The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1895-06-28
NOMAN's OPPORTUNITY.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Talks Upon
Woman and Her Sphere.
God. Who Makes No Mistakes, Cut Out
Specific Work for Woman, and 1t
Did Not Include the
8Al Ball0t-Box.

The following discourse ON "Won
ans Opportunity" is given out for put
lication this week by Rev. I. Dewitt
Talmage:
God who can make no mistake, mad
man and woman for specific worl
and to move in particular spheres
man to be regnant in his realm, won
an to be dominant in hers. The boun
Diary line between Italy and Switzer
land, between England and Scotland
is not more thoroughly marked thar
this distinction between the empire
masculine and the empire feminine
So entirely dissimilar are the fields to
which God called them, that you can
no more compare them than you can
oxygen and hydrogen, water and grass.
trees and stars. ALI this talk about
the superiority of one sex to the other
sex is an everlasting waste of ink and
speech. A jeweler may have scale SO
delicate that he can weigh the dust
of diamonds; but where are the
scales so delicate you can
weigh in them affection against
affection, sentiment against sentiment,
thought against thought. soul against
soul, mans world against woman's
world? You come out with your
stereotyped remark that man is SUI
perior to woman in intellect; and then
open on my desk the swarthy. iron
typed, thunder-bolted writings of
Harriet Martineau, and Elizabeth
Browning, and George Eliot. You
come on with your stereotyped remark
about woman's superiority to man in
the item of affection; but l ask you
where was there more capacity to love
than in John the disciple-and Matthew
Simpson the Bishop, and Henry Mar
tyn the missionary? The heart of
those men was SO large that after you
had rolled into 1.-two hemispheres there
was still loom left to marshal the
hosts of Heaven, and set up the
throne of the eternal Jehovah. 1
deny to man the throne intellectual. |
/ deny to woman the throne |
Hffectional. No human phraseology |
will ever define the spheres; while
there is an intuition by which we
know when man is in his realm, and
when a woman is in her realm, and
when either of them is out of it. No
bungling legislature ought to at
tempt to make definition, or to say:
This is the line or that is the line"
My theory is. that if woman wants
TO vote, she ought to vote. and that if
q man wants to embroider and keep
house, he ought to be allowed to en-
broider and keep house. There are
masculine women and there are effemi-
mite men. My theory is that you have
no right to interfere with any ones
doing anything that is righteous.
Albany and Washington might as well
decree by legislation how high q
brown thrasher should fly, or how
deep trout should plunge. as to try
to seek out the height and depth Of
duty. The question Of ca
pacity will settle finally the whole
question, the whole subject. When a
woman is prepared to preach, she will I
preach, and neither conference nor t
can hinder her. When a L
woman is prepared to move in highest a
commercial spheres she will have o
great influence on the exchange. and 6
no boards of trade can hinder her IL
want woman to understand that heart a
Ind brain can overly any barrier that "
politicians may set up. and that moth v
ng can keep her back or keep her il
Town but the question of incapacity.
was in New Zealand last year Just Is
Ifter the opportunity of suffrage had r.
'een conferred upon women. The
Ian worked well. There had never y
'een such good order at the polls. and Il
righteousness triumphed. Men have t.
lot made such a wonderful moral sue n
ess of the ballot-box that they need C,
ear women will corrupt it. In all d.
ur cities man has so nearly made the tt
allot-box a failure. suppose we let Y,
yomen try. But there are some wom- V,
n, know, of most undesirable ma Fl
ure, who wander up and down the ii
no homes of their IL
wn, or forsaking their own homes al
slking about their rights, and we I'll
now very well that they them I'll
slves are fit neither to vote nor to m
eep house. Their mission seems hi
lerely to humiliate the two sexes at b,
ne thought of what any one of us w
light become. No one would want to st
We under the laws that such women tr
ould enact. or to have cast &C
pom society the children that hi
lch women would raise. But shall m
low you that the best rights that dc
oman can own, she already has in of
er possession; that her position in ar
lis country at this time is not one of nj
but one of congratu- an
ton; that the grandeur and power ch
her realm have never yet been ap- fir