The Yale expositor., 1895-11-22

Ike ferenQ Slr.-lOu QenVereu u
answer TO a letter from six young men OF
Fayette, Ohio, requesting you TO preach a
sermon on Advice TO Young Men," Are we
justified in asking y9T TO preach a sermon
on advice to Young WomenY
Letter signed by Six Young Women.
Christ, who took his text from flock
of birds flying overhead, saying, Be
hold the fowls of the air." and from
the flowers in the valley, saying, Con
slider the lilies of the field" and from
the clucking of barnyard fowl, say
ing, "As a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wing" and from crystal or
salt picked up by the roadside, saying,
salt is good" will grant us a bless
ing If, instead of taking text from the
Bible, l take for my text this letter
from Cincinnati, which is only one OF
many letters which 1 have received
from young women in New York, New
Orleans, San Francisco, London, Edin-
boro, and from the ends OF the earth,
all implying that having some months
ago preached the sermon on Advice 10
Young Men," I could not, without neg
lect of duty, refuse to preach sermon
on advice to Young Women.
1t is the more important that the pull
pit be heard on this subject at this time
when we are having such an illimitable
discussion about what Is called the
New Woman" as though some new
creature of God had arrived on earth,
or were about to arrive. One theory Is
that she will be an athlete. and boxing
glove and football and pugilistic en-
nomptor mill oh har Annthar
theory is that she will superintend bal
lot boxes, sit in congressional hall, and
through improved politics bring the
millennium by the evil she vii extir-
pate and the good she will install. An
other theory is that she will adopt
masculine attire and make sacred a
vulgarianism positively horrific. An
other theory is that she will be SO es-
thetic that broom handle and rolling
pin and coal scuttle will be pictorialized
with tints from soft skies or sugges-
tions of Rembrandt and Raphael.
Heaven deliver the church and the
world from any one Of these styles Of
new woman. She will never come.
have so much faith In the evangelis-
blS "a anu III bhO PAO6ANoo ~ SAA
things in the right direction that l
prophesy that style of new woman will
never arrive. She would hand over this
world to diabolism, and from being, as
she is now, the mightiest agency for
the worlds uplifting, she would be the
mightiest force for its downthrust.
/ will tell you who the new woman
will be. 1t will be the good woman of
all the ages past. Here and there a
difference of attire, as the temporary
custom may command, but the same
good, honest, lovely, Christian, all-in-
fuential being that your mother and
mine was. OF that kind Of woman was
Christian Eddy, who, talking to a man
who was so much of an unbeliever he
had named his two children Voltaire
and Tom Paine, nevertheless saw him
converted, he breaking down with emo
ton as he said to her, II cannot stand
you, you talk like my mother" and tell
ing the story of his conversion to twelve
companions who had been blatant op-
posers of religion, they asked her TO
come and see them also, and tell them
of Christ. and four of them were con-
verted, and all the others greatly
changed, and the leader of the band,
departing for heaven, shouted, Joyful!
Joyful! Joyfuly' If you know any bet
ter style of woman than that, where is
she? The world cannot improve on
that kind. The new woman may have
more knowledge, because she will have
more books, but she will have no more
common sense than that which tried to
manage and discipline and educate us,
and did as we'll as she could with such
unpromising material. She may have
more health than the woman of other
days, for the sewing machine and the
sanitary regulations and added intelli-
gence on the subjects of diet, ventila-
zion, and exercise, and rescue from
many forms of drudgery, may allow her
more longevity, but she will have the
same characteristics which God gave
her in paradise, with the exception of
the nervous shock and moral jolt of
the fall she got that day when not notic-
ing where she stepped, she looked I'D
into the branches of the fruit tree.
But / must be specific. This letter
before me wants advice to young wo-
men.
Advice the First: Get yotr soul right
with God and you will be in the best
attitude for everything that comes. New
ways of voyaging by sea, new ways of
travelling by land, new ways Of thresh-
ing the harvests, new ways Of thresh-
books, and the patent Office is enough
to enchant a man who has mechanical
ingenuity and knows good deal Of
levers and wheels, and we hardly do
anything as 1t used to be done; inven-
tion after invention, invention on top
or invention. But in the matter of get
ting right with God there has not been
an invention for six thousand years. 1t
is on the same line of repentance that
David exercised about his sins, and the
same old style Of prayer that the pub
lican used when he emphasized II by
an inward stroke of both hands, and the
same faith in Christ that Paul suggest
ed to the jailer the night the peniten-
tiary broke down. Aye, that is the rea-
son that / have more confidence In 1t.
1t has been tried by more milliens than