The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-02-09

| enough IOr subsistence, the daughters
Of once prosperous merchants. lawyers,
clergymen, artists, bankers and capital
lists who brought up their children under
the Internal delusion that it was not
high toned for women to learn profit
able calling Young women, take this
affair in your own hands and let there be
an instruction in all prosperous families
of Brooklyn and New York and Christen-
dom on the part of the daughters of this
day, demanding knowledge in occupa-
tions and styles of business by which
they may be their own defense and their
own support if all fatherly and husbandly
and brotherly hands forever fail them.
l have seen two sad sights--the one a
woman in all the glory of her young life
stricken by disease, and in a week lifeless
in home of which she had been the
pride. As her hands were folded over the
still heart aud her eyes closed for the
last slumber, and she was taken out amid
the lamentations of kindred and
friends, thought that was a sadness inn
measurable. But have seen something
compared with which that scene was
bright and songfu. 1t was young
woman who had bsen all her days amid
wealthy surrounding, by the visit of death
and bankruptcy to the household, turned
out on a cold world without one lesson
about how to get food or shelter, and into
the awful whirlpool of city life where
strong ships have gone down, and for
twenty years not one word has been heard
from her. Vessels last week went out on
the Atlantic ocean looking for ship.
wrecked craft that was left alone and for
saken on the sea a few weeks ago
with the idea of bringing it into port
But who shall ever bring again into the
harbor of peace and hope aud Heaven that
lost womanly immortal, driven in what
tempest, afame in wnat conflagration,
sinking into what abyss? o, God, help !!
o, Christ. rescue!
My sisters, give no your time to learn.
ing fancy work which the world may dis
! pense with when hard times come, but
connect your skill with the indispensa.
} bles of life. The world will always want
something to wear and something to eat
and shelter and fuel for the body, and
knowledge for the mind, and religion for
the soul.
Let me say to all women who have al
ready entered upon the battle OF
life, that the time is coming when woman
shall not only get as much salary and
; wages as men get, but for certain styles
of employment women will have higher
salary and more wages, for the reas on
that for some styles of work they have
more adaptation. But this justice will
come to woman not through any senti.
ment of gallantry, not because woman Is
physically weaker than man and there
fore ought to have more consideration
shown her, but because through her
finer natural taste, and more
grace of manner, and Quicker per-
ception, and more delicate touch. and more
educated adroitness, she will in certain
callings be to her employer worth ten per
cent more, or twenty per cent. more than
the other sex. She will not get it by ask
ing for it, but by earning it, and it shall
be hers by lawful conquest.
Now, men Of America, be fair and give
the women a chance! Are you afraid
that they will do some of your work, and
! hence harm your properties? Remem.
Der that there are scores of thousand of
men doing women's work. Do not be
afraid! God knows the end from the be.
ginning, and He knows how many people
this world can feed and shelter, and when
it gets too full He will end the world, and,
if need be, start another. God will halt
the inventive faculty, which, by produc.
ing machine that will do the work OF
|
men and women, will leave that
number of people without work. I hope
that there will not be invented another
sewing machine, or reaping machine, or
corn thresher, or any other new machine
for the next five hundred years. We want
no more wooden hands, and iron hands,
and steel hands, and electric hands sub.
stituted for men and women who would
otherwise do the work and get the pay
and earn the livelihood.
But God will arrange all, and all we have
to do is to do our best and trust Him for
the rest. Let me cheer all women fight
ing the battle of life alone with the fact
that thousands of women have in that
way won the day. Mary Lyon, founder
of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary,
fought the battle alone; Adelaide New
ton, the tract distributor, alone; Fidelia
Fisk, the consecrated missionary, alone;
Dorothea Dix, the angel of the insane
asylums, alone; Caroline Herschel, the
Indispensable reinforcement of her
brother, alone; Maria Takrzewska, the
heroine of the Berlin hospital, alone;
Helen Chalmers, patron of sewing schools
for the poor of Edinburgh, alone. And
thousands and tens of thousands of women
Of whose bravery and self. sacrifice
and glory of character the world
has made no record, but whose
deeds are in the Heavenly archives of
martyrs, who fought the battle alone and,
though unrecognized for the short thirty
or fifty Or eighty years of their earthly
existence, shall, through the quintillion
ages of the higher world, be pointed out
with the admiring cry: "These are they
who came out of great tribulaton and
had their robes washed and made white
in the blood of the Lamb"
Let me also say for the encouragement
of all women fighting the battle of life
alone, that their conflict will soon end
There is one word written over the faces
of many them and that word is despair.
My sister, you need appeal to that Christ
who comforted the sisters of Bethany in
their domestic trouble, and who in
his last hours forgot all the pangs
OF his own hands and feet and heart as
he looked into the face of maternal
anguish, and called a friends attention
to it, in substance saying: "John, can
not take care of her any longer. Do for
her as would have done if 1 had lived.
Behold thy motherw If, under the pres
sure OF unrewarded and unappreciated