Chapter 9

The same is true of the housewife. In the daily routine of duty, which is essential to the comfort and bliss of home life, there is nothing very attractive in the ordinary occupations of the home. Let a woman attempt the task with no outlook, with no hope. Let her do it for so much money, and nothing more, and she becomes morose, discontented, sad and cheerless. Let her do this for love. Let her feel that she is contributing to some one's joy, or that she is to use the money earned for some worthy purpose, and at once the loftiness of her purpose sanctifies her deed, and renders that which would have been unbecoming, if done without a motive, right and noble when performed under the pressure of a great and noble aspiration, for "'tis sweet to labor for those we love."

Woman's work is defined by her Creator to be a work of charity. She is a helpmeet. A gift she came to man. Her life is a constant giving up of rights and privileges for the happiness of others. She waits on man not for pay, but for love. She ministers to him in sickness and in health. It is not the deed, but the spirit which sanctifies the deed, that makes it lovely. Compel her by force, by fear, or by rewards, to do what she performs because of love, and you destroy all the beauty of the action, and convert the ministering angel into a menial, the God-appointed woman into a brutalized slave. God made her a gift, and the law of her life is in giving. She fulfils the functions of her life by living in harmony with the law of love. The woman, described with such inexpressible tenderness by Luke (vii. 37-50), attracts attention by this feature. She came to Christ while he was reclining at table. She had sinned. Still she loved. Here were Christ's feet hanging over the table's edge, while Christ reclined. As he was talking, behold this woman bending over them, her hot tears raining on them, and she busy wiping off the tear-drops with her hair, and kissing them, anointed them with costly ointment. She loved, and therefore evidenced it by deeds. Her love, blossoming into action, won Christ. He saw that she loved. Perhaps love had led her astray at first. No matter. Love she possessed, and love she desired to lavish on some object worthy of her regard. That object she discovered in Jesus. She took her alabaster-box of precious ointment, and went after him. She enters the Pharisee's house; it may have been the house where she had fallen. The Pharisee seemed to know her character, and so he said, "This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner." Christ did not at once recognize the suspicion, but supposing the case of the two debtors, and having obtained from Simon the declaration, that the one would love most who was forgiven most, turned upon him the force of the logic, by saying, "Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she both washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss; but this woman, since the time I came, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint; but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. And he said to the woman, _Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace_."

Let woman's work be regarded as a work of charity by man, and the larger portion of women will be satisfied. The servant finds pleasure in service, when the obligation is recognized as a debt not to be paid for in money.

No wife would do what she is compelled to perform, or suffer what she is compelled to endure, for her board and clothes. It is when man refuses to give her more than these, she revolts. Man never won woman to leave her single life and her home comforts to enter his house as a helpmeet by a consideration of the work to be done. It was not in the contract. He talked then of love, of companionship, of help. The other was in the bond by mutual consent, but it was regarded as beneath their notice to talk about it. Her nature yearned for love, and lives on love.

Now, when a man forgets that love, companionship, and the thousand attentions which sweeten and brighten life, are due to his wife, and when he lifts up the drudgery and the slavery of life into prominence, and tells her that she is only fitted to hold a menial place, he insults, if he does not destroy the woman, and degrades himself. On the other hand, let a woman refuse to be influenced by this law of charity, and she becomes a curse instead of a blessing, a hinderance instead of a helpmeet.

It is a very common complaint that a good servant is difficult to find. Some are slovenly, some are dishonest, while those who are both able and truthful, are pronounced intolerable, frequently because of their impertinence. All can understand the reason. The servant has no interest in her employer who refuses to _give_ anything. The servant works for so much money. "As to rights, privileges, and perquisites, it is not unfrequently either a battle or a sort of armed treaty between kitchen and parlor." Many will admit this, and will forget or ignore the cause. Listen to the servants' story, and you will find them complaining of the stinginess, or tyranny, or selfishness of the employer.

