p. 12 | THE GOSPEL AND WOMAN by MRS. SUSAN BIRDSALL ROBERTS.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 8, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 32.

THE GOSPEL AND WOMAN.

By MRS. SUSAN BIRDSALL ROBERTS.

"Will the Coming Woman Attend Church?"

THE above question was raised by women at a freethinkers' convention, and decided in the negative,—"for since the Gospel has done nothing for woman, of course she will not!"

So now, O ye devoted Christian mothers, you who nightly clasp the tiny hands of the little daughter at your knee, as you try to lead the impressible heart to God, while she lisps out her evening prayer, go to, weep and lament, since the seed you sow is to bear no fruit! The impressions you make are to be like the footprints in the sand, that the rising tide shall erase. The God to whom you have given her in everlasting covenant, is ignored; for the coming woman, who is to mature under your prayerful care, is to lose her chief characteristics of reverence and devotion, and, falling from her present elevated position, is to become irreverent and defiant. With no reverence for sacred scenes and associations, it is easy to see what her future will become. Indeed, we have seen what is the end of such a course in life. Examples are not wanting in our police courts in all large cities.

But how much do these free-talkers know about what shall be? They do not seem to know much about what has been. They tell us that the Gospel has done nothing for woman. Is it not amazing that any one should thus parade her ignorance? One would think these women were Rip Van Winkles, and, having slept during the last half century, had never heard that there are heathen countries, where the condition of woman is not as desirable as that of the beasts of burden with us; where they are burden-bearers and slaves of the most abject kind, bought and sold, married in infancy to old men for whom they have no feeling but horror, and at the close of their miserable lives, burned on funeral piles.

"Did you not tell me it was a little girl?" said a native to a missionary, who insisted upon picking up a little unfortunate which had been left by the wayside to die like a snail or a worm. What a contrast to the way they are treated with us, where, in every well-regulated family, woe to the boy who treats rudely his little sister, and where the wife, instead of standing behind her lord and master, to eat what he leaves, sits, the honored mistress at the board, to whom all do reverence; the first to be cared for at home or abroad, in street or railway car, at the opera, the church—everywhere! And why?—Because of the Christianizing and civilizing influence of the Gospel, as all know who will admit the truth. And just as fast and as surely as the Gospel makes its way among the heathen, just so fast and truly is the elevation of woman assured. Man, the stronger, is taught to give honor to the weaker and defenseless, to become her protector and guide, to acknowledge her right to self-control, to assist her to make the most of all her powers, to cultivate her intellectual and spiritual nature (for the Gospel teaches her she has a soul to save and a mind susceptible of large attainments), in order to fit her for the noblest duties of this life and the highest enjoyment in the life to come.

Is this nothing, O ye women scoffers? Then go to the islands of the sea—to Africa, India—any of the dark places of which the earth is full, and live with females there in filth, vermin, and nudity, with nothing to raise you above their condition of degradation, and methinks the pure pleasures of the Christian home and of the sanctuary will seem lovely in your eyes. And then tell us, if you can, what the Gospel has not done for woman.

We wish we could think it ignorance alone that prompts this railing and these unwarranted attacks upon the Christian church, of whose blessed mission they know so little. But we think we see the same deadly hatred of our adorable Lord and Saviour that drove the nails and thrust the spear into that precious body when He cried, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." But, alas, that woman, "last at the cross, and first at the grave," should have fallen so low as to raise her impotent voice against the holy and just One, to whom she is indebted for all that makes life worth possessing, and for that Sacrifice which offers to her the bliss of heaven!

"O, what is woman, what her smile, Her look of love, her eye of light, What is she if her lips revile The lowly Jesus? Love may write His name upon her marble brow, And linger in her curls of jet; The bright spring flower may scarcely bow Beneath her tread; and yet, and yet, Without that meeker grace she'll be A lighter thing than vanity."