"The family, and not the individual, is the true social integer.
This is implied in the inspired history of the creation of man.
G.o.d made of two "one flesh," or a unit of the human species.
Generals and legislators have not overlooked the fact that married men and women can be relied on in emergencies where single persons cannot be trusted. Either part of a social integer is a pledge of the whole. The vitality of society lives in its integers. The future grows out of its integers. They are, therefore, what ought to be represented in its political structures. That it belongs more properly to the man than to the woman to represent the family, is manifest from revelation. "The head of the woman is the man, whom she is commanded to obey.""
ANONYMOUS.
WOMAN AS A TEMPTER.
It will be admitted by all who will read the history of man"s ruin, as recorded in Genesis, the third chapter, and sixth verse, that woman first partook of the forbidden fruit, and "gave also to her husband, and he did eat." Admit the truth of history, and woman appears as man"s first tempter.
"Woman as a Helpmeet" described her condition before the fall; "Woman as a Tempter" describes her in the fall; and, alas! while it is the high privilege of woman to be a helpmeet in the midst of the ruin wrought by sin, it is unwise to disguise the truth that as a _tempter_ she has not abandoned her vocation.
Plain speaking may prove to be disagreeable. G.o.d grant that it may prove to be profitable. There is need of it. Disguise it as we may talk as we choose about man in his narrowness, in his degradation, a wicked woman _was_, and to a large extent _is_, the means employed by Satan in leading astray the unwary. The manner of her fall has been declared. It may be profitable to review the steps of her downward descent from the bliss of Eden to the woe of the desert; from the position of an equal to the position of a subject.
1. _Satan, in the form of the serpent, undermines woman"s confidence in G.o.d_. The serpent, the most subtle beast of the field, said to the woman, "Is it even so, that G.o.d has said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Thus he attempted to weaken the child-like confidence she reposed in her Creator, and endeavored to inspire in its place a spirit of unbelief and distrust. This done, and the battle was half won, and the work was well nigh accomplished. Truly has it been said, "The sure basis of simple trust in G.o.d as the all-loving and the all-wise, once shaken, there is little left to be done." This is the rock on which character builds its hopes. There is nothing so essential to woman as faith in G.o.d. Destroy this, or let woman attempt to live without it, and she is in imminent peril. It was an infidel woman who declared, "It has been said that marriage is a divine inst.i.tution, because all power comes from G.o.d. _We know very well that all power comes from G.o.d", and therefore we wish neither G.o.d nor power._" Shall professedly Christian women, by action, give their a.s.sent to such an utterance?
2. _Satan rouses woman"s suspicion_. "And the woman said to the serpent. Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden G.o.d has said, Ye shall not eat of it, and ye shall not touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said to the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For G.o.d knows that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes will be opened, and ye will be as G.o.d, knowing good and evil."
"Your eyes will be opened," expresses the power of mentally apprehending things before unperceived and unknown; but, of course, both in an intellectual and moral sense. The position taken appeared reasonable, and had a semblance of truth, and exerted its consequent influence.
"_Will be as G.o.d, knowing good and evil._" Knowing for yourselves, and able to choose between the evil and the good. Here ambition again overleaped itself. Humility was slain, and a womanly virtue was destroyed by the tempter, who aimed to infuse into the mind of the woman, first, a doubt of the truth of the Word of G.o.d, and of the certainty of the divine threatening; second, a suspicion that G.o.d was withholding from her a good, instead of guarding her against an evil; and, third, he attempted to induce her to believe that adherence to this divine command stood in the way of her freedom, of her growth, and so by the words, "Ye will be as G.o.d, knowing good and evil," he strove to awaken the feeling of self-exaltation,--the longing for a higher development, in which she should attain to self-discretion and freedom of choice and action.
This suspicion is very common, even among our good women. When a woman gets cold in her love for Jesus, she becomes suspicious of those she loves. She permits the feeling, "My husband gives too much for benevolence, too little to me, and he is away too much in meetings, and is too little in his home," to influence her. She begins to talk against the church, and loves to stay at home. Finds excuses for keeping away from the prayer meeting or from the paths of endeavor, and becomes a hinderance instead of a blessing to husband, to family, and to society. A man finds it difficult to push the bark of benevolence and of holy endeavor up against the current of womanly opposition and suspicion, but when in the work of G.o.d she acts the part of a helpmeet, everything moves smoothly. A recent writer uses this language: "Expel woman as you will, she is in fact the parish.
