In spite of the bitter words of warning which John Ruskin has thought it his duty to speak to such women as enter upon theological studies, a good many women in Great Britain and this country have engaged in what is properly the work of the Christian ministry. The only ordained minister whose work has come under our notice since the marriage of Antoinette Blackwell is the Rev. Olympia Brown, settled over the Universalist Society at Weymouth Landing, Mass., and lately called to Newburgh in New York. Her ministry has been highly successful, and is to be mentioned here chiefly on account of a legal decision to which it has given rise. The church at Weymouth Landing made an appeal to the Legislature, last winter, as to the legality of marriages solemnized by her. The Legislature gave the same general construction to the masculine relatives in the enactment which the English law gave to the old Latin word in the charter of Apothecaries' Hall; deciding that marriages so solemnized are legal, and no further legislation necessary.
Mention, too, should be made of Rev. Lydia A. Jenkins, who has been a successful preacher among the Universalists for the last eight or ten years, and is now settled at Binghamton, N.Y.
Very recently, during the illness of her husband, the minister at Bethesda Chapel, Newcastle, England, a Mrs. Booth occupied the pulpit, to the great interest and profit of the congregation. Among the Methodists and "Christians,"[50] as well as among the Quakers, women have always been received as preachers. In October, 1866, I found a Mrs. Timmins settled as the pastor of Ebenezer Church, three miles from Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she had been for three years. Ann Rexford is mentioned as an effective preacher among the Christians. Her preaching attracted large crowds in the State of New Jersey, some thirty years ago.
But the most remarkable record, if we except those to be found among the Quakers, of any single woman's work in the ministry, is that of Abigail Hoag Roberts, who was the settled minister of a church built for her at Milford, N.J., and who died in 1841, at the age of forty-nine.
With her ministry is interlinked that of two other women,—that of Nancy Gore Cram, of Weare, N.H., and a Mrs. Hedges. Mrs. Cram began life as a Free-will Baptist, and undertook a mission to the Oneida Indians. The spiritual destitution of Central New York in the year 1812 affected her profoundly. Not a preacher of her own denomination in New Hampshire could be induced to go there. Disappointed in them, she hurried to Woodstock, Vt., and laid the case before a conference of "Christian" elders and ministers, then in session. They understood her better. She hurried back to the field she had left; and, when the ministers followed her, they were astonished at her work. A church was built for her at Ballston Spa. She is described as a delicate, blue-eyed woman, with dark hair, dressing plainly in black silk, with her hair in a silk net; her whole appearance and manner befitting her work. She died in 1816, suddenly, in the fortieth year of her age. Mrs. Roberts was one of her converts,—a woman who was a constant preacher, from June, 1814, to the June of 1841, in which she died, and, for many years, a settled pastor over the church at Milford, where a monument has been erected to her. More than once she defended the unity of God in public discussion with the clergy, whom she brought to ignominious defeat. She travelled through the three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, where her name is still a household word. More than once, she was threatened by her own sex with "tar and feathers." She seems to have been, like Ann Hutchinson, a witty woman. "If you feel called to preach," said one minister to her, "why do you not go to the heathen?"—"So far as I can judge," she answered, "I am in the midst of them." She had a large family of children, and was distinguished for her household skill. She was quite famed for delicate clear-starching, and, on one occasion, wove with a hand-shuttle twenty-four yards of woollen cloth between early morning and nine o'clock at night. Many people sought her for information. Disliking one woman's vulgarity, she said to her, "If you believe in the Holy Ghost, why not use the language that the Holy Ghost uses?" She was a great sufferer in her latter years, but continued to preach at the Milford church, where she had four hundred communicants, and a congregation, at times, of twelve hundred persons, even after she was compelled to lean upon a staff. The Rev. Eli Fay preached her funeral sermon, and bore testimony to her great ability. The life from which I have drawn these particulars was written by her son, and printed at Irvington, N.J.
Her colleague, Mrs. Hedges, died before her; but a singular anecdote is related of her. She was exercised with some doubts as to the separate existence of the soul, and besought God in prayer to satisfy her mind. It seemed to her, after retiring to rest, that her soul left her body, passed through locked doors, and found several unusual adjustments of furniture in the house, and at last returned to the pale form upon the bed. She rose happy, but, on trying to prove her vision, found every thing in its usual place. A thorough inquiry in the household, however, showed that the changes she had observed had actually occurred in the night, and continued for some time. Her experience was the not uncommon one of the Seeress of Prevorst.
It will be remembered, that, in the first edition of "Woman's Right to Labor," I proposed a deaconess in every church; and I found, the other day, a little record in reference to the old church at Amsterdam, in Holland, which I copy here:—
"In the church at Amsterdam, there were about three hundred communicants; and they had for pastors two admirable men, Smith and Robertson, and four ruling elders, as well as one aged woman as deaconess, who served them many years, though she was sixty years old when she was chosen. She filled her office honorably, and was an honor to the congregation. She sat commonly in a convenient place in the church, with a little birchen rod in her hand, and held the little children in much awe, so that they disturbed not the assembly. She diligently visited the sick and the infirm, especially women, and called on younger sisters, in case of need, to