The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1890-09-20
EPISCOPALIANS EXCLUDE WOMEN
DELEGATES.

One religious denomination after
another is called upon to wrestle
with the question whether woman
may serve as lay delegates. A few
denominations have settled 1t in ac-
coldance with the broad principles
OF righteousness and common-sense,
and they have no further trouble.
They go on their way, strengthened
and rejoicing. But other denomina-
tions are still splitting hairs on points
of tradition and church discipline,
voting down the women again and
again, and making vain efforts to
settle in the negative a question
which can never be permanently
settled till it is settled right. Mrs.
Ellen B. Dietrick has treated the last
case of this kind so well that e can
not do better than to quote her own
words. In a letter to the Boston
Transcript she says:
Even at the risk of coming under
Bishop Paddock's condemnation OF
dragging church matters in med
dlesome and useless way before the
8urt of newspapers" 1t becomes
necessary to call the especial atten-
ton OF EpiscopAlian women to cler-
ical decision made at the opening OF
this Massachusetts Church Conven-
ton.
From time immemorial, woman's
attitude in the church has been that
of the carryatides who upheld on
bowed heads enormous loads in tenn
pies of old-dumb, submissive, un-
complaining. That may have been
inevitable, so long as woman was
uneducated, .untninking, a legal pau
~per in her own household. But times
have changed; the world has moved
on little; and the independent, ed
ucated woman of today has some
thing to say, and perceives that the
world needs all the ideas it can get;
she begins to comprehend that even
the church world cannot afford to
puta gag upon any mouth which is
the portal of cultivated brain.
Yet how is she now preceived
when sent as delegate to the feast
OF reason sd flow of soul where her
clerical brethren sit to decide upon
affairs in which her sex is most
largely concerned?
Think of it carefully court of news
paper readers. An act of injustice
to one is an injury to all, for
are we not all members OF one
body? We are certainly told by
an authority this convention respects
that the eye cannot say unto the
hand, | have no need Of thee; nor
again, the head to the feet. | have no
need of you; but yet, such was the
ungracious decision flung at women
yesterday by the Protestant Episcopal
Convention of Massachusetts, in re-
iecting women delegates.
Last year one woman made gift
of SIo7, 900 to this association which
now refuses to allow woman to vote
in its convention, though two have
been sent as officially appointed de-
egates from a respectable church.
What is vote in a church council?
Merely an expression of opinion in
regard to matters which will be
largely laid upon women's shoulders
for execution, and in which women
are deeply interested. For who does
not know that women supply the
very breath of life to the churches?
How long would men continue faith
| full if mothers and wives withdrew in
a body from all societies which hui
initiate them? Why, then, should it
be lett to men alone to revise a
prayer book which women most
largely use? or alone to decide how
money shall be raised or spent, when
it is woman's influence which per-
forms the drudgery of keeping the
church wheels moving.
1t is not to women alone that such
ignominious exclusion works injury.
1t is to the whole cause of religion.
We hear a great deal about the pc
culiar honor Christianity confers
upon woman; but what Hindoo &C.
clesiastical body could treat her
with more supreme public contempt
than is manifested now by the Epis-
copal and was two years ago shown
by the Methodist Church Council?
Is it not truly Oriental contempt
which causes a DELEGATE to be rejected
purely because that delegates SOULS
shrined in feminine body?
1t is solemn duty to protest
against such injustice. 1t is ignoble
forest quiet y content while branded
with mark of inferiority that is not
deserved Every woman who seeks
to take her place side by side with
man as his helper. whether in home,
church, school or State, advances
the deepest interests of humanity,
for in no single relation of this
worlds life or work is it good for
man to be alone.