Within, in her lowest spiritual form, as the ruling spirit she inspires, and sometimes writes the sermons. Without, as the bulk of his congregation, she watches over his orthodoxy, verifies his texts, visits his schools, and hara.s.ses his sick." ... "The preacher who thunders so defiantly against spiritual foes, is trembling all the time beneath the critical eye that is watching him with so merciless an accuracy in his texts. Impelled, guided, censured by woman, we can hardly wonder if, in nine cases out of ten, the parson turns woman himself, and the usurpation of woman"s rights in the services of religion has been deftly avenged by the subjugation of the usurpers.
Expelled from the temple, woman has simply put her priesthood into commission, and discharges her ministerial duties by proxy." Woman is the mainspring and the chief support of Ritualism. Things were at a dead lock and stand still, until the so-called devotion gave an impetus to the movement. The medieval church have glorified the devotion of woman; but once become a devotee, it had locked her in the cloister. As far as action in the world without was concerned, the veil served simply as a species of suicide, and the impulses of woman, after all the crowns and pretty speeches of her religious counsellors, found themselves bottled up within stout stone walls, and as inactive as before. From this strait woman released herself by the organization of charity. The Sisters of Charity at once became a power. They discovered the value of costume. The district visitor, whom n.o.body had paid the smallest attention to in the common vestments of the world, became a sacred being as she donned the c.r.a.pe and hideous bonnet of the "Sister."
"The "Mother Superior" took the place of the tyrant of another s.e.x who had hitherto claimed the submission of woman; but she was something more to her "children" than the husband or father whom they had left in the world without. In all matters, ecclesiastical as well as civil, she claimed within her dominions to be supreme. The quasi-sacerdotal dignity, the pure religious ministration which ages have stolen from her, was quietly resumed. She received confessions, she imposed penances, she drew up offices of devotion. If the clergyman of the parish ventured an advice or suggestion, he was told that the sisterhood must preserve its own independence of action, and was snubbed home again for his pains. The Mother Superior, in fact, soon towered into a greatness far beyond the reach of ordinary persons.
She kept her own tame chaplain, and she kept him in a very edifying subjugation. From a realm completely her own, the influence of woman began to tell upon the world without. Little colonies of Sisters, planted here and there, annexed parish after parish. Astonished congregations saw their church blossom its purple and red, and frontal and hanging told of the silent energy of the group of Sisters. The parson found himself nowhere, in his own parish: every detail managed for him, every care removed, and all independence gone. If it suited the ministering angels to make a legal splash, he found himself landed in the law courts. If they took it into their heads to seek another field, every one a.s.sumed it a matter of course that their pastor would go too." It is because of this influence that in certain quarters the ecclesiastical hierarchy are taking, year by year, a more feminine position. It is not impossible that a church who worships Mary as the Mother of G.o.d may be brought to recognize woman as the proper head of the church. True, as the writer quoted above adds, "she must stoop to conquer heights like these." Yet the question has been seriously asked, "Is not the Episcopal office admirably adapted to woman?"
Between a priest and a nun there is only the difference of a bonnet in their dress, and we know how easily woman can be persuaded to go without a bonnet, or to exchange it for a hat such as is worn by men.
In England, the curate is sometimes called the first lady of the parish; and what he now is in theory, a century hence may find him in fact. "It would be difficult, even now, to detect any difference of s.e.x in the triviality of purpose, the love of gossip, the petty interests, the feeble talk, the ignorance, the vanity, the love of personal display, the white hand dangled over the pulpit, the becoming vestment, and the embroidered stole, which we are learning gradually to look upon as attributes of the British curate. So perfect, indeed, is the imitation, that the excellence of her work may, perhaps, defeat its own purpose, and the lacquered imitation of woman may satisfy the world, and for long ages prevent any anxious inquiry after the real feminine Brummagem."
The tendency thus truthfully described furnished the seedling out of which grew the Monasticism of the past, and in which the Ritualism of the present finds its underlying cause. The Church of Rome harnesses woman to her system, and compels her to contribute greatly to its prosperity. In Europe the people tire of those great establishments and endowments, which rest like an incubus on the national life.
