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

by Justin D. Fulton

THE GLORY OF MOTHERHOOD.

To understand the tragedies of the present, it is essential that we re-read the tragedies of the past. Too many, in forming their opinions of what should be, ignore in their calculations what has been, and what must be. Those who are dissatisfied with the position assigned to woman, must recall the fact that God's decrees are unchangeable. We may resist them, but we cannot destroy them. They were in existence, before our birth; they will survive our dissolution. It is for us to recognize God as Ruler as well as Creator, and adjust our views, our lives, and our labors in accordance with an infinitely wise system, formed in the counsels of an eternity past, and running on to the eternity of the future.

If we speak of Woman as God Made Her, of Woman as a Helpmeet, we find a warrant for it in the Word of God. In Eden she was God's ally. When she fell, she became, in sin, the ally of Satan. The truth may be unpalatable, but it is the truth.

In considering woman as a mother, we stand on the hill-top of the past. Before us lies a valley, stretching on from the ruin wrought in Eden by sin, to the restoration wrought in the world by Christ. During these ages of wickedness, of sorrow, and of crime, woman felt the curse heavy upon her. She was made to feel that the woe pronounced upon her was a fact; and yet, during all these ages of trial, there was a gleam of hope shining into her soul, because God said, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thee on the head, and thou shalt bruise him on the heel." Thus there came to woman, who had the first encounter with the wily enemy of the race, the hope of a triumph over, and a subjugation of this enemy, through her offspring. It is an instinct of a boy to crush the head of a snake; but you cannot readily get a girl to do so: she will run from the beast so identified with her sorrow. The reason for this is explained in the prophecy of Eden. In a mystical sense, Christ, the deliverer foretold in Genesis, the eminent seed of the woman, was to bruise the head of the "old serpent, the devil," that is, destroy him, and all his principalities and powers, break and confound all his schemes and ruin all his works, crush his whole empire, strip him of his sovereignty and authority, of his power over death, and his tyranny over the bodies and souls of men. Here, then, was a purpose worth living for and suffering for. True, Satan, or the serpent, is to bruise his heel, or wound his human nature; but there is no promise of his triumph.

It is not difficult to discover how this hope must have thrilled the heart of Eve with joy. Her life was not to be a failure. Though clouds might rest upon her, it was impossible to shut out the fact that the star of hope was soon to rise, and to usher in the dawn of a glorious day.

Much has been written against the fact that a daughter is not prized in a home as much as is a son. We can understand it, when we go back to Eden and see that the seed of the woman, called "a he," a male child, was to be the instrument of working out the disinthralment of the race. The feminine gender is sometimes used in declaring the glories of the future. Zion is called a bride, but her glory is all reflected from the bridegroom. Woman is a helpmeet, but the king-bearer is the man Christ Jesus. The world turned from Christ because he had the appearance of a man. It was a great mistake. It is not a popular saying,—women say it is not complimentary to them to declare it,—yet it remains true, that "God draws by the cords of a man." All along the past men have been recognized as the gift of God. Women rejoice when a man is born into the world; not that women are disliked, but because there is something involved in life more than mere existence. There are faint foreshadowings of the tasks laid on the race. Work is to be done for God and man. Principalities and powers are to be fought and overcome. An invisible world is in league against the race, and an invisible God, once robed in flesh, and living among men, is Our Advocate with God, our Redeemer and Saviour. There is significance in the language, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." The language of Eve, as a mother, furnishes the key-note to that maternal song which yet floats through the world, which makes women in China, in India, in Africa, and in South America, among the inhabitants of Russia, and of Paraguay, anywhere and everywhere, rejoice with the same old joy, when a man is born into the world, because then she feels that somehow she has given birth to a hero and a champion who shall be identified with that song of world-triumph which is yet to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea; and the only exception to this is found among the Hebrews, where a virgin was revered as the possible mother of the Messiah, and so received her dignity as a reflection from the man. To understand this problem of human nature, we must go back to God, and study his word. Those who reject the Word, of God are surrounded by mysteries which they cannot solve. They behold tendencies, and instincts, and dispositions, which are explained in Genesis, and which are parts of God's prophesies yet to be fulfilled in this world. Ignoring the prophecy, they cannot comprehend the facts of existence, which must exist and will exist, whether men will hear or forbear.

