Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage

by Catharine Esther Beecher

They do not seek to become true "happiness makers" as taught by the words and example of the

Master, taking a humble place, going about and doing good, and working for others more than for self. Instead of this they work and plan for self, first, and then for those belonging to self, and care little for the world that the Master came to save. They seek to be at the top and to have all below look up to them.

Now the family state is instituted to educate our race to the Christian character,—to train the young to be followers of Christ. Woman is its chief minister, and the work to be done is the most difficult of all, requiring not only intellectual power but a moral training nowhere else so attainable as in the humble, laborious, daily duties of the family state.

Woman's great mission is to train immature, weak, and ignorant creatures, to obey the laws of God; the physical, the intellectual, the social, and the moral—first in the family, then in the school, then in the neighborhood, then in the nation, then in the world—that great family of God whom the Master came to teach and to save. And His most comprehensive rule is, "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," and "this is the love of God

that ye keep His commandments." And next, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." These two the Master teaches are the chief end of man and includes all taught by Moses and the prophets. This then is woman's work, to train the young in the family and the school to obey God's laws as learned partly by experience, partly by human teaching and example, and partly by revelations from God.

But the most solemn duty of the Christian woman is the motives she is to employ in training to this obedience. The motives used by the worldly educator are the gain or loss of earthly pleasures, honors, and comforts. But the truly Christian woman feels and presents as the grand motive, the dangers of the future life from which our Lord came to save us, and these so dreadful that all we most value in this life are to be made secondary and subordinate, while the chief concern is, not mainly to save self, but rather to save ourselves by laboring to save others from ignorance of God's laws and to secure the obedience indispensable to future eternal safety.

And this is to be done at a period when this great motive of Christ's religion is more and more passing

out of regard, even in the Christian church. So much is this the case, that the world has good reason to say that while most creeds and preachers teach it in words, few really believe it. For "it is actions that speak louder than words," as to what is believed.

For example, if a company of amiable persons were told that a shipwreck was close at hand and help needed to save the struggling passengers, and yet, after a few enquiries, all went on as before, it would justly be said that these persons do not believe in the messenger and his message. But suppose another company, on hearing the news, rush out amid the darkness and danger, to help; this would prove their faith in the messenger and his story.

Now no earthly danger can compare with those revealed by our Lord as threatening every child born into this life; and He also teaches that the number saved depends on the self-denying labors of His followers. With small exceptions, all the Christian churches profess to believe this, and that the first concern of Christian life is to save as many as