The True Woman / A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. Ballot

by Justin D. Fulton

"Your eyes will be opened," expresses the power of mentally apprehending things before unperceived and unknown; but, of course, both in an intellectual and moral sense. The position taken appeared reasonable, and had a semblance of truth, and exerted its consequent influence.

"Will be as God, knowing good and evil." Knowing for yourselves, and able to choose between the evil and the good. Here ambition again overleaped itself. Humility was slain, and a womanly virtue was destroyed by the tempter, who aimed to infuse into the mind of the woman, first, a doubt of the truth of the Word of God, and of the certainty of the divine threatening; second, a suspicion that God was withholding from her a good, instead of guarding her against an evil; and, third, he attempted to induce her to believe that adherence to this divine command stood in the way of her freedom, of her growth, and so by the words, "Ye will be as God, knowing good and evil," he strove to awaken the feeling of self-exaltation,—the longing for a higher development, in which she should attain to self-discretion and freedom of choice and action.

This suspicion is very common, even among our good women. When a woman gets cold in her love for Jesus, she becomes suspicious of those she loves. She permits the feeling, "My husband gives too much for benevolence, too little to me, and he is away too much in meetings, and is too little in his home," to influence her. She begins to talk against the church, and loves to stay at home. Finds excuses for keeping away from the prayer meeting or from the paths of endeavor, and becomes a hinderance instead of a blessing to husband, to family, and to society. A man finds it difficult to push the bark of benevolence and of holy endeavor up against the current of womanly opposition and suspicion, but when in the work of God she acts the part of a helpmeet, everything moves smoothly. A recent writer uses this language: "Expel woman as you will, she is in fact the parish. Within, in her lowest spiritual form, as the ruling spirit she inspires, and sometimes writes the sermons. Without, as the bulk of his congregation, she watches over his orthodoxy, verifies his texts, visits his schools, and harasses his sick." … "The preacher who thunders so defiantly against spiritual foes, is trembling all the time beneath the critical eye that is watching him with so merciless an accuracy in his texts. Impelled, guided, censured by woman, we can hardly wonder if, in nine cases out of ten, the parson turns woman himself, and the usurpation of woman's rights in the services of religion has been deftly avenged by the subjugation of the usurpers. Expelled from the temple, woman has simply put her priesthood into commission, and discharges her ministerial duties by proxy." Woman is the mainspring and the chief support of Ritualism. Things were at a dead lock and stand still, until the so-called devotion gave an impetus to the movement. The medieval church have glorified the devotion of woman; but once become a devotee, it had locked her in the cloister. As far as action in the world without was concerned, the veil served simply as a species of suicide, and the impulses of woman, after all the crowns and pretty speeches of her religious counsellors, found themselves bottled up within stout stone walls, and as inactive as before. From this strait woman released herself by the organization of charity. The Sisters of Charity at once became a power. They discovered the value of costume. The district visitor, whom nobody had paid the smallest attention to in the common vestments of the world, became a sacred being as she donned the crape and hideous bonnet of the "Sister."

"The 'Mother Superior' took the place of the tyrant of another sex who had hitherto claimed the submission of woman; but she was something more to her 'children' than the husband or father whom they had left in the world without. In all matters, ecclesiastical as well as civil, she claimed within her dominions to be supreme. The quasi-sacerdotal dignity, the pure religious ministration which ages have stolen from her, was quietly resumed. She received confessions, she imposed penances, she drew up offices of devotion. If the clergyman of the parish ventured an advice or suggestion, he was told that the sisterhood must preserve its own independence of action, and was snubbed home again for his pains. The Mother Superior, in fact, soon towered into a greatness far beyond the reach of ordinary persons. She kept her own tame chaplain, and she kept him in a very edifying subjugation. From a realm completely her own, the influence of woman began to tell upon the world without. Little colonies of Sisters, planted here and there, annexed parish after parish. Astonished congregations saw their church blossom its purple and red, and frontal and hanging told of the silent energy of the group of Sisters. The parson found himself nowhere, in his own parish: every detail managed for him, every care removed, and all independence gone. If it suited the ministering angels to make a legal splash, he found himself landed in the law courts. If they took it into their heads to seek another field, every one assumed it a matter of course that their pastor would go too." It is because of this influence that in certain quarters the ecclesiastical hierarchy are taking, year by year, a more feminine position. It is not impossible that a church who worships Mary as the Mother of God may be brought to recognize woman as the proper head of the church. True, as the writer quoted above adds, "she must stoop to conquer heights like these." Yet the question has been seriously asked, "Is not the Episcopal office admirably adapted to woman?" Between a priest and a nun there is only the difference of a bonnet in their dress, and we know how easily woman can be persuaded to go without a bonnet, or to exchange it for a hat such as is worn by men. In England, the curate is sometimes called the first lady of the parish; and what he now is in theory, a century hence may find him in fact. "It would be difficult, even now, to detect any difference of sex in the triviality of purpose, the love of gossip, the petty interests, the feeble talk, the ignorance, the vanity, the love of personal display, the white hand dangled over the pulpit, the becoming vestment, and the embroidered stole, which we are learning gradually to look upon as attributes of the British curate. So perfect, indeed, is the imitation, that the excellence of her work may, perhaps, defeat its own purpose, and the lacquered imitation of woman may satisfy the world, and for long ages prevent any anxious inquiry after the real feminine Brummagem."

