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 atemptershe 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 womanwas, and to a large extentis, 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 gloomWith 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 thedemi-mondedoes 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 wordswhom 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.
It is not alone by an excess of passion or of beauty that woman becomes a tempter. The absence of love, and of beauty, sins of omission as well as sins of commission, are sources of temptation. Man desires an educated woman. Intellectually and spiritually she must be able to meet his wants, and render help, or she is a failure. He tires of a useless toy or plaything, and cries out for a helpmeet. Another has said, "The bad housekeeping, and the neglect of domestic duties, on the part of many wives, is, no doubt, attributable to the slovenly tenements, and inadequate providings, and careless neglect of the husbands. But more husbands, we fear, are driven to shiftlessness and discouragement—driven to the saloon and gambling-room—by the extravagance or inefficiency, the disorderly arrangements or badly prepared food, the irritating complaints or exacting demands of those who preside in the home. None but a man of low instinct, of base passion, of weak character, will turn away from and neglect a home where order reigns, where a cheerful smile, well-prepared food, neatly arranged table await him; where a word of cheer greets him, and where patient forbearance is exercised, even with his irregularities and faults. It is the part of woman to win; and her winning arts should not be laid aside when she grasps what she has considered a prize. She should seek in every way to win, beyond the possibility of loss, the abiding love, the unwavering confidence, the undoubting respect of her husband. If woman would be man's equal, she must challenge the equality by proving herself mistress of those arts that minister the highest comfort to his physical nature, as well as to his affections, that further his interests as well as his happiness."
Alas! how many fail here because they know not how to make a home pleasant. Such are the slaves of servants and the creatures of circumstances. In some cases the fault is man's, in others it is woman's. Perhaps in all cases both are somewhat at fault; yet the responsibility rests on woman to make home a delight. When she fails she must take the consequences. Failure with her is often a mistake. She knows no better. Ignorance, in some, is wilful, but in more it is educational. Their mothers, through ill-judged kindness, mistaken notions of life, or careless neglect, suffered them to grow up without the necessary practical training; or else they failed before them; and inefficiency and slatternliness, bad cooking, and worse manners, are the patrimony bequeathed in perpetuity to the daughters. Happy is the man who has a wife capable of getting a better meal than the hired help, and whose smile is the light of his dwelling! Sometimes a girl knows how to win, but cares not to keep. She gives place in her heart, and a welcome in her home, to others more readily than to the one she has given her plighted troth. This is criminal. A woman who does it is a suicide. She is bent on ruin, and will find the pit ere long.
Consider her wiles of speech. Mystery here brings ruin to man as it brought ruin to woman. Young ladies of culture and of refinement are not ashamed to employ the language of the Parisian to lead astray the companion of her life. God curse the language and the forms of speech whose words drop with the very gall of death, which revel in elegant dress as near the edge of indecency as is possible without treading over the boundary! Her wiles of speech are bad, but her wiles of love are the most perilous of all. Man needs love. He is fond of it. It is his joy, come from whence it may. Love is the mind's light and heat. A mind of the greatest stature, without love, is like a huge pyramid of Egypt—chill and cheerless in all its dark halls and passages. A mind with love, is as a king's palace lighted for a royal festival. Shame that the sweetest of all the mind's attributes should be suborned to sin. Think of it! each wile, rightly used, is a power given to woman to make her man's helpmeet, and wrongly used will make her man's destroyer.
Some one asked a minister for his conception of the personal appearance of the devil. His reply was, "A false-hearted and well-dressed gentleman, or a vain and fashionable woman." Woman was Satan's first ally, though he worked in ambush, and approached man in concealment. In the wisdom of his choice we discover the peril of woman. It may be well briefly to review the public manner in which Satan employs her talent for the ruin of man and in opposing the rule of Christ.
