Volume I Part 97 (1/2)
[213] While in the midst of correcting proof, March 22d, the New York press comes with an article showing how generally women are rousing to their rights. It is headed:
”WOMEN AT THE CHURCH POLL--_What Came of Reviving an Old Statute in Portchester_.--The trustees of the Presbyterian Church in Portchester, although elected on the 24th of February last, did not organize until about ten days ago. The reason for this delay lies in the claim made by some of the congregation that the election was irregular, owing to women having been allowed to vote. Some of the trustees who held over were at first inclined to resign, and the matter has been much discussed. When opposition was made to women voting, H. T. Smith produced the statute of 1818, which says that any member of the church at full age shall have a right to vote for trustees. There is nothing in the act prohibiting women from voting. There are, I believe, statutes forbidding women to vote in the Dutch Reformed and Episcopal Churches; but this is a regular Presbyterian Church. It seems to me that the women have worked hard for this church, and that they ought to have a vote at the election of trustees and other officers. A Sun reporter called upon the ladies for their version of the troubles.
Miss Pink, who is a school teacher, said: 'We women do four-fifths of the work, and contribute more than one-half the money to support the church. Two years ago we were allowed to vote for a minister, and we don't see why we shouldn't vote for trustees and at other elections.'
Miss Camp gave similar reasons for voting. Mrs. Montgomery Lyon said: 'If the old trustees didn't know that we had a right to vote, it isn't our fault. We women do all the work, and why shouldn't we vote!' Women will vote for President, soon.”
[214] The above is article xiv. of the by-laws of the society connected with the aforesaid church. Thus the society undertakes to dictate to the church who shall have a voice in the selection of a pastor. It is a matter of grat.i.tude that the society, if it forbids females to vote in the church, yet allows them to pray and to help the society raise money.--_Independent_, _N. Y._, _Feb. 24, 1881_.
[215] BROKEN DOWN.--Mrs. Van Cott, the woman evangelist, has retired from the field, probably forever. Her nervous system is broken down.
During the fourteen years of her ministry she has traveled 143,417 miles, has preached 4,294 sermons, besides conducting 9,333 other religious meetings, and writing 9,853 letters.--_Ex_.
[216] But this Conference, which could not recognize woman's equality of rights in the Church, adjourned in a body to Chicago, before its business was completed, by its presence there to influence the Republican Nominating Convention in favor of General Grant's name for the Presidency.
[217] A professor of theology said a while ago, how sorry he should be to have the law recognize that one-half of the income of the family belonged to his wife, ”it would establish such a mine-and-thine relation.” It evidently seemed to him, somehow, more harmonious, less of the earth, earthy, that he could say, ”All mine, my love,” and that she could sweetly respond, ”All thine, dearest.”--_State Prohibitionist_, _Des Moines, Ia._, _Jan. 28, 1881_.
[218] The great botanist, Linnaeus, was persecuted when he first presented his s.e.xual system in vegetation to the world.
[219] The legal subordination of one s.e.x to another is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no powers or privileges on the one side or disability on the other.--_Subjection of Woman, John Stuart Mill_.
[220] The _Worcester Chronicle_ of recent date gives an account of a wife sale in England. Thomas Middleton delivered up his wife Mary M.
to Philip Rostius, and sold her for one s.h.i.+lling and a quart of ale, and parted from her solely and absolutely for life, ”not to trouble one another for life.” Philip Rostius made his mark as a witness. A second witness was S. H. Sh.o.r.e, Crown Inn, Trim street.
[221] In the peace made by the Sabines with the Romans, after the forcible abduction of the Sabine maidens, one of the provisions was that no labor, except spinning, should be required of these Roman wives.
[222] THE FAIR s.e.x IN THE ALPS.--The farmers In the Upper Alps, though by no means wealthy, live like lords in their houses, while the heaviest portion of agricultural labors devolves on the wife. It is no uncommon thing to see a woman yoked to the plough with an a.s.s, while her husband guides it. An Alpine farmer accounts it an act of politeness to lend his wife to a neighbor who has too much work, and the neighbor in return lends his wife for a few days' labor whenever requested.
[223] Lord Shaftesbury bringing the subject before Parliament.
