The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1889-02-05
CASTE IN THE CHURCHES.

The commissioner of the depart
ment of labor has just submitted
report which relates entirely to the
subject of working women in cities
and concludes his report with the fol-
lowing reference to the character of
the workingwomen
From all that can be learned one
need not hesitate in asserting that the
workingwomen of this country are as
honest and as virtuOus as any other
class of our citizens. The social stand
ing, of workingwomen is becoming
better and better. The honest work
ingwomen, engaged in honest labor,
is entitled to che respect of all honest
minded people. She should be wei
come in the churches of the cities and
should be drawn INFO the best associ.
atoms where social and moral sur
roundings would aid her in cultivsting
her own self-respect. At least it
should not be possible to class her as
the forgotten woman for her sirug-
gle is too heroic, her hardships too
painful, her lot too dreary, for Chris
tian people TO thoughtlessly pass her
BY"
The commissioner of labor
evidently appreciates the fact that
laboring women, are too often over
looked in the churches, and that there
is certain caste which draws the line
sharply between the worker asd the
non.worker. That the Commissioner
is not the only one who has realized
this fact in all its humiliations and
bitterness, is not to be supposed, since
it is the common complaint of the
workers that In the home OF God
there is distinctive separation of the
laboring and non-laboring classes,
savoring not of christianity, but rather
of pride and wor dliness. This separa-
ton does not find its source among
the men all honor to them in this in
stance-but among the women who
with that peculiar spirit which SO Of
ten meanly mars an otherwise good
woman, must needs stand upon the
pedestal of false pride, even though
she misses heaven by 80 doing. Oh,
the shallowness, the hypocrisy, the
cant and miserable pretenses (which
prompts the woman, who in her pride
Of estate sights the humble sister
in her church; not because the humble
sister is not as worthy. not as good in
Gods" sight as herself, but because she
Is humble. Well might the Commits
sioner in his report say of the work
ing women, cher hardships are
too painful, her lot too
dreary for Christian pe,ple to pass
her BY" and when she is passed by,
let it not be believed that it is the
Christian people who 90 it. Christ
Himself says, "You cannot serve God
and Mammon," and no woman worthy
of the name OF Christian can wrap.
herself In her worldly pride and self
gloriGcation and prove the fact. "By
their fruits ye shall know them" is as
true to-day as when it was spoken
nearly eighteen hundred years ago.
and no modern process of reasoning
can weaken it. 1t is dangerous ex.
pertinent for pride to rear its hydra
head in the churches, for unjust as il
certainly is, the church is held response
bic for it. But it is not the church;
the church is founded upon neither
pride nor worldliness, but upon the
teachings of that Christ who was as
poor as the poorest, as humble as the
humblest, and who Himself belonged
TO the working class. No, tbs not the
church; it is the members, alas! who,
false to Christ, false to the church and
false to every attribute of religions
promptings, wrap themselves ia gar
nent of worldly pride and build up
caste wall who are responsible, and
who in that day when the deeds done
in the body shall be accounted for,
will cry for the heavens to fall upon
them and hide them from sight.