1. Passing over her social power, and without referring to her wiles of speech, of dress, of flattery, and of love, think of her in the arena of politics, joining her forces to infidelity, and with the disbelievers of the Bible, to obtain for woman a place for which she is not fitted, and which will destroy her peace, injure and undermine her influence in the home, and cause her to neglect wifehood and motherhood, to turn from the interior world of a quiet home, to the outside world of conflict and strife. It is the boast of a writer in favor of "Woman's Rights," that "among the disbelievers of revealed religion, I have not found, during a life of half a century, a single opponent to the doctrine of equal rights for males and females." The correctness of this statement is to a wonderful extent true. The believers of the Bible claim that the teachings and commands of the Word of God are in opposition to the doctrine. When woman joins the ranks of the infidel, she turns from God, and loses her power in her former sphere.
2. If there is one foe more than another, that threatens us as a nation, nearly all agree in pronouncing that foe to be Romanism. Take this fact in connection with the obvious truth, that it is fashionable to pander to Rome. Because of this tendency ripening into results, the State of New York, politically, is lost to Protestantism, and is as much Roman Catholic as is Italy or Rome. Whence comes this influence, or producing cause? Can we trace it to woman? It will be admitted that the influence of Roman Catholic servants in our homes has never been measured. The nurse teaches the child the use of the beads, and familiarizes the child, committed to her keeping, to the cross, as an emblem of worship. Imagine the alarm of a Christian mother, when, because of the absence of the nurse it became a necessity to see the child to bed, when, to her surprise, the little girl of five years pulled out from beneath the pillow her beads and cross, and began going through the Papal forms of worship! The mother wisely forbore a rebuke, changed her nurse, and led her child back to Christ, and so rescued her. How many children are finding in their nurses, rather than in their mothers, their religious teachers? The influence of Romish servants in our homes is felt in still another way. Because of them there is a barrier to discussion, or even to conversation, concerning this monstrous error, which, like the frogs of Egypt, invades our very bread-troughs. No man dare express his mind concerning Romanism at his table if the servant is a Romanist, lest he lose the services so much in demand, or lest he be reported to the priest, and so be placed under the ban or the displeasure of the Church of Rome, which is used as an engine of political and social power against the truth as it is in Jesus.
3. The influence of education deserves consideration. Fashionable women send their daughters to Roman Catholic institutions of learning, where the Sister or Mother Superior carries her to the chapel, bows reverently before the altar, and kissing the cross, exclaims, "How can Protestants be so blind as to reject the cross on the ground that it savors of Popery, when they know that all their own hopes of salvation must hang upon it?" or where the morning service concludes with a prayer to the "Mother of God," in these words: "Most holy Virgin, I believe and confess thy most holy and immaculate care of man, pure and without stain. O most pure Virgin, through thy virginal purity, thy immaculate conception, thy glorious quality of Mother of God, obtain for me of thy dear Son, humility, charity, great purity of heart, of body and of mind, holy perseverance in my cherished relations, the gift of prayer, a holy life and a happy death."[A] Thus is the dogma of the Immaculate Conception thrust upon the memory, and the gate is opened to a denial and rejection of Christ as the Saviour, and to an acceptance of Mary as the Intercessor. The result manifests itself in two ways. The fashionable boarding-school girl comes to think kindly of Rome, and rebukes all opposition to the church as bigotry or ignorance on the part of those with whom she associates. The influence is noticeable. It is fashionable to attend the Papal Church, fashionable to contribute to its prosperity, fashionable for men to smother their opinions, fashionable for the politician to seek the favor of that power that furnishes, in its subtlety and in its power to work in darkness, a perfect mechanism for Satan.
[Footnote A: Miss Bunkley's Book, pp. 22 and 68.]
4. Our wealthy women, by their patronage of Roman Catholic fairs, and by their gifts to the so-called charitable fund, enable the enemies of the cross of Christ to build these magnificent cathedrals and religious establishments, while the churches of Christ languish for support.
Give to woman the ballot, let these girls in our kitchens become voters, and it will not be difficult to understand how "a man's foes shall be those of his own household."
