(Then she was the devil"s gift to a sin-cursed world.) A fallen woman--a woman who refuses to love Christ and to serve him, who sweeps out into the paths of dissipation and of l.u.s.t, and becomes a seductive wile--is the devil"s ally; "for she forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her G.o.d. For her house inclineth unto death. None that go unto her returneth again, neither take they hold of the paths of life."
Against such a woman G.o.d warns us in the thunder tones of wrath, and the picture of her doom is lurid with the glow of the devouring flames, "for her feet go down to death and her steps take hold on h.e.l.l."
This is but a single characteristic of her power as a tempter, and we love to think that it is the least employed. A mind retaining the perception of woman"s worth, shrinks from the idea of linking her name with impurity. We cherish the hope that she is virtuously inclined, and cannot bear to think that she willingly forsakes the right and casts herself down the steeps of ruin. Ah, woman, when this is not the case society has a right to cast you off. It is because of this faith that the good despise the woman who persists in folly, and who secretly tries to seduce the unwary. G.o.d"s judgments seem not too severe, and the language is none too strong, though the denunciation is terrible and the destruction certain. G.o.d makes no apologies for sin. A fallen woman is an abomination. Her crimes are terrible. She is the foe of the home, and the enemy of all that is pure. Hence she is thrown out upon the rocks, and left there to die, unpitied and unbefriended, without G.o.d and without hope in the world. By every virtuous person she is despised. Hence, between a virtuous woman and ruin there is a bridged chasm; whoever crosses that bridge leaves hope, and honor, and happiness behind. Think of the thousands about us going, unprayed for, down to perdition!
Society tolerates a man as it does not tolerate a woman. G.o.d did business with Adam, but he does not mention Eve after her fall.
Society recognizes a fallen man as it cannot recognize a fallen woman.
Thus her crime is proclaimed to be the greater than man"s, even by the world. Let us be just. We do not heap the blame all on woman, even of her fall. All we say is, she bears the burden of the woe. In this fact she is warned. Society may pity her: it cannot palliate her guilt.
Thus is she advised against throwing herself away, and casting off her allegiance to Christ, to herself, and to humanity. Let her fall, and almost without exception she is hopelessly ruined. Society points the finger of scorn at her, and, what is worse, the barriers to virtue having been broken down, they seem to be destroyed. It is as difficult to get back what a woman loses when she falls, as it would have been to have forced an entrance back into Eden after the banishment.
2. The fact that she is a woman gives her influence. In her terrible work beauty is an aid. G.o.d says, "Desire not her beauty in thy heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids." That is, look for something besides a pretty face or a twinkling eye. "Pretty is that pretty does," is a good motto, and utters a truth which is quite too frequently ignored. Beauty is not to be despised or condemned. G.o.d, who painted the lilies" bloom, and covered the sky with the wondrous tints of a glowing sunset, must enjoy beauty, and surely made it to please and to bless us. Yet when it comes to be used as an agent of evil, it is to be shunned and disregarded. In all this world there is nothing so empty as a heartless, brainless woman, with a pretty face.
Yet beauty is a power; so the heathen declare, "Every woman would rather be handsome than good." That may be true in heathen, but it is not true of all in Christian climes. If there is one woman who thinks more of dress than duty, more of shadow than substance, more of Vanity Fair than of Virtue"s bower, then beware. You are not an ally of Christ. At once begin a new life, if you would shun the dangers and avoid the terrible doom threatening you. Cast away that which excites pa.s.sions and gives the body unrest, and seek the food for mind and soul which gives rest and peace. Seek Christ, and through him victory over self and over sin. Do something to brighten your home life and to honor your Master. Clear your soul from the taint of vanity. Do not rejoice in conquests, either that your power to allure may be seen by other women, or for the pleasure of rousing pa.s.sionate, feelings that gratify your love of excitement. It must happen, no doubt, that frank and generous women will excite love they do not reciprocate; but, in nine cases out of ten, the woman has, half consciously, done much to excite it. In this case she shall not be held guiltless, either as to the unhappiness or injury of the lover. Pure love, inspired by a worthy object, must enn.o.ble and bless, whether mutual or not; but that which is excited by coquettish attraction, of any grade of refinement, must cause bitterness and doubt as to the reality of human goodness so soon as the flush of pa.s.sion is over. And that you may avoid all taste for these false pleasures,
"steep the soul In one pure love, and it will last thee long."
The love of truth, the love of excellence, whether or not you clothe them in the person of a special object, will have power to save you much of evil, and lead you into the green glades where the feet of the virtuous have trod. Preserve the modesty of your s.e.x by filling the mind with n.o.ble desires, that shall ward off the corruptions of vanity and idleness. "A profligate woman, who left her accustomed haunts and took service in a New York boarding-house, said, "She had never heard talk so vile at the Five Points as from the ladies at the boarding-house." And why? Because they were idle; because, having nothing worthy to engage them, they dwelt, with unnatural curiosity, on the ill they dared not go to see." This seems like an exaggeration.