Let the law of charity rule both employer and employed, and behold the change. The mistress recognizes her weight of obligation to a good and faithful domestic. She feels that her services are beyond price, invaluable to her. The effect is seen at once. The sluggish step is quickened. Love takes the place of indifference if not of dislike, and the relations of friendship are at once recognized. No mistress has a right to expect that her servants will be bound to her by the ties of friendship, if she manifest no friendly feeling for them; or that they will become devoted to her interests, if she take no interest in their welfare. The law of mutual dependence must be recognized and obeyed. God is love. God loves. Therefore, it is a pleasure to love and serve God. It is a pleasure to serve whoever is appreciative and lovable. It is a task to serve those who are unappreciative and unlovable. At the same time a Christian servant has no right to slight her work, or be unfaithful, because of the harshness or unkindness of her employer. Live for God, and serve Christ in serving well those by whom you are employed, and you will not lose your reward on earth nor in heaven. Trusty and true, your services will become of immense importance, and doors to usefulness will open before you because of the superintending care of Him who is too wise to err and too good to be unkind. Let not woman dislike the term _service_ or _servant_. Christ honored it by becoming the servant of all, and made it honorable by commanding that he who would be chief must serve, and by his service rise.

Woman sometimes revolts because her work is classed under the head of _domestic_, and yet this is the chief characteristic that must distinguish it. That is, her work must have a look homeward, whether she toils in the store or factory or printing-office or kitchen. Somehow the stream of love must sing as it goes babbling by, "Home, home, there is no place like home," else woman fails in her life-work.

Her education must fit her for a home and for home work. Let a man learn that he married a toy, a plaything, a lay figure, useful only for the purposes of exhibiting his taste in jewelry and dress, who desires to be petted and fondled, to be caressed and flattered, but who is incapable of doing anything to contribute to his happiness at home or to his influence abroad, and he comes to feel that she is an encumbrance. If he clings to the old love, and cherishes the old conviction, he learns to treat his wife as a plaything, and to forget her as a helpmeet. He thinks of her as of a toy, which may be used or cast aside at pleasure. She knows and feels the lack of his love. If she becomes dissatisfied, and refuses to make the effort to become a helpful wife and a loving companion, or to be influenced by the law of charity; if she determines to seek happiness in obtaining the admiration of others, which once unwittingly came from her husband; then is she probably ruined, and becomes a "body of death" fastened to one who looks forward to the grave as a refuge and a release, or who finds in the society of other women that pleasure which is denied him at home. Perhaps nothing is more disgusting than to see an empty brain hidden behind a pretty face, or an empty heart concealed beneath costly drapery. A woman who is handsome and is illiterate, who is incapable of speaking entertainingly, is far more homely than a plain face in front of a well cultivated intellect; and a plain dressed woman, with a heart full of love, is to be preferred to a splendidly dressed form which is destitute of soul. Jewels, laces, and silks are not a fit dress for a corpse, and yet a heartless woman is to a man who knows her as soulless as an inanimate body coffined for the tomb. Having thus briefly considered the necessity of linking woman's work and mission together, let us define her work, and consider what is her mission.

Woman has work to do. Though idleness does not destroy her as it does a man, yet it does not become her. Merely to display her charms for the admiration of others cannot be the destiny of one created with a woman's hand and head, and endowed with woman's soul. From the nature of the case, her work should be womanly in its character; that which is within doors rather than without; which belongs to the ornamental rather than to the mechanical. There is no sense in woman's working in the field while man measures tapes or counts thimbles, or in his doing other in-door work for which woman's light touch renders her better qualified. When we look at women who have become coarse in the expression of their features, and ungainly in form and movement, through the weight of their daily toil, we see the folly of those who would make the woman the equal, or the rival, instead of the helpmeet of man; and feel indignation that, since many of our women must earn their own livelihood, we have not a more natural division of labor, which would assign to man the heavier, and to woman the lighter kinds of work. As woman's faith blesses as well as saves her; it is essential that her work be linked in some way to the exercise of faith, and to the unfolding of love. For the character of the work exerts an influence upon woman's body as well as upon her soul. If you will contrast the looks of a happy housewife or domestic with the looks of a majority of the faces that are seen in factories, the truth of the position taken will be abundantly sustained. It matters not so much where the roots of woman's life-work grow, if up through it all, and above it all, the vine may twine its tendril, and send forth its flower, and yield its fruit. For this cause the love of Christ and the hopes of a Christian life seem so essential to her growth and development, that it is almost impossible to write of a happy, contented woman, without describing a woman whose faith in Jesus has regenerated and disinthralled her. Love is the prime requisite to successful endeavor on a woman's part to be her husband's true helpmeet; and so, in discharging the duties incident to a life of toil, woman must be soothed and sustained in her tasks by the joys of a Christian life. Hence the ruin wrought in shops and factories, in stores, and homes where Christ is cast out, and where the bliss of high and holy living is denied.

Woman's mission is to be inferred from a consideration of the wants of man. Created to be a helpmeet for man, it is essential, if we would determine her mission, that we ascertain for what purpose man needs her influence.

