The True Woman / A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. Ballot

by Justin D. Fulton

THE GLORY OF MOTHERHOOD.

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 the woe pronounced 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 bringing help to 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."

Strange words these, as we can readily perceive, from the position held by woman previously. No wonder that when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." No wonder that the air seemed full of music. Woman, made so beautiful, woman, so beloved of God, and so prized by Adam, before sin blighted the bud of hope and spoiled the flower of beauty, was now to come forth from the darkness and gloom of her life of shame to the light of an unclouded day, henceforth to be made glorious by her ministrations of love. The glory of motherhood "is the man gotten from the Lord," and raised to work for God in this sinful world. The glory of woman is to share this man's home as a helpmeet, and contribute by her love, and sympathy, and efforts to his happiness and usefulness here, that she may wear the crown of joy in heaven.