272
THE ILLUSTRATED WEST SHORE.
"GOD'S WOMAN."
The following somewhat abbreviated speech of Reverend Anna Shaw
before the late woman suffrage convention in Washington, is respectfully ded
icated by the editor of this department to the Reverend Dr. Ross C. Houghton,
of Grace church, this city :
The first Mage, through which every reform must pasi, Is that of the assertion that it
b impossible; It is Impracticable; It it ridiculous; it is unthinkable; and they who begin in
the beginning of reform, and bring the question before the people, must stand and bear all
the scorn, all the loneliness, all the "aloncness" of great reformers in great questions, and
like the Lord, Jesus Christ, they must learn to tread the wine press alone. Womanhood
hat had her leaden, who have taken the tbmd and borne the tcorn of It ; and now you
and I to-day are able to walk in a smooth path to be welcomed by thousands, to be cheered
for the tenlimentt for which they were scorned, and to be paid for doing that for which
they paid for the privilege of doing. (Applause).
Eve was not Mn. Adam, because she was the wife of Mr. Adam. She was no more
Mrt. Adam because she wat the wife of Mr. Adam than Adam was Mr. Adam because he
was the huslnnd of Mrs. Adam; not a bit. (Laughter). They were both Adam, and
neither of them alone was Adam. They were Adam together. (Applause and laughter).
You can never have a male Adam or female Adam. You must have a male and female
Adam, and you have manhood and womanhood -humanity,
The great divine who originated this subject for me was lecturing before an institute
called an Institute of sacred theology, In the city of New York. 'Before him was a class of
tludentt, male and female, and he wat denning to the male students what they, the males,
might permit the females to do. "Now," he says, "there are tome things which the
women may lie permitted to do." Now, we like that, don't we I Something that we may
lie permitted to do. "They may be permitted to dispense certain charities; they may be
)eniilttcd to ipeak in prayer and class meetings; they may lie permitted to do certain line
of church work. There are other things which women may not be permitted to do
Among the things which they may not lie permitted to do, is to hold high official relation
to the church, to become its ministers and to dispense Its sacraments. Now, these things
wonuin may not lie permitted to do."
In referring to the relation of wonuin to the church, he ixike of the argument, raised
by many women, that It wat the design of God that women should take any position they
might occupy, the women going to the bible to prove their position, and the one woman
Un whom we have all laid our claim and our boast, it that grand old woman, who was
able to cry out In looking over Israel in its hours of peace ; " there was trouble, there was
dissension, there was unrest in Israel until I, Dcbomh, mother In Israel, rose ; " and we
Hilnl to the foci that the Judges of Israel were always understood by those people to be
divinely selected for their position; and being thus divinely selected we cannot assume
that any human being could have taken thlt position who was not recognized by the people
at least, to have been chosen by (Jod, and even with the authority of the bishop back of
It, we cannot assume that God did not know what he Wilt doing when he chose Deborah
to be a judge In Israel,
If the tiithop thinks (iod make a mistake, he will have to wait forever to correct the
mistake, for It It done and we can not go buck on the record. Now then, this woman
found a country disturlied, a country In the midst of great unrest, a country where the
Judges had been taking brilies from the people, a country where the people were utterly
demoralised, a people who dared not walk on their highways because of thieves or robbers,
a people who were cmelled to go secretly through cross lots In order to get from city to
city, tail during the forty years of her reign as Judge of Israel, the whole condition of
things was over turned and we are told that the judged nil the people In righteousness, and
the people had pence for forty years.
Just think of forty years of peace. We hate never known such a period since that
Liy, (Applause). Now, then, this woman was not, we are told by Bishop Vincent,
God i woman. If, then, the wat not God's wonuin, whose woman was she ? I Uughterk
And If God is not alile to recognise his own, whnl will become of us at the last?