God declared, "It is not good for man to be alone," and woman was brought to him as a companion, to charm his life, to prolong it by sharing it with him. Her vocation, by birth, is a vocation of love. To be his helpmeet, not his rival; not to increase, but to lighten, or to support him, under his cares; to recognize him as the immediate object of her existence, instead of fancying that he was formed to wait on her; this is the end for which God has called her into being. As has been said, "This representation may not satisfy the ambition of some, who do but degrade themselves by aspiring to occupy a position for which they are neither intended by God nor qualified by nature,--even as men and angels fell when they sought to become as gods,--but in reality it tends to woman's elevation; and, as the whole history of Christianity doth show, where its truth is most recognized and relied upon, there woman is happiest and greatest."

The word "mission," as applied to woman, refers to the purpose for which she was created and brought to man. In considering her mission, we are safe in avowing that woman found her mission, 1. At home. Her mission is in the home. Her training must fit her for the home, whether she serves as a wife or as a domestic. Her life is a success when she makes home a pleasure and a joy to those to whom the home properly belongs. It is for this reason that there is deep concern on the part of many thoughtful minds because the drift of the times is against educating women for the home. Of the women who are compelled to earn their own subsistence many prefer the factory and the store to the work in the family, and, as a result, there are large numbers of young women who cannot make a loaf of bread or cook a meal, who would not hesitate to become wives of working-men, who expect to find in them a helpmeet in building a home like that which blessed their childhood. The result is dissatisfaction and recrimination, leaving the wife for the club, and turning from the joys of the home to the revel of jovial companions.

The same is true of the class of young ladies who know something of music, vocal and instrumental. They can dance. They have studied drawing sufficiently to be able to sketch a few flowers and figures. Perhaps they can speak French and translate German. They know in what position to sit, and how to move gracefully. All very well these things in their places, and fitted to increase the charm of manner when the eyes are lighted up by the informing soul; not undeserving notice either in their influence upon man, when they are accompanied by something better, for, amid all the weighty cares of life, he is sometimes in the mood when such things do please; but sadly over-estimated when they are made the sole substance and end of a woman's education. They might nearly all be done by a being without a soul. They do nothing to draw out the noble qualities of her deep womanly nature. They leave her altogether unfitted for her peculiar mission of a wife and mother.

Now, there are times when a woman, despite her imperfect education, acquires after marriage the knowledge which fits her for the duties appertaining to wifehood. But where nature yields to such training, the woman fails both in filling her sphere and in fulfilling her mission, and falls beneath her true position as the helpmeet of man. How bitter his disappointment, who, having been smitten by these gewgaw attractions, and having put faith in the mother of the child that with this outward attraction she had corresponding qualifications to fill the home with helpful counsel and sustaining sympathy, when he comes to find that, instead of a _wife_, he has married a plaything, and that his children are being committed to the care of a helpless, unformed companion, rather than to the guidance of a true and noble wife.

A proper conception of woman's mission as the helpmeet of man would tend greatly to her elevation. A man who knows for what woman has been made, and what advantage he should look for from the woman whom he calls wife, will not select a mere toy as the partner of his life; and when woman properly recognizes her place, mothers will not be content to give their daughters, nor will daughters be ambitious, or even content to receive only such a training as fits them for amusing or pleasing man in his playful hours, but leaves them altogether unfit to be his companion under the weightier cares and graver concerns of life.