In America we are so blind that we foster them by grants from our legislatures, by giving up the care of hospitals to their use, where the weak are subjected to the influences of superst.i.tion, and the thoughtless are led astray. Another avenue to power is opened by the ballot. Grant this to that church, which, through a fatherhood of priests and a sisterhood of nuns, reaches every portion of the body politic, and the promise of Religious Liberty and a Free Republic is at once exchanged for the despotism of Rome and the imperialism of France. Infidelity joins hands with Rome in asking this power.
Christianity, united with patriotism, must refuse to grant the request.
3. Mystery was employed as an instrument in securing woman"s fall.
Rouse a womanly curiosity, and there is little difficulty in leading the excited one astray. Hold out to her a key which promises to unlock the hidden and concealed glories of the unexplored future, and woman will be tempted again to forego G.o.d"s favor and the joys of paradise to grasp or wield it. In every heathen religion women occupied a prominent place. Priestess or prophetess, she stood in all ministerial offices on an equality with man. Christianity rejects the ministerial services of women, and selects for its standard bearers men acquainted with life, filled with religious zeal, and capable of hardy endeavor, a.s.suring faith and martyr patience.
The Church of Rome dealt with women as the Empire dealt with its Caesars: it was ready to grant her apotheosis, but only when she was safely out of this world. It was only when the light of revelation was extinguished in her midst that the teachings of the Bible were ignored, and woman was welcomed back to the place she held in pagan climes and at heathen shrines.
Spiritualism, that scourge of modern times, which has swept like the breath of a pestilence over the land, found in woman its prophetess and minister. Satan works in erring woman now, as in the past, to destroy and to delude. That power was resisted by Christian woman.
Many an irreligious man was saved from this delusion by the fidelity of his wife. Many a good man has been ruined because his wife listened to the siren voice of the tempter, and desired to explore and explain this mystery. The forbidden fruit ever grows upon the tree beside her.
Those who would be wiser than that which is written, have plucked and eaten it, and have given to others that which is so destructive.
Witchcraft is a womanly profession. The heathen divinities were nearly all ministered unto by woman, and mystery was the influencing cause.
We know the result in the case of Eve. It led her away from G.o.d. It caused her to listen to the enemy of her soul. Does it not become woman to ask herself, "Am I losing my hold on G.o.d? Is suspicion that some good is being withheld, or does the desire to pry into the future, exercise an undue influence upon my heart and imagination?" If so, your ruin has commenced, and a speedy return to G.o.d is your only door of escape.
4. Deception was the result. "And the woman saw the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make her wise; and she took of its fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband and he ate." Sight deceived, desire allured, and action born of a delusive faith destroyed her happiness. The process of temptation culminated in deception. This is the end ever kept in view by Satan. Every individual that refuses to be ruled absolutely by G.o.d, in little or great affairs, may know of a truth that the end is deception, and the consequent ruin is sure to follow.
There is no exception to the rule. Paul felt this when he wrote the church in Corinth, concerning his interest in them, saying, "For I am jealous over you with a G.o.dly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ;" "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, by his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from your simplicity toward Christ."
Many claim that error is not mischievous while truth is left free to combat. Error poisons the mind, and so produces disease, and bars out truth, which carries health to the mind and blesses the soul.
Eve knew the law, for she quotes it word by word. She deliberated as to obeying it. Here she made her first mistake. A woman cannot do this. The moment a woman hesitates in regard to discharging the duties she owes to herself or to G.o.d she falls. She seems to be provided with an almost self-acting nature. It is natural for her to protect herself. She revolts against her higher self when she hesitates. Her intuitions, allied to a sensitive nature, unite in defending against evil. Had Eve said, "I do not need to sin to secure the development of my higher nature; the Creator knows my wants much better than one who seeks to be my destroyer," she would have been saved. Faith in G.o.d would have been a sure defence against the tempter"s wiles.
But she deliberated, yielded, and fell, and the world is still full of the resounding echoes of that fall. The race fell with her. That fact teaches its lesson. Some one falls with every ruined soul. We lift up or drag down those a.s.sociated with us. "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself;" an influence goes out from us, which is a felt power in the world either for or against G.o.d and humanity.
