The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1870-03-12


opposition from her own sex. She works fol
living"-what sting in that shutting and
barring the doors of sympathy and scarcity,
and how many rather than endure that dis
grace will hang on in gaudy poverty, OF
flaunt in guilty show To a little group OF
women one held the tale of Mary Patton, the
brave Captains wife, who when her husband
had died, took command of his ship and
brought it safely around Cape Horn. " She
saved the ship, God bless her." a narrator
said as she concluded, while one of her listen
ers responded "more shame to her :" in quick
surprise reoined the first more shame! What
for SAVING life and property?" =" Better thG'
they had all gone TO the bottona," she replied,
" than that one aconaan should step out of her
sphere :" And the woman who spoke was ed
ucated, beautiful and church-going! Such is
the tyranny of the dread of work, of anything
as they say, Uat unseres, that takes woman out
of her sphere. Out of her sphere! the sailors
thought Mary Patton was in it when she
calmly assumed the control which ignoracne
prevented even the mates from doing. Out OF
her sphere the underwriters Judged she was
in it when they presented her a thousand dollars
for her beroism.
Not bit of doubt but men have much to
answer for from the way in which they keep
women out of work, and keep them down
when they get T. u g tS5sI ann
very listening, ill this, well as any other CT
ty. Many mans honor and purple and fine
linen is purchased at the cost of the tears and
blood and purity of woman 1t is not in laws,
i'll opinion, in man SO much to cure the shame.
The cure for the whole thing lies with woman.
Make work respectable in the eyes of your
sex, any work that is honest and that woman
can do WE'LL and take off the diadem a few
have placed on the brow OF the useless, some
times vulgar leader of fashion, and place it on
the front of honest work, where God puts it
Repugnance to labor! we see it in homes,
where servants have caught it, and got to be as
useless as their mistresses; where daughters
come up in cruelest ignorance of the simplest
duty, and would conceal as disgrace, ii they
happened to know the ingredients and proper
ties of a loaf of bread. hand that can set
off a diamond ring and cheek that never got
heated in the kitchen, however else it may be
colored, arc the types of to-day's desire. In
olden times mothers worked, and Queens did
not disdain labor. All IIomcrs heroines were
at home in housewifely duty, and we shall
have queens and heroncs again, when modern
society makes room aud welcome for those who
dare not stand in this market place of God,
all the day idle, vain in the imagination that
He hath made them of some other clay, and
will have them in special honor. Take Gods
thought about that, not the worlds; His guage
not mans! Not dainty work, not every occu-
patton is true employment but that which sub
serves some true and trusting end, helps on
your own lite OF that of others. The work
fashion has installed, and women dawdle
over an afghan or lace, for fairs, for
friends, for self, is but "a cunning misnomer,
and cheats with semblance. Work is of other
stuff, and there is no woman who cannot find
it or shall be excused for not doing it,
The various demands of charity offer broad
and ready sphere if none other present. And
hnro 1ttcfh ha anf. md ,tlnP
Pcrpetually men find themselves at fault in
their efforts, because of the apathy or worse,
of the woman of Society-ofmoney and of lei
sure. | find it in this city most hard to enlist
workers. The women who have money are terri
bly, false to their duties and their sex. l know
enough of want here, and Of wages paid by
woman to woman, and of the insufferable i'm
pudence of money to poverty to say how wrong
matters are, and to say to women that they
have vast, and growing and importunate de-
mand right about them for organized and in
dividual charity--charity that is not to drib-
BILE itself out by giving money under an i'm
pulse, to beggars at the door or beggars in the
street, the maddest piece of folly a thinking
person ever does, by going to sewing societies ;
in cutting out cloth or giving cast-oif clothing
or cold victuals; but i'll going down into these
alleys and lanes, and seeing how the sister
hood live and toll and pine, and sin and die
charity that shall rescue we'll clothe and
feed. tell you you will find in street and al
ley a womanhOod you will search long for
anoLg ldces, q character stcop;nS over k'ea-
die not often to be met with in arlstocratlc
drawing rooms. You know nothing OF life
who do not know it where sorrow and shame
and poverty hide, nor are you meeting the OBJ
legations you are under as your sisters keeper,
wlI9le your sewing-women and your servants
are the slaves of your whims, you lock more
than their souls, your adorning more than their
morals-your vanities and triumphs more
than their comfort and health. The field is
broad as the world. Everywhere there are
sufferers your own roof it may be
andswoman may never want for sphere, for oc-
cupation, for usefulness so long as one sister
soul stands ir the cold outside of charity's
broad mantle.
