1. Passing over her social power, and without referring to her wiles of speech, of dress, of flattery, and of love, think of her in the arena of politics, joining her forces to infidelity, and with the disbelievers of the Bible, to obtain for woman a place for which she is not fitted, and which will destroy her peace, injure and undermine her influence in the home, and cause her to neglect wifehood and motherhood, to turn from the interior world of a quiet home, to the outside world of conflict and strife. It is the boast of a writer in favor of "Woman's Rights," that "among the disbelievers of revealed religion, I have not found, during a life of half a century, a single opponent to the doctrine of equal rights for males and females." The correctness of this statement is to a wonderful extent true. The believers of the Bible claim that the teachings and commands of the Word of God are in opposition to the doctrine. When woman joins the ranks of the infidel, she turns from God, and loses her power in her former sphere.
2. If there is one foe more than another, that threatens us as a nation, nearly all agree in pronouncing that foe to be Romanism. Take this fact in connection with the obvious truth, that it is fashionable to pander to Rome. Because of this tendency ripening into results, the State of New York, politically, is lost to Protestantism, and is as much Roman Catholic as is Italy or Rome. Whence comes this influence, or producing cause? Can we trace it to woman? It will be admitted that the influence of Roman Catholic servants in our homes has never been measured. The nurse teaches the child the use of the beads, and familiarizes the child, committed to her keeping, to the cross, as an emblem of worship. Imagine the alarm of a Christian mother, when, because of the absence of the nurse it became a necessity to see the child to bed, when, to her surprise, the little girl of five years pulled out from beneath the pillow her beads and cross, and began going through the Papal forms of worship! The mother wisely forbore a rebuke, changed her nurse, and led her child back to Christ, and so rescued her. How many children are finding in their nurses, rather than in their mothers, their religious teachers? The influence of Romish servants in our homes is felt in still another way. Because of them there is a barrier to discussion, or even to conversation, concerning this monstrous error, which, like the frogs of Egypt, invades our very bread-troughs. No man dare express his mind concerning Romanism at his table if the servant is a Romanist, lest he lose the services so much in demand, or lest he be reported to the priest, and so be placed under the ban or the displeasure of the Church of Rome, which is used as an engine of political and social power against the truth as it is in Jesus.
3. The influence of education deserves consideration. Fashionable women send their daughters to Roman Catholic institutions of learning, where the Sister or Mother Superior carries her to the chapel, bows reverently before the altar, and kissing the cross, exclaims, "How can Protestants be so blind as to reject the cross on the ground that it savors of Popery, when they know that all their own hopes of salvation must hang upon it?" or where the morning service concludes with a prayer to the "Mother of God," in these words: "Most holy Virgin, I believe and confess thy most holy and immaculate care of man, pure and without stain. O most pure Virgin, through thy virginal purity, thy immaculate conception, thy glorious quality of Mother of God, obtain for me of thy dear Son, humility, charity, great purity of heart, of body and of mind, holy perseverance in my cherished relations, the gift of prayer, a holy life and a happy death."[A] Thus is the dogma of the Immaculate Conception thrust upon the memory, and the gate is opened to a denial and rejection of Christ as the Saviour, and to an acceptance of Mary as the Intercessor. The result manifests itself in two ways. The fashionable boarding-school girl comes to think kindly of Rome, and rebukes all opposition to the church as bigotry or ignorance on the part of those with whom she associates. The influence is noticeable. It is fashionable to attend the Papal Church, fashionable to contribute to its prosperity, fashionable for men to smother their opinions, fashionable for the politician to seek the favor of that power that furnishes, in its subtlety and in its power to work in darkness, a perfect mechanism for Satan.
[Footnote A: Miss Bunkley's Book, pp. 22 and 68.]
4. Our wealthy women, by their patronage of Roman Catholic fairs, and by their gifts to the so-called charitable fund, enable the enemies of the cross of Christ to build these magnificent cathedrals and religious establishments, while the churches of Christ languish for support.
Give to woman the ballot, let these girls in our kitchens become voters, and it will not be difficult to understand how "a man's foes shall be those of his own household."
The Remedy. Induce Protestant girls to work, by treating them as sisters rather than as servants. Talk free in the house and at the table against Romanism, let the consequences be what they may. Educate children so that they shall know the characteristics of this lifelong foe of the church of Christ; and, lastly, resist this movement to change the order of God's government in the home and in the state.
Ignore it as we may, the beguiling serpent is busy with our Eve in America, this Eden of liberty, and God only knows the result. It is a question which cannot be trifled with. That the drift to-day is against the teachings of the Bible, none can doubt. Victory for Satan is a terrible calamity for humanity. Let us then, as an antidote, preach Christ, and strive to make woman the helpmeet of man and the ally of our Divine Master, and then she becomes the deadliest foe of Satan, and the most aggressive champion of the truth.
"Her rash hand, in evil hour,
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate!
Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost."