The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-03-08

1t Ia hard for men to earn living In
this day, but it is harder for women
their health not so rugged, their arm not
so strong, their opportunities fewer.
These persons, after tremblingiy going
through the ordeal of an examination as
to their qualif cations to teach, half be-
wildered step over the sill of the public
school to do two things-instruct the
young and earn their own bread. Her
work is wearing to the last degree. The
management of forty or fifty fidgety and
intractible children, the suppression of
their vices and the development of
their excellences, the management
of rewards and pun ishmsnt the sending
of so many bars of soap and fine tooth
combs on benignant ministry, the break
ing of so many wild colts for the harness
of life, sends her home at night weak,
neuralgia. unstrung, SO that of all the
weary people in your cities for five
nights of the week there are none more
weary than the public school teachers.
Within stones throw of this bull ding
there died, years ago, one of the princi-
pals of our public schools. She had been
twenty five years at that post. She had
left the touch of refinement on a multi
tude of the young. She had, out of her
slender purse, given literally thousands
of dollars for the destitute who came
under her observation as a school teacher.
A deceased sisters children were thrown
upon her hands, and she took care of
them. She was a kind mother to them,
while she mothered whole school. Worn
out with nursing in the sick and dying
room of one of the household, she herself
came to die. She ell sed the school book
and at the Same time the volume of her
Christian fidelity; and when she went
through the gates they cried: ''These are
they who came out of great tribulation,
and had their robes washed and made
white in the blood of the Lamb"
Oh the opportunity which every woman
has of being a queen. The longer l live
the more l admire good womanhood. And
! have come to form my opinion of the
character of a man by his appreciation Or
| interpretation of woman. If a man
have depressed idea of womanly char
| acter, he is a bad man, aud there is no
exception to the rule. The writings of
Goethe can never have any such attrac-
| tions for me as Shakespeare, because
| nearly all the womanly characters of the
great German have some kind of turp-
tude. There is his Mariana, with her
| clandestine scheming, and his Mignon,
of evil parentage, yet worse than her
| ances tors, and his Theresa, the brazen,
and his Aurelia, of many intrigues, and
| Philina, the termagent, and his Mel ina
| the furnished, and his Baroness
| and his Count tess, and there is sell
| dom a womanly character in all his
voluminous writings that would be worthy
| of residence in a respectable coal cellar,
yet pictured, and dramatized and en-
blazoned till all the literary world is com
peeled to see. No, no. Give me William
| Shakespeare's idea of woman. and see it
in Desdemona, and Cordelia, and Rosa
lind, and Imogen. and Helena, and
Hermione, and Viola, and Isabella, and
Sylvia, and Perdita, all of them with
enough faults to prove them human, but
enough kindly characteristics to give us
the authors idea of womanhood, his
Lady Macbeth, only dark background
to bring out the supreme loneliness of his
other female characters.
| oh, women of America! rise to your OPP
| portunity. Be no slave to pride, or world.
illness, or sin. Why ever crawl in the
dust when you can mount throne? Be
| queens unto God forever. Hail, Vasht
| Again, want you to consider Vashti
the vailed. Had she appeared before
| Ahasuerus and his court ON thai day with
her face uncovered, she would have
shocked all the delicacies of Oriental So
ciety, and the very men who in their in
| toxication demanded that she come, in
their sober moments would have despised
her. AS some flowers seem to thrive best
in the dark lane and in the shadow, and
where the sun does not seem to
reach them, so God appoints to most
womanly natures retiring and unob
trusive spirit. God once in while does
call an Isabella to a throne, or Miriam
to take the timbrel at the front of host,
or Marie Antoinette to quell French
mob, or Deborah to stand at the front OF
an armed battalion, crying ont, up!
upl This is the day in which the Lord
will deliver Sierra into thy hands" And
when women are called to such outdoor
work, and to such heroic positions God
prepares them for it; and they have iron
in their soul, and lightnings in their eye,
and whirlwinds in their breath, and the
borrowed strength of the Lord Omnipo-
tent in their right arm. They walk
through furnaces as though they were
hedges of wild flowers, and cross seas as
though they were shimmerng sapphire,
| anu tuo pies VI ueil SILK QOWn
their dung con at the stamp of their WON
anly indignation. But these are excep-
tions. Generally Dorcas would rather
make a garment for the poor boy
Rebecca would rather fill the trough
for the camels; Hannah would rather
make a coat for Samuel; the Hebrew
maid would rather give a prescrip-
ton for Naaman's leprosy; the woman of
Sarepta would rather gather few sticks
to cook a meal for famished Elijah
Phoebe would rather carry letter for the
inspired apostles; Mother Lois would
rather educate Timothy in the Scriptures.
When / see a woman going about her
daily duty-with cheerful dignity presid
ing at the tables with kind and gentle,
but firm discipline presiding in the
nursery, going out into the world without
any blast of trumpets, following in the
footsteps of Him who who went about
doing good-I say: "This is Vashti
with a vail on" Bat when I see q
woman of unblushing boldness, loud
voiced, with tongue of infinite Glitter
clatter. with arrogant look, passing
through the streets with masculine
swing, gayly arrayed in very hurricane
of millinery, cry out: "Vashti has lost
her yaii,0 When I saa woman G truu-