The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-02-16

| ~. n q stones throw OF this building
Snere diet years ago one of the principals Of
our public schools, She had been twenty five
years at that post She had left the touch Of
Ienhement on multitude Of the young She
nad' OUT OF her slender purse, given literally
hundreds OF dollars for the destitute who
came under her observation as, school
teachen A deceased sisters children were
snrown upon her hands. and she took care of
shem. She was kind mother to them, while
she mothered the whole school, Worn out
Wltn nursing in the sick and dying room of
nne q The household, she herself came to die.
Sne closed the school book and at tho same
tiine the volume of her Christian fidelity: and
% when she went through the gates they cried:
THESE are they who came out of great tribu-
lation, and had their robes washed and made
white in the blood Of the Lamb;'
Queens are all such, and whether the world
acknowledges them or not, Heaven acknowl-
edges them When Scarron, the wit and
ecclesiastlc, as poor as he was brilliant, was
about to marry Mime. de Maintenon, he was
asked by the notary what he proposed to
settle upon mademoiselle. The reply was;
immortality The names Of the wives of
Kings die with them; the name of the wife of
ecarron will live always" In higher and
better sense, upon all women who do their
duty God will settle immortalityl Not the
immortality of earthly fame, which is moi.
tai but the Immortality celestial. And they
shall reign forever and ever! Oh, the opportu-
ny which every woman has of being queen,
The longer l live the more admire Good
womanhood. And have come to form nv
| opinion Of the character of man by his ap.
preclation or non-appreciation of woman.
II man has depressed idea of womanly
character he is bad man, and there is no
exception to this rule The writings of Goethe
can never have any such attractions for me as
Shakespeare. because nearly all the womanly
characters Of the great German have some
| fttrnifN6n ThoNa Sc
with her clandestne scheming, and his
Mignon OF evil parentage, vet worse than
her ancestors, and his Theresa the brazen.
and his Aurelia of many intrigues and his
Phllina the termagant, and his Melina the
tarnished, and his Baroness, and his Count
ess, and there is seldom womanly charac
ter in all his voluminous writings
that would be worthy of residence in
a respectable coal cellar, vet pict-
ured, and dramatized, and emblazoned
tll all the literary world is compelled to see.
No. mol Give me William Shakespeare's idea
OF woman; and see 1t in Desdemona, and
Cordelia, and Rosalind and Imogen, aud
Helena, and Hermione and Viola, and Isa
bella, and Sylvia, and Perdita all Of them
with enough faults to prove them human,
bnt enough kindly characteristics to give us
the authors idea of womanhood, his Lady
Macbeth only dark background to bring
out the supreme loveliness of his other female
| characters.
| Oh, woman of America! rise to your op-
| oortunity. Be no slave to pride, or worldii.
ness, or sin. Why ever crawl in the dust
| when you can mount a thrones Be queens
| unto God forever Hail Vashti!
Again: want you to consider Vashti the
yelled. Had she appeared before Ahashuerus
| and his court on thatday, with her face un-
covered. she would have shocked all the deli |
cacies of Oriental society, and the very men
VINO IN their intoxication demanded that she
come, IN their sober moments would have |
desplsed her. As some flowers seem to thrive !
oest in the dark lane and in the shadow, and |
where the san does not seem to reach them |
| 70 God appoints to most won,anly natures |
retiring and unobtrusive spirit God |
once IN while does call an Isabella |
TO throne, or Miriam to strike the tim |
orel at the front of host, or a Marie An |
soinette t. Guel French mob or a Deborah
70 stand at the front of an armed battalion !
