“But stay, my dear friend,” interposed Dr Prosser. “I have been going with you heart and soul, only I felt a little jolt just then, as if the wheels ran over a stone. Was not that last expression a little uncharitable? Will all women who covet and strive after intellectual honours be necessarily shut out of heaven?”
“Far be it from me to say so,” exclaimed Miss Maltby earnestly; “I was speaking about reward. Surely we make some sad mistakes on this subject; I mean about reward in a better world. We are naturally so afraid, some of us, of putting good works in the wrong place, that we have gone into the opposite extreme, and turned them out of their right place. It is surely one of the sweetest and most encouraging of thoughts that Jesus will condescend to reward earnest work done for him, though after all only the fruit of his own grace. But if we women are to have our share in these heavenly rewards, our hearts cannot be engrossed in the pursuit of earthly intellectual prizes. Oh! We cannot think and speak too earnestly on such a subject as this; can we, dear brother?”
“No, indeed,” said the vicar, “when we remember that the Lord is coming again, and then shall he reward every one according to his works.”
No one spoke for a while, and then Mrs Prosser asked, “What do you think, dear Miss Maltby, of these female guilds, and societies, and clubs?”
“I think very ill of them,” was the reply; “for they substitute, or are in danger of substituting, self-imposed rules and motives for the simple rules and constraining motives set before us in God’s Word.”
“I don’t quite understand you,” said the other.
“I mean thus,” continued Miss Maltby. “Let us take an example. I have some young lady friends who have joined an ‘early-rising club.’ They are to get up and be downstairs by a certain hour every morning, or pay a forfeit, and are to keep a strict account of their regularities or irregularities, as the case may be.”
“And what harm do you see in this?” asked Dr Prosser.
“Just this,” replied the other: “it seems to me that this banding together to accomplish an object, in itself no doubt desirable, gives a sort of semi-publicity to it, and thereby robs it of its simplicity, and in a measure deprives God of his glory in it, as though the constraining love of Christ were not sufficient to induce us to acquire habits of self-denial and usefulness. How much better for one who desires to live in the daily habit of unostentatious self-discipline modestly to practise this regularity of early-rising as an act of Christian self-denial, to be known and marked by Him who will accept and graciously bless it, if done to please him and in his strength. In a word, dear friends, I cannot but think that our female character is likely to suffer by the adoption of these new and, in my view, unscriptural theories and systems, and that the less of excitement and publicity there is in woman’s work, and the more of the quiet home work and home influence in her doings, the holier, the healthier, the happier, and the more truly useful will she be.”
“I quite agree with my sister in this matter,” observed the vicar. “I believe that there is a subtle element of evil in this club system among young females which has escaped the notice of many Christian people. I mean the independence of home which it generates, as well as the new motives which it introduces. Thus, a bright, intelligent young lady friend of mine had joined a society or club for secular reading. The members are bound to read works, selected by a responsible person connected with the society, for one hour every day, a certain fine having to be paid for every hour missed. And what was the consequence in my young friend’s case? Why, the society had usurped the place of the parents; it, not they, was to be the guide of her studies, and home duties must remain undone rather than this hour be infringed upon: for it was a point of honour to keep this hour sacred, as it were; and so the debt of honour had to be paid, even though the debt of conscience—that is, what home duties required—should be left unpaid. Just as it is on the turf and at the gaming-table,—the man’s gaming debts are called debts of honour, and must be paid, come what will, while debts to the tradesman, whose livelihood depends on his customers’ honesty, may remain unpaid. Such has been, or rather had been the result with my young friend. But finding that this reading-club was detaching her thoughts from home, weakening the hold of home upon her, causing her to lean on the judgment of others rather than on that of her parents, and to neglect, or do with an ill grace, duties clearly assigned to her by God, and to substitute for them self-imposed tasks and studies, she had the good sense and good principle to give it up. Surely a system which has a tendency to draw young people out of the circle of home duty, influence, and authority, and thus to make them independent of those whom God has given them to be their guides and counsellors, and to substitute the rules and penalties of a self-constituted society for the motives and discipline of the gospel, can neither be sound in itself, nor strengthening to the character, nor healthful either for mind or soul.”