Consider the effects of the temptation. 1. It caused Eve to become to Adam an agent of Satan. Tempted herself, she became a tempter. Ruined in her nature by this exclusion of G.o.d, and by this welcome of Satan, she seeks to ruin her companion. This principle rules now. The carnal heart is at enmity with G.o.d, the converted heart is in union with G.o.d.
Here is a significant fact. A man loves to have woman pure, if he is impure. Temperate, if he is intemperate. Holy and Christian, if he is the opposite in every particular. Not so a woman. Intemperate herself, she seeks to induce others to be like her. Here is the peril of society. If our fashionable women love wine, they become emissaries of the wicked one to a fearful extent. It is almost an impossibility for the tempted to withstand their wiles. In fashionable, perhaps, more than in the other grades of life, woman as a leader in intemperance, in extravagance, and in opposition to Christ, is to be feared. Her power is fearful to contemplate. The Secretary of the Treasury declares that the national debt is increased, and threatens to increase, unless the fashionable world shall declare against the, importation of that which costs gold, but which fails to contribute to the prosperity of the community. This is by no means wholly chargeable to women. Men share in the blame. A sadder fact is the expressed dissatisfaction with woman"s work and with woman"s sphere. The home of the olden time is pa.s.sing out of mind, and in its place is the fashionable boarding-house. The skilled housewife is felt to be unappreciated. Men, they tell us, prefer a pretty face to a n.o.ble heart, a delicate to a skilled hand, a girl who can play the piano rather than one who can cook a dinner, a pretty doll instead of a glorious woman capable of keeping the house, and of guiding the man with womanly strength. Ah, it is a mistake. America is the land of homes. Our undeveloped territory offers to every man a farm. Men and women need not to be cooped up in garrets or shut up in cellars, if they will but possess the spirit of those who sought in this Western world a home, and who, as they toiled with the axe, the plough, and the loom,
"Shook the depths of the forest gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer."
The cause of this discontent is apparent. There is something in the commonplaces of fashionable life which turns woman from the real to the unreal, from the substantial to the superficial, which smothers all originality of thought, and makes her a simple reproduction in appearance, if not in disposition, of the "Anonyma," with her meretricious beauty and dashing toilets. Is it well for woman to subject herself to be criticised as follows? "The girl of the period is a creature who dyes her hair and paints her face, whose sole idea of life is a plenty of fun and luxury, and whose dress is the object of such thought and intellect as she possesses. Her main endeavor is to outvie her neighbors. She cares little for advice or counsel.
Nothing is too extraordinary, and nothing too extravagant, for her vitiated taste; and things which in themselves would be useful reforms if let alone, become monstrosities worse than those which they have displaced, so soon as she begins to manipulate and improve. If a sensible fashion lifts the gown out of the mud, she raises hers midway to the knee. If there is a reaction against an excess of hair oil, and hair slimy and sticky with grease is thought less nice than if left clean with a healthy crisp, she dries and frizzes and sticks hers out on end like certain savages in Africa, or lets it wander down her back like Madge Wildfire"s, and thinks herself all the more beautiful the nearer she approaches in look to a maniac or a negress! What the _demi-monde_ does in its frantic efforts to excite attention, she also does in imitation. If some fashionable courtesan is reported to have come out with her dress below her shoulder blades, and a gold strap for all the sleeve thought necessary, the girl of the period follows suit next day, and then wonders that men sometimes mistake her for her prototype, or that mothers of girls, not so far gone as herself, refuse her as a companion for their daughters."
If the fashionable danseuse is imported from the brothels of Paris, and is brought to our cities to exhibit herself to whoever is vulgar and lewd enough to desire to see her, thousands of the fashionables go with opera gla.s.s, and tolerate a disgusting play that they may enjoy a sight which is a guarantee to every young man that the woman knows little of and cares less about the virtue which distinguished the girl of the olden time, before whom men bowed in admiration, and concerning whom an impure thought seemed like an unpardonable sin. Women may say that "men desire them to go, and they must gratify them." It is not true. Every man loves to have his wife and daughters virtuous, and unless he be besotted by intemperance, or given over to courses of shame, will quietly and joyfully yield to the remonstrance of a virtuous wife or daughter against patronizing scenes which degrade, and against permitting the mind and heart to give welcome to thoughts which pollute. True men desire to love, and to be influenced by pure, tender, loving, retiring, and domestic women.
