Introduction

IT AM now entering a new department of the great Bible Gallery. We have considered its representative men; we come to view its representative women. I do not mean its representatives of female holiness, of female heroism, of female distinction. A representative gallery is a gallery which exhibits traits of character which are found in all ages. Its glory is its universality. The mediaeval world has a of female saints. No one would call these a representative band of women. Their pecuharity is that they are not representative. They do not exhibit the entire type of womanhood, but only a section of the type. The representative gallery of womanhood, wherever it is found, must be a series of portraits which reveal her in her abiding varieties. There are saintly women among us as there are saintly men; and these should have their place in any portraiture which professes to be cosmopolitan. But there are aspects of the feminine mind which reveal other chords than these, and which demand recognition from a comprehensive artist. There are abnormal virtues and abnormal vices to be found in every age; but I think the essential quaHties alike of women and of men are to be measured, not by their abnormal deeds either of good or evil, but by those vv’ords and aims and actions which belong to the sphere of the commonplace.

If I were asked to express in a single sentence the difference between ancient and modern life, I should say, “It lies in two tilings — the man abroad and the woman at home.” They are two opposite things. The former is the point on which the eye of the observer chiefly dwells. We are again and again reminded how modern civilization has brought out the man from his own land into other lands. It has increased his power of locomotion — given him the steamboat and the railway. It has increased his power of communication — given him the telegraph and the telephone. It has increased his power of vision — given him a sight of starry worlds to which he was formerly a stranger. It has increased his power of brotherhood — given him a link of sympathy with the tenants of the air and the denizens of the forest. Every later discovery has tended to bring out the man from home life into foreign life — to enlarge his capacity for travel, to widen his boundaries for movement. The path of commerce and the path of science have by different routes led to one common goal — the sending abroad of the man.

But in modern culture there is another and an antithetical side of the picture which is equally clear and equally strong. If the man has been provided with means of locomotion, the woman has been assigned a home of rest. The idea of the universe has widened; but parallel with that widening there has been a process of contraction. A little spot which once was part of the open has been walled in and called “Home,” and there woman has received a kingdom. It is a small sphere, but it is permanent, and it is hers inaHenably. When I survey the galleries of the old Gentile world, the one spot absent to the modern eye is the woman’s empire at home. In India she was and is a prisoner — the zenanas are not places of nile but of enslavement. In Japan she was and remains not the mistress of a house, but a housekeeper — she holds the keys for her husband. In China she was and continues to be subordinate to the masculine powers — the relation of father and son precedes that of mother and daughter. In the palmiest days of old Rome she was still but a possession of the man — a source of his wealth, an article of his furniture. In Greece she rose sometimes to distinction, but it was not as the mistress of the house; it was as the favoured courtesan. What we miss in these galleries is a throne for woman in the sphere of the commonplace. She is either distinguished or servile; where she is distinguished she is above the sphere of motherhood, where she is servile she is below the range of ordinary humanity. What we seek for her, and in the old Gentile galleries seek in vain, is an empire at home — the wielding of a sceptre over that family life whose nurture is the making of nations and whose nursery is the training of kings.

But amid the galleries of the ancient world there is one whose female portraits are unique; it is that of the Bible. As I look into this Judaic Gallery that which arrests me most is the beginning of it and the end of it. At its opening and at its close the hand of the artist has been strikingly at work, and in each case on a female portraiture. The hall of entrance and the hall of exit are each occupied by a picture of Woman. The pictures are different in execution and unUke in their expression; but in each the idea is the same — the enfranchisement of the feminine soul. Let us look at them one by one.

Let us begin with the entrance portrait. It strikes a new note in eastern lands. It is a hymn of female conquest expressed in colours. Out from the canvas there starts an unprecedented figure — a woman triumphant over the forms of nature. She is seen struggling for the possession of a garden. Her antagonist is the serpent — a symbol of those powers of craft and diplomacy which hitherto in the artist’s experience have been the rulers of the world. Long and fierce is the conflict; and the woman does not emerge unwoundcd. But she emerges victorious.

We see her foot on the head of the serpent — a unique sight for the primitive world to behold. We see in vision the conquest of craft by simplicity, the defeat of subtlety by artlessness, the subjugation of diplomatic power by the intensity of the heart. Woman is recognized as the prospective possessor of the garden of life — the future mistress of the home. It matters not that it is still in the future. What we want to see is not a nation’s achievement but a nation’s ideal; we judge it not by its fruits, but by its aspirings. It would be of no avail for the critic to prove that in the actual history of Judaism the glory of womanhood was never attained. What we are in search of is not an attainment but an ideal. The triumph of the Bible is its conception. Its merit is that at a time when woman was a slave it painted a gallery in which she was free. It lifted the minds of men above their surroundings by the picture of a golden past upon whose threshold womanhood sat enthroned, claiming her legitimate empire amid the forces of the world, and receiving the promise that her battle should be won.