Let it be understood that woman's life and labor, mission and work, point ever homeward, and whether she serve in the store or shop, in the factory or in the home, she will be ready, whenever God's providence opens the way, to make home bright for another, because it has been made bright for herself. In her reading, in her planning, in her waking dreams and in her night visions, let her live to make her own home joyous, and she will not live in vain. To do this successfully in the future, she must make home bright and beautiful in the present. It is the girl, whose hand is skilful in the home, who is prized as a companion, because of the substantial linked with the ornamental. The same is true of a man. Talent, genius even, is valueless unless it can earn bread. There must be something to make home pleasant with, which it is the duty of man to provide, else woman finds it hard to do her work or fulfil her mission. This does not disparage woman. Her intellect should not be regarded as inferior to man's because it differs from his. Her mind is formed for a distinct work and sphere, just as truly as is her body. In that sphere she is endowed with faculties superior to that of man. Here she has her requital: here she proves herself mistress of the field, and employs those secret resources which might be termed admirable, if they did not inspire a more tender sentiment, both towards her, and towards God, who has so richly endowed her. "Her practical survey, equally sure and rapid; her quick and accurate perception; her wonderful power of penetrating the heart in a way unknown and impracticable to man; her never-failing presence of mind, and personal attention on all occasions; her numerous and fertile resources in the management of her domestic affairs; her ever ready access and willing audience to all who need her; her freedom of thought and action in the midst of the most agonizing sufferings and accumulated embarrassments; her elasticity,--may I say her perseverance,--in spite of feebleness; her tact to practise it, were it not instinctive; her extreme perfection in little things; ... her incomparable skill in re-awakening a sleeping conscience, in re-opening a heart that has long been closed; in fine, innumerable are the things which she accomplishes, and which man can neither discern nor offset without the aid of her eye and hand. Thus, mentally as well as physically, is she predestined for a work and sphere different from those of her stronger companions. And, as everything is beautiful in its place and season, so is woman most beautiful and useful when, like a modest flower, she blooms in the privacy for which her nature fits her, and perfumes, with the fragrance of her character, the hallowed precincts of home."[A] "No man," says Mr. Jay, "was ever proof against the kindness of a sensible woman; but where, in all history, can an instance be produced in which an ascendency over him has been obtained by forwardness, scolding, and strife for preeminence? No wife has such influence with, or even such control over, her husband, as

"'She who never answers till her husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submission sways, Yet has her humor most when she obeys.'"

[Footnote A: Woman's Sphere and Work, by Rev. Wm. Landels, D.D., London.]

2. Woman's mission is social as well as domestic. The domestic part of her life is the garden, in which the seed is planted, which brings forth the flower of social joy. A woman who is the soul of a beautiful home is a power in society. No matter what her talents may be, let it be known that she is a slattern at home, and she is without influence. The pen may serve as a feather to adorn her social life, but it looks mean when the use of it causes the neglect of the needle.

Woman may be a secret power in the home. She may make home attractive to the refined and cultured, and thus prove to be the magnet attracting to herself and to her fireside those gifted sons and daughters, the scintillations of whose genius and the dissemination of whose beautiful thoughts make the home luminous with a light which is inextinguishable. The influence of such a woman over her children and over the young cannot be overestimated.

"Such a sphere, so far from being insufficient to satisfy a true woman's ambition, is well fitted, by its tremendous responsibilities, to excite her fears. There is not one, perhaps, which a human being can occupy, on which hang more stupendous issues. Though less public, it is still more potential than man's."

The influence of a true woman cannot be confined to the home. Home is the fountain, and the world gladly furnishes channels for the diffusion of her influence. In promoting the cause of reform, in alleviating the woes of the unfortunate, in carrying forward the cause of temperance, in ministering to the sick, either as a nurse or a physician, in using her pen to delight and guide the thoughts of the young and old along the garden paths of her own loving life, thick with the blossoms of hope, and made glorious by deeds of charity,--in these, and in numberless other ways, woman, finding her throne in the house, is welcomed as a ruler in the world.

For woman there is a felt a necessity which should send her forth as a missionary to those like herself in everything but blessings. Think of our large factory towns, where women are congregated by hundreds and thousands. Let it be remembered that there is something unnatural in all this. Woman was made for man, for home, for love. Separate her from them all, herd her with her kind, subtract from her the incentive to endeavor, leave her mind to brood in fancy, to welcome unholy aspirations and degrading thoughts to her soul, and you leave her to prey upon herself. Let woman see to it that reading-rooms for women be established in our factory towns, that their boarding-houses be warmed and rendered inviting, that the talented be encouraged to exertion, and that tidiness and neatness be made an incentive for all, and woman will do a work of immeasurable importance,--a work on which God's blessing will rest,--and those who toil to accomplish it will obtain an abundant reward from Him who declares, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye did it unto me."

In the cause of Reform woman's help is needed. From the earliest commencement of the temperance movement, appeals, arguments, and expostulations have been addressed by earnest reformers to woman, because it was felt that on any great social question the power of woman to help, or to hinder, was all-important. When it is remembered that woman is the greatest sufferer from the vice of intemperance, that she regulates the customs of society, it is apparent that she should seek to abolish bad, and promote good customs. More than others she trains the young and builds up character, and therefore she should, by example and precept, implant such habits as may be not only a safeguard in childhood and youth, but become fixed as moral principles in those she has reared, when the responsibility arrives; because of these, we find reasons in abundance why woman must help, or aid cannot reach the imperilled and undone.