in ignorance of the non-political status of women, and the legal disabilities under which they live and suffer. They cannot either shut their eyes to the fact, much as they may love their sisters, that, in the ordinary routine of life, their own school and college expenses are the first consideration, their professions and future careers the cause of the greatest concern to their parents. Our whole system of education is based upon the hypothesis, that the male branch of the family is the most important, and upon it must be expended the largest amount of means, time, and culture; the female branch remaining content with such training as it may obtain at second-best. It is not therefore surprising that young men, seeing in the home-circle the total subordination of feminine interests to masculine advancement, should, on entering the outer life of the world, be already deeply imbued with a deep-seated conviction, that the inferiority, the disabilities, and the degradation of women, are simply necessary conditions of a divinely-appointed system; the inevitable adjuncts of a social and political economy, which it would be unwise to subvert or even to modify; more particularly as the almost universal acceptance of this belief on the part of men acts as a sedative to their consciences and a stimulant to their egotism. True chivalry is begotten in the home; and the knights of "St. Bayard" first win their spurs in the sweet amenities of family life, in devotion, reverence, and consideration towards the women nearest and dearest to them. Such discipline tends "Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thoughts and amiable words The fact is very patent throughout the different classes composing the English nation, that the future of the daughters is a minor consideration: and little or no provision is made for them corresponding to the time-honoured and invariable system of dowry, strictly observed by other civilised peoples. The dot of the French girl, the Mitgift of the German, and the marriage portion set aside for the daughters of Italy and Spain, contrast most unfavourably with the unaccountable and supine negligence of English parents in this supreme 1 Tennyson. L item of domestic economy. It should be the duty of every father to place his daughters in such a position as to be independent of marriage: or where want of adequate means renders such provision impossible, to bestow on them sufficient intellectual culture as to make them, equally with the sons, capable of earning their own livelihood. By this just division of means and opportunities the sons would be rendered less egotistical, and the daughters more self-reliant. The Americans are far in advance of us in this matter. With a spirit of chivalry, as high and as pure as ever nerved to noble deeds the knights of the Middle Ages, but permeated with the practical common-sense of the nineteenth century, the men of the United States have given place aux Dames in every vocation in life. Bankers employ their daughters as clerks, cashiers, and accountants; solicitors article their sisters; and no field of labour is closed to woman on the score of sex, through the jealousy or exclusiveness of man. Two notable examples of this chivalrous generosity and unselfish sympathy with woman's intellectual development are to be found in the careers of the respective wives of the two late candidates for the Presidentship, Mrs. M'Kinley and Mrs. Bryan; the latter, throughout her husband's arduous election tour, acted as his sole and trusted legal adviser; the former, before her marriage, was for some years head cashier in her father's bank. In training her daughters for the full and free entrance into the intellectual and industrial world, which is, in Great Britain, being tardily opened to them, the mother of the present day has to undertake the arduous task of reconciling two conflicting factors-of uniting the newly-found liberty and emancipation from ancient conventionalities, with the subtle and delicate sensitiveness indispensable to the spiritual development of the true woman's character. Girls may well feel a spirit of exultation and emulation as they recognise the great domains of power, achievement, usefulness, and activity lying before them, if they exercise their natural abilities to master and enjoy them. But the independence of character, induced by this uplifting of woman's interests from the narrow confines of domesticity to a higher and wider plane of thought and action, must not be gained through the loss of the distinctive and precious traits of womanhood. Though, as a writer remarks, "it is inevitable that the removal of any external pressure of necessity to marry for the sake of a home and support, will have a tendency to elevate the standard of marriage first among women, and then among men," and women will no longer regard marriage as the sole aim in life; yet the true balance must still be struck, not in the outside turmoil of the world, with all its varied triumphs and absorbing charms, but in the inner recesses of the home, where will ever blossom the beauty, devotion, and unselfishness of feminine characteristics. The sweet ministering spirit must not be overshadowed by a materialistic realisation of a competency, gained through individual effort. Home duties, faithfully, lovingly performed, must still remain the chief vocation of many a woman, fully competent intellectually to compete with masculine