Let us pass to the other end of the Gallery — the completing end. The intermediate parts do not reveal the representadve woman. She appears only in the morning and in the evening of the Bible story — at the entrance and at the terminus of the Great Gallery. The women of the middle stage rarely rise to a height. The court of David, the haunts of Absalom, the palaces of Solomon, the pleasure-grounds of Ahab, reveal women attractive to the eye and charming to the ear; but the attractiveness is that of an hour’s pastime, and the charm is that of a child’s toy. In this intermediate period she has increased her gaudy trappings; but they have become the trappings of a slave. We will not tarry here. We will pass by those scenes in which Israel rises not above her eastern neighbours. We feel that in her middle stage she has fallen beneath her morning and behind the glory of her opening day. But when we come to the evening, she redeems herself. As we pass to the terminus of her gallery we are confronted by a portraiture of Woman which gives back the freshness of the dawn. In the streets of that Roman lo INTRODUCTION

world of which Israel had become a part stands an exultant female proclaiming to all the earth the tidings of her emancipation, “He that is mighty hath done great things for me.” It is a representative voice — uttered, not only for herself as mother of the Messiah, but for that feminine nature of whose exaltation the Messiah was to become the forerunner. It is the cry of a longrepressed sex claiming its rights and hailing their recognition. “Thou hast regarded the low estate of Thine handmaiden.” The words breathe a sense of the world’s long neglect. We hear womanhood rejoicing in the lifting of her chain. We hear her giving glory to God for restoring to the earth a feminine ideal of greatness — for reaUzing the prediction of the morning that the female spirit should bruise the serpent’s head.

For, let us consider wherein consists the magnifying of Woman through Christ. Is it, as we commonly say, that one of the effects of Christianity has been the enfranchisement of Woman? No. I believe that to be quite an inadequate statement of the case. Female exaltation, as I take it, it not simply one of the effects of Christianity; it is the effect of which all other changes are results. It is an electric bell which rings in a single room, but of which all the bells in the other rooms are repetitions and re-echoings. In exalting Woman, Christianity has transformed the ideal of human greatness. It has not added a new ideal; it has dethroned the old one. Woman has not merely taken her place in society; she has taken the man’s place in society. The qualities once peculiar to herself and by the possession of which she was socially degraded, have become the quahties essential to humanity — male as well as female. I do not know of any change in the transition from the old to the new which may not in its last analysis be referred to the influence of the feminine ideal. Let us glance at one or two of those transformations which we are accustomed to associate with modern civihzation and which we habitually regard as triumphs of the mascuHne mind. We shall find, if I mistake not, that in each case the change has come from the influence of a female principle.

I suppose it will be universally allowed that public drunkenness in high places is no longer a fashion. I do not say there is less drinking: that is a question for statistics. But it will be conceded that, in upper life, to get drunk in public is “bad form.” Why is this? You say, ‘’Christianity has begun at last to leaven society.” Doubtless; but by what means? Is it by the increased diffusion of some special doctrine? No. The phrase “bad form” is suggestive; it indicates, not a change of creed, but a change of ideal. Why is it “good form” in the eighteenth century and “bad” in the twentieth? It is because in the twentieth it is no longer heroic. And why is it no longer heroic? It is because this century has come into the possession of a new ideal of strength. There has dawned upon us the conviction that the strongest power in human nature is a power which used to be wielded only by the woman and to be held in contempt by the man — self-restraint. The old mark of heroism was to crush care and let men see that we had crushed it. Whatever form it took it was to be cast off — not borne. If it took the form of outward aggression, it was to be struck down; if it came with inward grief, it was to be drowned in oylivion.

The brave man was the man who could feast by forgetting his calamities — not he who could join the banquet in spite of remembering them. The winecup was the symbol of forgetfulness, and forgetfulness was the mark of manUness. But we have begun to awake to the reality of the Sermon on the Mount. We have begun to feel that it is stronger to endure than to forget. We have begun to realize that the essentially female attribute of passive bearing is a greater index of power than the casting of care behind one’s back. It is this conviction that has robbed dissipation, I do not say of its practice, but of its glory. Courts of Bacchus may still be thronged; but the worship of Bacchus has ceased. No man now thinks it heroic to be besotted, hnd the reason is that the stone long rejected by the builders has become the head of the corner. That stone is the feminine ideal — the power of passive endurance, the force of silent fortitude, the strength of self-restraint, the patience under burdens, the willingness to wait and make no sign.

