In Times Like These

by Nellie L. McClung

CHAPTER VIII

WOMEN AND THE CHURCH

HEART TO HEART TALK WITH THE WOMEN OF THE
CHURCH BY THE GOVERNING BODIES

Go, labor on, good sister Anne,
Abundant may thy labors be;
To magnify thy brother man
Is all the Lord requires of thee!

Go, raise the mortgage, year by year,
And joyously thy way pursue,
And when you get the title clear,
We'll move a vote of thanks to you!

Go, labor on, the night draws nigh;
Go, build us churches—as you can.
The times are hard, but chicken-pie
Will do the trick. Oh, rustle, Anne!

Go, labor on, good sister Sue,
To home and church your life devote;
But never, never ask to vote,
Or we'll be very cross with you!

May no rebellion cloud your mind,
But joyous let your race be run.
The conference is good and kind
And knows God's will for every one!

In dealing with the relation of women to the church, let me begin properly with a text in Genesis which says: "God created man in his own image ... male and female created he them." That is to say, He created male man and female man. Further on in the story of the creation it says: "He gave them dominion, etc."

It would seem from this, that men and women got away to a fair start. There was no inequality to begin with. God gave them dominion over everything; there were no favors, no special privileges. Whatever inequality has crept in since, has come without God's sanction. It is well to exonerate God from all blame in the matter, for He has been often accused of starting women off with a handicap. The inequality has arisen from men's superior physical strength, which became more pronounced as civilization advanced, and which is only noticeable in the human family. Among all animals, with the possible exception of cattle, the female is quite as large and as well endowed as the male. It is easy for bigger and stronger people to arrogate to themselves a general superiority. Christ came to rebuke the belief that brute strength is the dominant force in life.

It is no wonder that the teachings of Christ make a special appeal to women, for Christ was a true democrat. He made no discrimination between men and women. They were all human beings to Him, with souls to save and lives to live, and He applied to men and women the same rule of conduct.

When the Pharisees brought the woman to Him, accused of a serious crime, insistent that she be stoned at once, Christ turned his attention to them. "Let him that is without sin among you throw the first stone," he said. Up to this moment they had been feeling deliciously good, and the contemplation of the woman's sinfulness had given them positive thrills of virtue. But now suddenly each man felt the spotlight on himself, and he winced painfully. Ordinarily they would have bluffed it off, and laughingly declared they were no worse than other men. But the eyes of the Master were on them—kind eyes, patient always, but keen and sharp as a surgeon's knife; and measuring themselves up with the sinless Son of God, their pitiful little pile of respectability fell into irreparable ruin. They forgot all about the woman and her sin as they saw their own miserable sin-eaten, souls, and they slid out noiselessly. When they were gone Christ asked the woman where were her accusers.

"No man hath condemned me, Lord," she answered truthfully.

"Neither do I condemn you," He said. "Go in peace—sin no more!"

I believe that woman did go in peace, and I also believe that she sinned no more, for she had a new vision of manhood, and purity, and love. All at once, life had changed for her.

The Christian Church has departed in some places from Christ's teaching—noticeably in its treatment of women. Christ taught the nobility of loving service freely given; but such a tame uninteresting belief as that did not appeal to the military masculine mind. It declared Christianity was fit only for women and slaves, whose duty and privilege it was lovingly to serve men. The men of Christ's time held His doctrines in contempt. They wanted gratification, praise, glory, applause, action—red blood and raw meat, and this man, this carpenter, nothing but a working man from an obscure village, dared to tell them they should love their neighbor as themselves, that they should bless and curse not.

There was no fun in that! No wonder they began to seek how they could destroy him! Such doctrine was fit for only women and slaves!

It is sometimes stated as a reason for excluding women from the highest courts of the church, that Christ chose men for all of his disciples—that it was to men, and men only, that he gave the command: "Go ye into the world and preach the gospel to every creature," but that is a very debatable matter. Christ's scribes were all men, and in writing down the sacred story, they would naturally ignore the woman's part of it. It is not more than twenty years ago that in a well-known church paper appeared this sentence, speaking of a series of revival meetings: "The converted numbered over a hundred souls, exclusive of women and children." If after nineteen centuries of Christian civilization the scribe ignores women, even in the matter of conversion, we have every reason to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke or John might easily fail to give women a place "among those present" or the "also rans."

