The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1885-10-22

but it is Of the highest that she should |
be trained in habits of accurate thought,
and follow at least some one path Of
scientific attainment.
1--WE hear of the mission and of the
rights of woman, as if these could ever
be separated from the mission and the
rights ofmac; as if she and her lord were
creatures of an independent kind and
irreconcilable claim. This. at least, is
wrong. and not less wrong, perhaps
even more foolishly wrong, IS the idea
that woman is only the shadow and
attendant of her lord, owing him a
thoughtless and servile obedience, and
supported altogether in her weakness
by the prominence of his fortitude.
This is the most foolish of all errors
respecting her who was made to be the
helpmate of man-as if he could be
helped effectively by shadow, or
worthily by slave!
You cannot think that the buckling
on of the knights arnor by his lady's
hand was mere caprice of romantic
fashion. 1t is the type of an eternal
truth that the souls armor is never we'll
set to the heart unless a woman's hand
has braced it, and it IS only when she
braces !: loosely that the honor of man
hood fails.
The masters of chivalry knew that
the first and necessary impulse of every
truly taught and knig htly heart is that
OF blind service to its lady; that where
that true service is not, all hayward
and wicked passion must be, and that
in rapturous obedience to his true love
is the sanctitication of all man & strength
and the continuance of all his purposes,
and this because it ought to be impos-
sible for any noble man to love any one
whose gentle counsel he cannot trust or
whose prayerful command he can hest
tate to obey.
''You bring your girls up as if they
were meant for sideboard ornaments
and then complain of their friyolits.
Give them not only noble teachings, but
noble teachers, and give them the help
which alone has sometimes done more
than all other influences-the help OF
wild and fair nature. You cannot bap-
tie them rightly in inch-deep church
fonts unless you baptise them also in
the sweet waters which the great Law
Giver strikes forth from the rocks OF
your native land.> You cannot lead
them faithfully to those narrow. ak
heWn church affairs while the azure
alters in heaven remain for you without
inscriptions; affairs built. not to, but by
an unknown God.
do not suppose that I wish to de.
ceive women into the idea that when.
} ever they pass they will tread upon
herbs of sweet scent. and that the rough
ground will be made smooth for then
by depth of roses! So surely as the,
believe that, they will have, instead, tc
walk on bitter herbs and thorns. The
path OF good woman is indeed strewr
with flowers. but they rise behind he
r feet, not before Them
, When there is health in woma,
there is always beauty. 1t may not b,
fashion-plate beauty or the pallid radi
2 ance of the sick-room that is so mucf
9 admired. 1t may not be that abnorma
3 CLEAN that makes the current emo
tionals so precocious, but 1t will be tn
beauty of harmonious functions. cquabl
faculties and an elasticity and curv
l that are, as Gosse has beautifully put it
, like the smell of fruit
This indescribable something whic]
we call grace is the girdle that tn
|? Greeks conferred upon their goddess q
i beauty, and without which she coult
win no hearts with all her loneliness.
When we come to speak of thes
: women who are endowed by natur
j with full measure of woman we thin
L of Emerson's comparison. The little
sharp, isolated intellect undertaking t
: do that which nature has not fitted
for is like the city in the desert that de
sires to be the metropolis of the worl
and thinks and shouts and deties. Tn
other atf1uent aud unconscious creature
d who walks in and conquers with n
special effort, is like the city besid
;. which the great river runs and to who's
'' feet come all the argosles of the world
: And health, my friends, is great river
Did you ever see mother handle
sick baby? Study it the next time yo
: get chance. It's beautiful sight
: Your gentlcness would kill it. He
a cas-. violence soothes it. She catche
G it somewhere by it's skirt, inverts it an
l regulates 1t, turns it over, slaps it o.
the back, pins it deity together, hits i
with a finishing touch of her own lip
and there it is, smiling and rehabili
tated.