"Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need;
Whether his first design be to withdraw
Our fealty from God, or to disturb
Conjugal love, than which, perhaps, no bliss
Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee and protects.
The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures."
Eve resents the imputation of weakness, and insists on being left forever fancy free to roam at will. In self-confidence she goes forth and falls, and in falling introduces sin into the world.
Let us review the past, and recall a few facts which, deserve consideration, before we enter upon the contemplation of Woman's Work and Woman's Mission. It will not be denied that Eve was created to be a helpmeet. That Satan tempted her, and converted the helpmeet into a tempter. In that light we have considered her power. We have seen that Eve, in bringing ruin to man, turned her back upon the Creator and Preserver of mankind, and paved the way for the introduction of idolatry, the shadows of whose multiplying altars shrouded the old world in the gloom of night. From the ruin of Eve to the restoration in Mary, the history of this world resembles a deep valley filled with death and sorrow and gloom. In Adam all died, in Christ all shall be made alive. Bethlehem with its manger is set over against Eden with its bower. During that old dispensation, manly qualities were honored and womanly qualities were ignored. The effects of sin are seen. God doth not hold guiltless the sinner. The consequences of sin run on. They made woman's life wretched. They changed the helpmeet into a slave. Do not rebel, woman, at the utterance, nor suffer yourself to feel that God does not care for woman, or that he willingly afflicts her.
It is at this point you do well to survey the field. We know that God's purposes run on. That God was not and will not be defeated. That the plan formed in the councils of eternity is sure to be successfully executed.
Hence God's idea of woman is yet to bless the world. What sin destroyed Christ came to restore, and more than to restore. In heaven if not on earth we shall see woman as God made her, and as God glorified her. This brings us to the consideration of what Christ did for her. He did not permit Mary to become Intercessor, and so give a sanction to Mariolatry, which in evil is second only to idolatry. He did not lift woman to the position of ruler, nor did he give any sanction to the wild vagaries of the Christless ones, who are striving to overturn the foundations of society, and who rebel against motherhood, wifehood, and sisterhood; but he did turn the attention of the world towards the graces of womanhood, and while he turned his back upon those manly qualities of labor, of pluck, of brute courage, he turned his face towards meekness, gentleness, and love, and made the vales of life to blossom with a new beauty. He welcomed woman as a companion. He sought her for sympathy's sake, and opened his heart to her in the fullest confidence.
Let us notice this truth. In making woman's work a work of charity, he continued in the New Dispensation the work which was commenced in the Old. He lifted the thread where woman broke it, and reuniting it again sent her forth into the world to bless it with love, with sympathy, with ministrations of tenderness, with an elevating companionship, which makes man worthy of his origin, and helps him to fulfil the mission of God's anointed.
And though Satan has taken this new thought and perverted it, as he has perverted all the rest, and though he has employed the Church of Rome, by organizing women into orders and sisterhoods of charity, so that woman may again be enslaved and destroyed; though the story of her confinement in nunneries and establishments little better in form than prisons, and far more cruel in character, has been written, let us not be discouraged, but believing that Christ's plan is best, let us learn what his will is, and then let us do it in the fear of God and in the love of truth, assured that his ways are higher and better and grander than ours, and that it is safe to trust God even where we cannot trace him, remembering that "he doeth great things, past finding out; yea, and wonders without number."
In considering Woman's Work and Woman's Mission, we discover that they go hand in hand, and faith is the bond which unites them. Separate woman's work from her mission, and you divorce it from that which makes it honorable and praiseworthy. It is the spirit of faith, and love, and hope, and charity, which pervades the life of the true woman, that is her glory and her praise. The difference between woman as a drudge and woman as a helpmeet, describes the relation existing between her work and her mission. Work separated from this path of faith, love, and charity, becomes unholy to the world and unbearable to her. The holiest of all work for a mother is to care for her child. That child, so helpless now, is to reward her by acts of love and deeds of valor. Take away from woman her faith, let her feel that her work is a degradation, and there is nothing more beautiful in her attentions to a child than there would be in her attentions to a pig.
When in the country the children and their parents were floating in a little boat on a river's surface, they admired the lilies with their white leaves spread out on the wave. After they had looked upon the flower, I asked them to observe the roots, and see in what they were embedded. They replied, "The roots are in the mud." That lily illustrates truthfully the spiritual character of woman's work. Though her life may be passed in drudgery, yet the flower of her life is seen in the neatness, beauty, and comfort of the home, and her joy is derived from the commendation received by her diligence and toil. Truly has the poet told, in this homely way, how