him and he ate. Man fell because of woman's fall. A
woman can repel a man. It is difficult for a man to resist the wiles
of a woman. God has placed in woman a fearful power, and devolves
unmeasured responsibilities upon her in the home, in society, and in
the world.
2. The second result is seen in the effect produced. "Lust conceived
and brought forth sin, and sin brought forth shame." And the eyes of
both of them were opened, not so as to have an advanced knowledge of
things pleasant, profitable, and useful, as was promised and expected,
but of things very disagreeable and distressing. Their eyes were
opened to see that they had broken God's law, lost his favor,
destroyed their home, and left themselves exposed to the terrors of
the judgment. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
They knew that they were naked. In place of conscious innocence and
purity came the sense of guilt and shame. "We are not to understand,"
says Dr. Conant, "that there is allusion here to any physical effect
of the eating of the forbidden fruit. So gross a conception is foreign
to the spirit and purpose of the narrative. As the language in ch. ii.
v. 5, is an expression of purity and peace of mind, so the language
used here is the expression of conscious guilt, of self-condemnation
and shame." Look at that criminal arrested. See him shiver as if cold.
His nature is exposed because it is weakened. Righteousness is a
defence. A man in sweet communion with God is girded with strength and
endurance, with recuperative energies, of which a man is ignorant when
he is alienated from God, and exposed to wrath. "For the word of God
is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there
is no creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are
naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." The Lord
God was abroad. They hid themselves. They were afraid. Ah, there is a
nakedness which the culprit feels, which cannot be covered up. God's
eye pierces through every form of concealment, and lays bare the cause
of ruin and the deed of shame. It is impossible to hide from God. If
this world is deceived by our disguises, and pasteboard faces, and
long robes, the Being with whom we have to do shall laugh at our
calamities and mock when our fear cometh, as we shall stand out in our
true characters, and shall be judged for the deeds done in the body,
whether they be good or evil.
3. Sin not only changed their relations to each other, awakening their
animal nature and killing their spiritual hope of sweet communion with
God, but it changed their relations towards God. They became aliens to
him. They lost their love, and were tortured by fear. They feared him
whom they once loved. "And Jehovah God called to the man, and said to
him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and
was afraid because I was naked, and hid myself. And he said, Who has
showed thee that thou art naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree which
I commanded thee not to eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou
gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate."
Adam, in his beginnings of sin, furnishes an example to sinners, which
has been abundantly copied. He says, "The woman whom thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." He finds fault with
God the giver, and fails to condemn woman the sinner. The passage is
sometimes falsely interpreted, as an unworthy attempt of the man to
cast the blame of his offence on the woman. But the emphasis lies on
the words _whom thou gavest to be with me_, by which utterance he
seeks to transfer the responsibility from himself to God, who gave him
the companion by whose example he was betrayed into sin, instead of
placing it upon the woman, who was the guilty cause. Thus he refuses
or neglects to denounce the sin; but takes for granted that woman was
as God made her, and acted in accordance with her mechanism. Hence,
Adam argued, if any one was responsible, it was her Maker. She acted
in accordance with the nature which had been given her. We hear this
doctrine advanced daily. "I am what God made me." A cotton mill weaves
cotton because it was made to weave cotton. It is not responsible. It
weaves well or ill in accordance with the skill of the mechanism, and
not in accordance with the desire of the proprietor. If it weaves
ill, you blame the maker. If well, you praise the maker. Adam, in his
reply, ignored woman's moral nature, and talked of her as though she
had been a machine. "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and I ate." He forgot his own higher nature,
forgot his position, and fell. How he differed from the second Adam we
shall see before we are done.
It is noticeable, not only that Adam ignored woman's moral nature, and
the ruin wrought by sin, but he asserts a truth. Woman was given to
man to provide him with food, to spread the feast, and to keep the
house; and in her vocation, and while performing the duties assigned
her, she led him astray. It is noteworthy that God does not reply to
Adam, but turns to woman with the question, "_What is this that thou
hast done?_" recognizing the fact that she turned from God, and turned
towards God's enemy, and in listening, sinned; and in sinning, fell;
and in falling, carried with her man; and in carrying man, whelmed the
race in the ruin of the fall.
In speaking of woman as a tempter, we are not to forget that she is
woman. The serpent beguiled her, and she ate. Satan found in her an
ally; an so pleased was he with the results of the partnership he has
never dissolved the firm. While woman, as a helpmeet, becomes an ally
of Christ, as a tempter she is the ally of Satan. Not as a woman, but
as a tempter, she is the ally of the evil one. Satan works in her,
as a tempter, both to will and to do according to his good pleasure,
whenever she submits to his sway. The reason for this is recorded in
the Word of God. Some sneer at the reference to this time-honored
record; but we reassert the truth. The Bible is the revealed will of
God, and it declares the God-given sphere of woman. The Bible is,
then, our authority for saying woman must content herself with this
sphere, and try to meet its responsibilities, or she will lose
self-respect and cast away the regard of the community. Without the
Bible, her life is everywhere proven to be gloomy. With it, and
beneath its protection, she becomes an heir of hope.
