The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-08-26
WOMEN IN THE PULPIT.
After Twenty-flve Years There Are
72O Engaged in Preaching.
From the CHICAGO Tribune

AIbST W0nbJ-lR0 O6tAS AhOA0 M
72O Engaged in Preaching.
From the Chicago Tribune.
81 remember" said woman yesterday,
"the first time l ever saw woman in the
pulpit. We all turned our heads as she ens
! tered the church, and l have vivid mental
picture of her tall, slim figure, in black silk,
with severe white necktic, as she walked.
without looking to the right or left, past our
pew. | was so little that. hearing her
spoken of as the Rev. Olympia Brown,
associated her at once, and have continued
in vague way to associate her ever since,
with the Olympia that is on Puget sound.
said she was the first woman preacher l
ever saw she has remained the only one.
after quarter Of a century there are still
very few women among the ministers"
And yet the records seem to have 720
names Three hundred and fifty of these be-
long to the Friends. OF the churches which
have begun to ordain womel the Univer-
salist is at the head of the list; it has
thirty-six regularly in the ministry and
eleven others licensed to preach. The
Unitariars have sixteen ordained women
and large number who preach more or
less regularly. The Congregatianalists
have six or eight ordained women.
Olympia Brown, or, as she has since be-
come, the Rev. olympia Brown Willis,
was not by any means the first woman
ordained in this country, that distinction
being possessed by the Rev. Antoinette
Brown Blackwell, who entered the tbeologi-
cal class of Oberlin College somewhere about
1S47. She says her first sermon was preached
in a schoolhouse ia Henrietta, o., on Sun
t ths people, spIsnf little 4 more i0 aiers
than usual, especially at first, quite as at
tentive and orderly az any sober-minded
congregation" AT the time Mrs BLACKWELL
was ordained, some thirty eight years ago,
she was pastor of the church OF South Butler
| and Savannah in Ohio, which accordingly
departed from precedent in a manner some-
what revolutionary. Olympia Brown has
probably the longest record OF service of
any woman minister. as, although not Or
dained until 1863, she has been in the pulpit
ever since, while AIRS. Blackwell has retired
from pastoral duty.
Rev. Phoebe A. Hanaford is probably as
| widely known as any woman minister.
| Being asked for "reminiscences of twenty
| years in the pulpit, she writes: at was in
| the fall of 1866, while | was editing the
magazine called the Ladies' Repository,
then published in Boston, that gentleman
rushed uD to me one day in a railway sta
ton, and told me that Olympia Brown
| begged me to go in her stead and preach
| next day in South Canton, Mass | had
spoken once or twice in little house out on
| Cape Cod. but had not thought of becoming
preacher. Still, | went, and afterward
Miss Brown opened the way for me 50 that
| | received q call to take parish in Hing
ham. 1 was ordained there as UNIVERSAL
ist minister in February, 1858"
| Mrs. Hanaford has held past rates in
Waltham, Mass, in New Haven, in Jersey
City where her salary for three years was
| az, 500 year., and again in New Haven.
| she has many stories to tell of the man who
smoked at the ministers Monday meeting
| to drive her out through her distaste for to-
bacco, and of kind words spoken and help
| given as well. She has preached four SER
mons on one Sunday in four different
/ towns, riding twentye,ght miles in a car
| riage to do ii. She has performed the mar
riage ceremony nearly forty times, and has
acted as chaplain Of the Connecticut SEN
| ate.
Julia Ward Howe is preacher of ability
and oficates in the pulpit occasionally, It
was through her efforts that the Womnn's
Ministerial Conference, of which she is
president. was organized in 1882. Its off,
GERS are the Rev. Mary II. Graves, CORE -
| ponding secretary; the Rev. Ada 9. Bowles,
recording secretary, and the Rev. Louise
S. Baker and the Rev. Mary I. Whitney,
executive committee.
S. Baker, whose work in the orthodox Con
gregationel church in Nantucket has been
very successful, presented this popularity,
that two of the four deacors officiating
were women.
The Rev. Anna II. Shaw, who has made
| a national reputation as q speaker, is a
graduate of the Theological school Of Bos-
ton University, where, it may be set down
not in malice, she was generally known as
| Ghar xy{f ha 49,
some peculiarities of headgear. The
Methodist church refused to ordain her.
though it has many women as lay preach
ers. and she applied acc 1rdingly TO the
| Protestant Methodists, who received her.
but have never since ordained a second
woman.
The Rev. Ada C. Bowles y probably the
most widely known in the east among
| women now active in the Universalist min
istry. In the west the Row. Florence Kol-
lock, for twelve years pastor of a prosper
Gus church in Chicago, has been uucom-
monty successful. In Sioux City, Ia, Mary
a. Stafford and EInor L. Gordon have
worked together, and have built up two or
three strong Unitarian churches. The Rev.
| Mia +. Topper, the Rev. Carrie j
Bartlett and the Rev. Ida c.. Hultin Of
Des Moines are among the more coaspic-
uous Of western preachers.
The Baptist church, except the Free Win
! Baptist division, has take no steps looking
10 the admission Of women 70 los ministry.
| The Presbyterian church has been very c9I-
! sentative IN the matter. but in 1889 at n
| synod OF the Reformed Presbyterians, it
! was voted that the ordination Of a woman
is in harmony with the New Testament.
The Protestant Episcopal church has women
as lay readers, deaconesSes and members. Of
sisterhoods. Tue recent Opening Of the
| Hartford Theological Seminary (Congrela-
tional and the fact that last year Obsrllr
college, which, graduated An;oineste 3.
Blackwell forty years ago, printed hef atne
for the first time in its list Of graduates in
its triennial catalogue, are regarded bv
some people who believe in the ministry OF
women as Noteworthy signs OF the fitnes