Part 7 (1/2)

Having thus briefly considered the necessity of linking woman's work and mission together, let us define her work, and consider what is her mission.

Woman has work to do. Though idleness does not destroy her as it does a man, yet it does not become her. Merely to display her charms for the admiration of others cannot be the destiny of one created with a woman's hand and head, and endowed with woman's soul. From the nature of the case, her work should be womanly in its character; that which is within doors rather than without; which belongs to the ornamental rather than to the mechanical. There is no sense in woman's working in the field while man measures tapes or counts thimbles, or in his doing other in-door work for which woman's light touch renders her better qualified. When we look at women who have become coa.r.s.e in the expression of their features, and ungainly in form and movement, through the weight of their daily toil, we see the folly of those who would make the woman the equal, or the rival, instead of the helpmeet of man; and feel indignation that, since many of our women must earn their own livelihood, we have not a more natural division of labor, which would a.s.sign to man the heavier, and to woman the lighter kinds of work. As woman's faith blesses as well as saves her; it is essential that her work be linked in some way to the exercise of faith, and to the unfolding of love. For the character of the work exerts an influence upon woman's body as well as upon her soul. If you will contrast the looks of a happy housewife or domestic with the looks of a majority of the faces that are seen in factories, the truth of the position taken will be abundantly sustained. It matters not so much where the roots of woman's life-work grow, if up through it all, and above it all, the vine may twine its tendril, and send forth its flower, and yield its fruit. For this cause the love of Christ and the hopes of a Christian life seem so essential to her growth and development, that it is almost impossible to write of a happy, contented woman, without describing a woman whose faith in Jesus has regenerated and disinthralled her. Love is the prime requisite to successful endeavor on a woman's part to be her husband's true helpmeet; and so, in discharging the duties incident to a life of toil, woman must be soothed and sustained in her tasks by the joys of a Christian life. Hence the ruin wrought in shops and factories, in stores, and homes where Christ is cast out, and where the bliss of high and holy living is denied.

Woman's mission is to be inferred from a consideration of the wants of man. Created to be a helpmeet for man, it is essential, if we would determine her mission, that we ascertain for what purpose man needs her influence.

G.o.d declared, ”It is not good for man to be alone,” and woman was brought to him as a companion, to charm his life, to prolong it by sharing it with him. Her vocation, by birth, is a vocation of love. To be his helpmeet, not his rival; not to increase, but to lighten, or to support him, under his cares; to recognize him as the immediate object of her existence, instead of fancying that he was formed to wait on her; this is the end for which G.o.d has called her into being. As has been said, ”This representation may not satisfy the ambition of some, who do but degrade themselves by aspiring to occupy a position for which they are neither intended by G.o.d nor qualified by nature,--even as men and angels fell when they sought to become as G.o.ds,--but in reality it tends to woman's elevation; and, as the whole history of Christianity doth show, where its truth is most recognized and relied upon, there woman is happiest and greatest.”

The word ”mission,” as applied to woman, refers to the purpose for which she was created and brought to man. In considering her mission, we are safe in avowing that woman found her mission, 1. At home.

Her mission is in the home. Her training must fit her for the home, whether she serves as a wife or as a domestic. Her life is a success when she makes home a pleasure and a joy to those to whom the home properly belongs. It is for this reason that there is deep concern on the part of many thoughtful minds because the drift of the times is against educating women for the home. Of the women who are compelled to earn their own subsistence many prefer the factory and the store to the work in the family, and, as a result, there are large numbers of young women who cannot make a loaf of bread or cook a meal, who would not hesitate to become wives of working-men, who expect to find in them a helpmeet in building a home like that which blessed their childhood. The result is dissatisfaction and recrimination, leaving the wife for the club, and turning from the joys of the home to the revel of jovial companions.

The same is true of the cla.s.s of young ladies who know something of music, vocal and instrumental. They can dance. They have studied drawing sufficiently to be able to sketch a few flowers and figures.

Perhaps they can speak French and translate German. They know in what position to sit, and how to move gracefully. All very well these things in their places, and fitted to increase the charm of manner when the eyes are lighted up by the informing soul; not undeserving notice either in their influence upon man, when they are accompanied by something better, for, amid all the weighty cares of life, he is sometimes in the mood when such things do please; but sadly over-estimated when they are made the sole substance and end of a woman's education. They might nearly all be done by a being without a soul. They do nothing to draw out the n.o.ble qualities of her deep womanly nature. They leave her altogether unfitted for her peculiar mission of a wife and mother.