Hie bishop tayi, there are certain classes of women who are God's women. We
want to know that so we can gel over on the right title. (Uughler), God's women are
the Kuths, the Kachels and the Miriams. We have tome of the Miriams here. Now,
Kuth ni certainly remarkable young woman, because she was ntisohilely devoted to her
mother In law, (limit laughter and ap)iluue), and that lakes great wonuin.
Now, I shall never rise to say that a wonuin devoted to her mother-in law It not God's
wonuin. (laughter). Hut then Kuth had tome peculiar ways of gelling along in this
world. I hardly think the bishop would like to have tome of us who are unmarried follow
Ruth's method of mulling t hiulund. I hardly think he would like us to follow In her
lines of courtship, at the two things thai she is most known for are devotion to her mother
In law and a peculiar method of obtaining a husband. ( I jiughler).
Then the bishop telli ut aluul Mary. There are nuiny Mary't, and the bishop does
not designate whk'h of litem It wat. II he menus the Mary out of whom seven devils were
cast I would not agree with him. Iiecuuse that kind of Mary was not God's wonuin. It
was nol the Mary that washed His feet and wiied Ihem with the hairs of her head in the
way of ienance, because there was no necessity for that kind of penance. If it was the
Mary who was Ills mother, the bishop brought out the wrong Mary to prove his case.
What have we here? In the fullness of the times God needed for the world a Redeemer.
How should he give the Redeemer to the world? He gate the Redeemer to the world by
coming aiming men anil chosing out of the world a woman to Iwcome the mother of the
Savior of the nice, and God and a woman gave to the world Its Kedermer. Men were
counted out of the transaction. ( AiJuuse).
Then there will another Mary, and the is the Mary whom I have taken at my exam
Je in my profession.
The other Mary wat the Mary who ttood by the tomb of the laird, and there at the
mouth of the open tomb the received the lint divine commiukin from the Divine one him.
self to go out into the world to preach the giiel of a risen lain).
We have one other Mary and that Mary was the one who ut at the feel of the laird,
learning of Him theology, and the only rcinmf the laird ever gave a woman wat not to
Mary, the theokigicid student, tail lo Martha, the woman thai worried about her house
work, and wanted Mary to give up theology and go into the kitchen and cook dinner.
Now, then, here are the Marys, two of whom were sin.
the teaching-three of whom, one was the mother of the Lord, doing the
that the world has ever had done; the other a woman
(Laughter).
I have a few minutes more,
ners according to
Unri fnr the race
who was a theological student learning at the feet of the Master; the other the firs, divinely
commissioned preacher of the resurrection.
I am clad that Bishop Vincent considers thai women ministers are God s women; thai
women theological students arc God s women, and that the woman who was the mother of
the Savior of the world was also God's woman. I believe they were, and at the same time
I believe that the Miriams and the Esthers and the Vashtis were God's women too.
When I was a girl, I read the bible through in order to select from it the two people
who were to be my hero and heroine through life. In those days the children had to read
the bible It was before we developed so much. Now it it not considered the proper
thing for us to read the bible and we send it across the sea to the missionaries. My hero
was Jacob my heroine was Vashti. Vashtl disobeyed her husband, and so she left her
palace and castle because she had disobeyed her husband. I selected out of the lot Vashti
and I selected her because she did disobey her husband and because the was divorced in
consequence of that disobedience; a woman way back In the centuries, who was so full of
divine love that she recognized dignity and righteousness of her own right and self respect;
a woman who refused to become the puppet of a king, and of his drunken courtiers;
woman ready to give up her throne, a husband and a kingdom-such a woman is God't
woman, huslnnd, or no husband. (Great applause).
I wish the world were full of Vashtis to-day, standing by the right of individual self
respect, and I sigh to God for such womanhood.
We have heard that motherhood is a crown of glory. They say motherhood Is the
greatest crown of glory which a woman can wear. We answer no; motherhood is not
the greatest crown of glory which a woman can wear. We answer; motherhood may nol
it a crown of glory at all. Motherhood may or may not be a crown of glory which re
quires thai there shall be a something back of motherhood to define what motherhood
shall be, and in this something back of motherhood there is that which shall make it a
crown of glory. Motherhood may, Instead of becoming a crown of glory, become a crown
of shame.