Woman, it is your fault if you do not retain the affections of a true and n.o.ble man. Alas, how frequently young men mourn your fickleness, your frivolity, your fondness for show and dress, and your total lack of desire for the more solid attainments which enrich character, and beautify life. "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." Whoever conforms to the requirements of fashion, at the expense of culture, is false to her high nature, and degrades herself in the estimation of every true man. A woman is constructed for companionship, and in her normal condition her yearnings are more mental than physical. It is natural for man to desire to enjoy this G.o.d-given boon. A talented woman, that will talk sense, is the idol of sensible men. Nothing displeases a true woman more than to waste an evening on a brainless fop. Nothing is more needless. Let her develop herself, and she will be sought after by men whose opinions are valuable, and whose love is a recompense. Better far would it be for women who are poor, to spend their evenings in reading, writing, and study, in familiarizing themselves with those themes of enn.o.bling thought, which will fit them to win love by conversation, by culture, by the graces of refinement, rather than by the outward adorning, by plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold and of costly apparel; "for it is the hidden man of the heart, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of G.o.d of great price."
Young women need to be reminded of this. They are in peril. Exposure lines the paths of those who pa.s.s from the factory, or from the workshop, to their little rooms and cheap boarding-houses. You see it in the leering look of depraved men, and in the atmosphere of crime that contaminates their shops. They show it by their themes of conversation. Woman must be resolute, if she would change all this.
Let her be true to herself and to Christ, and there will be no danger.
The condition of women in many of our factory villages is frightful to contemplate, and few seem to have any knowledge of it. They pa.s.s from their factory to their boarding-houses. Their rooms are cold and cheerless in winter. There is no common reading-room or sewing-room.
Unless they will suffer from cold, they must retire to their beds, or seek warmth and companionship in the world without. As a result they are watched by men who care not for their comfort or happiness, but for the gratification of pa.s.sion and the pleasures of social excitements. Hence, thousands of good country girls are annually ruined in many of our large factory villages and cities, for the lack of comfortable houses or a.s.sociations, where talents can be cultivated, piety promoted, and virtue protected.
1. "_She gave to her husband, and he did eat._" It was altogether natural. She was the provider in the home, as he was the keeper of the garden. She gave him and he ate. Man fell because of woman"s fall. A woman can repel a man. It is difficult for a man to resist the wiles of a woman. G.o.d has placed in woman a fearful power, and devolves unmeasured responsibilities upon her in the home, in society, and in the world.
2. The second result is seen in the effect produced. "l.u.s.t conceived and brought forth sin, and sin brought forth shame." And the eyes of both of them were opened, not so as to have an advanced knowledge of things pleasant, profitable, and useful, as was promised and expected, but of things very disagreeable and distressing. Their eyes were opened to see that they had broken G.o.d"s law, lost his favor, destroyed their home, and left themselves exposed to the terrors of the judgment. They heard the voice of the Lord G.o.d walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord G.o.d among the trees of the garden.
They knew that they were naked. In place of conscious innocence and purity came the sense of guilt and shame. "We are not to understand,"
says Dr. Conant, "that there is allusion here to any physical effect of the eating of the forbidden fruit. So gross a conception is foreign to the spirit and purpose of the narrative. As the language in ch. ii.
v. 5, is an expression of purity and peace of mind, so the language used here is the expression of conscious guilt, of self-condemnation and shame." Look at that criminal arrested. See him shiver as if cold.
His nature is exposed because it is weakened. Righteousness is a defence. A man in sweet communion with G.o.d is girded with strength and endurance, with recuperative energies, of which a man is ignorant when he is alienated from G.o.d, and exposed to wrath. "For the word of G.o.d is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." The Lord G.o.d was abroad. They hid themselves. They were afraid. Ah, there is a nakedness which the culprit feels, which cannot be covered up. G.o.d"s eye pierces through every form of concealment, and lays bare the cause of ruin and the deed of shame. It is impossible to hide from G.o.d. If this world is deceived by our disguises, and pasteboard faces, and long robes, the Being with whom we have to do shall laugh at our calamities and mock when our fear cometh, as we shall stand out in our true characters, and shall be judged for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil.