Superior physical force is an insidious thing, and has biased the judgment of even good men. St. Augustine declared woman to be "a household menace; a daily peril; a necessary evil." St. Paul, too, added his contribution and advised all men who wished to serve God faithfully to refrain from marriage "even as I." "However," he said, "if you feel you must marry, go ahead—only don't say I did not warn you!" Saint Paul is very careful to say that he is giving this advice quite on his own authority, but that has in no way dimmed the faith of those who have quoted it.

Later writers like Sir Almoth Wright declare there are no good women, though there are some who have come under the influence of good men. Many men have felt perfectly qualified to sum up all women in a few crisp sentences, and they do not shrink from declaring in their modest way that they understand women far better than women understand themselves. They love to talk of women in bulk, all women—and quite cheerfully tell us women are illogical, frivolous, jealous, vindictive, forgiving, affectionate, not any too honest, patient, frail, delightful, inconstant, faithful. Let us all take heart of grace for it seems we are the whole thing!

Almost all the books written about women have been written by men. Women have until the last fifty years been the inarticulate sex; but although they have had little to say about themselves they have heard much. It is a very poor preacher or lecturer who has not a lengthy discourse on "Woman's True Place." It is a very poor platform performer who cannot take the stand and show women exactly wherein they err. "This way, ladies, for the straight and narrow path!" If women have gone aside from the straight and narrow path it is not because they have not been advised to pursue it. Man long ago decided that woman's sphere was anything he did not wish to do himself, and as he did not particularly care for the straight and narrow way, he felt free to recommend it to women in general. He did not wish to tie himself too closely to home either and still he knew somebody should stay on the job, so he decided that home was woman's sphere.

The church has been dominated by men and so religion has been given a masculine interpretation, and I believe the Protestant religion has lost much when it lost the idea of the motherhood of God. There come times when human beings do not crave the calm, even-handed justice of a father nearly so much as the soft-hearted, loving touch of a mother, and to many a man or woman whose home life has not been happy, "like as a father pitieth his children" sounds like a very cheap and cruel sarcasm.

It has been contended by those high in authority in church life, that the admission of women into all the departments of the church will have the tendency to drive men out. Indeed some declare that the small attendance of men at church services is accounted for by the "feminization of the church," which is, in other words, an admission of a very ugly fact that even in the sacred precincts of the church, women are held in mild contempt. Many men will resent this statement hotly, but a brief glance at some of the conditions which prevail in our social life will prove that there is a great amount of truth in it. Look at the fine scorn with which small boys regard girls! You cannot insult a boy more deeply than to tell him he looks like a girl—and the bitterest insult one boy can hand out to another is to call him a "sissy." This has been carefully taught to our small boys, for if they were left to their own observations and deductions they would hold girls in as high esteem as boys. I remember once seeing a fond mother buying a coat for her only son, aged seven years. The salesman had put on a pretty little blue reefer, and the mother was quite pleased with it, and a sale was apparently in sight. Then the salesman was guilty of a serious mistake, for as he pulled down the little coat and patted the shoulders he said: "This is a standard cut, madam, which is always popular, and we sell a great many of them for both boys and girls."

Girls!

Reggie's mother stiffened, and with withering scorn declared that she did not wish Reggie to wear a girl's coat. She would look at something else. Reggie pulled off the coat, as if it burned him, and felt he had been perilously near to something very compromising and indelicate. Thus did young Reggie receive a lesson in sex contempt at the hands of his mother!

Let us lay the blame where it belongs. If any man holds women in contempt—and many do—their mothers are to blame for it in the first place, it began in the nursery but was fostered on the street, and nourished in the school where sitting with a girl has been handed out as a punishment, containing the very dregs of humiliation; where boys are encouraged to play games and have a good time, but where until a few years ago girls were expected to "sit around and act ladylike" in the playtime of the others.

The church has contributed a share, too, in the subjection of women, in spite of the plain teaching of our Lord, and many a sermon has been based on the words of Saint Paul about women remaining silent in the churches, and if any question arose to trouble her soul, she must ask her husband quietly at home.

But it is at the marriage altar, where women receive the crowning insult. "Who gives this woman away?" asks the minister. "I do," says her father or brother, or some male relative, without a blush. Perfectly satisfactory. One man hands her over to another man, the inference being that the woman has nothing to do with it. In this most vital decision of her whole life, she has had to get a man to do the thinking for her. It goes back to the old days, of course, when a woman was a man's chattel, to do with as he saw fit. The word "obey" has gone from some of the marriage ceremonies. Bishops even have seen the absurdity of it and taken it out.