minds in the outer world, yet perforce bound to the daily routine of humble cares and purely domestic tasks. For these imprisoned souls the earthly day of liberty has not dawned; their strength is to sit still, and await the call of the Master to a higher and fuller life of service, having performed well all that here lay under their hands to do. The happiness, the purity, the sanctity of social life depend upon the modern woman being able to strike the right mean between the exciting manifold attractions of the busy allengrossing world, and the unobtrusive, unalterable duties of the family circle. The true secret of happiness lies in right action at the right time; and no transitory triumphs of intellectual achievement on the part of woman will counterbalance the neglect of positive duties. Therefore a mother, in these days of restless discontent, of pulling down the barriers, of burning the boats, in a reckless spirit of new-born freedom, cannot too strongly impress upon her impulsive and enthusiastic daughters the great truth that, widely as women's influence may be diffused, it must ever radiate from the home-centre, the hearth must ever be the touchstone of woman's magnetic power, if it is to be of lasting benefit to mankind, either socially or morally. As the dove returned to the Ark, so will the true woman, after a brief flight amid the dazzling allurements of intellectual and material freedom, return instinctively to the shelter and privacy of home life, as her natural haven of sweetness, happiness, and rest. ᏢᎪᎡᎢ Ꮩ WOMAN AS THE SISTER ONE of the most remarkable features in the dispensation of the Christian religion, was the individual status and important functions Christianity conferred upon the single woman. Our Saviour's closest and dearest earthly friends in social life were Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary, loving single women, who superintended their brother's household, and made him a home. The Marys and the Marthas, the saints and the workers, have been since that time the two feminine types of individual Christians. The one who prays, and the one who serves, symbolising the faith and the works of Christianity. St. Paul further elevated the position of the single woman. He considered the unmarried woman had greater facilities, greater leisure and a wider sphere of usefulness for the exercise of good works than the married woman; and therefore, her condition was the most blessed, and set apart for the active service of God. "There is a difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband" (1 Cor. vii. 34). Thus in the Christian economy, the mother and the wife were circumscribed to specific and definite home duties; while the unmarried woman was appointed to active co-operative service in the outer world; her mission was to comprise humanity at large; and her influence was to be universal. Now when one considers the abnormally sensual and perverted estimation accorded to sexual relations in the ancient faith; how the heathen civilisations each made marriage the chief aim of a woman's existence, and her only hope of obtaining a shadow of authority; and how in the social, civic, and 164 political life no sphere of action was recognised for single women, unless they belonged to the Hetairai, or devoted themselves as vestals 1 and virgins to the temples of the gods, this distinction and precedence given to the single woman in the gospel dispensation must give rise in all thoughtful minds to the most serious and profound reflections. Christianity had work in hand that only the unmarried sister or daughter could accomplish faithfully, persistently, and effectually. To be unwedded was no longer, as among the lascivious heathen, to be a term of reproach, but rather to be respected as a condition in which the individual could give herself up unreservedly to labour in various fields of usefulness, that would be debarred her when tied and bound by the limitations, duties, cares, and exigencies of married life. She was to take up the threads as they fell from the busy hands of the mother and the wife. She was, above all, to be the teacher, the nurse, the servant of humanity. She was to develop and train what of good the mother had initiated in the children; bringing more and more into active play their best qualities and talents. She was to bind up the wounds of the sufferers outside the home-circle; she was to diffuse the light, sweetness, and love of Christian sympathy into the home-life of thousands. She was to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend the sick, comfort the sorrowing, and bring hope to the despairing. Her life, her energies, her talents, and her opportunities were to be devoted to the needs of the common brother and sister-hood; and to the practical realisation of the law of Love. To her was the mandate given Take up -Soiled, broken, and forlorn-and weave them Into a golden web, meet for the Throne of God." Her vocation was the consecration of unfettered, individual ability to the service of Christ. The single woman's elevation thus demonstrated a distinct evolution in woman, due to Christianity alone. 1 "It was with the utmost difficulty that Ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals, but the primitive Church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex, who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.”—"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Gibbon. |