[224] A STORY OF IRELAND IN 1880.--Recently, a young girl named Catherine Cafferby, of Belmullet, in County Mayo--the pink of her father's family--fled from the ”domestic service” of a landlord as absolute as Lord Leitrim, the moment the poor creature discovered what that ”service” customarily involved. The great man had the audacity to invoke the law to compel her to return, as she had not given statutable notice of her flight. She clung to the door-post of her father's cabin; she told aloud the story of her terror, and called on G.o.d and man to save her. Her tears, her shrieks, her piteous pleadings were all in vain. The Petty Sessions Bench ordered her back to the landlord's ”service,” or else to pay 5, or two weeks in jail. This is not a story of Bulgaria under Murad IV., but of Ireland in the reign of the present sovereign. That peasant girl went to jail to save her chast.i.ty. If she did not spend a fortnight in the cells, it was only because friends of outraged virtue, justice, and humanity paid the fine when the story reached the outer world.
[225] The son of the late William Ellery Channing, in a recent letter to a friend on this point, says: ”Religions like the Jewish and Christian, which make G.o.d exclusively _male_, consign woman logically to the subordinate position which is definitely a.s.signed to her in Mahometanism. History has kept this tradition. The subjection of woman has existed as an invariable element in Christian civilization. It could not be otherwise. If G.o.d and Christ were both represented as male (and the Holy Ghost, too, in the pictures of the old masters), it stood to reason and appealed to fanaticism that the male form was the G.o.dlike. Hence, logically, intellect and physical force were exalted above the intuition of conscience and attractive charm. The male religion shaped government and society after its own form. Theodore Parker habitually addressed G.o.d as our Father and Mother. What we call G.o.d is the infinite ideal of humanity. The preposterous, ridiculous absurdity of supposing G.o.d so defined to be of the male s.e.x, and to call G.o.d 'him,' does not need a word to make it apparent. This ideal which we all reverence, and for which we yearn, necessarily enfolds in _One_ the attributes which, separated in our human race, express themselves in Manhood and Womanhood.”
[226] Some person, over the signature of ”A Bible Reader,” writing in the _Sun_ of March 16, says: ”I would be sincerely glad to know what guarantee we have that ere long we shall not have another revision of Scripture? It is not so long ago since the discovery of Tischendorf of an important ma.n.u.script of the New Testament, which gave a number of new readings. There may be in existence other and older ma.n.u.scripts of the Bible than any we now have, from which may be omitted the narratives of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Should we then have to give these up? If the revisers act consistently they would certainly have to do so.
”It appears that already the Calvinists and the Trinitarians have been deprived by the revisers of the texts they relied upon to uphold their peculiar doctrines. It remains to be seen how the Universalists, Baptists, and other Christian sects will fare.”
APPENDIX.
CHAPTER I.
PRECEDING CAUSES.
MARGARET FULLER possessed more influence upon the thought of America, than any woman previous to her time. Men of diverse interests and habits of thought, alike recognized her power and acknowledged the quickening influence of her mind upon their own. Ralph Waldo Emerson said of her: ”The day was never long enough to exhaust her opulent memory; and I, who knew her intimately for ten years, never saw her without surprise at her new powers.”
William R. Channing, in her ”Memoirs,” says: ”I have no hope of conveying to my readers my sense of the beauty of our relation, as it lies in the past, with brightness falling on it from Margaret's risen spirit. It would be like printing a chapter of autobiography, to describe what is so grateful in memory--its influence upon oneself.”
Rev. James Freeman Clarke says: ”Socrates without his scholars, would be more complete than Margaret without her friends. The insight which Margaret displayed in finding her friends; the magnetism by which she drew them toward herself; the catholic range of her intimacies; the influence which she exerted to develop the latent germ of every character; the constancy with which she clung to each when she had once given and received confidence; the delicate justice which kept every intimacy separate, and the process of transfiguration which took place when she met any one on this mountain of friends.h.i.+p, giving a dazzling l.u.s.tre to the details of common life--all these should be at least touched upon and ill.u.s.trated, to give any adequate view of these relations.” Horace Greeley, in his ”Recollections of a Busy Life,”