3. Sin not only changed their relations to each other, awakening their animal nature and killing their spiritual hope of sweet communion with G.o.d, but it changed their relations towards G.o.d. They became aliens to him. They lost their love, and were tortured by fear. They feared him whom they once loved. "And Jehovah G.o.d called to the man, and said to him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and was afraid because I was naked, and hid myself. And he said, Who has showed thee that thou art naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree which I commanded thee not to eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate."
Adam, in his beginnings of sin, furnishes an example to sinners, which has been abundantly copied. He says, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." He finds fault with G.o.d the giver, and fails to condemn woman the sinner. The pa.s.sage is sometimes falsely interpreted, as an unworthy attempt of the man to cast the blame of his offence on the woman. But the emphasis lies on the words _whom thou gavest to be with me_, by which utterance he seeks to transfer the responsibility from himself to G.o.d, who gave him the companion by whose example he was betrayed into sin, instead of placing it upon the woman, who was the guilty cause. Thus he refuses or neglects to denounce the sin; but takes for granted that woman was as G.o.d made her, and acted in accordance with her mechanism. Hence, Adam argued, if any one was responsible, it was her Maker. She acted in accordance with the nature which had been given her. We hear this doctrine advanced daily. "I am what G.o.d made me." A cotton mill weaves cotton because it was made to weave cotton. It is not responsible. It weaves well or ill in accordance with the skill of the mechanism, and not in accordance with the desire of the proprietor. If it weaves ill, you blame the maker. If well, you praise the maker. Adam, in his reply, ignored woman"s moral nature, and talked of her as though she had been a machine. "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." He forgot his own higher nature, forgot his position, and fell. How he differed from the second Adam we shall see before we are done.
It is noticeable, not only that Adam ignored woman"s moral nature, and the ruin wrought by sin, but he a.s.serts a truth. Woman was given to man to provide him with food, to spread the feast, and to keep the house; and in her vocation, and while performing the duties a.s.signed her, she led him astray. It is noteworthy that G.o.d does not reply to Adam, but turns to woman with the question, "_What is this that thou hast done?_" recognizing the fact that she turned from G.o.d, and turned towards G.o.d"s enemy, and in listening, sinned; and in sinning, fell; and in falling, carried with her man; and in carrying man, whelmed the race in the ruin of the fall.
In speaking of woman as a tempter, we are not to forget that she is woman. The serpent beguiled her, and she ate. Satan found in her an ally; an so pleased was he with the results of the partnership he has never dissolved the firm. While woman, as a helpmeet, becomes an ally of Christ, as a tempter she is the ally of Satan. Not as a woman, but as a tempter, she is the ally of the evil one. Satan works in her, as a tempter, both to will and to do according to his good pleasure, whenever she submits to his sway. The reason for this is recorded in the Word of G.o.d. Some sneer at the reference to this time-honored record; but we rea.s.sert the truth. The Bible is the revealed will of G.o.d, and it declares the G.o.d-given sphere of woman. The Bible is, then, our authority for saying woman must content herself with this sphere, and try to meet its responsibilities, or she will lose self-respect and cast away the regard of the community. Without the Bible, her life is everywhere proven to be gloomy. With it, and beneath its protection, she becomes an heir of hope.
Notice the characteristics of her power as a tempter.
1. She is regarded as G.o.d"s best gift to man. She fills a place in man"s heart which is empty without her. It is difficult to think of her as an ally of Satan. We prefer to think of her as G.o.d"s first and best gift to man. Even a fallen woman is regarded as a poor unfortunate, and is tolerated because the many claim she has been more sinned against than sinning. Excuses are woven for her, out of the statements ever afloat, that she was in a starving condition, and was driven to desperation; that she was turned out upon the world, was deceived, led astray, and shipwrecked, and then did not care, and so went from bad to worse, until she became the wreck of her former self, and was given up to l.u.s.t and the pollutions of shame. G.o.d forbid that we should cast stones at her. In the words of Christ, let us rather say to every fallen woman, "Go, _and sin no more_." But when a woman persists in sinning, we should speak of her in the language of Scripture, and boldly warn against her wiles.
A fallen woman is not G.o.d"s gift to man. Before her fall she was G.o.d"s gift. In beauty Eve still remains the model. The artist delights to paint her, and the poet sings her praises. But in conduct she is a warning. Scripture pictures her going to Adam, hiding from him the ruin wrought, and pressing to his lips the fruit which carried death.