The Remedy. Induce Protestant girls to work, by treating them as sisters rather than as servants. Talk free in the house and at the table against Romanism, let the consequences be what they may. Educate children so that they shall know the characteristics of this lifelong foe of the church of Christ; and, lastly, resist this movement to change the order of God's government in the home and in the state.
Ignore it as we may, the beguiling serpent is busy with our Eve in America, this Eden of liberty, and God only knows the result. It is a question which cannot be trifled with. That the drift to-day is against the teachings of the Bible, none can doubt. Victory for Satan is a terrible calamity for humanity. Let us then, as an antidote, preach Christ, and strive to make woman the helpmeet of man and the ally of our Divine Master, and then she becomes the deadliest foe of Satan, and the most aggressive champion of the truth.
"Her rash hand, in evil hour,Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate!Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat,Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woeThat all was lost."
To understand the tragedies of the present, it is essential that we re-read the tragedies of the past. Too many, in forming their opinions of what should be, ignore in their calculations what has been, and what must be. Those who are dissatisfied with the position assigned to woman, must recall the fact that God's decrees are unchangeable. We may resist them, but we cannot destroy them. They were in existence, before our birth; they will survive our dissolution. It is for us to recognize God as Ruler as well as Creator, and adjust our views, our lives, and our labors in accordance with an infinitely wise system, formed in the counsels of an eternity past, and running on to the eternity of the future.
If we speak of Woman as God Made Her, of Woman as a Helpmeet, we find a warrant for it in the Word of God. In Eden she was God's ally. When she fell, she became, in sin, the ally of Satan. The truth may be unpalatable, but it is the truth.
In considering woman as a mother, we stand on the hill-top of the past. Before us lies a valley, stretching on from the ruin wrought in Eden by sin, to the restoration wrought in the world by Christ. During these ages of wickedness, of sorrow, and of crime, woman felt the curse heavy upon her. She was made to feel that thewoepronounced upon her was a fact; and yet, during all these ages of trial, there was a gleam of hope shining into her soul, because God said, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thee on the head, and thou shalt bruise him on the heel." Thus there came to woman, who had the first encounter with the wily enemy of the race, the hope of a triumph over, and a subjugation of this enemy, through her offspring. It is an instinct of a boy to crush the head of a snake; but you cannot readily get a girl to do so: she will run from the beast so identified with her sorrow. The reason for this is explained in the prophecy of Eden. In a mystical sense, Christ, the deliverer foretold in Genesis, the eminent seed of the woman, was to bruise the head of the "old serpent, the devil," that is, destroy him, and all his principalities and powers, break and confound all his schemes and ruin all his works, crush his whole empire, strip him of his sovereignty and authority, of his power over death, and his tyranny over the bodies and souls of men. Here, then, was a purpose worth living for and suffering for. True, Satan, or the serpent, is to bruise his heel, or wound his human nature; but there is no promise of his triumph.
It is not difficult to discover how this hope must have thrilled the heart of Eve with joy. Her life was not to be a failure. Though clouds might rest upon her, it was impossible to shut out the fact that the star of hope was soon to rise, and to usher in the dawn of a glorious day.
Much has been written against the fact that a daughter is not prized in a home as much as is a son. We can understand it, when we go back to Eden and see that the seed of the woman, called "a he," a male child, was to be the instrument of working out the disinthralment of the race. The feminine gender is sometimes used in declaring the glories of the future. Zion is called a bride, but her glory is all reflected from the bridegroom. Woman is a helpmeet, but the king-bearer is the man Christ Jesus. The world turned from Christ because he had the appearance of a man. It was a great mistake. It is not a popular saying,—women say it is not complimentary to them to declare it,—yet it remains true, that "God draws by the cords of a man." All along the past men have been recognized as the gift of God. Women rejoice when a man is born into the world; not that women are disliked, but because there is something involved in life more than mere existence. There are faint foreshadowings of the tasks laid on the race. Work is to be done for God and man. Principalities and powers are to be fought and overcome. An invisible world is in league against the race, and an invisible God, once robed in flesh, and living among men, is Our Advocate with God, our Redeemer and Saviour. There is significance in the language, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." The language of Eve, as a mother, furnishes the key-note to that maternal song which yet floats through the world, which makes women in China, in India, in Africa, and in South America, among the inhabitants of Russia, and of Paraguay, anywhere and everywhere, rejoice with the same old joy, when a man is born into the world, because then she feels that somehow she has given birth to a hero and a champion who shall be identified with that song of world-triumph which is yet to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea; and the only exception to this is found among the Hebrews, where a virgin was revered as the possible mother of the Messiah, and so received her dignity as a reflection from the man. To understand this problem of human nature, we must go back to God, and study his word. Those who reject the Word, of God are surrounded by mysteries which they cannot solve. They behold tendencies, and instincts, and dispositions, which are explained in Genesis, and which are parts of God's prophesies yet to be fulfilled in this world. Ignoring the prophecy, they cannot comprehend the facts of existence, which must exist and will exist, whether men will hear or forbear.