Let u.consider a second phase in the transition from the old order to the new — the loosing of the bands of slavery. Whence has this proceeded? Is it from the increasing tenderness of human feeling? I do not know that there has been this increasing tenderness; I am inclined to think that love is the same yesterday and to-day and for ever. I think the change has originated not in the feelings but in the imagination. Like the preceding case it has been the result of a new ideal of greatness — the feminine ideal. It was impossible that the exaltation of Woman should take place without being followed by an exaltation of service. Service had been associated with the woman as with the slave; it was at once her sphere and her reproach, he glorifying of Woman meant the glorifying of service, the cropvning of ministration, the esteem for a life of helpfulness. When Christianity elevated the position of the female it elevated her work as well. That which had been deemed menial became noble, beautiful. Labour for others ceased to be a mark of service; it became a regal thing. And men said, “Being regal it ought to be voluntary, free.” It was this thought which struck the fetters from the slave. It was not the sense of pity.

It was not the impression of his poverty and degradation. It was a precisely opposite feeling. It was the conviction that he was engaged in noble work, in dignified work, in work so kingly that it ought not to be stigmatized with the infamy of a brand. The emancipation of the bondsman came from the fact that his work had received in the eyes of men an ideal glory; and the glory which it had received was a direct result of the exaltation of Woman.

I shall notice one phase more in the passage from the ancient to the modern — the increasing mildness of the reign of law. The fact has never been disputed; the penalties of crime have been ever lessening in severity. But why? Is it the decKne of state power? Is it the slackness of the authorities? Is it the growth of sentimentaHsm? Is it the spread of materialism, leading to the conclusion that the criminal is a mere irresponsible machine? It is none of these. It is a change in the ideal of what it is to be a great king. To the men of old time the greatness of a king lay in the fact that his will was vindicated; to the men of our day the greatness of a king lies in the fact that his will is accepted. The difference is marked. You can vindicate a will by the punishment of the transgressor; but not thus can you secure its acceptance. You can achieve the former by the death of the culprit; but you can only achieve the latter by his continued life and his second chance. Why is it that to the modern order of government this latter kind of greatness has become the more excellent way? It is because there has been born into the world a new ideal of regal strength — the strength of womanhood and especially of motherhood. To the eye of motherhood, where Hes the glory of the empire of home? Is it in her crushing of a child’s will? No, it is in her conquest of its will. The mother knows well that she does not conquer its will by restraining its acts — that her boy can remain inwardly free even when his hands are tied. The only conquest a good mother would deem worthy of the hame is the transmutation of the child’s will into her own; and this is the victory which a good mother is often privileged to achieve. It is this ideal of the aims of maternity which has permeated the peoples of modern Europe. It is this which has gradually mellowed the austerities of law. It is this which has relaxed the penalties of the criminal. It is this which in many instances has put the reformatory in the place of the prison and substituted a course of training for a series of inflictions. It is this, above all, which has made forgiveness more than a sentiment, which has enrolled it among the powers of reason and given it a voice amid the principles of legislation.

From all this we see that the ideal of womanhood has not been so much one of the Christian influences, as the one influence which has directly or indirectly involved every other. Do not imagine, however, that this power of womanhood has come from the fact that the Messiah had a human motherhood. That has not been its origin. It has issued from the knowledge that the Messiah born of the human mother has been Himselj a type of the feminine nature. That which has bridged the gulf between the man and the woman has not been the recognition of the latter by Christianity nor the honoured place assigned to her in Christian service. It has resulted from a source deeper still — the character of the Master. The heroism of the Son of Man is the heroism of ideal womanhood. The virtues which He lifted to the Mount were the virtues which shone in His own soul, and they were precisely those virtues which the past ages had despised as feminine. Poverty of spirit — the restraint of self-will, meekness — the subordination of temper, purity — the resistance to temptation, mercy — the refusal to retaliate, peacemaking — the putting down not of enemies, but of enmities, endurance for the sake of righteousness — that silent courage which can exist without applause, these were the virtues which in His own person Jesus carried to the top of the hill and exalted for evermore in the face of humanity. And these were all quahties to possess which had been deemed womanish — unmanly. The beatitudes of the old world had been given to their converse — the proud spirit, the irascible heart, the reckless life, the avenging power, the warlike mien, the impatient brooking of injury. The woman’s charter was the Sermon on the Mount. It elevated what had been contemned. The feminine