Now, there are times when a woman, despite her imperfect education, acquires after marriage the knowledge which fits her for the duties appertaining to wifehood. But where nature yields to such training, the woman fails both in filling her sphere and in fulfilling her mission, and falls beneath her true position as the helpmeet of man.

How bitter his disappointment, who, having been smitten by these gewgaw attractions, and having put faith in the mother of the child that with this outward attraction she had corresponding qualifications to fill the home with helpful counsel and sustaining sympathy, when he comes to find that, instead of a _wife_, he has married a plaything, and that his children are being committed to the care of a helpless, unformed companion, rather than to the guidance of a true and n.o.ble wife.

A proper conception of woman's mission as the helpmeet of man would tend greatly to her elevation. A man who knows for what woman has been made, and what advantage he should look for from the woman whom he calls wife, will not select a mere toy as the partner of his life; and when woman properly recognizes her place, mothers will not be content to give their daughters, nor will daughters be ambitious, or even content to receive only such a training as fits them for amusing or pleasing man in his playful hours, but leaves them altogether unfit to be his companion under the weightier cares and graver concerns of life.

Let it be understood that woman's life and labor, mission and work, point ever homeward, and whether she serve in the store or shop, in the factory or in the home, she will be ready, whenever G.o.d's providence opens the way, to make home bright for another, because it has been made bright for herself. In her reading, in her planning, in her waking dreams and in her night visions, let her live to make her own home joyous, and she will not live in vain. To do this successfully in the future, she must make home bright and beautiful in the present. It is the girl, whose hand is skilful in the home, who is prized as a companion, because of the substantial linked with the ornamental. The same is true of a man. Talent, genius even, is valueless unless it can earn bread. There must be something to make home pleasant with, which it is the duty of man to provide, else woman finds it hard to do her work or fulfil her mission. This does not disparage woman. Her intellect should not be regarded as inferior to man's because it differs from his. Her mind is formed for a distinct work and sphere, just as truly as is her body. In that sphere she is endowed with faculties superior to that of man. Here she has her requital: here she proves herself mistress of the field, and employs those secret resources which might be termed admirable, if they did not inspire a more tender sentiment, both towards her, and towards G.o.d, who has so richly endowed her. ”Her practical survey, equally sure and rapid; her quick and accurate perception; her wonderful power of penetrating the heart in a way unknown and impracticable to man; her never-failing presence of mind, and personal attention on all occasions; her numerous and fertile resources in the management of her domestic affairs; her ever ready access and willing audience to all who need her; her freedom of thought and action in the midst of the most agonizing sufferings and acc.u.mulated embarra.s.sments; her elasticity,--may I say her perseverance,--in spite of feebleness; her tact to practise it, were it not instinctive; her extreme perfection in little things; ... her incomparable skill in re-awakening a sleeping conscience, in re-opening a heart that has long been closed; in fine, innumerable are the things which she accomplishes, and which man can neither discern nor offset without the aid of her eye and hand. Thus, mentally as well as physically, is she predestined for a work and sphere different from those of her stronger companions. And, as everything is beautiful in its place and season, so is woman most beautiful and useful when, like a modest flower, she blooms in the privacy for which her nature fits her, and perfumes, with the fragrance of her character, the hallowed precincts of home.”[A] ”No man,” says Mr. Jay, ”was ever proof against the kindness of a sensible woman; but where, in all history, can an instance be produced in which an ascendency over him has been obtained by forwardness, scolding, and strife for preeminence? No wife has such influence with, or even such control over, her husband, as

”'She who never answers till her husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submission sways, Yet has her humor most when she obeys.'”

[Footnote A: Woman's Sphere and Work, by Rev. Wm. Landels, D.D., London.]

2. Woman's mission is social as well as domestic. The domestic part of her life is the garden, in which the seed is planted, which brings forth the flower of social joy. A woman who is the soul of a beautiful home is a power in society. No matter what her talents may be, let it be known that she is a slattern at home, and she is without influence.

The pen may serve as a feather to adorn her social life, but it looks mean when the use of it causes the neglect of the needle.

Woman may be a secret power in the home. She may make home attractive to the refined and cultured, and thus prove to be the magnet attracting to herself and to her fireside those gifted sons and daughters, the scintillations of whose genius and the dissemination of whose beautiful thoughts make the home luminous with a light which is inextinguishable. The influence of such a woman over her children and over the young cannot be overestimated.

”Such a sphere, so far from being insufficient to satisfy a true woman's ambition, is well fitted, by its tremendous responsibilities, to excite her fears. There is not one, perhaps, which a human being can occupy, on which hang more stupendous issues. Though less public, it is still more potential than man's.”

