The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-10-17

young women without money and with
out home and without work IN thes
great maelstroms of metropolitan Life
When such case comes under your oh
servation, how do you treat it? 'Ge
out of my way; we have no room IN ou
establishment for any more hands.
don't believe in women anyway; the.
are q lazy, idle, worthless set. John
please show. this person out Of the door.
Or do you compliment her personal sp
pearance and say things to her which, 1
any man said to your sister or daughter
you would kill him on the spot? Tha
is one way, and it is tried every day II
these large cities, and many Of those
who advertise for female hands III facto
ries and for governesses in families have
proved themselves unfit to fbe. IN any
! place outside of he'll.
ssNew York and Brooklyn ground uE
last year about thirty thousand young
women, and would like to grind ur
about as many this year. Out OF all
that long procession OF women who
march on with no hope for this world OF
the next, battered and bruised and
scofed at and flung off the precipice,
not one but might have been saved fol
home and God and Heaven. But good
men and good women are not IN that
kind of business. Alas for that poor
thing, nothing but the thread of that
sewing girls needle held her, and the
thread broke. I have heard men tell In
public discourse what man Is, but
what is woman? Until some one shall
give better definition I will tell you
what woman is.
ssDirect from God, sacred and deli
cate gift, with affections so great that no
measuring line short of that OF the in
finite God can tel their bound; fash
ioned to refine and soothe and lift and
irradiate home and society and the
world; of such value that no one can
appreciate it, unless his mother lived
long enough to let him understand it,
or who, in some great crisis of life,
when all else failed him, had wife to
re-enforce him with faith in God that
nothing could disturb. Speak out, ye
cradles, and tell of the feet that rocked
you and the anxious faces that lowered
over you! Speak out, ye nurseries OF
all Christendom, and ye homes, whether
desolate or still in full bloom with the
faces of wife, mother and daughter, and
help me to define what woman is! If a
man during all his life accomplish
nothing else except to win the love and
confidence and help and companionship
of a good woman, he is garlanded
victor, and ought to have the hands of
all people between here and the grave
stretched out to him in congratulation.
"But as geographers tell US that the
depths of the sea correspond with the
heights of the mountains, I have to tell
you that good womanhood is not higher
up than bad womanhood is deep down.
The grander the palace, the more awful
the confagration that destroys it. The
grander the steamer Oregon, the more
terrible her going down just off the
coast. Now, should not wonder if you
tremble little with sense Of response
bility when say that there Is hardly a
person in this house but may have an
opportunity to save woman. 1t may
in your case be done by good advice, or
by financial help, or by trying to bring
to bear some one of thousand Chris
tian influences. You would not have to
go far. If. for instance, you know
among your acquaintances young wo-
man who is apt to appear on the streets
about the hour when men return. from
business, and you find her responding
to the smile of entire strangers hogs
that lift their hsts-then go you to her
and plainly tell her that nearly all the
destroyed womanhooa in the world. be-:
gan the downward path with that very
kind of behavior.
s.There is another exploit that you
can do, and that is to save q child. A
child does nots seem to amount. to much.,
1t is nearly q year old before it can walk
at all. For the first year and half it
cannot speak a word. For the first ten
years it would starye if it had to earn its
own food. For the first fifteen years its
opinion ca any subject is absolutely
valueless. And then there are so many
of them. My! what lots OF children!
And some people have contempt for
children. They axe good for nothing
but to wear out the carpets ard break
things and keep you awake nights cry
ing. Well, your estimate Of child is
quite different from that mothers esti-
mate who lost her child last summer.
They took it to the salt air of the sea-
shore and to the tonic air of the noun.
tains, but no help came, and the brief
paragraph of it's life is ended. Suppose
that life could be restored by purchase,
how much would that bereaved mother
give? She would take all the Jewels
from her fingers and neck and bureau
aud put them down. And if told that
that was not enough she would take her
house and make over the deed for it,
and if that were Dot enough she would
call in all her investments, and putdoTn
all her mortgages and bonds; and if told
that were not enough she would say: I
have made over all my property, and if
I can have that child back l viii now
pledge that I will toll with my own
hands and carry with my own shoulders
in any kind of hard work, and live in
cellar and die in a garret. Only give me
back that lost darling.
ooh, to save child! Am not right
in putting that among the great exploits?
Yes, it beats the other two, for if you
save the child you save the man or you
save the woman. Get the first twenty
years of that boy or grl all right and [
guess you have got manhood or woman
hood all right and there entire earthly
and eternal career an right. But what
are going to do with those children who
are worse off than if their father or
mother had died the day they were born?