INTRODUCTION i

type in the soul of Jesus has made the valley a mountain. It is not merely that it has lifted Woman from her supposed degradation; it is the supposed degradation itself which it has lifted. It is not merely that Woman in Christ has been taken out of the valley and set upon a hill; it is the valley itself which has been made a hill. The quaUties which once were deemed lowly have been esteemed lofty. The type of heroism has been reversed. The features thought plain have become the standard of beauty, the traits of character held weak have become replete with majesty. The attributes of service have become the badges of royalty. In the struggle for natural selection the woman has taken pre-eminence over the serpent. And I must here remark that in this lies the much-disputed originality of the Sermon on the Mount. The originaUty Ues not in the fact that feminine qualities are given a place in the favour of God. That, in the Bible Gallery, they always had. We have seen that in its portrayal of Woman, the morning of the Bible has anticipated its evening — that the ideal of its past was that of a life where she was free. But the freshness of the Sermon on the Mount lies in something beyond this. Its paradox is not that feminine qualities have received the favour of God, but that they have received the favour of man. What is the ground of the beatitudes that Christ pronounces on the feminine virtues? Is it that God will prepare for them a place suited to their modest sphere? No, it is that in this present world they shall absorb all other places — shall become the dominant forces in human development, shall guide the policy of nations, shall direct the course of tuition, shall form the basis of future laws, shall become the standard not only for the woman but for the man. “Theirs is the kingdom.’’ “They shall inherit the earth.” “They shall be called the children of God,” shall bear that stamp of heroism which used to be the mark of mere physical greatness. Is it one thing to be children of God; it is another thing to be “called” children of God — the first is God’s work, the second is man’s. To say that the feminine virtues shall have a place on God’s holy hill is natural; but to say that they shall hold the summit of the secular mount of humanity — this is original indeed.

And yet, this prophecy of the world’s admiration of feminine virtues has in the history of modern civiHzation been abundantly fulfilled. I do not say that human nature has even approximately reached the quahties of the Mount; but it has reached the appreciation of them. These virtues have to the world become the heroic virtues. Which of them has not its temple on the summit of the hill? Is it poverty of spirit? HumiUty has become the watchword of the human intellect, and the name ‘’agnostic” has been associated with science. Is it meekness? Self-restraint has become a mark of modern culture, and vociferous expression of feeling is deemed unrefined. Is it mercy? Charitable institutions have become a part of the world’s fashion, and the nursing of the sick has ceased to be a menial office. Is it peacemaking? Ever-increasingly are the Courts of Arbitration being esteemed a nobler mode of healing discords than the resort to the fortune of war. Is it purity? Whatever may be said of its practice, its attainment is the desire of all nations, and the heart of every true father is eager for the moral well-being of his child. The qualities which Christ blessed have not yet filled the world; but they have filled the world’s mountains. They are not yet the practised things; but they are the admired things. They are already that to which we look up, to which we aspire. They express our thought of heroism, our ideal of greatness. They have put out the old lights of the moral firmament — the admiration for those qualities which belong to the beast of the field. They have not 3’et become our life, but they have already become our love. They have not arrived on the plain, but we have been attracted by their feet upon the mountains; and, while yet we are unfamiUar with the holy path, we have been dominated by the beauties of holiness.

Son of Man, Thou hast lighted a new star in my sky — the star of Womanhood. It has come to me from the east after all — the unlikely east, the masculine east, the east whose lands have more law than love. I never expected that a treasure would come to me from a manger like that; but it is from thence Thou hast enriched my soul. To the eye of my heart Thou hast shown a new ideal of glory. The old star was Mars — the mark of war. That was the star of my morning; I tried to be like it, I aspired to its image. I painted it in picture books for my children. I eulogized it to the boy at school. I pointed it out to the youth on the threshold of his pilgrimage. I said to each, “You may be a Hercules, a Caesar, an Alexander.” But my evening star has been Venus — the beauty not of war but of love. I have seen a higher might than that of Hercules, a greater strength than that of Caesar, a larger conquest than that of Alexander. It is the life I used to deem unworthy of the mascuUne — the life of Thy Sermon on the Mount. But now it has become to me the height of all heroism, the goal of all glory. Thou art my evening star, O Christ, and Thine is the light of ideal womanhood. On the mount of Thy beatitudes Thou has Ut a new fire of greatness and left it burning there. I can never go back any more to the old light. I can never again point the youth to the red path as the path of glory. Ever must I say, “Blessed arc the meek,” “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Thine are the kingdom, the power, and the glory — the kingdom of patience, the power of pity, the glory of love. The virtues of the mount have become the aspirations of the plain; in Thy feminine greatness the heel of the serpent has been bruised.