Says a writer of some note, "The severe Nation which taught that the happiness of the race was forfeited through the fault of a woman, showed its thought of what sort of regard man viewed her, by making him accuse her in the first question to his God,—who gave her to the patriarch as a handmaid, and by the Mosaical law bound her to allegiance like a serf,—even they greeted, with a solemn rapture, all great and holy-women as heroines, prophetesses, judges in Israel; and if they made Eve listen to the serpent, gave Mary as a bride to the Holy Spirit. In other nations it has been the same down to our day." In this extract, the Jewish nation and the Bible are referred to in the same tone that we refer to Mahommedans and to the Koran. Is not this tendency perceptible elsewhere? In looking at woman, we ignore the Bible, and God, and history, and talk of her as though the past had no influence with the present and future. The Bible, God, and history have to do with the present and the future, and whoever studies history has been compelled to recognize the truth. This same writer was compelled to declare, "It is the destiny of man, in the course of the ages, to ascertain and fulfil the law of his being, so that his life shall be seen, as a whole, to be that of an angel or messenger." This is his destiny, because it is God-given. Hence man was the bearer of good tidings all along the past. Prophets were generally men. Christ was a man. The apostles, Christ's chosen standard-bearers, were men. The powers in the moral and spiritual world are men. All that is great in history, all that thrones one nation upon a mountain height and buries another in the fathomless grave of infamy, comes from man. The ages were dark, because of the lack of a man. Christ came, and the apostolic age became the noontime of the world, not because of what the race did for themselves, but because of what was done for the race. If a nation sinks, because the man who has the brain, the wisdom, the power from God, is wanting, who shall build up a people in hope, inspire them with grand resolves? It will rise and prosper when the man comes. Christ was a necessity, because infinite work was to be performed. Is he not a necessity now? Is it not a man in Christ, and with Christ, who is ever the worker on the earth? Christ speaks through the gospel, and "the key" of the moral universe is still upon his shoulders. This hope and dream came to Eve way back there in the confines of the wilderness, and so incidentally as well as actually, she became identified with it, and rejoiced when she could declare, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," whom she believed to be the "promised seed."
Notice, to Eve, as to woman now, a baby was more than a little child; she saw in him all the possibilities of a man, who was to become a foe worthy to meet the enemy of her soul. Her faith in this child to be born was similar to our faith in the Child that was born in Bethlehem. Hence her joy when she exclaimed, "I have gotten a man from the Lord."
It will seem to many as singular that there should be no mention of the daughters born of Eve. The generations or names of men are given, but not of the daughters. Even there and then the custom now prevalent in the East found its origin. No account is made of the birth of a daughter in that land. Congratulate a man upon the accession to the family of a daughter, and the father will hide his shame with difficulty, and exclaim, "O, that God had given me a son!"