Yet Margaret Fuller is responsible for the utterance.[A] Avoid idleness. The mind, like a mill, must have some thought in the hopper of reflection, or the machinery will prove to be self-destructive.
Shun flattery. The woman who permits in her life the alloy of vanity; who lives upon flattery, coa.r.s.e or fine, is lost, and loses the tribute paid the woman by the iron-handed warrior, whom he rejoiced to recognize as his helpmeet, saying, "Whom G.o.d loves, to him he gives such a wife."
[Footnote A: Woman of the Nineteenth Century, p. 168.]
The influence of married women over their younger sisters may be beneficent and good. It often is pernicious and bad. Young women judge of men very much by what married women say concerning men. If they speak of men as virtuous and pure, as n.o.ble and generous; if they can talk of their husbands as of men who have honored them with their love, and whose kindness blesses their daily life, then will the maiden of a pure heart believe that her dream is real, and that the man of her choice is pure; whose heart is free and open as her own; all of whose thoughts may be avowed; who is incapable of wronging the innocent, or still further degrading the fallen,--a man, in short, whose brute nature is entirely subject to the impulses of his better self. Such men there are in countless numbers, who have kept themselves free from stain, and who can look the purest maiden in the eye and not shun the glance. Through G.o.d"s grace they have been saved from the path full of peril, and desire nothing more than to share the confidence and friendship of the pure. If, on the other hand, the unmarried are a.s.sured by the married that, "if they knew men as they do,"--that is, by being married to them,--"they would not expect continence or self-government from them;" if mothers permit their daughters to mingle freely with the dissipated and vile because of rank or wealth, and when warned that such are not fit companions for a chaste being, reply, "All men are bad sometimes in their life; but give them a pure wife and a home and they will not want to go wrong,"
then be not surprised if homes are converted into abodes of perpetual sorrow, if not of shame, and the fair young bride is left to weep over the sacrifice of virtue, of honor, and of love, on the altar of an unholy pa.s.sion. The influence of a pure woman over young women is invaluable.
"Do not forget the unfortunates who dare not cross your guarded way.
If it do not suit you to act with those who have organized measures of reform, then hold not yourself excused from acting in private. Seek out these degraded women, give them then tender sympathy, counsel, employment. Take the place of mothers, such as might have saved them originally. If you can do little for those already under the ban of the world,--and the best considered efforts have often failed, from a want of strength in those unhappy ones to bear up against the sting of shame and the frigidness of the world, which makes them seek oblivion again in their old excitements,--you will at least leave a germ of love and justice in their hearts, that will prevent their becoming utterly embittered and corrupt." And you may learn the preventives for those yet uninjured. These will be found in a diffusion of mental culture, simple tastes, best brought by your example, a genuine self-respect, and, above all, the love and fear of a divine in preference to a human tribunal. Let woman live for G.o.d and the development of her higher nature,--live so that she can be self-helped, as well as helping,--then if she finds what she needs in man embodied, she will know how to love, and be worthy of being loved.
Much is said about the underpay of woman as a cause of temptation. It is for the interests of society that there should be an equality of compensation wherever there is an equality of distribution. It is well for woman to ask herself if she is ready to a.s.sume the burdens that come from an equality of compensation, such as giving up the prospect of marriage, or of sharing with man the toil of the field, of the factory, as well as of the house. Would woman be willing to take upon herself the responsibility of planning to economize, of building churches, railroads, of entering into a compet.i.tion with man?--Woman is dependent, not independent.--For this reason man toils to keep his wife, and is ashamed to have his wife keep him. His pride lies in having his home a joy and his wife a helpmeet, rather than to have his wife a rival and his home empty of happiness.
It is not alone by an excess of pa.s.sion or of beauty that woman becomes a tempter. The absence of love, and of beauty, sins of omission as well as sins of commission, are sources of temptation. Man desires an educated woman. Intellectually and spiritually she must be able to meet his wants, and render help, or she is a failure. He tires of a useless toy or plaything, and cries out for a helpmeet. Another has said, "The bad housekeeping, and the neglect of domestic duties, on the part of many wives, is, no doubt, attributable to the slovenly tenements, and inadequate providings, and careless neglect of the husbands. But more husbands, we fear, are driven to shiftlessness and discouragement--driven to the saloon and gambling-room--by the extravagance or inefficiency, the disorderly arrangements or badly prepared food, the irritating complaints or exacting demands of those who preside in the home. None but a man of low instinct, of base pa.s.sion, of weak character, will turn away from and neglect a home where order reigns, where a cheerful smile, well-prepared food, neatly arranged table await him; where a word of cheer greets him, and where patient forbearance is exercised, even with his irregularities and faults. It is the part of woman to win; and her winning arts should not be laid aside when she grasps what she has considered a prize. She should seek in every way to win, beyond the possibility of loss, the abiding love, the unwavering confidence, the undoubting respect of her husband. If woman would be man"s equal, she must challenge the equality by proving herself mistress of those arts that minister the highest comfort to his physical nature, as well as to his affections, that further his interests as well as his happiness."