,rying out: " Up! up! This is the day in
which the Lord will deliver Ssera into thy
hands," And when women are called to such
outdoor work, and to such heroic positions,
Sod prepares them for it: and they have iron
IN their soul. and lightnings in their eye and
whrlwlnds in their breath, and the borrowed
strength of the Lord Omnipo.en5 in their
right arm. They walk through furnaces as
though they were hedges of wild flowers, and
sapphire; and all the harpies OF
hell sink down to their dungeons at
she stamp of their womanly indjgna-
lion. But these are exceptions Generally
Dorcas would rather make garment for the
poor boy; Rebecca would rather fill the
trough for the camels; Hannah would rather
make coat for Samuel; the Hebrew maid
would rather give prescription for Naa-
mans leprosy; the woman of Sarepta would
rather gather few St icks to cook a meal for
Farnished Elijah; Phoebe would rather carry
letter for the inspired Apostle: Mother Lois
would r9fhnr 70 Tip,os sI,xri, fl.a
1res When see woman going about her
daily duty-with cheerful dignity presiding
At the table: with kind and gentle, but
firm, discipline presiding in the nurs-
cry, going out into the world with
in the footsteps Of him who went
about doing good-I say: This is Vashti
with a veil on" But when l see woman
OF unblushing boldness, loud voiced, with
tongue of infinite Glitter clatter, with arro-
CANT look, passing through the streets with
hurricane of millinery. l cry out: "Vasht
has lost her veils" When 1 see a woman
struggling for political preferinent and re-
jecting the duties of home as Insignificant,
and thinking the offices of wife, mother and
daughter of no importance, and trying to
force her way up on into conspicuity, say:
"Ah, what pity! Vashti has lost her veil!"
When l see woman Of comely features,
and Of adroitness of intellect, and en-.
dowed with all that the schools can
do for one, and of the bigh social
position, yet moving in society with super.
ciliousness and hauteur as though she would
have people know their place, and an unde.
fined combination Of giggle, and strut, and
rodomontade, endowed with allopathic guam
titles Of talk. but only homcsopathic infintesi.
mails Of sense, the terror of dry goods clerks
and railroad conductors, discoverers of sig
nificant meanings in plain conversation,
prodisies of badinage and innuendo-I say
"Vashti has lost her veil"
But do not misinterpret what say into a
depreciation OF the work of these glorious
and divinely called women who will not be
understood till after they are dead, women
Ike Susan B. Anthony, who are giving their
lie for the improvement of the condition OF
their sex Those OF you that think that
women have under the laws of this country
an equal chance with men are ignorant Of
the laws. A gentleman writes me from
Maryland, saying: Take the laws of this
state A man and wife start out in life full
OF hope in every respect; by their joint efforts,
and, as is frequently the case, through the
ideas of the wife, succeed in ac
fortune, but they have no
children; they reach old age together, and
then the husband dies. What does the law
Of this State do theni 1t says to the widow:
Hands off your late husbands property do
not touch it; the State will find others to
whom it will give that; but you, the widow, {
nus. hoc eoucn IL, only SO mucn as Will Keep
nfe within your aged body, that you may !
i've to see those others enjoy what rightfully
should be your own" And the State seeks 4
the relatives of the deceased husband, whether
tney be near or far, whether they were ever
neard OF before or not and transfers to them, I
slngiy or collectively, the estats of the de- !,
ceased husband and living widow. +.
Now, that is a specimen of unjust laws in :
All the states concerning .womanhooi In. =
stead OF flying off to the discussion as to ,
whether or not the giving of the right Of |
voting to woman will correct these laws LET J
me say to men. be gallant enough, and fair
and honest enough, and righteous q
enough, and God loving enough to correct y
these wrongs against women by your own :
vote. Do not wait for woman
suffrage to come, if it ever does come but SO
TAR as you can touch ballot boxes. and Legis-
latures and Congresses begin the reforma-
ton But until Justice is done to woman {
bv the laws Of all the States, let the women of t
America take the platforms and the pulpits. 5
nnl no honorable man will charge Vashti d
with having lost her veil. $
Again; | want you this morning to con i
,ider Vashti the sacrifice Who is ihis that I
coming out of That WALLACE --,+o - CT. | .