There is one thing women must do, particu-
larly our young women. They must give up
their selfishness. The capacity for self-denial
in woman seems to surpass that of men. Ger
tainly there are no such instances of it in my
sex as meet us everywhere in the other. 1t is
her province beside in which its highest reach
is possible-all the more is woman's selfshness,
which every day betrays and every day in
creases a thing to be lamented as dimming
the fine gold Of her character. Our young wo-
men are thinking too exclusively OF themsel-
YES, not other peoples rights, comfortp pleasures,
not their own duties. The Golden rule, beau
not law and guide to them. To have good
time is largely their look out, and if that is not
likely to be, if their own sweet selves are not
to be primarily satisfed-you may find the
reverse of the angel or the saint See how it
is in travelling, at public places, in society, at
home, how it is under trihing disappointment,
under any denial. See how much this and
that little thing, in word and demeanor, be-
trays the want of that ease, grace and jewel.
What is that man to do who finds himself har-
messed to selfish wife, and what are women
to be, who can't give up anything to others,
but selfish wives, nor blessings to the hearth,
but destroyers of its peace and defamers of its
honor. Many things in woman turn me from
her-but the selfshness of mother toward her
little child, left unnursedly with servants that
she may go out of daughter toward pa
rent, of a sister toward her brother, of friend
to frieud-the cool impurturbable audacity Of
it which meets you in the intercourse OF the
sex within itself, and which men get little of
except in homes, sometimes shakes my faith,
and tempts me to lock my ideal away as
among memories, and no more to cherish 1T as
among hopes.
And then woman must be religious. 1t is
her nature to be, and she is false to that when
she is not. In all ages she has shown that to
be her gift Women took most conspicuous
part in the conversion of the Roman Empire,
and the mothers of st. Augustine and Chup-
erton, as we'll as those Of some of the Emper-
ors, were foremost as early defenders of the
faith. Women devoted their time and
their fortunes. to vast institutions of before un-
known charity, and at least one Empress tend
ed the sick in hospitals, with her own hand.
"From age to age the impulse thus communi-
Gated has been felt there has been nosperiod,
however corrupt, there has been no church.
however superstitious, that has not been adorn-
ed by women devoting their entire lives
to assuaging the sufferings of men, the mission
of charity thus instituted has not been more
efficacious in diminishing the scorn OF human
wretchcdness, than in promoting the moral
dignity of those by whom it was conducted.
Must say it, that think there is to-day
pure and undefled? do not see the sign
of it in the fact that if the new dress doesn't
come home they can't 60 to church. Going TO
church think it is good deal showing your
own bonnet and criticising another's; 1t is
hope to see somebody there and troubled If ne
isn't; or it's getting mad with the minister's
length lest somebody should get tired OF walt
ing out on the curb-stone, at least, 60 inter-
pret the presence of curb-stone worshipers,
waiting so patiently and devotionally outside
church gates, as the proseyllis OF old who
might not enter the woman's court OF the
Temple. Churches show good many prayer
books, a good many well-observed forms-but
what about heads? No; don't sugur the
state of religion among women from the iSc'
that Sunday is the great parade day, and the
church service the hour for inspection; moi
from the fact that see what lips say, and
know what looks mean, whore people pretend
that they come to pray-but too many signs
assert that woman's faith is becoming largely
formality, punctilious about saying prayers
and doing the this ard that-going into the
anise and cummin business, but the weightlei