The woman of to-morrow

by Helen M. Winslow

“Knowest thou, O woman, that thou art come for such a time and work as this? If indifferent, thou wilt sink into insignificance and another will take up the crown and sceptre which might have been thine.” Donald Mitchell says: “Man without some sort of religion is at best a poor reprobate, a football of destiny.” But a woman without religion is worse. She is a flame without heat, a rainbow without color, a flower without perfume. That sweet trustfulness, that abiding love, that endearing hope which man needs in every scheme of life, is not then hers to give. But let the love of Christ take full possession of a woman’s heart, and under its inspiration let her grow in purity, in character, till at last she come to a perfect woman, “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”; then from all human lips, and from Him who sitteth upon the throne, will come the benediction, “Blessed art thou among women.”

Man hunts after God with his understanding and fails, often, to find Him; science reaches after God with its lenses, and its face seems like a blind man trying to help his sight by using a glass eye; logic tries to soar toward God, and waves its wooden crutches in mimicry to witness; woman sees Him, feels Him within, discerns Him above, sees Him in Christ. She feels Him in the deepest experiences of life, and then she sees Him in all the providential history of the world, in all creation. It is by the heart of woman filled with the Divine power and beauty that the world is to have everywhere and retain immortally the vision of God. One of the most foolish questions ever asked is: “What is going to be the sphere of woman when she is so educated?” The sphere? If she don’t make her own we may stop prophesying. You see the little ridge among the mountains, a thread of water, and you see it arrested by rocks, and you see more and more as it fills the chasm behind them till it cuts its way across the rock, and through the rock, and at last you go into the gorges and see the mighty chasms that have been cloven through the rocky hills, and there is the power that has done it. That little stream has made its sphere.

If we were all thoughtful, high-minded, serious, charitable, broad-minded, loving, tender, patient, self-sacrificing, forgiving and Christ-like; if we lived the best of which we are capable every day of our lives, “you in your small corner and I in mine,” what a power for good would we be!—not possibility, but power. Whose fault is it if we do not accomplish all we might?

Again, we put such false estimates on life. Lady Henry Somerset once said: “It would be interesting to analyze how much real happiness comes to the man who has made or inherited a large fortune, and feels it necessary to live in what is called ‘adequate style.’ He builds himself a palace, engages a troop of servants, begins to collect pictures, furniture and objects of art, and he little knows that he is heaping upon himself a world of trouble. A man with a moderate income, who has no requirements beyond those which he can well supply, who lives in a house where his things give him no anxiety, but in refined, tasteful and simple surroundings, who can afford to see his own friends because he cares for them, and not a host of people who have to be asked because it is the right thing that they should be seen at his house, is the really happy man.” When shall we learn that it is not the things we possess, but the thing we are that makes or unmakes our life?

It is only in the last hundred years that we have come to judge men and women in proportion to their personal contribution to humanity. Now we see that our aim must be to live, not to make a living; that we must get our culture out of our work, instead of leaving it till we grow too old or too rich to work; that we must make our work a medium for self-expression, and finally that we must make it an opportunity for serving others. Vocations tend to become matters of such routine that it is often hard to see any ideal or inspiration in them, and this holds true of much more of women’s work than of men’s. There’s so little inspiration, so little of the outlook into the bigger world.

Again, it is so much easier to see the deadness in your own life than in other people’s. We see their brilliant achievements; we don’t know anything about the drudgery that has gone to produce them.

This life is no lottery. Nothing worth while comes without work. What comes easily goes easily. That which seems to be done most easily is bought with the hardest work. There is no royal road to anything worth while. We have to do many things that seem like the merest drudgery; but to do any blind, dead work loyally and faithfully without protesting is to build character and to get culture. For what is culture but patience, fidelity, quiet wisdom, loyalty to trust—those simple, primitive qualities on which human life is based? And when trouble comes on us, to whom do we go? Sometimes to our physician. Sometimes to our minister. But often we go to some woman who has lived quietly and brought up her children, but is able to give us the help that comes from a hand-grip with life.

Here’s a verse for you:

“Somebody did a golden deed;

Somebody proved a friend in need;