The tendency thus truthfully described furnished the seedling out of which grew the Monasticism of the past, and in which the Ritualism of the present finds its underlying cause. The Church of Rome harnesses woman to her system, and compels her to contribute greatly to its prosperity. In Europe the people tire of those great establishments and endowments, which rest like an incubus on the national life. In America we are so blind that we foster them by grants from our legislatures, by giving up the care of hospitals to their use, where the weak are subjected to the influences of superstition, and the thoughtless are led astray. Another avenue to power is opened by the ballot. Grant this to that church, which, through a fatherhood of priests and a sisterhood of nuns, reaches every portion of the body politic, and the promise of Religious Liberty and a Free Republic is at once exchanged for the despotism of Rome and the imperialism of France. Infidelity joins hands with Rome in asking this power. Christianity, united with patriotism, must refuse to grant the request.

3. Mystery was employed as an instrument in securing woman's fall. Rouse a womanly curiosity, and there is little difficulty in leading the excited one astray. Hold out to her a key which promises to unlock the hidden and concealed glories of the unexplored future, and woman will be tempted again to forego God's favor and the joys of paradise to grasp or wield it. In every heathen religion women occupied a prominent place. Priestess or prophetess, she stood in all ministerial offices on an equality with man. Christianity rejects the ministerial services of women, and selects for its standard bearers men acquainted with life, filled with religious zeal, and capable of hardy endeavor, assuring faith and martyr patience.

The Church of Rome dealt with women as the Empire dealt with its Caesars: it was ready to grant her apotheosis, but only when she was safely out of this world. It was only when the light of revelation was extinguished in her midst that the teachings of the Bible were ignored, and woman was welcomed back to the place she held in pagan climes and at heathen shrines.

Spiritualism, that scourge of modern times, which has swept like the breath of a pestilence over the land, found in woman its prophetess and minister. Satan works in erring woman now, as in the past, to destroy and to delude. That power was resisted by Christian woman. Many an irreligious man was saved from this delusion by the fidelity of his wife. Many a good man has been ruined because his wife listened to the siren voice of the tempter, and desired to explore and explain this mystery. The forbidden fruit ever grows upon the tree beside her. Those who would be wiser than that which is written, have plucked and eaten it, and have given to others that which is so destructive. Witchcraft is a womanly profession. The heathen divinities were nearly all ministered unto by woman, and mystery was the influencing cause. We know the result in the case of Eve. It led her away from God. It caused her to listen to the enemy of her soul. Does it not become woman to ask herself, "Am I losing my hold on God? Is suspicion that some good is being withheld, or does the desire to pry into the future, exercise an undue influence upon my heart and imagination?" If so, your ruin has commenced, and a speedy return to God is your only door of escape.

4. Deception was the result. "And the woman saw the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make her wise; and she took of its fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband and he ate." Sight deceived, desire allured, and action born of a delusive faith destroyed her happiness. The process of temptation culminated in deception. This is the end ever kept in view by Satan. Every individual that refuses to be ruled absolutely by God, in little or great affairs, may know of a truth that the end is deception, and the consequent ruin is sure to follow. There is no exception to the rule. Paul felt this when he wrote the church in Corinth, concerning his interest in them, saying, "For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ;" "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, by his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from your simplicity toward Christ." Many claim that error is not mischievous while truth is left free to combat. Error poisons the mind, and so produces disease, and bars out truth, which carries health to the mind and blesses the soul.

Eve knew the law, for she quotes it word by word. She deliberated as to obeying it. Here she made her first mistake. A woman cannot do this. The moment a woman hesitates in regard to discharging the duties she owes to herself or to God she falls. She seems to be provided with an almost self-acting nature. It is natural for her to protect herself. She revolts against her higher self when she hesitates. Her intuitions, allied to a sensitive nature, unite in defending against evil. Had Eve said, "I do not need to sin to secure the development of my higher nature; the Creator knows my wants much better than one who seeks to be my destroyer," she would have been saved. Faith in God would have been a sure defence against the tempter's wiles.