The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1877-06-06

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b t | am sure the clergymen's must open
t. 81. PauPs injunction to wives, and DIR.
Hollands Bible seems to be no excep
ton to the rule, as he also takes it for the
text Of his discourse Now why this in
junction of St Paul to wives to obey
tn, ir husbands should be considered
binding on woman to day as especially
inspired while his declaration that the
end of all things was at hand. and that
he looked daily for the coming of Christ,
are conveniently ignore1 /, is rather a Gu
rious fact. 1t surely cannot have es-
capped the notice OF these sticklers for
wifely subsection.
Now, il this obedience of the wife is
right, the Doctor will not only have TO
abolish the law giving her her own prop
erty, to which he objects, but in com
mon consistency he should also have the
law repealed Furnishing wife beaters =
for if the wife is bound to obey her hus-
band and fails to do so, the Pc Her to com
pei must rest with him as her master; he
has logically and should have legally the
right to enforce that obedience, and the
nature and manner Of its enforcement
must necessarily depend upon the moral
and intellectual development of the man
who happens to be the husband. So that
when this class of clergy, who preach sub
/ lection of wives, find that the husbands
| brought before the Police Court have
carried out their doctrines according to
/ the light that was in them, they should
be willing to take their share of the re-
sponsibility. Life is a reality, a practi-
cal struggle to the majority, and it is
useless to preach TO that majority of
what ought to be when what is must take
the precedence.
1t seems to be the keenest irony for
Dr. Holland to say to women, as he does
in this sermon, that cit is more impor-
tant TO know how best to live than it is
to know how best to die" when marri-
age, as described by him, is the looping
off of her highest attributes While God
has given her 4 mind to think, a will to
act, hand to work, he would scorch,
| wither and consume them all on his sac
rifical altar of marriage, and make what
should be to her the browning glory and
happiness of her life living death, an
intellectual Gehenna. From the ser
mons preached, both lay and clerical, to
show woman her sphere, one would sup
pose that while the Creator of the uni
verse has endowed the smallest of His
creatures with the ability to provide for
their own needs, the veriest monad to
wiggle into its appropriate sunbeams,
the sparrow and the stickleback to build
their nests without help from crozier or
scepter, woman alone had been dropped
/ into the world without brains, hands or
! feet, like a young bird, with her mouth
wide open, to be fed by whoever chose
to take the responsibility. 1t is time for
men and women to learn that woman's
sphere in the one which God has given
her the intellect and ability to fill, and
medieval theologians had as we'll try to
''hedge in the wind or build out the
ste rs" as to preach thinking, educated
women Of to-d day back into the narrow,
degraded ntches prescribed to them in
the thirteenth century.
In all ages many of the clergy have
been especially assduous in defining wo-
mans sphere, her right to the commu-
MON was strenuously opposed at one pc
Rod, and she was only admitted under
the condition Of wearing gloves to pre-
vent her hands from defiing the I" ele-
ments," and we are told that to this day
in some of the old English Cathedrals
there is line in the marble floor beyond
which it was pollution for woman's foot
to 90; and indeed even in St. Georges
Church in this city that line is as vigor-
ously drawn to- day as it was in any church
in England 200 years ago, And though
it is narrowed down till instead of the
chancel it only surrounds the pulpit, the
insult to every woman who enters the
building is the same there she may not
enter, she is a pariah, an unclean thing,
because she is woman. | perfectly
agree with DR.. Holland that it is the
husbands duty to provide for and pro-
tect the family, but does he always do
it? Are there not thousands of cases in
this city alone where these valiant &c sol
diers" instead of defending their house
holds, standing on the outer battlements
to meet the foe, have Gapitulated to the
"bottle," and are ingloriously drunk in
some liquor saloon? What, then, be-
comes of the Utopian family, when the
wife and mothers sphere has been
bounded by the four walls of her own
domicile -? Yet DIR. Holland says ''there
ought be no women in business. There
are circumstances that may force a
woman out of her proper place in life,
but whenever a woman leaves her own
sphere, and takes upon herself the work
of man, she must also take a mans
character, and, in doing so, she loses that
which makes her beautiful and lovable in
the sight OF man.
When we consider the noble army of
women, intellectually and morally the
peers of men, who are toiling in almost
every avocation Of life to support them
selves and others dependent on them,
| breasting the waves of prejudice and
| such misrepresentation as this, yet re-
tanning all that is truly feminine and
| beautiful in woman, one is amazed that
Christian women in any Church should
not for their sakes rise en- masse and
protest against such sweeping injustice.
As Queen Esther in the palace was a Jew
still, so no woman, however far she may
be removed from the necessity of labor,
can separate herself and her Interest
from the humblest of her sex, as, accord
ing to DIR. Hollands creed, should they
be driven to labor, their claim to love
and admiration would be gone.
The marriage ia which we can alone
look for happiness is one founded on
mutual respect and esteem-the only
sure foundation of love-where both par
ties are morally equal, so that, should
the husband meet With sickness or death
the wife would have capacity, inclination
and intelligence to supply his place in the
battle of life and provide for and educate
her children. Apart from this folly o.
ignorance of business, selfish and unlov
!, ing indeed must be the wife who would
throw the whole burden and care of life
on her husband, without even knowing
enough to sYmpathize
Women of to-day who accept such