A NOBLE WOMAN | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 13.

A NOBLE WOMAN.

Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, whose death took place March 8, at the ripe age of eighty-five, was a lady of the old school, one of the solid, sensible housewives and mothers, now becoming fewer, of a half century ago. When married she began housekeeping in two rooms over a stable, at the rent of $40 a year. She was the mother of ten children. Her opinion of the so-called “new woman” and woman’s place is expressed in the following extracts.

“I confess,” she wrote not long ago in the Thrice-a-Week World, “I have no sympathy for the new woman. I look back some twenty or twenty-five years to a far different type of woman, to homes under their influence which conjugal and maternal love made almost celestial, where the poor were helped, the sick visited and comforted; where the door swung open almost involuntarily with true and hearty welcome to all. No female orator, no ‘new woman,’ ever did the real Christlike good done by saints of former times.””

“What is the ability to speak on a public platform or the wisdom that may command a seat on a judge’s bench compared to that which can insure and preside over a true home?”

Here are two extracts on the relation of husband and wife and the training of children:—

“Don’t let the idea of authority have a part in the discussion. It is an ugly word between husband and wife at all times, and, in the endeavor to settle a disputed point, keep it as far out of sight as possible, if you would hope for good results. Go to your wife in the same spirit that influenced you while wooing her, and speak with the same tenderness. Words thus spoken will be like oil on troubled waters, and bring you into closer and sweeter communion than any intimidating command or authority can do.”

“Sternness and severity in the management and training of children should be avoided if possible. Just as long as they will secure prompt obedience, rule your children by gentle, loving words. But when they fail, the true, holy mother love, which God always accepts and blesses, must work for the child’s best good, even if it can be secured only by present pain. Children thus carefully but lovingly trained will be crosses of glory to their parents and fill their old age with rejoicing and thanksgiving.”

Here are thoughts worthy of consideration, not because uttered by Mrs. Beecher, but because they are of worth.