The record-union., 1892-11-07
MOTHERHOOD OF DEITY.
WOman's RightfuI Place in the Econ
omy of Life.
Synopsis of Sermon Preached by Rev.
Mr.. Horner at Pythian Hall
Yesterday.

eleventh verse of the sixty-eighth Psalm:
1.-THE Lord giveth the word; the women
that publish the tidings are great hos" "
The speaker said the text was from the
revised edition of the Old Testament and
gave woman a position of honor denied
10 her by the King James translation,
where the word woman" is absent and
the tense past instead of present.
Woman's true position, he held, is that
which she is most capable of filling with
all her powers of mind and heart devel-
oped to their full capacity, regardless OF
the teachings of the past or the preludices
of the present. What she is she is by
virtue of her nature-a nature no more
complete by itself than that of man.
Neither is complete without the others
Neither is superior to the other though
natures compels difference of occupa-
tion and position by virtue of difference
in bodily organization; difference that
will not be altered by any privileges that
may in the near future be granted to
woman in the polical life Of the country.
st. Paul and the influence of his theol-
ogy, drawn as it was from the ancient
Hebrew legends, have steadily opposed
woman's advancement to her true posi-
tion, and herein is the Immortality of the
doctrine of scriptural infallibility, and
yet good people hold up their hands in
holly horror when science under the
name of the higher criticism attempts to
restore the Bible to us so that we can get
at its spirit without having to accept all
the husks of tradition as Gods truth
Gods truth is revealed in the nature of
everything that is.
The nature of woman tells us God S
truth about her, and what she is fitted by
nature to do, as revealed by what she can
do, is Gods truth as to her place in the
economy OF life, st. Paul to the contrary
Notwithstanding. The spirit of the Bible
is liberal. The letter is often narrow and
limited to the notions of the day in which
il was written. Its spirit grants TO woman
a position of honor equal to that of man.
a position of equality full and free tenn
pered only by the limitations which ma
ternity impose upon her; limitations
which, while depriving her of physical
freedom, place her in a position of re-
sponsibility that commands a reverence
almost equal to worship when she is true
TO the duties which such position inn
pose upon her. There is no more sacred
name under heaven than that of mother
Around it gather all the precious mem
ories of childhood, and at its mention the
heart of even the hardened criminal
trembles and melts if he ever knew a
mothers love.
God pity the woman who, while deny
ing herself the burden and the care of
children, deliberately denies herself
what is really her glory and her crown,
and in old age her greatest joy.
Theodore Parker was right when he
advanced upon the thought of Jesus and
prayed to God as our father and mother,
too. The heart of humanity fears for
motherliness in its Diety, and this is the
truth back of the worship of the Virgin
in the Catholic Church. =
The speaker then traced the position of
Jewish women down to the time of Christ,
and said that aside from their legends
and traditions the spirit of the Hebrew
race grew out of family life and the atfec-
tions of the home, and naturally gave
woman an exalted position. Jesus being
Jew naturally treated her with that
tenderness and respect common among
the Jews at the time. Every mention Of
his intercourse with them i'll the Gospels
was of the freest and most unrestrained
character whenever he mingled with
them socially.
In not one of his sayings is there an
especial doctrine concerning women, un-
less it is found in the account of the sin
1uI woman mentioned in Johns Gospel.
Here his pitying reproof did not sanction
the harShness OF the law which said that
such should be stoned.
st. Paul, on the other hand was more
of a Greek than Jew. The Ebionites.
never friendly to Paul because of his
Greek notions, were the remnant of the
Jewish Christian colony which grew u ,
in Jerusalem under James, the brother
OF Jesus. They have preserved a story
that Paul went up to Jerusalem from
Tarsus and fell i'll love with the High
Priests daughter, and being refused her
hand in marriage could never quite over
come his chagrin, even after becoming a
Christian. But whether true or not, st.
Paul drew part OF his theology from the
second and third chapters in Genesis and
found there good foundation for his op
position TO women in the churches. But
when the light OF modern knowledge
once sheds a beam upon this part of Gen
esis, as it has already done, divine au-
thority, which with heavy hand has held
woman down, is seen to be no longer
present, and at once womaI rises above
the curse of Eve and finds in what was
thought to be her condemnation her
greatest glory.
The speaker believed with Robert
Collyer that lin the beginning the di-
vine power made man and woman,D and,
as is stated in the first chapter of Genesis,
''sit them on the throne of the world and
gave them, from the first, the grace to be
husband and wife; to find in each other
the counterpart and completion of their
own being" that each, while perfectly
free to develop all the mental and spirit
pOW6I5 Will WAlCu DOlu are endowed.
should yet find in the other that strength
and love born of need and sympathy.
which makes life complete.
the mutual love OF noble man and a
noble woman growing deeper as
they grow old together is surely
the most attractive force i'll the
universe. knowledge of it fills
even cold and barren hearts with echoes
of old memories of what might have
been. 'The saddest of all sad thoughts, -
says Whittier. Life without love in it to
me would be the worst kind of nightmare.
Our own singer has said that
Life without love is lutte
Wanting a touch ON the strings;
Perfect but songless and mute.
1t is a bird without wings,
Longing for deeps of the sky.
It's "a soul without birth;
1t is a spirit of earth
Yearning for infinite things.
I believe, said Mr.. Horner, there are
some such perfect unions of hearts and
lives that Providence must have had
something TO do with the match from the
beginning.
Under such circumstances the question
of ''women's rights never comes up.
But the fact that it has come up and con-
tinues to come up proves that such unions
are the exception and not the rule, hence
the need of granting to both the same
liberties in all things.
For myself look upon the whole cues
ton of the franchise as a duty, and not as
q right at all. l want the women to come
up to the help of the LORD against the
mighty forces of evil that like vampires
are living ON the heart t-blood of the Ma
ton. As minister of pure religion, [
cannot think of the franchise at all ex-
cept as the profoundest duty which tree
dom entails, and it seems to me that those
who scout the idea of voting, whether
men or women, are the worst enemies oi