Female Piety

Woman was the finishing grace of the creation. Woman was the completeness of man’s bliss in Paradise. Woman was the cause of sin and death to our world. Woman was the means of our redemption. Woman is the mother of the human Face; our companion, counselor, and comforter in the pilgrimage of life; or our tempter, our scourge, and our destroyer. Our sweetest cup of earthly happiness, or our bitterest draught of sorrow, is mixed and administered by her hand. She not only renders smooth or rough our path to the grave, but helps or hinders our progress to immortality. In heaven we shall bless God for her aid in assisting us to reach that blissful state, or amid the torments of unutterable woe in another region, we shall deplore the fatality of her influence.

Such is my reason for determining to address a course of monthly sermons to her sex. They have been too much neglected in the ministrations of the sanctuary; an omission which must be traced to a morbid delicacy unworthy of the pulpit. Happily, this reproach does not appertain to the press, to which perhaps, in the opinion of some, this subject ought to be exclusively consigned. But why? Can any good and valid reason be assigned for shutting out from the house of God instructions to eo important a class of the community? Many persons almost instinctively shrink from such addresses, from a fear lest matters should be introduced at which modesty would blush, and by which the finer sensibilities would be wounded. There is prudishness in such feeling which can be justified neither by reason nor revelation, You may trust your pastor for discretion on such a subject, and feel tolerably certain that he will utter nothing which shall bring up a tinge of color on the most modest countenance, or inflict the slightest wound on the most fastidiously delicate mind.

It may be as well to announce in the opening sermon, that the whole course will be decidedly of a religious nature; more so than even the sermons to young men. For all the general directions and excellences of female character, I shall refer you to the various works which on these topics have issued from the press. My place is the pulpit — my subject is religion — my object is the soul — my aim is salvation. I view you, my female friends, as destined to another world, and it is my business to aid and stimulate you, “by patient continuance in well-doing, to seek for glory, honor, and immortality,” and to obtain eternal life. I look beyond the painted and gaudy scene of earth’s fading vanities, to the everlasting ages, through which you must exist in torment or in bliss; and, God helping me, it shall not be my fault if you do not live in comfort, die in peace, and inherit eternal life.

Give me your most serivus attention — what is more, give me your prayers — and especially pray for yourselves, that in listening to these discourses. you may not be “hearers of the ‘word only, but doers of it also.” Come to each sermon in devout seriousness of mind. Lay aside all frivolity and levity. You are not invited to an entertainment, but to listen to matters of infinite moment, of everlasting importance. The lightness of the concert, the ball-room, and the theater, would be quite out of place when called to listen to words whereby you may be saved.

I could think of no subject with which more appropriately to commence these sermons, than that which you are now prepared to hear — TnHE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE CONDITION OF Woman.

Our First attention must be directed, of course, to the condition of the sex beyond the boundaries of Christendom.

It would seem, from the words of the original denouncement upon Eve for her transgression in eating the forbidden fruit, as if, while yet the first pair were innocent, there was a more entire equality of condition and rights than there was, and is, after the fall. “Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” This sounds like something penal, though perhaps some would regard it as merely predictive, and intended to describe the cruel and brutalizing tendency of sin, in turning man, who ought to be the loving companion of his wife, into a tyrant. How fearfully, if predictive, this sentence has been fulfilled, the degradation of woman — her wrongs, her sorrows, and her vices, in many cases, most painfully attest.

History, which will ever be found to accredit revelation, proves the fact that in most Pagan and Mohammedan nations, whether ancient or modern, woman has been cruelly and wickedly sunk below her proper. level in social and domestic life. “Hated and despised from her birth, and her birth itself esteemed a calamity — in some countries not even allowed the rank of a moral and responsible agent — so tenderly alive to her own degradation that she acquiesces in the murder of her female offspring — immured from infancy — without education — married without her consent — in a multitude of instances sold by her parents — refused the confidence of her husband, and banished from his table — on his death doomed to the funeral pile, or to contempt that renders life a burden.” In such a condition she has been the household drudge, or the mere object of passion. She has ministered to the gratification of man’s indolence or appetites, but has not been his companion, his counselor, or his

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comforter. In barbarous countries, she has been a public slave; in civilized ones, very generally a kind of private mistress.’ Her mind has been left untaught, as if incapable or unworthy of instruction. She has been not only imprisoned by jealousy in seclusion, but degraded and rendered vicious and miserable by polygamy — sometimes worshiped as a goddess, then fondled 4s a toy, then punished as a victim. She could never attain to dignity, and even with all her brightest charms, could rarely appear butpvith the beauty of a doll.

Exceptions to this, of some extent, may be made in favor of the polished Greeks and proud Romans; but only to some extent; for did time permit, and necessity require, it could be shown that even Athenian refinement and Roman virtue rarely gave ‘to woman her just rank by the side of her husband, or her proper place in his affection, esteem, and confidence. The laws of Rome, it is true, gave to woman greater liberty and consideration than she had before received; still, she was so treated even there as to sink into degradation disgraceful to her purity, and destructive of her happiness. ‘No happy influence did she exert on the public or private welfare of the State. Politicians intrigued with her; ambition combined with passion to corrupt her; and her liberty degenerated into licentiousness. Through her influence, the streets of the capital were sometimes deluged with its best blood; and to such an extent was her profligacy carried, that among the decrees which passed the Senate during the reign of Tiberius, against the licentious. ness of female manners, it was ordained, ‘that no woman whose grandfather, father, or husband, was a Roman knight, should be allowed to make her person venal.’ The laws of a nation are an instructive and faithful history of its manners. If such was the condition of a Roman baroness, what must have been that of the subordinate classes?” Neither Paganism nor Mohammedanism ever yet understood the female character, or conceded woman’s just claims. In many nations, the degffation has been excessive. You remember, probably, the reply of a pagan mother, who, having been expostulated with for the murder of her female child, contended that she had performed an act of mercy in sparing the babe the miseries of a woman’s life. All travelers and all missionaries attest the fact of woman’s humiliation, beyond the boundaries of revelation.*

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