Again, in reading this story some will be surprised to find no mention made of the mother's grief when her youngest child was slain, and that no mention is made of the mother's death. We know that after Seth was born, Adam lived eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters; but woman's curse bore fruit. Men ruled over her, and her individuality was lost in the headship of Adam. Do not blame me for saying it; I simply declare the fact. This state of things continued until Christ came. When Mary gave birth to Jesus, woman resumed her place. The curse was met by its antidote. From God came the wave of influence which met the wave that flowed out from Eden, the conflict began, higher and higher rose the flood, until the ark of hope by it was placed on the mountain peak of human history, in sight of all races, and tribes, and peoples of the whole world. Calvary is set over against Ararat, as Mary is set over against Eve. After the birth-song of Eden came the tragedy, in which Abel lost his life and Cain his character. After the birth-song of Bethlehem came the tragedy of Calvary, in which Christ gave up his life, that he might open to man, enveloped in the ruins of the fall, a way back to the Eden in reserve for the redeemed.
In speaking of Eve as a mother, there is little that can be said founded on fact. Eve passes from sight, though the prophecy, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thee on the head, and thou shall bruise him on the heel," worked on, and lived on, and found its fulfilment in the triumph won by Christ. It is certainly significant, that Eve, through whom sin came, should pass out of the world's mind, and Mary, through whom Christ came, should vault to a seat in the affections of a world? Is it not also significant that Mary should become an object of worship to many millions of people in this and in other lands, and that Satan, through Mariolatry, should strive to do in the New Dispensation what he wrought by Idolatry in the Old? The opposition of Satan runs on. The purposes of God run on. The prophesies of the Word of God abide, and are sure of fulfilment, in spite of Satan. Against prophecy combinations of men and nations have united; but the truths sweep on resistlessly, and reach the destination for which God ordained them.
The curse that came to woman in the hour of her fall rested on her until Christ came. "Unto thy husband shall be thy desire,"—an expression of subordination and dependence. "He shall rule over thee," expresses the general effect of the apostasy on woman's relations in the married state. The stronger party in this relation, instead of being the guardian and protector of the weaker, did use his superior power to oppress and debase her. Such has always been the case, except so far as the influence of revelation has counteracted the evils of the fall, such is the case to-day. Woman owes her recognition to Christ, and she is indebted for her position in the civilized portions of the world wholly to the gospel. Wherever Christ is not worshipped woman is despised.
Woman as a mother, under the Old Dispensation, differs in many important respects from woman as a mother under the New. The history of woman is divided into three portions: 1. Woman as God made her; 2. Woman as Sin made her; 3. Woman as Christ made her.
1. The position of woman, between her humiliation in Eden and her restoration in Bethlehem, was in many respects sad to contemplate. She was more of a slave than an equal. Eve passes, unrecognized and unnamed, to her grave. Sarah, the wife of Abram, finds mention, and is described in such a manner that you behold her sharing her husband's love, though the picture of her in the home is not a pleasant one. We can hardly understand how Abram could have suffered her to enter the house of Abimelech, nor how she could have taken Hagar to her husband, and thus again have led man astray—the man whom God called to be the Father of the Faithful. Eve, the mother of the race, tempted Adam, and Sarah, the mother of the patriarchs, tempted Abram; and lack of faith in God was the cause of their ruin, and consequent humiliation. There is something sad about the manner of her life. Her home was a simple tent, surrounded by flocks and herds, and crowded with rubbish of every description. Woman in the East is very much to-day what Adam saw her on his first entrance into the wilderness. The effects of sin followed her from generation to generation. The gloom of the night is still over her as she spends her days in out-door labor. She weeds the cotton, and assists in pruning the vine and gathering the grapes. She goes forth in the morning, bearing not only her implements of husbandry, but also her babes in the cradle; and returning in the evening, she prepares her husband's supper and sets it before him, but never thinks of eating of it until after he is done. One of the early objections the Nestorians made to the Female Seminary was, that it would disqualify their daughters for their accustomed toil. In after years woman might be seen carrying her Spelling-book to the field along with her Persian hoe, little dreaming that she was thus taking the first step towards the substitution of the new implement for the old.
