Part 2 (1/2)
In her the imagination and fancy have such a lively play, that the homeliest principles a.s.sume 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 surpa.s.s 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 ma.s.sive 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 Inst.i.tutes 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 s.e.x. 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 partners.h.i.+p 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 companions.h.i.+p. 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sumption 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 companions.h.i.+p. Hence some women mated with a brute of a man, s.h.i.+ne 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.bleness 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 a.s.sist 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, uns.e.xed 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d-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 G.o.d 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 fas.h.i.+on to the grand work before her of raising men for G.o.d 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 G.o.d'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 s.e.x, 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 n.o.ble prince in Israel; and so she became identified with the succession of promise. The life of Mrs. Sigourney ill.u.s.trates 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.