The highest crown of glory which a woman can wear is not motherhood. The highest
crown of glory which a woman can wear it womanhood. (Applause). True, noble, Itrong,
healthy, spiritual womanhood, the daughter of the king, the child of God, the heir of the
Lord Jesus Christ, equal with Bishop Vincent, or any other man in the world. (Applause.)
Motherhood, if the mother is first a woman, shall become a crown of glory, but
womanhood shall be her greatest crown of glory, whether it be motherhood or spinster
hood. Applause). The mother heart of woman, the mother heart that reaches out to
the race and finds a wrong and rights it, finds a broken heart and heals it, finds a bruised
life ready to be broken, a woman's instinct with mother love which it the expression of
Divine love, finding any wrong, any weakness, any pain, any sorrow, anywhere in the
world, and reaches out her hand lo right the wrong, to heal the pain, to comfort the suffer
ing, tuch a woman it God's wonuin. It mailers not where she may be; where bom, under
what skies she has lived, she it God's wonuin, and at the last she shall find her God.
(Great applause).
A STRONG PLEA.
VmtsAit.t.BS, Kbntucky, April 9, 1891.
Dear Mks. Di'Nuvav:
The action of the constitutional convention on the question of married women's prop
erty rights gives lo the world another evidence of the dcfenselest position of woman. Pos
session is nine points in law, and the men In that body who wireworked to defeat this just
measure, and those who have voted against it, show conclusively that they are anxious to
fortify themselves, and take all the law allows them, even if It heaps injustice on the help
less and robs them of Iheir heritage. Selfishness and self Importance are the predominat
ing trails of human nature, and unless iheir true nobility of soul, coupled with justice, rise
in the soul of man and his great nature dethrones them, he can place 1 toothing phis
tcr on his consck-nce. and even wrong his wife, to sustain a false position before the world
or minister to self interest.
The married women of Kentucky are wronged, deeply wronged, by the law taking pot.
session of Iheir property and rendering them civil and legal nonentities, and for years they
have been hoping and praying thai our men were growing so grandly that they would re
move this stigma from Ihem, The laws in every stale In the union are a reproach to Ken
lucky law on this question. NunuVrs of women have removed from the state and taken
Iheir property where civilisation is further ndvanced. I venture the assertion that there is
not a woman in the stale that does not pray for just property laws. letters from all quar
ter! conic to me constantly from women that are wronged and robbed, the pages of many
of them scarred with tears, rich women with houses and lands, and poor women wilh only
a cow and a pig.
We have lieen fighting the imiperty rights battle for three years, and although defeat
ed at ever)- point, except the securing of the law that makes 1 married woman't wages her
own. we are nol discouraged ; but on the contrary we are encouraged when we contemplate
thai in the general assembly this question received a larger thare of attention than any
other brought before that body, mid that It has been before the constitutional conventual
six times and brings on the wannest dcUue-o warm that at times the sergcanl-at-armi
hiu been called to restore order-nnd we are cheered when we know the calilier of the men
who are our champions and how they are Increasing in numbers. Some of our opponents
had nol the manhood to keep their grip on their wives' properly by an open vole, but took
the cowardly method of defeating the measure by running out of the house, thereby break
ing a quorum. These chivalrous Kentuckinns belong lo the age when purses were of the
mainline gender, when women tnl at the window of tmrctcd castles and threw their hand
kerchief, down to knights, and haled rivals rushed al them and knocked Iheir tin hats off.
Ihavecnverse,ldcorre,,,W wilh a Urge numlier of women on this subject, and
haw never met one thai b not hoping for the success of this measure. Women can hope
and pray if they are not allowed to spnik, and there are thousands of women who are not