Alas! how many fail here because they know not how to make a home pleasant. Such are the slaves of servants and the creatures of circ.u.mstances. In some cases the fault is man"s, in others it is woman"s. Perhaps in all cases both are somewhat at fault; yet the responsibility rests on woman to make home a delight. When she fails she must take the consequences. Failure with her is often a mistake.
She knows no better. Ignorance, in some, is wilful, but in more it is educational. Their mothers, through ill-judged kindness, mistaken notions of life, or careless neglect, suffered them to grow up without the necessary practical training; or else they failed before them; and inefficiency and slatternliness, bad cooking, and worse manners, are the patrimony bequeathed in perpetuity to the daughters. Happy is the man who has a wife capable of getting a better meal than the hired help, and whose smile is the light of his dwelling! Sometimes a girl knows how to win, but cares not to keep. She gives place in her heart, and a welcome in her home, to others more readily than to the one she has given her plighted troth. This is criminal. A woman who does it is a suicide. She is bent on ruin, and will find the pit ere long.
_Consider her wiles of speech_. Mystery here brings ruin to man as it brought ruin to woman. Young ladies of culture and of refinement are not ashamed to employ the language of the Parisian to lead astray the companion of her life. G.o.d curse the language and the forms of speech whose words drop with the very gall of death, which revel in elegant dress as near the edge of indecency as is possible without treading over the boundary! Her wiles of speech are bad, but her wiles of love are the most perilous of all. Man needs love. He is fond of it. It is his joy, come from whence it may. Love is the mind"s light and heat. A mind of the greatest stature, without love, is like a huge pyramid of Egypt--chill and cheerless in all its dark halls and pa.s.sages. A mind with love, is as a king"s palace lighted for a royal festival. Shame that the sweetest of all the mind"s attributes should be suborned to sin. Think of it! each wile, rightly used, is a power given to woman to make her man"s helpmeet, and wrongly used will make her man"s destroyer.
Some one asked a minister for his conception of the personal appearance of the devil. His reply was, "A false-hearted and well-dressed gentleman, or a vain and fashionable woman." Woman was Satan"s first ally, though he worked in ambush, and approached man in concealment. In the wisdom of his choice we discover the peril of woman. It may be well briefly to review the public manner in which Satan employs her talent for the ruin of man and in opposing the rule of Christ.
1. Pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d are in opposition to the doctrine. When woman joins the ranks of the infidel, she turns from G.o.d, 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 p.r.o.nouncing 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 inst.i.tutions 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 G.o.d," 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sociates. 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 G.o.d"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 G.o.d 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."
MILTON.
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 a.s.signed to woman, must recall the fact that G.o.d"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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d Made Her, of Woman as a Helpmeet, we find a warrant for it in the Word of G.o.d. In Eden she was G.o.d"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_ p.r.o.nounced upon her was a fact; and yet, during all these ages of trial, there was a gleam of hope shining into her soul, because G.o.d 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 princ.i.p.alities 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 "G.o.d draws by the cords of a man." All along the past men have been recognized as the gift of G.o.d.
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 G.o.d and man. Princ.i.p.alities and powers are to be fought and overcome. An invisible world is in league against the race, and an invisible G.o.d, once robed in flesh, and living among men, is Our Advocate with G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, and study his word. Those who reject the Word, of G.o.d 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 G.o.d"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 G.o.d,--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 G.o.d, and history, and talk of her as though the past had no influence with the present and future. The Bible, G.o.d, 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 G.o.d-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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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.
In speaking of Eve as a mother, there is little that can be said founded on fact. Eve pa.s.ses from sight, though the prophecy, "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 shall bruise him on the heel," worked on, and lived on, and found its fulfilment in the triumph won by Christ. It is certainly significant, that Eve, through whom sin came, should pa.s.s out of the world"s mind, and Mary, through whom Christ came, should vault to a seat in the affections of a world?
Is it not also significant that Mary should become an object of worship to many millions of people in this and in other lands, and that Satan, through Mariolatry, should strive to do in the New Dispensation what he wrought by Idolatry in the Old? The opposition of Satan runs on. The purposes of G.o.d run on. The prophesies of the Word of G.o.d abide, and are sure of fulfilment, in spite of Satan. Against prophecy combinations of men and nations have united; but the truths sweep on resistlessly, and reach the destination for which G.o.d ordained them.
The curse that came to woman in the hour of her fall rested on her until Christ came. "Unto thy husband shall be thy desire,"--an expression of subordination and dependence. "He shall rule over thee,"
expresses the general effect of the apostasy on woman"s relations in the married state. The stronger party in this relation, instead of being the guardian and protector of the weaker, did use his superior power to oppress and debase her. Such has always been the case, except so far as the influence of revelation has counteracted the evils of the fall, such is the case to-day. Woman owes her recognition to Christ, and she is indebted for her position in the civilized portions of the world wholly to the gospel. Wherever Christ is not worshipped woman is despised.
Woman as a mother, under the Old Dispensation, differs in many important respects from woman as a mother under the New. The history of woman is divided into three portions: 1. Woman as G.o.d made her; 2.
Woman as Sin made her; 3. Woman as Christ made her.