Women have held a place all their own in the church. "I am willing that the sisters should labor," cried an eminent doctor of the largest Protestant church in Canada, when the question of allowing women to sit in the highest courts of the church was discussed. "I am willing that the sisters should labor," he said, "and that they should labor more abundantly, but we cannot let them rule." And it was so decreed.

Women have certainly been allowed to labor in the church. There is no doubt of that. There are many things they may do with impunity, nay, even hilarity. They may make strong and useful garments for the poor; they may teach in Sunday-school and attend prayer-meeting; they may finance the new parsonage, and augment the missionary funds by bazaars, birthday socials, autograph quilts and fowl suppers—where the masculine portion of the congregation are given a dollar meal for fifty cents, which they take gladly and generously declare they do not mind the expense for "it is all for a good cause." The women may lift mortgages, or build churches, or any other light work, but the real heavy work of the church, such as moving resolutions in the general conference or assemblies, must be done by strong, hardy men!

It is quite noticeable that each of the church dignitaries who have opposed woman's entry into the church courts has prefaced his remarks by elaborate apologies, and never failed to declare his great love for womankind. Each one has bared his manly breast and called the world to witness the fact that he loves his mother and is not ashamed to say so—which declaration is all the more remarkable because no person was asking, or particularly interested in his private affairs. (Query—Why shouldn't he love his mother? Most people do.) After having delivered his soul of these mighty, epoch-making declarations, he has proceeded to explain that letting women into the church would be the thin edge of the wedge, and he is afraid women will "lose their femininity."

Women are not discouraged or cast down. Neither have they any intention of going on strike, or withdrawing their support from the church. They will still go on patiently, and earnestly and hopefully. Sex prejudice is a hard thing to break down, and the smaller the man, and the narrower his soul, the more tenaciously will he hold on to his pitiful little belief in his own superiority. The best and ablest men in all the churches are fighting the woman's battles now, and the brotherly companionship, the real chivalry, and fairmindedness of these men, are enough to keep the women's hearts cheered and encouraged. Toward their opponents the women are very tolerant and hopeful. Many of them have changed their beliefs in the last few years. They are changing every day. Those who will not change will die! We always have this assurance, and in this battle for independence, many a woman has found comfort in poor Swinburne's pagan hymn of thanksgiving:

From too much love of living,
From fear of death set free,
We thank thee with brief thanksgiving,
Whatever gods there be!
That no life lives forever,
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river
Leads somehow safe to sea!

But when all is over, the battle fought and won, and women are regarded everywhere as human beings and citizens, many women will remember with bitterness that in the day of our struggle, the church stood off, aloof and dignified, and let us fight alone.

One of the arguments advanced by the men who oppose women's entry into the full fellowship of the church is that women would ultimately seek to preach, and the standard of preaching would be lowered. There is a gentle compelling note of modesty about this that is not lost on us—and we frankly admit that we would not like to see the standard of preaching lowered; and we assure the timorous brethren that women are not clamoring to preach; but if a woman should feel that she is divinely called of God to deliver a message, I wonder how the church can be so sure that she isn't. Wouldn't it be perfectly safe to let her have her fling? There was a rule given long ago which might be used yet to solve such a problem:

"And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone, for if this council, or this work, be of men, it will come to naught, but if it be of God you cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God."

That seems to be a pretty fair way of looking at the matter of preaching; but the churches have decreed otherwise, and in order to save trouble they have decided themselves and not left it to God. It must be great to feel that you are on the private wire from heaven and qualified to settle a matter which concerns the spiritual destiny of other people.

Many theories have been propounded as to the decadence of the church, which has become painfully apparent when great moral issues have been at stake. That the church could stamp out the liquor traffic has often been said, and yet although general conferences and assemblies have met year after year, and passed resolutions declaring that "the sale of liquor could not be licensed without sin," the liquor traffic goes blithely on its way and gets itself licensed all right, "with sin," perhaps, but licensed anyway. Where are all these stalwart sons of the church who love their mothers so ostentatiously and reverence womanhood so deeply?

There is one of Aesop's fables which tells about a man who purchased for himself a beautiful dog, but being a timid man, he was beset with the fear that some day the dog might turn on him and bite him, and to prevent this, he drew all the dog's teeth. One day a wolf attacked the man. He called on his beautiful dog to protect him, but the poor dog had no teeth, and so the wolf ate them both. The church fails to be effective because it has not the use of one wing of its army, and it has no one to blame but itself. The church has deliberately set its face against the emancipation of women, and in that respect it has been a perfect joy to the liquor traffic, who recognize their deadliest foe to be the woman with a ballot in her hand. The liquor traffic rather enjoys temperance sermons, and conventions and resolutions. They furnish an outlet for a great deal of hot talk which hurts nobody.