Nestorian parents used to consider the birth of a daughter a great calamity. When asked the number of their children, they would count up their sons, and make no mention of their daughters. The birth of a son was an occasion for great joy and giving of gifts. Neighbors hastened to congratulate the happy father, but days might elapse before the neighborhood knew of the birth of a daughter. It was deemed highly improper to inquire after the health of a wife, and the nearest approach to it was to ask after the house or household. Formerly a man never called his wife by name, but in speaking of her would say the mother of "so and so," giving the name of the child; or the daughter of "so and so," giving the name of her father; or simply that woman did this or that. Nor did the wife presume to call her husband's name, or to address him in the presence of his parents, who, it will be borne in mind, lived in the same apartment. They were married very young, often at the age of fourteen, and without any consultation of their own preference, either as to time or person.
There was hardly a man among the Nestorians who did not beat his wife when the missionaries commenced their labors. The women expected to be beaten, and took it as a matter of course. When the men wished to talk together of anything important, they usually sent the women out of doors or to the stable, as unable to understand or unfit to be trusted. In some cases, says the author of "Woman and Her Saviour," this might be a necessary precaution; for the absence of true affection, and the frequency of domestic broils, rendered the wife an unsafe depositary of any important family affair.[A]
[Footnote A: Woman and her Saviour, pp. 18 and 19.]
In Paraguay a female child is described by Southey as lamenting, in heart-breaking tones, that her mother did not kill her when she was born; and Sir A. Mackenzie declares that there is a class of women in the north who performed this pious duty towards female infants, whenever they had an opportunity. But wherever Christ is known and loved, the daughter is a gift of God as well as a son. Woman owes to her Saviour all she has of joy in time, as well as all she has of hope in eternity. Though she does not obtain the headship, though her sorrow and her pain are not removed, though her desire continues to be to her husband, and though the rule of the husband continues in every well-regulated home, yet woman is elevated to become a shareholder of the pleasures of the home, of the honors and emoluments of life, of the riches obtained by toil, and of the enjoyments derived from culture. Woman in the Christian home is the soul, the pride, the ornament, and the helper. Through Christ she obtains a recognition, so that when we speak of man we mean the race, men and women, for these become the two halves of one thought, so that no especial stress is laid on the welfare of either, but the development of one is secured by the development of the other. To such an extent have the disabilities been removed from the sex, that a leading writer has been compelled to admit, that "in our own country, women are, in many respects, better situated than the men. Good books are allowed, with more time to read them. They are not so early forced into the bustle of life, nor so weighed down by demands for outward success. They have time to think, and no traditions chain them, and few conventionalities, compared with what must be met in other nations. Doors swing open to them, and they are invited to walk the fields of literary and artistic success, and whatever tends to the development of their higher nature is freely placed within their reach."
2.The trials of motherhood deserve notice. We have seen the hopes that came to Eve, and beheld their realization in and through Christ. The trials were born of sin. Eve's eldest child, Cain, possessed a narrow, selfish nature. He was a tiller of the ground. Abel was a keeper of the sheep. The first born met this curse in the soil. The second born looked forward to the restoration. In process of time Cain brought of the fruit of the ground. Tradition has it that he brought what was left of his food, of light and tempting things, flax or hemp seed.
Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, which was a proper type of Christ. His offering pleased God, Cain's niggardly gift displeased God. The selfish man wreaked his vengeance in the usual way. He slew his brother, who was better than himself. The heavens are black with gathering gloom. Murder is in the air. The shock is felt everywhere. God comes, and sternly asks, "Where is thy brother?" Cain impudently replies, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Then comes the curse. It is a self-invited curse, for the gift he gave to God is the harvest in future for himself. Ah, what a lesson. How early it is taught. If you hate God, if you regret what you give, if you make it small, if you see to it that you give the leavings rather than the firstlings, then beware. Cain said his punishment was greater than he could bear. He is getting back what he gave. The command is, Give, and it shall be given back. The converse is true—Keep, and it shall be kept back.