Says a writer of some note, "The severe Nation which taught that the happiness of the race was forfeited through the fault of a woman, showed its thought of what sort of regard man viewed her, by making him accuse her in the first question to his God,—who gave her to the patriarch as a handmaid, and by the Mosaical law bound her to allegiance like a serf,—even they greeted, with a solemn rapture, all great and holy-women as heroines, prophetesses, judges in Israel; and if they made Eve listen to the serpent, gave Mary as a bride to the Holy Spirit. In other nations it has been the same down to our day." In this extract, the Jewish nation and the Bible are referred to in the same tone that we refer to Mahommedans and to the Koran. Is not this tendency perceptible elsewhere? In looking at woman, we ignore the Bible, and God, and history, and talk of her as though the past had no influence with the present and future. The Bible, God, and history have to do with the present and the future, and whoever studies history has been compelled to recognize the truth. This same writer was compelled to declare, "It is the destiny of man, in the course of the ages, to ascertain and fulfil the law of his being, so that his life shall be seen, as a whole, to be that of an angel or messenger." This is his destiny, because it is God-given. Hence man was the bearer of good tidings all along the past. Prophets were generally men. Christ was a man. The apostles, Christ's chosen standard-bearers, were men. The powers in the moral and spiritual world are men. All that is great in history, all that thrones one nation upon a mountain height and buries another in the fathomless grave of infamy, comes from man. The ages were dark, because of the lack of a man. Christ came, and the apostolic age became the noontime of the world, not because of what the race did for themselves, but because of what was done for the race. If a nation sinks, because the man who has the brain, the wisdom, the power from God, is wanting, who shall build up a people in hope, inspire them with grand resolves? It will rise and prosper when the man comes. Christ was a necessity, because infinite work was to be performed. Is he not a necessity now? Is it not a man in Christ, and with Christ, who is ever the worker on the earth? Christ speaks through the gospel, and "the key" of the moral universe is still upon his shoulders. This hope and dream came to Eve way back there in the confines of the wilderness, and so incidentally as well as actually, she became identified with it, and rejoiced when she could declare, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," whom she believed to be the "promised seed."

Notice, to Eve, as to woman now, a baby was more than a little child; she saw in him all the possibilities of a man, who was to become a foe worthy to meet the enemy of her soul. Her faith in this child to be born was similar to our faith in the Child that was born in Bethlehem. Hence her joy when she exclaimed, "I have gotten a man from the Lord."

It will seem to many as singular that there should be no mention of the daughters born of Eve. The generations or names of men are given, but not of the daughters. Even there and then the custom now prevalent in the East found its origin. No account is made of the birth of a daughter in that land. Congratulate a man upon the accession to the family of a daughter, and the father will hide his shame with difficulty, and exclaim, "O, that God had given me a son!"

Again, in reading this story some will be surprised to find no mention made of the mother's grief when her youngest child was slain, and that no mention is made of the mother's death. We know that after Seth was born, Adam lived eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters; but woman's curse bore fruit. Men ruled over her, and her individuality was lost in the headship of Adam. Do not blame me for saying it; I simply declare the fact. This state of things continued until Christ came. When Mary gave birth to Jesus, woman resumed her place. The curse was met by its antidote. From God came the wave of influence which met the wave that flowed out from Eden, the conflict began, higher and higher rose the flood, until the ark of hope by it was placed on the mountain peak of human history, in sight of all races, and tribes, and peoples of the whole world. Calvary is set over against Ararat, as Mary is set over against Eve. After the birth-song of Eden came the tragedy, in which Abel lost his life and Cain his character. After the birth-song of Bethlehem came the tragedy of Calvary, in which Christ gave up his life, that he might open to man, enveloped in the ruins of the fall, a way back to the Eden in reserve for the redeemed.