Of course, various religious bodies in convention assembled have from time to time passed resolutions favoring woman suffrage, and recommending it to the state, but the state has not been greatly impressed. The state might well reply to the church by saying: "If it is such a desirable thing why do you not try it yourself?"

The antagonism of the church to receiving women preachers has its basis in sex jealousy. I make this statement with deliberation. The smaller the man, the more disposed he is to be jealous. A gentleman of the old school, who believes women should all be housekeepers whether they want to be or not, once went to hear a woman speak; and when asked how he liked it he grudgingly admitted that it was clever enough. He said it seemed to him like a pony walking on its hind legs—it was clever but not natural.

Woman has long been regarded by the churches as helpmate for man, with no life of her own, but a very valuable assistant nevertheless to some male relative. Woman's place they have long been told is to help some man to achieve success and great reward may be hers. Some day when she is faded and old and battered and bent, her son may be pleased to recall her many sacrifices and declare when making his inaugural address: "All that I am my mother made me!" There are one or two things to be considered in this charming scene. Her son may never arrive at this proud achievement, or even if he does, he may forget his mother and her sacrifices, and again she may not have a son. But these are minor matters.

Children do not need their mother's care always, and the mother who has given up every hope and ambition in the care of her children will find herself left all alone, when her children no longer need her—a woman without a job. But, dear me, how the church has exalted the self-sacrificing mother, who never had a thought apart from her children, and who became a willing slave to her family. Never a word about the injury she is doing to her family in letting them be a slave-owner, never a word of the injury she is doing to herself, never a whisper of the time when the children may be ashamed of their worked-out mother who did not keep up with the times.

The preaching of the church, having been done by men, has given us the strictly masculine viewpoint. The tragedy of the "willing slave, the living sacrifice," naturally does not strike a man as it does a woman. A man loves to come home and find his wife or his mother darning his socks. He likes to believe that she does it joyously. It is traditionally correct, and home would not be home without it. No man wants to stay at home too long, but he likes to find his women folks sitting around when he comes home. The stationary female and the wide-ranging male is the world's accepted arrangement, but the belief that a woman must cherish no hope or ambition of her own is both cruel and unjust.

Men have had the control of affairs for a long time, long enough perhaps to test their ability as the arbiters of human destiny. The world, as made by man, is cruelly unjust to women, and cruelly beset with dangers for the innocent young girl. Praying and weeping have been the only weapons that the church has sanctioned for women. The weeping, of course, must be done quietly and in becoming manner. Loud weeping becomes hysteria, and decidedly bad form. Women have prayed and wept for a long time, and yet the liquor traffic and the white slave traffic continue to make their inroads on the human family. The liquor traffic and the white slave traffic are kept up by men for man—women pay the price—the long price in suffering and shame. The pleasure and profit—if there be any—belong to men. Women are the sufferers—and yet the law decrees that women shall not have any voice in regulating these matters.

In California, where women have had the vote for three years, there has been recently enacted a bill dealing with white slavery. It is called the Quick Abatement Act, and provides for an immediate trial to be given, when it is believed that prostitution is being carried on in any house. Our system, under which the trial is set for a date several weeks ahead, furnishes a splendid chance for the witnesses to disappear, and the evidence quite often falls through. This bill also provides a suitable punishment which falls not on the occupants of the house but on the owner of the property, thereby striking at the profit. If prostitution is proven against a house, that house is closed for one year, the owner losing the rent for that time. This puts the responsibility on property owners, and makes people careful as to their tenants. Every owner forthwith becomes a morality officer. This is the greatest and most effective blow ever struck at white slavery, for it strikes directly at the money side of it. It is a fact worth recalling that just before women were permitted to vote in California, this bill was defeated overwhelmingly, but the first time it was submitted after women were enfranchised it passed easily, although there was not one woman in the house of representatives; the men members had a different attitude toward moral matters when they remembered that they had women constituents as well as men.

When Christian women ask to vote, it is in the hope that they may be able with their ballots to protect the weak and innocent, and make the world a safer place for the young feet. As it is now, weakness and innocence are punished more than wickedness.

One of our social workers, going on her rounds, one day met a young Scotch girl, aged nineteen, who belonged to that class of people whom we in our superior way call "fallen women." She was a beautiful girl, with curling auburn hair and deep violet eyes. The visitor asked her about herself, but the girl was not disposed to talk. Finally the visitor asked her if she might pray with her. The girl politely refused.