The hopes of Eve were centred in the victory to be achieved over the enemy of her life, by means of the triumph to be won by her children. Her trials really began when she saw that sin was not an accident. It was rebellion which bore fruit. Her treachery to God came back to her in this treachery of her first born to her second child, whom she loved with maternal tenderness. Thus the gates of evil were thrown open, and they filled the land with violence, and the flood became a necessity.
What was true of Eve was more or less true of woman until Christ came. She inherited sorrow, and was born to a life of humiliation and wretchedness. The history of woman in the olden time and at this hour, wherever Christ is not known, is full of sorrow. In Christ she finds an emancipator from sorrow.
There is another strange fact. In the Old Dispensation, the first born son is the child of promise. But wherever the influence of Christ's gospel rules, there the rule of the first born disappears, and all, both sons and daughters, share in the patrimony of the house and in the honors of the household. Despite this, it is natural for a father to love his first born son the best, and for the mother to find her heart clinging involuntarily to the younger and weaker. From the unfortunate the father may turn, but the mother never. She will bind her love tightest about the birdling that, from some misfortune, is unable to leave the maternal nest.
Turn we to the Old Testament, we find that whenever man was brought near to God, as was Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and others, woman was held in respect, and was permitted to exercise an elevating influence in the home; and yet it remains true, that in nearly every instance she failed to prove herself a helpmeet.
Sarah introduced Abraham to polygamy, Rebekah was a pattern of lying, and Rachel of deception. The three celebrated women of history are destitute of those characteristics which make of a wife a companion, counsellor, and friend.
Do we study the history of Miriam, of Deborah, and Esther? we behold women rising up in the name of God to help their people to save their kindred. They were the introduction to a noble succession. Woman then, as now, is loved for bringinghelpto those on whom God devolves responsibility.
The picture best loved and most praised in the Old Testament is that of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, as she fits him for his post of duty in the service of the Lord. In Hannah the world finds their beau ideal of a mother, actuated by principle and ruled by love, recognizing her allegiance to God, and her obligations to her child and husband, and there is hardly a child in this Christian land who does not dwell with delight upon this fact, that each year the mother made for her boy a little coat. It was a motherly deed, and links her to the history of the race by the blessed tie which finds its origin in maternal care.
Ruth comes next, because of her fidelity to her mother, and her love of virtue. It is by her life we are introduced afresh to the golden vein of prophecy that runs through the Old Testament, and which ever pointed towards the coming of Christ as the hope of woman and the hope of the world. Esther's love of her race, and her noble daring of Eastern despotism for the good of her people, lifts her to a high place, though as a wife and mother we know nothing more than that she was hedged round by the iron regulations of a paganized court. The revelations made concerning the daughter of Jacob, or of Bathsheba, the loved wife of David, and in fact of nearly all of the women of the Bible, prove that the women of the olden time left as well as received an inheritance of shame. The names we have mentioned are among the brightest and the best. We will draw a veil over the characters of women such as the wife of Lot, or of Potiphar, the would-be seducer of Joseph, or of Job, the betrayer of her husband in misfortune, of Jezebel, the fury, or of Delilah, the traitress to her husband, and of a score of others, that make the age in which they lived seem like the night of humanity.
3.Woman obtains her recognition in Christ.From the moment God pronounced sentence upon Eve to the moment when the angel appeared to Mary, man was recognized as the head. Even Miriam wrought through Moses, and Deborah, the judge and prophetess, lays no claim to personal communication with God, but quotes his promises, and stimulates Barak to action, So also when the angel came from the court of heaven to foretell the joy that was to come to the world in the birth of John, the forerunner of Christ, he came to Zacharias instead of to Elisabeth. But when the message related to Christ,then the angel passed by man, and approached woman direct. God never forgets. A thousand years are but as a day to Him. Yesterday, in Eden, he foretold the coming of Christ to Eve. To-day, in Nazareth, the angel comes to Mary, and makes her heart glad with the fact, that she was chosen to become the mother of our Lord. Eve lost by sin God's companionship. Mary obtained, through Christ, favor with God and man. The valley is spanned with this arch of hope. The night of woman's humiliation is passing away. And the angel came in unto her, and said, "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women."