Notice the characteristics of her power as a tempter.
1. She is regarded as God's best gift to man. She fills a place in
man's heart which is empty without her. It is difficult to think of
her as an ally of Satan. We prefer to think of her as God's first
and best gift to man. Even a fallen woman is regarded as a poor
unfortunate, and is tolerated because the many claim she has been more
sinned against than sinning. Excuses are woven for her, out of the
statements ever afloat, that she was in a starving condition, and was
driven to desperation; that she was turned out upon the world, was
deceived, led astray, and shipwrecked, and then did not care, and so
went from bad to worse, until she became the wreck of her former self,
and was given up to lust and the pollutions of shame. God forbid that
we should cast stones at her. In the words of Christ, let us rather
say to every fallen woman, "Go, _and sin no more_." But when a woman
persists in sinning, we should speak of her in the language of
Scripture, and boldly warn against her wiles.
A fallen woman is not God's gift to man. Before her fall she was God's
gift. In beauty Eve still remains the model. The artist delights to
paint her, and the poet sings her praises. But in conduct she is a
warning. Scripture pictures her going to Adam, hiding from him the
ruin wrought, and pressing to his lips the fruit which carried death.
(Then she was the devil's gift to a sin-cursed world.) A fallen
woman--a woman who refuses to love Christ and to serve him, who sweeps
out into the paths of dissipation and of lust, and becomes a seductive
wile--is the devil's ally; "for she forsaketh the guide of her youth,
and forgetteth the covenant of her God. For her house inclineth unto
death. None that go unto her returneth again, neither take they hold
of the paths of life."
Against such a woman God warns us in the thunder tones of wrath,
and the picture of her doom is lurid with the glow of the devouring
flames, "for her feet go down to death and her steps take hold on
hell."
This is but a single characteristic of her power as a tempter, and
we love to think that it is the least employed. A mind retaining the
perception of woman's worth, shrinks from the idea of linking her name
with impurity. We cherish the hope that she is virtuously inclined,
and cannot bear to think that she willingly forsakes the right and
casts herself down the steeps of ruin. Ah, woman, when this is not the
case society has a right to cast you off. It is because of this
faith that the good despise the woman who persists in folly, and who
secretly tries to seduce the unwary. God's judgments seem not too
severe, and the language is none too strong, though the denunciation
is terrible and the destruction certain. God makes no apologies for
sin. A fallen woman is an abomination. Her crimes are terrible. She is
the foe of the home, and the enemy of all that is pure. Hence she
is thrown out upon the rocks, and left there to die, unpitied and
unbefriended, without God and without hope in the world. By every
virtuous person she is despised. Hence, between a virtuous woman and
ruin there is a bridged chasm; whoever crosses that bridge leaves
hope, and honor, and happiness behind. Think of the thousands about us
going, unprayed for, down to perdition!
Society tolerates a man as it does not tolerate a woman. God did
business with Adam, but he does not mention Eve after her fall.
Society recognizes a fallen man as it cannot recognize a fallen woman.
Thus her crime is proclaimed to be the greater than man's, even by the
world. Let us be just. We do not heap the blame all on woman, even of
her fall. All we say is, she bears the burden of the woe. In this fact
she is warned. Society may pity her: it cannot palliate her guilt.
Thus is she advised against throwing herself away, and casting off her
allegiance to Christ, to herself, and to humanity. Let her fall, and
almost without exception she is hopelessly ruined. Society points the
finger of scorn at her, and, what is worse, the barriers to virtue
having been broken down, they seem to be destroyed. It is as difficult
to get back what a woman loses when she falls, as it would have been
to have forced an entrance back into Eden after the banishment.
2. The fact that she is a woman gives her influence. In her terrible
work beauty is an aid. God says, "Desire not her beauty in thy heart,
neither let her take thee with her eyelids." That is, look for
something besides a pretty face or a twinkling eye. "Pretty is that
pretty does," is a good motto, and utters a truth which is quite too
frequently ignored. Beauty is not to be despised or condemned. God,
who painted the lilies' bloom, and covered the sky with the wondrous
tints of a glowing sunset, must enjoy beauty, and surely made it to
please and to bless us. Yet when it comes to be used as an agent of
evil, it is to be shunned and disregarded. In all this world there is
nothing so empty as a heartless, brainless woman, with a pretty face.
Yet beauty is a power; so the heathen declare, "Every woman would
rather be handsome than good." That may be true in heathen, but it is
not true of all in Christian climes. If there is one woman who thinks
more of dress than duty, more of shadow than substance, more of Vanity
Fair than of Virtue's bower, then beware. You are not an ally of
Christ. At once begin a new life, if you would shun the dangers and
avoid the terrible doom threatening you. Cast away that which excites
passions and gives the body unrest, and seek the food for mind and
soul which gives rest and peace. Seek Christ, and through him victory
over self and over sin. Do something to brighten your home life and to
honor your Master. Clear your soul from the taint of vanity. Do not
rejoice in conquests, either that your power to allure may be seen by
other women, or for the pleasure of rousing passionate, feelings that
gratify your love of excitement. It must happen, no doubt, that frank
and generous women will excite love they do not reciprocate; but, in
nine cases out of ten, the woman has, half consciously, done much to
excite it. In this case she shall not be held guiltless, either as
to the unhappiness or injury of the lover. Pure love, inspired by a
worthy object, must ennoble and bless, whether mutual or not; but that
which is excited by coquettish attraction, of any grade of refinement,
must cause bitterness and doubt as to the reality of human goodness so
soon as the flush of passion is over. And that you may avoid all taste
for these false pleasures,
"steep the soul
In one pure love, and it will last thee long."
The love of truth, the love of excellence, whether or not you clothe
them in the person of a special object, will have power to save you
much of evil, and lead you into the green glades where the feet of the
virtuous have trod. Preserve the modesty of your sex by filling the
mind with noble desires, that shall ward off the corruptions of vanity
and idleness. "A profligate woman, who left her accustomed haunts and
took service in a New York boarding-house, said, 'She had never
heard talk so vile at the Five Points as from the ladies at the
boarding-house.' And why? Because they were idle; because, having
nothing worthy to engage them, they dwelt, with unnatural curiosity,
on the ill they dared not go to see." This seems like an exaggeration.
Yet Margaret Fuller is responsible for the utterance.[A] Avoid
idleness. The mind, like a mill, must have some thought in the hopper
of reflection, or the machinery will prove to be self-destructive.
Shun flattery. The woman who permits in her life the alloy of vanity;
who lives upon flattery, coarse or fine, is lost, and loses the
tribute paid the woman by the iron-handed warrior, whom he rejoiced to
recognize as his helpmeet, saying, "Whom God loves, to him he gives
such a wife."
[Footnote A: Woman of the Nineteenth Century, p. 168.]
The influence of married women over their younger sisters may be
beneficent and good. It often is pernicious and bad. Young women judge
of men very much by what married women say concerning men. If they
speak of men as virtuous and pure, as noble and generous; if they can
talk of their husbands as of men who have honored them with their
love, and whose kindness blesses their daily life, then will the
maiden of a pure heart believe that her dream is real, and that the
man of her choice is pure; whose heart is free and open as her own;
all of whose thoughts may be avowed; who is incapable of wronging the
innocent, or still further degrading the fallen,--a man, in short,
whose brute nature is entirely subject to the impulses of his
better self. Such men there are in countless numbers, who have kept
themselves free from stain, and who can look the purest maiden in the
eye and not shun the glance. Through God's grace they have been saved
from the path full of peril, and desire nothing more than to share
the confidence and friendship of the pure. If, on the other hand, the
unmarried are assured by the married that, "if they knew men as they
do,"--that is, by being married to them,--"they would not expect
continence or self-government from them;" if mothers permit their
daughters to mingle freely with the dissipated and vile because of
rank or wealth, and when warned that such are not fit companions for
a chaste being, reply, "All men are bad sometimes in their life; but
give them a pure wife and a home and they will not want to go wrong,"
then be not surprised if homes are converted into abodes of perpetual
sorrow, if not of shame, and the fair young bride is left to weep over
the sacrifice of virtue, of honor, and of love, on the altar of an
unholy passion. The influence of a pure woman over young women is
invaluable.
"Do not forget the unfortunates who dare not cross your guarded way.
If it do not suit you to act with those who have organized measures of
reform, then hold not yourself excused from acting in private. Seek
out these degraded women, give them then tender sympathy, counsel,
employment. Take the place of mothers, such as might have saved them
originally. If you can do little for those already under the ban of
the world,--and the best considered efforts have often failed, from a
want of strength in those unhappy ones to bear up against the sting of
shame and the frigidness of the world, which makes them seek oblivion
again in their old excitements,--you will at least leave a germ of
love and justice in their hearts, that will prevent their becoming
utterly embittered and corrupt." And you may learn the preventives
for those yet uninjured. These will be found in a diffusion of mental
culture, simple tastes, best brought by your example, a genuine
self-respect, and, above all, the love and fear of a divine in
preference to a human tribunal. Let woman live for God and the
development of her higher nature,--live so that she can be
self-helped, as well as helping,--then if she finds what she needs in
man embodied, she will know how to love, and be worthy of being loved.
Much is said about the underpay of woman as a cause of temptation. It
is for the interests of society that there should be an equality of
compensation wherever there is an equality of distribution. It is well
for woman to ask herself if she is ready to assume the burdens that
come from an equality of compensation, such as giving up the prospect
of marriage, or of sharing with man the toil of the field, of the
factory, as well as of the house. Would woman be willing to take upon
herself the responsibility of planning to economize, of building
churches, railroads, of entering into a competition with man?--Woman
is dependent, not independent.--For this reason man toils to keep his
wife, and is ashamed to have his wife keep him. His pride lies in
having his home a joy and his wife a helpmeet, rather than to have his
wife a rival and his home empty of happiness.
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