Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-07-09
An "OrthOdoX" View of WO.
mans Rights.

al Church, sunday evening, on Nv o.
mans Rights and the Secret of We
mans Influence" was drawn from
the history of Queen Esther. After
recapitulating at some length the
Scripture account of Esther's promo
ton to the royal estate of Vashti,
whom Ahasuerus had expelled from
the partnership of his throne, and of
her great influence over the king in
reversing the royal decree for the
destruction of Mordecai and all the
Jews and in procuring counter
decree for the humiliation and exc
cution of Haman and the overthrow
of lis conspiracy, the speaker en-
ployed the case of Esther as repre-
sentative example, to show the true
secret of woman's power. Esther
was admired, and according to the
degree of admiration in which she
was held by the king was she omni-
potent to sway the royal scepter, and
her example, though conspicuous by
reason of peculiar circumstances, was
not an exception to the general pin.
cipie. The destiny of woman is to
lie admired. To fail of this, would
be to fail of the appointed end of her
being. Ii she fail of being admired,
she becomes an anomaly among the
individuals of her sex and stranger
20 the good she was created to enjoy
and impart. She is the divine ideal
of beauty, the divine embodiment of
all the graces, the divinely ordained
instrument Of control in the empire
of love. This is the secret of her
omnipotence over man, the secret OF
her influence in all the counsels
where mans voice is heard.
How did Queen Esther, the stran-
ger princess of humble origin and
still more humble pretensions, asked
the speaker, reverse the policy of the
king and cause the wicked Hannah
to be hanged on the gaIlows he had
erected for Mordecai, the jew? Did
she put forth her own arm to steady
the ark of state or repeal the laws of
the empire? AS we'll might the pi-
lot of ship seize the prov of his
ponderous vessel thinking to turn her
at will by his own strength, as for
her to lay her hand upon public af-
fairs, expecting by her own power or
wisdom to change the policy of the
king. AS the pilot guides his ship
at will by very small helm whittier
soever he listeth, SO tue queen must
guide the State, not by might or
power, but by the spirit of her APP
proach to the king. The throne of
her influence was in the heart of her
sovereign. She did not arrogate to
herself any of the prsrogatives of a
ruler. To have stepped aside from
the grace of womanhood and put on
the coarse masculineness of man. hop.
ing thereby to arrest the tide OF pub
lie events or change the policy of the
king, would have revealed the folly
of the pilot who lets go the helm and
seizes the bowsprit of his ship to
turn her from the rocks. The wheel
which steered the empire of power
was the heart of Ahasuerus, and by
getting control of that helm, she had
control of her own destiny and that
of all her people. Woman's rela-
ton to sovereignty in a republic
makes her queen to the extent that
she Is able to rule her husband 5
heart. The more she is able. bv tho
modesty OF womanly grace, to maip-
tain her power, the more absolute
becomes her influence on political
subjects entrusted to him. When
she Ct mes down from that throne
however, to seek one more conspicu-
Gus, amid the melee of party and the
hariangues of the hustings, she be-
comes as Sampson shorn of his locks
inasmuch as she gains notoriety in a
scramble for power, she disrobes
herself Of the charms that make her
omnipotent in the sphere where God
and nature have designed to make
her supreme.
This is in brief the line OF thought