watch over them at night, and to give other assistance that might be required; and, if they were poor, she made collections for them, among those who were in a condition to give, or informed the deacons of the case. She was obeyed as a mother in Israel, and a true handmaid of the Lord."
With the exception of "keeping the little children in much awe," which might or might not have been desirable, these are precisely the functions which I desire to see formally renewed. The church at Blooming Grove, Orange County, N.Y., has existed, for more than a hundred years, without a creed, and is governed by seven deacons and seven deaconesses.
The following resolution was introduced by the Rev. S.J. May, at the Unitarian Conference which met at Syracuse, N.Y., in the first week of October 1866:—
"Whereas women were among the first, the most steadfast, and the most fearless disciples of Jesus Christ; whereas women have been, in all ages, the most ready to embrace the religion of the gospel, and the most constant and devoted members of the Christian Church; and whereas, in several denominations, women have been among the most effective preachers of Christianity: therefore, Resolved, That we, Liberal Christians, should do well to encourage those women among us who are moved by the Holy Spirit to devote themselves to the ministry, and should assist them to prepare themselves in the same manner, and to the same extent, as we deem necessary for young men."
The convention, having just passed a resolution to admit female delegates to the session of 1868, rather shrank from this second vote. Yet of what use to receive delegates, unless they feel free to join in discussion? and what woman, likely to be sent as a delegate by any Unitarian church, will ever address the convention until it more than welcomes the above resolution? To the local conferences, women are already being elected, and will do great good if they can get courage to accept their membership practically, and to speak when they have any thing to say.
It would not be quite honest nor fair to those women who seek to enter the pulpit, if I did not here record my own experience in connection with it.
I know very well where my natural sphere of work lay, and could I have had a theological education in my youth, or had even the paths of the ministry at large been open to women, I have every reason to believe that I should be at this moment a settled minister. As it was, it never entered my head that the thing was possible; and except that I taught steadily in Sabbath schools, and visited as steadily among the city poor, I never turned toward ministerial work. In the first year of my marriage, now twenty-two years ago, my husband was settled in the city of Baltimore, as minister at large to the degraded population, which has a special character (or want of character) in a large city, in a slaveholding State. I say has, for I cannot yet speak in the past tense. He had daily schools of girls and women, and nightly schools of boys and men. The latter were of all ages from six to forty, and had been gathered together by a great personal effort. In this state of things, my husband was taken ill. It fell to me, in the first place, not only to nurse him, but to take charge of his night-school. The ladies could do very well without me in the day-school; but there was no clergyman, nor leading man of character and culture, who could be depended upon to take the general charge of the men and boys, among whom were some desperate characters. I went first in a very stormy night; and my Irish servant took her knitting, and sat upon the steps of the platform while I addressed them. It happened that not a single teacher braved the storm; and the school, when I called the roll, responded to the number of eighty. I told them that I knew how dearly they loved my husband, that he was very ill, and that the only way in which they could help him was to behave so well that he need feel no anxiety about his work. They responded at once to this appeal, and I carried home the best possible account. As Sunday drew near,—this night-school having been held on Monday,—my husband grew more ill and more anxious. He thought of the large, mixed congregation, which met him every week, and for which no provision had been made. We were on an outpost of our faith; we could not have summoned assistance in season, nor without an expense we could not well bear. I thought the matter over; said to myself that it was only like a large Sunday school; that the fashionable ladies, who often dropped in to hear the preaching, would certainly stay away, knowing my husband to be ill: so I told him quietly that I had made arrangements for the Sunday service. He was too weak to make inquiries, but was comforted at once. He was sick several weeks,—long enough for me to relinquish reading, and take to exhortation in pure despair; but he did not find a small congregation when he resumed his place, and that was my reward. Perhaps no such step was ever taken more simply, or with less idea of its natural consequences. When I came back to Boston, radical country ministers took pains to ask me to their pulpits. I