"Lady," she said wearily, "what is the use of praying—there is no God. I know that you think there is a God, Lady," she went on, with a voice of settled sadness. "I did, too—once—but I know now that there is no God anywhere."

Then she told her story. When her mother died in Scotland, she came out to Canada to live with her brother who had a position in a bank. She traveled in the care of a Scotch family to her destination. At the station, an elderly gentlemen in a clerical coat met her and told her that her brother was ill, but had sent him to meet her. She went with him unsuspectingly. That was six years ago. She was then thirteen years old.

"So you see, Lady," she said, "I know there is no God, or He would never have let them do to me what they did. Every night I had prayed to God, and if there were a God anywhere, He would surely have heard my mother's prayer—when she was dying—she asked God to protect her poor little motherless girl. It is a sad world, Lady." The girl's eyes were dry and her voice unbroken. There is a limit even to tears and her eyes were cried dry.

According to the laws of the Dominion of Canada, the man who stole this sweet child from the railway station, would be liable to five years' imprisonment, if the case could be proven against him, which is doubtful, for he could surely get someone to prove that she was over fourteen years of age, or not of previously chaste character, or that he was somewhere else at the time, or that the girl's evidence was contradictory; but if he had stolen any article from any building belonging to or adjacent to a railway station, or any article belonging to a railway company, he would have been liable to a term of fourteen years. This is the law, and the church folds its plump hands over its broadcloth waistcoat and makes no protest! The church has not yet even touched the outer fringe of the white slave evil and yet those high in authority dare to say that women must not be given the right to protect themselves. The demand for votes is a spiritual movement and the bitter cry of that little Scotch girl and of the many like her who have no reason to believe in God, sounds a challenge to every woman who ever names the name of God in prayer. We know there is a God of love and justice, who hears the cry of the smallest child in agony, and will in His own good time bind up every broken heart, and wipe away every tear. But how can we demonstrate God to the world!

Inasmuch as we have sat in our comfortable respectable pews enjoying our own little narrow-gauge religion, unmoved by the call of the larger citizenship, and making no effort to reach out and save those who are in temptation, and making no effort to better the conditions under which other women must live—inasmuch as we have left undone the things we might have done—in God's sight—we are fallen women! And to the church officials, ministers and laymen who have dared to deny to women the means whereby they might have done better for the women of the world, I would like to say that I wonder what they will say to that Scotch mother, who lay down happily on her death-bed believing that God would care for her motherless child left to battle with the world. I wonder how they will explain it to her when they meet her up there! I wonder will they be able to get away with that old fable about their being afraid of women "losing their femininity." I wonder!

There is a story recorded in that book, whose popularity never wanes, about a certain poor man who took his journey down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and who fell among thieves who robbed him and left him for dead. A priest and a Levite came along and were full of sympathy, and said: "Dear me! I wonder what this road is coming to!" But they had meetings to attend and they passed on. A good Samaritan came along, and he was a real good Samaritan, and when he saw the man lying by the road he jumped down from his horse, and picking him up, took him to the inn, and gave directions for his care and comfort, even paid out money for the poor battered stranger. The next day, the Samaritan again passed down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and about the same place found another man, beaten and robbed, undoubtedly the work of the same thieves. Again he played the part of the kind friend, but it set him thinking, and when the next day he found two men robbed and beaten, the good Samaritan was properly aroused. He took them to the inn, and again he paid out his money, but that night he called a meeting of all the other good Samaritans "out his way" and they hunted up their old muskets and set out to clean up the road.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is here, and now. Women have played the good Samaritan for a long time, and they have found many a one beaten and robbed on the road of life. They are still doing it, but the conviction is growing on them that it would be much better to go out and clean up the road!

In a certain asylum, the management have a unique test for sanity. When any of the inmates exhibit evidence of returning reason, they submit them to the following tests. Out in the courtyard there are a number of water taps for filling troughs, and to each of the candidates for liberty a small pail is given, and they are told to drain out the troughs, the taps running full force. Some of the poor fellows bail away and bail away, but of course the trough remains full in spite of them. The wise ones turn off the taps.

The women of the churches and many other organizations for many long weary years have been bailing out the troughs of human misery with their little pails; their children's shelters, day nurseries, homes for friendless girls, relief boards, and innumerable public and private charities; but the big taps of intemperance and ignorance and greed are running night and day. It is weary, discouraging, heart-breaking work.

Let us have a chance at the taps!