Morning journal and courier., 1889-10-30
WOMAN,s SPHERE.
A Woman Who Inclines 10 Think That 1t Is Growing Too Wide.
 IFrom tha Guardian

A
 That 1t is Growing Too Wide.
 lFrom the Guardian.l
 It Is clear from the recent discussions about female suffrage that there is good deal of uncertainty and difference of opin- Ion at the present day as to woman's sphere in the world. The movement which led to the improvement in wonen's education is still 50 young that its results can hardly yet be tested. We have no sufficient material to enable us to decide whether, and if so in what direction, the female intellect differs from the male. We have no adequate means of judging whether those special womanly qualities which are universally valued and admired are inherent in woman's nature, or are due, in part at least, to the oirsum- stances of her past life, sheltered as it has been from much of the struggle and compe- tition of life. It must still be considered uncertain the particular direction taken by the higher education for women is the ideal ly right one. The advance has been so rapid that we have hardly had time to breathe, still less to ponder and judge. But the cry Is for further advance, or rather for more change, for new openings, for fresh develops ments.
 It might perhaps be wiser, seeing that we have done so much, to be content for the present to move little slower, and take time to test the work that has been already done. There seems something selfish in our haste. We wish that the changes should, at any rate, come in oar day, that we may have the merit and the benefit of them. A little more caution is surely needed before we take steps which it would be impossible to retrace. Is 1t too much to ask that those who wish for moro changes should at least take time to formulate what Is their conception of wo- mans share in the work of society," l have been told that the only way to decide this is to open everything to woman for which na- ture has not obviously united her. This suggestion, for Christians at least, has one decided objection. There is nothing in the nature of women to unfit them for holy or ders, but we cannot imagine that any Chris tian, however advanced an advocate of wo- mans rights she may be, would wish to see women as priests. Nature does not, there- fore, seem to be an altogether safe guido in this tangled question. I should like to ask my fellow Christians whether revelation has not something to say to us on this subject.
 The old story of the creation of woman tells us that she was made as Q helpmeet for man. doubt whether modern claims have advanced her to nobler place. St. Paups views about women are well known, but they are, as a rule, dismissed with some re- marks about the nature of the times or 8 statement that St. Paul did not appreciate women-was a misogynist in fact. Yet even he had valued women frienas-Priseilla, Phoebe, Lois, Eunice. St. Peter was mar ried man. and lived with women round him, and he had found out that the ornament of women was "a meek and quiet spirit" The political platform of the nineteenth century does not somehow seem akin to the meek and quiet spirit.
 fancy that have seen in America among the beat women a better ideal of woman's sphere than is often to be found in our own country. seem to have noticed there some glimmerings of an ides that women should regard it as their duty to bring sweetness and light, intellectual as we'll as moral, into the lives of their male relations and friends, and that with that object each woman sheuld aim at making herself as complete charac- ter as she could. If VIC women would only take the trouble to be something, to have a character, to have interests, to have ideals, to have true religion, who could say where our power would stop4 But no, we want our rights, we want to make 6 noise, we want to be of consequence, we are afraid that our opinioas are not sufficiently valued, We clam. or fer an apprsciable test of our influence. The Gospel teaches us different lesson. It would be we'll if we could content ourselves for time with bringing the fruits of our improved education, of our enlarged oppor. tunities, to bear upon the duties imposed upon us within our old sphere, and those others which are intimately connected with 1t. Meanwhile we might well study, with a little more care than we have hitherto done, what are the peculiar characteristics of the female intellect. Too much time has been wasted in the desire to prove that it is the same or equal to that of man: If we be- lieve that the fact that the world is peopled with beings of different sexes is not due te chance, but to the will of the Creator, We are bound to believe that he has appointed work of different kinds for each sex. We cannot believe that in the revelation he has given us he has left us without guidance iH the perplexing task of how this work Is te be apportioned. LOUISE CREIGHTON.