The influence of a true woman cannot be confined to the home. Home is the fountain, and the world gladly furnishes channels for the diffusion of her influence. In promoting the cause of reform, in alleviating the woes of the unfortunate, in carrying forward the cause of temperance, in ministering to the sick, either as a nurse or a physician, in using her pen to delight and guide the thoughts of the young and old along the garden paths of her own loving life, thick with the blossoms of hope, and made glorious by deeds of charity,--in these, and in numberless other ways, woman, finding her throne in the house, is welcomed as a ruler in the world.

For woman there is a felt a necessity which should send her forth as a missionary to those like herself in everything but blessings. Think of our large factory towns, where women are congregated by hundreds and thousands. Let it be remembered that there is something unnatural in all this. Woman was made for man, for home, for love. Separate her from them all, herd her with her kind, subtract from her the incentive to endeavor, leave her mind to brood in fancy, to welcome unholy aspirations and degrading thoughts to her soul, and you leave her to prey upon herself. Let woman see to it that reading-rooms for women be established in our factory towns, that their boarding-houses be warmed and rendered inviting, that the talented be encouraged to exertion, and that tidiness and neatness be made an incentive for all, and woman will do a work of immeasurable importance,--a work on which G.o.d's blessing will rest,--and those who toil to accomplish it will obtain an abundant reward from Him who declares, ”Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye did it unto me.”

In the cause of Reform woman's help is needed. From the earliest commencement of the temperance movement, appeals, arguments, and expostulations have been addressed by earnest reformers to woman, because it was felt that on any great social question the power of woman to help, or to hinder, was all-important. When it is remembered that woman is the greatest sufferer from the vice of intemperance, that she regulates the customs of society, it is apparent that she should seek to abolish bad, and promote good customs. More than others she trains the young and builds up character, and therefore she should, by example and precept, implant such habits as may be not only a safeguard in childhood and youth, but become fixed as moral principles in those she has reared, when the responsibility arrives; because of these, we find reasons in abundance why woman must help, or aid cannot reach the imperilled and undone.

Again: Woman needs help. Addison well said, ”Women are either the best or the worst of human beings.” The very feelings which, rightly directed, prompt her to soar even to the apex of the pyramid of human virtue, warped from their right exercise, precipitate her to the lowest and most grovelling depths of human vice. Is woman intemperate, she differs from man in the gratification of her appet.i.te. He seeks the social club. Woman seeks retirement, and drinks alone and apart.

Her appet.i.te, from this very cause, becomes unmanageable. Men will stop drinking, oftentimes, when the open bar is closed. Woman, with an appet.i.te formed, drinks the more, because she drinks in secret.

Because of this fact, woman is in peril if she form an appet.i.te for strong drink.

Woman as a Mother has work to do as a teacher. ”We hear a great deal about education in the present day; but,” said Mrs. Ellis, ”my strong impression is that there will have to come a teaching out of the mother's heart and life,--herself being taught of G.o.d,--such as alone can save us as a nation and a people from falling from our high material prosperity into a condition of moral degradation, which it is terrible to contemplate.” Such being the case, every woman should ask, What have I done in those opportunities which G.o.d gave me with the young? What did I pour into that open heart and mind? Was my influence for Christ or against him? Which way did I point out to those uncertain feet? Who can estimate a mother's influence! There is a power in a mother's love greater than any other human power,--a power to suffer, to serve, and to save; a power which many waters cannot quench, and which is stronger than death. As she leads, the broodlings will follow. Does she sanction card-playing, theatre-going, dancing, and what are called innocent recreations, or does she set herself against them, and turn the thoughts of her children to books that treat of science, of philosophy, and of religion? Upon the answer to this question the future of children and the young depends. Many a boy has been checked in a career of shame by a mother's sad look; many have been encouraged by a mother's smile. G.o.d help women to know how to use their power for home, for woman-kind, for man-kind, for country, and for G.o.d!

”No one has such power over a river as he who stands near its source.

No one has such power over the tree as he who plants and tends it while yet it is a pliant sapling. And no earthly power is to be compared with that which, humanly speaking, determines the course and destiny of an immortal soul. Under G.o.d the mother is the first guardian of the child's eternal interest. It is from the mother, who moves constantly among her little ones, much more than the father, whose vocation necessitates his absence from home, and prevents his being much in their presence, that children receive their bias. Her gentle hand gives to our ductile natures the impress which we wear through life; her loving voice awakens in the soul those sweet echoes which never cease to sound; and her look and manner fill the mind with images which haunt our memory until our dying day.”