For woman there is a felt a necessity which should send her forth as a missionary to those like herself in everything but blessings. Think of our large factory towns, where women are congregated by hundreds and thousands. Let it be remembered that there is something unnatural in all this. Woman was made for man, for home, for love. Separate her from them all, herd her with her kind, subtract from her the incentive to endeavor, leave her mind to brood in fancy, to welcome unholy aspirations and degrading thoughts to her soul, and you leave her to prey upon herself. Let woman see to it that reading-rooms for women be established in our factory towns, that their boarding-houses be warmed and rendered inviting, that the talented be encouraged to exertion, and that tidiness and neatness be made an incentive for all, and woman will do a work of immeasurable importance,—a work on which God's blessing will rest,—and those who toil to accomplish it will obtain an abundant reward from Him who declares, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye did it unto me."
In the cause of Reform woman's help is needed. From the earliest commencement of the temperance movement, appeals, arguments, and expostulations have been addressed by earnest reformers to woman, because it was felt that on any great social question the power of woman to help, or to hinder, was all-important. When it is remembered that woman is the greatest sufferer from the vice of intemperance, that she regulates the customs of society, it is apparent that she should seek to abolish bad, and promote good customs. More than others she trains the young and builds up character, and therefore she should, by example and precept, implant such habits as may be not only a safeguard in childhood and youth, but become fixed as moral principles in those she has reared, when the responsibility arrives; because of these, we find reasons in abundance why woman must help, or aid cannot reach the imperilled and undone.
Again: Woman needs help. Addison well said, "Women are either the best or the worst of human beings." The very feelings which, rightly directed, prompt her to soar even to the apex of the pyramid of human virtue, warped from their right exercise, precipitate her to the lowest and most grovelling depths of human vice. Is woman intemperate, she differs from man in the gratification of her appetite. He seeks the social club. Woman seeks retirement, and drinks alone and apart. Her appetite, from this very cause, becomes unmanageable. Men will stop drinking, oftentimes, when the open bar is closed. Woman, with an appetite formed, drinks the more, because she drinks in secret. Because of this fact, woman is in peril if she form an appetite for strong drink.
Woman as a Mother has work to do as a teacher. "We hear a great deal about education in the present day; but," said Mrs. Ellis, "my strong impression is that there will have to come a teaching out of the mother's heart and life,—herself being taught of God,—such as alone can save us as a nation and a people from falling from our high material prosperity into a condition of moral degradation, which it is terrible to contemplate." Such being the case, every woman should ask, What have I done in those opportunities which God gave me with the young? What did I pour into that open heart and mind? Was my influence for Christ or against him? Which way did I point out to those uncertain feet? Who can estimate a mother's influence! There is a power in a mother's love greater than any other human power,—a power to suffer, to serve, and to save; a power which many waters cannot quench, and which is stronger than death. As she leads, the broodlings will follow. Does she sanction card-playing, theatre-going, dancing, and what are called innocent recreations, or does she set herself against them, and turn the thoughts of her children to books that treat of science, of philosophy, and of religion? Upon the answer to this question the future of children and the young depends. Many a boy has been checked in a career of shame by a mother's sad look; many have been encouraged by a mother's smile. God help women to know how to use their power for home, for woman-kind, for man-kind, for country, and for God!
"No one has such power over a river as he who stands near its source. No one has such power over the tree as he who plants and tends it while yet it is a pliant sapling. And no earthly power is to be compared with that which, humanly speaking, determines the course and destiny of an immortal soul. Under God the mother is the first guardian of the child's eternal interest. It is from the mother, who moves constantly among her little ones, much more than the father, whose vocation necessitates his absence from home, and prevents his being much in their presence, that children receive their bias. Her gentle hand gives to our ductile natures the impress which we wear through life; her loving voice awakens in the soul those sweet echoes which never cease to sound; and her look and manner fill the mind with images which haunt our memory until our dying day."
"O, Mother! sweetest name on earth;
We lisp it on the knee,
And idolize its sacred worth
In manhood's ministry."
A mother's hand gave us our first welcome, and hers was the last we grasped in our farewell. She is the nurse of both of our childhoods; the queen of the home, and the friend of the heart.
"And if I e'er in heaven appear,
A mother's holy prayer,—
A mother's hand and gentle tear,—
That pointed to a Saviour here,
Shall lead the wanderer there."
Woman's mission is religious. Christ recognized her as a helpmeet, as a comforter, and a companion. Woman ministered to him with delight, and gladly made a resting-place for him in the quiet retreat of the home in Bethany. He recognized her faith as an element of strength, which saves her when properly exercised. The spiritual life of woman is her glory. We think of the woman who had sinned looking in love and faith on Jesus, bathing his feet with her tears, and wiping them with her hair, kissing and anointing them, with a feeling akin to devotion. The Magdalene, delivered of her seven demons, because of her devotion to Christ, and the triumph won by her faith, achieved a position which, in the regards of the church, is equal to that held by the Mother of our Saviour.
Woman's daily life is to her spiritual life what the debris of the stream is to the water-lily that floats upon the surface. What cares the servant girl of Rome for the place where she toils? The cathedral, and the wonderful pictures that hang upon its walls, are her glory and pride. Look at her toil from that stand-point, and she becomes a helper in the estimation of the world that cannot be ignored. We have said woman's work is a work of charity. Satan has warped the truth and wielded it against Christ; but as it is wrong to give up a good tune because bad men sing it, so we must not give up a truth because Satan takes advantage of it. This work of charity,—of giving up for others, of denying self for another's advantage, of abandoning comfort to assuage another's grief,—so wonderfully illustrated by a Florence Nightingale, and by women quite as worthy in our own land, whose presence in the hospitals was like a benediction from God, and whose presence in our homes, in our churches, beside the sad and sorrowing everywhere, is proof that woman has a mission which she alone can fill, and a work which she alone can perform. "And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity." Man has faith, he has hope; but he lacks, to a large extent, in the charities which come to woman as gifts of God, because of which Christ employed her as an agency to win men back to faith in God. In the sick chamber she moves with step noiseless as falling snow-flakes, and speaks in a voice soft as an angel's whisper. Her touch is so gentle that it soothes the sufferer, and her sympathy is more precious than rubies. On this account she is man's first and last solace. Suffering never appeals to woman in vain. "I never addressed myself," says Ledyard, "in the language of decency and friendship to woman, whether civilized or savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and, to add to this virtue,—so worthy of the appellation of benevolence,—these actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and if hungry, ate the coarse morsel, with a double relish." Park, and many other travellers, bear similar testimony.