history of our world, among those who have been true to the hour, and to the occasion, we find the "chief women not a few." In the religion of Jesus, when work has to be done, men may find the money, but women will bring to the work the best feelings of the soul. END OF BOOK IT. 95 WOMAN THE GLORY OF THE MAN. BOOK III. INNOCENCE AND NOT GUILT. CHAPTER I. THE TRUE. "Give me leave To speak my mind, and I will through and through If they will patiently receive my medicine."-Shakspere. Woman was made upright, but she has sought out many inventions. And each one of them has brought herself down a step from her original and high position. To be true to her first nature there must be a resurrection from the dead. Water finds its level; woman must do the same. It has been ebb-tide with her for a long time; the tide has turned in her favour now, she must rise and flow with it. The neap is past, the spring will be coming The vernal and autumnal equinox will help soon. her up again. "There is a tide in the affairs of women, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Is bound in shallows, and in miseries, On such a full sea are we now afloat; And we must take the current when it serves, Woman fallen is not what she was, is not what she was intended to become. Woman in the dust is not in her proper place. Her real womanly nature must not be judged of by what it is when guilty, nor where she is when found in degradation. The true is not dead in her but sleepeth. It may be buried beneath the rubbish that falsehood has heaped upon it, and in some cases all but stifled with the deposits of sin, and all but breathless from the wounds inflicted by vice and guilt; but the true has a deathless ancestry, and crested with an immortal destiny. The true in woman, however low, degraded, or debased her lot, is often felt and seen; and like the panting for freedom in the slave, the more intense, when recollection returns, with the prostrating and abject state of slavery. For in contempt of the falsehoods transmitted through ages, the slaveries perpetrated through past and present generations, freedom can never be alienated from the human mind, for both freedom and the soul have eternal being. As the The robe which woman wore at first was that of innocence, and trimmed with truth. Her garments have been spotted since. A ray of glory was round her brows, a cloud overhangs them now. priestess at the altar of truth, she once offered up her holy soul with the music in her song. The thrown-down altar is left to moulder and decay; the fire scattered from off the shrine smoulders beneath the ruins; the silence is broken with a hollow moan, for she sits a mourner by. Stand up upon thy feet, and gather up the fragments, woman! that the true which is in thee may not be lost. In degradation is seen woman's misery; in réstoration lies her happiness. The fruit of vice is grief, the reward of virtue joy. Sin drives its victims out of their earthly paradise, bathed in tears; holiness smiles and makes its subjects happy. Guilt leaves its prey in the dust, innocence leads the soul to glory. Descending bodies fall with an increasing velocity the nearer they approach the earth, which attracts them. The higher the position from which an individual falls, continuing in the downward path, adds a viciousness to the entire constitution, and such an one becomes literally of " the earth earthy." When high-praised virtue trips her foot, and falls, many a sad history tells the tale of rushing into the deep abyss and folding the arms together in sin and every attendant evil. What is a woman without being true at the heart? A reed shaken with the wind, and made the sport of every fool, and the creature of every folly. The Osteologist describes the food and habits of extinct animals. The Antiquarian from the relics of former times traces the history of the past. The Sculptor, from a broken limb of a figure, sketches the proportions of the whole. And from woman as she is, may be traced woman as she was. In her present condition the relics of her former state are seen. Before she was false she was true, and ere she becomes a sinner she is holy. The daily object of her life should be to recover from the fallen state in which she is, whatever part of the road of life she may be in, and show mankind what a beautiful life a woman's may be made. Restoration should be a constant aim. She must be born again. The woman, true to herself and others, gathereth; but the false woman scattereth abroad, she sows to the wind and reaps the whirlwind. The susceptibilities of woman enable her to rise. When impulse takes the right direction it becomes a blessing; should it take the wrong course it will bring back a curse. Curiosity, an inquisitiveness to search for gems of truth, will reward the searcher; but breaking through the hedge, treading forbidden. ground, and plucking forbidden fruit, has lost many an earthly paradise, and will lose many more. Her charms are graces, and given to serve her like good angels, lest she should dash her foot against a stone. Ministering angels these, and should be sent forth to minister, not to the passions of the gross and sensual, but for the purification of the propensities both of the rude and vain. Let woman be true to her nature, kind and gentle, timid and trustful, loving, tender, and truthful in her conduct, and her course shall be both onward and upward. There The lower woman sinks in degradation, the more assistance she requires to help her; the more distressing is her lot, more disinterestedness of love and a greater degree of sympathy are needed on her behalf. The lower she is down, the longer arm and stronger hand become necessary to raise her up. Hers is the more urgent necessity. She wants a gospel, whose chief elements shall be found to be truth and love; where mercy and truth are seen to meet, and righteousness and peace embrace. was a fallen woman brought before the Man, who spake as never man spake, who wept over downtrodden weakness, and came to raise it up. This woman was paraded before His eyes, and her sin trumpeted in His ears. When her accusers would have thrust her lower down, stoned her with stones, and cast her out, Jesus, the Man of sorrows, knowing what sorrow was, told her how to rise from her debased condition, and throw off the associations of her wretchedness; how to win back the golden opinions of civilized society, recover her position, and be at peace with herself, with heaven, and all the world, to "go and sin no more." And this He ever did. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Who had ever heard of blessings being pronounced upon the poor before Jesus uttered them? It was to Him dearer than life to bless those whom others cursed; to bind up the broken heart, and comfort mourning souls; to restore the poor unhappy wanderer over life's wild waste, and dry up the widow's tears in the open street. He never broke the bruised reed nor quenched the smoking flax. A fallen |