Huntsville gazette. [volume] (Huntsville, Ala.) 1879-1894, 1890-07-12
In WOMAN'S BEHALF.
The WISE WOMAN.

Building the Households of Church and
State. #t
A saying Of holy writ will provide me
with text. tits this: ga wise woman
buildeth her house, but the foolish pull
eth it down with her hands" 1t will
hardly be needful, said Julia Ward
Howe, at the annual meeting of the
New England Suffrage Association, to
dwell upon the truth OF this saying in
its more familiar application. All OF
us who have lived, and learned by liv-
ing, have seen houses built by women;
indeed, no house is built up without q
Moman's powerful help. 1t is not al
ways that of a wife and mother; that is
the best and most completes, but some
times another supplies the womans part
in the domestic economy, looking out
for every need, supplying every want.
Sometimes the very memory and spirit
OLA woman, herself no longer present
in the body, helps to rule and order the
household. She built her house, and 1t
remains tower of strength and COM
fort to those who follow her. 1t is pain
full to dwell upon the opposite picture;
that of the foolish woman who sacrifices
the household peace to the wild impulses
or savage slothfulness of mind unin-
formed and a heart unreformed. The
lessons drawn from these statements are
twofold. I should like to consider very
briefly the social ways of thinking, which
help the women to be wise or foolish,
and then to consider the part that wom-
en- should have in building our religious
household, the church, and our civic
household, the State; and would say a
word of the Importance of vistas, of a
far-reaching outlook into the conse-
Quences of woman's actions. II the
foolish woman could see before her,
even as far as the outcome Of things in
her personal earthly life, she would not
pursue the line of conduct which pulls
down her house, instead of building it
up. The greatest OF modern philoso-
pliers says that man can not reach his
full moral development without the idea
of Immortality; that is, without the
farthest and widest outlook of which the
human mind is capable. This doctrine
applies in another way to the moral at
tainments possible to women. They,
too, need the wide outlook, the horizon
of good and of evil carried to its utmost
limits. Woman can not attain their
noblest stature without the stimulus be-
tore them of the noblest duties, of the
final goal of their endeavors. Now
wifehood and motherhood, sacred as
they are, do not in themselves Of neces-
sity afford this outlook. Both may be
very self-limited and limiting relations.
A woman will naturally love her hus-
band and child as herself, as, indeed,
she should. But this merely personal
relation promises no onward step in the
way of woman's progress, no training of
individuals for intelligent service to the
State. Another generation of men and
women, arriving at this point and get
ting no farther, become morally fossil
lied, and are, to all intents and pur-
poses. in state of arrested civilization.
Now, the human soul Graves to achieve
more than this; and much OF the wild
sin and passion of society comes from
the pentup force of human desire, for
which no ftor satisfying Objects found.
Under free institutions, such an object
is supplied. Every man has not only
passive, but also an active, duty to-
ward the State. 1t is his part not only
to endure the laws, but aid in enforcing
them. The cry of society to him is per-
petually,. Come up higher: and that he
responds to it any one knows who has
observed men under the old order and
under the new; and this is the funda-
mental necessity which compels human
itarians to ignore the evils of popular
government, its capacity, its corruption.
We must have it, because the man must
have his outlook. He must see before
him the whole moral possibility to
which his nature is entitled. He can
not rise worthily without aspiration; he
can not aspire to what he can not see.
II would seem almost superfuous to say
that the woman of to-day needs this as
much as the man does. ''Let US eat and
drink, for tomorrow we de-" reads for
woman LET us dress and dance, for to-
morrow we marry-or grow old unmar-
ried" Thank God, the higher education
sets aside this miserable statute of linz
itations It's exhortation is, Let us
study and attain, for tomorrow we
vote."- Plato's dream OF justice is di-
vine truth, and, like every di-
vine idea, is to be real
lied Women are to be trained for
public sentiment, public duty, even in
the sacred retirement of private life.
She who has no gift of eloquence, but
has mind, and can study the public
interest, has will, and can help to pro-
mote it. She can walk with her brothers
in-sthe@ noble ranks of citizenship; she
can exercise power which none can
wrest from her. What is this power?
The. ballot. She has it not at this mo-
ment, but she has it in the moral vista
before her. The enlargement which this
already gives, nerves her limbs, stimu-
lates her brain. The wise woman build
eth her house. Gentlemen, give her q
chance to build it beside you and with
YOU. The fate of ancient Troy, and OF
many another city, shows us what the
foolish woman can do-the woman who
is satisfied with her beauty and her fas-
cinafion-and its direful consequences