The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1895-06-22
REV. DR.. TALMAGE
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES
SUNDAY SERMON.

NSACS1o 1l.J 20.
God, who can make 70 mistake, made man
and woman for a specific work and to move
IN particular spheres-man to be regnant
IN h;srealm; woman to be dominant in hers
The boundary line between Italy and Switz-
erland, between England aud Scotland, is
not more thoroughly marked than this dis
tinction between the empire masculine and
the empire feminine. So entirely dissiI1l!a-
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. All this talk about the Sd
periority OF one sex to the other sex is an
everlasting waste Of ink and speech. A Jew
elcr may have scale so delicate that he can
weigh the dust of diamonds. but where are
the scales so delicate that 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
sterectyped remark that man is superior to
woman in intellect, and then I open or my
desk the swarthy, iron typed, thunderbolted
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 ask you where was there more capa..
city to love than in John, the disciple. and
Matthew Simpson, the bishop. and Henry
Martyr. the missionary?
The heart Of those men were so large that
after you had rolled into it two hennispheres
there was room still left to marshal the hosts
OF heaven and set up the throne of the eter-
nal Jehovah. deny to man the throne in
tellectual; deny to woman the throne af
fectio1al. No human phraseology will ever
define the spheres. while there is an Intuition
by which We know when a man is in his
realm. and when q woman is in her realm.
and when either of them is out of it. No
bun"li2s legislature ought to attempt to
makea definition ortc say, s'This is the line
and that is the line" Ny theory is that if
woman wants to vote she ought to vote, and
that il q man wants to embroider and keep
house be ought to he allowed to embrolder
andkcep ho"se. There are masculine wo-
men and there are efreminate men. My
theory is that YOU have no right to interfere
with any ones doing anything that ls
righteous Albany and Washington might as
well decree by legislation how high brown
thrasner should fly or how deep a trout
should plunge as to tryto seek out the height
and depth of woman's duty. The question
OF capacity will settle finally the whole ques
tioD, the whole subject. When woman is
prepared to preach. she will preach, and
neither conference nor presbytery can hinder
her. When q woman is prepared to move
in highest commercial spheres, she WILL nave
great influence on the exchange, and no
boards Of trade can hinder her. l want wo-
man to understa and that heart and brain can
overly any barrier that politicians may set
up. and that nothing can keep her back or
keep her down but the question OF lncapac-
itv.
| was in Now Zealand last year Just after
the opportunity Of suffrage had been con-
ferred upon women. Tie plan worked we'll.
There hati never Been such good order at
the polls, and the righteousness triuInphed.
Men haze not made such q wonderful moral
success Of the ballot box that they need fear
women will corrupt it. In all our cities man
has so nearly made the ballot box failure,
suppose We let women try. But there are
some women, know, OF most undesirable
nature, who wander up and down the coun-
trr-havns no homes Of their own or Tor
saking their own hones-talkinga about their
rights. and we know very we'll that they
themselves are fit neither to vote nor keep
house. Their mission seems merely to hu-
initiate the two sexes at the thought OF what
any one US might become. No one would
want to live under the laws that such women
would enact or to have cast upon society the
children that such women would raise. But
I shall show you that the best rights that
woman can own she already has in her pos
session; that her position in this country at
this time is not one Of commiserat!on, but
one Of c0ngratu!ation; that the grandeur
and power of her realm have never yet been
appreciated: that she sits to-day on throne
SO high that all the thrones Of earth piled on
top Of each other would not make for her
a iootstoo] Here is the platform on which
she stands. Away down below it are
49, III v. nr1
blage and the legislative hall. Woman
ALWAYS has voted and always will vote. Our
Observation-Disclosures thought they were by
thoir votes putting Washington into the Pres
idential chair, No. His mother, by the
principles she taught him. and by the habits
She inculcated. made him President. It was
a Christian mothers hand dropping the bal
lot when Lord Bacon wrote and Newton
ph;losopilized ard Alfred the Great governed
and Jonathan Edwards thundered Of JudS-
meat to come.
How many men there have been in high
political station who would have been IN
Sufficient to stand the test to winch their
moral principle was put had it not been Tor
a wife's voice that encouraged them tc 40
right and a wife's prayer that sounded louder
than The clamor Of partisanship? The right
of suffrage as we men exercise it seems to be
q feeble thing. You, a Christian man, come
up to the ballot box and you drop your vote
Right after you comes libertine or sot-
the ofTscouring of the street-and he drops
MS vote, ana us vote couuIeracrs yours.
But if in the quiet of home life q daughter oy
her Christian demeanor. vile ny ner In
dustrv, a mother by her faithiulness, casts
vote in the right direction, then nothing can
resist it, and the influence OF that vote Will
throb through the eternities.
My chief anxiety then is not that woman
have other rights accorded her. put that sae,
by the grace of God, rise up to the apprecla-
ton of the glorious lights she already pos
sesses. First, she has the right to make
homo happy. That realm no one has ever
disnuted With her. Men may come home at
noon or at night, and then tarry compare
tiyelv little while. but she. all day long, gov
erns it. beauties it. sanctifles it. 1t IS with
In her power to make it the most attractive
place on earth. It is the only calm harbor
in this world. You know as we'll as 90 that
this outside world and the business world
are q long scene of jostle and contention.
The man who has dollar struggles to Keep
it; the man who has il not struggles 10 getH.
Prices up. Prices down. Losses. Gains.
Misrepresentations. Underselllng. Buyers
depreciating; statesmen exaggeratlng' Len
ants seeking less rent; landloros aenanolnS
in irvine TO keen in: men out trying to get
in. sips. Tumblss. Defalcations. Pan; p n;
les. Catastrophes. O woman. thank God
YOU have home, and that you may be
Queen in it. Better be there than wear Vic
toria's coronet. Better be there than carry
the purse Of a princess.
Your abode may be humble, but you can,
by YOUR faith in God and your cheertulness
ofdemeano-. gild it with splendors such as
an upholsterer's hand never yet Anoleo.
There are abodes in every clty-humble, two
stories, four plain, unpapered rooms, unde-
sirable ncighborhood, and yet there is man
who would die on the threshold ra1ner tnan
surrender. Why? # is home. Whenever
he thinks OF it he sees angels Of God hover
ing around it. The ladders of heaven are let
down to that house. Over the childs rough
crib there are the chantings Of angels as those
that broke over Bethlehem. It IS home.
These children may come up after awhile.
IL. l.;