shall not soon forget the first time I preached to a large Unitarian audience, with a good mixture of city people. It was at South Hingham; the church was crowded; the country covered with a crystalline mantle of snow, over which a clear moon glimmered. The beauty of that night is a permanent possession. So it went on, till I became, I believe in the winter of 1859 and 1860, the superintendent of the Sunday school at Indiana-place Chapel, in Boston, where I remained for five years. This broke up my preaching, for I could not leave town on Sundays; but it led to my addressing various Sunday-school gatherings, and my being asked to address Sunday schools when away from home in the summer. My addressing a Sunday school in Greenfield in the summer of 1865, while the pastor of the church was absent with his regiment, led, by his kind sympathy, to my preaching in the summer of 1866 in the regular Unitarian churches at Rowe and Warwick, as well as doing irregular service in many other places. The church at Florence had always shown me a generous appreciation; and I was often asked to preach for Theodore Parker's people at the Music Hall and the Melodeon. I always declined to speak for this last society, not because I do not sympathize with their purposes in the main, but because I would not consent to be advertised for a religious and especially a devotional service in the city which I make my home. There may be women who, in the present state of things, can do this innocently and properly; but I cannot go into the pulpit myself, except in the regular sequence of my work, and at the call of duty. The gaping crowd of curious people who would come to look at a woman in the pulpit, would disturb the sphere in which it is alone possible for me to work. It was the custom of the Music-Hall society to advertise for every Sunday, and they declined to relinquish this advertisement on my account. The delivering a course of lectures in Hollis-street Vestry in connection with the Suffolk Sunday-school Union, in April, 1866, showed me that there was a work of criticism to be done,—and necessary to be done,—which I could do: so in going West to examine the condition of certain colleges, in October, 1866, I gave it to be understood, that, if I were in any Western city over Sunday, I should prefer to preach for the Unitarian minister—giving him a "labor of love"—to addressing an audience at an evening lecture. This interfered with my pecuniary advantage; but I believed it was in my power to enter some pulpits that would not be offered to all women, and I desired to do what I could to create a demand for the preaching of women. In this way, I preached for Robert Collyer in Chicago, for Carlton Staples in Milwaukee, for Mr. Hunting in Quincy, and in the chapels of Oberlin and Antioch Colleges. I took the whole service, accepting no assistance in the reading or the prayer; for it is not well that a woman who fills the pulpit should seem to shrink from any service there, and sensitive women will always find their self-possession impaired by any second influence. I received the kindest sympathy and appreciation from the churches I have mentioned; and, in every instance but one, I received the usual fee for my service, voluntarily tendered. I think at least twenty other churches would have been open to me, could I have gone to them.
I do not offer this explanation of the manner in which I have been led into the pulpit, stupidly, in ignorance of the charge of egotism and folly that may be made against me by those who read it. I have borne harder things than that charge, for the truth's sake; and I hope that the real motive of this statement will be transparent to honest and gentle hearts.
I long to see women preparing for this work, for there are very few men in the field; and, if there were more than enough, the pulpit is still an eminently fit place for a woman. The encouragement I have received, will show young women what is open to them. With a few words of counsel to those who may desire to speak in churches, I leave the subject. The dress of a woman in the pulpit should be such as will attract absolutely no attention; yet it should be thoroughly graceful and lady-like. A black silk well made, with collar and cuffs of fine linen, is the best, with no ornament whatever save the needful brooch. Peculiarity should be avoided. When we are trying to win souls for heaven, we must not lose them, because of a "dress reform," which may wait patiently, until more important things are achieved.
Again, if the woman who enters the pulpit is a temperance, an antislavery, or a woman's-rights lecturer, it will be better for her to give lectures on these subjects in the week. In the pulpit, she should subordinate these subjects to theological reform, moral appeal, and that attempt to stimulate religious interest and faith in which most men fail. Nor would I have her, whatever her station in society, refuse the fee, small or large, which shall be tendered her. If she has no need of it, her "poor" will have; and it is important to let the ministry of women fall into the same social and congregational relations as that of men.