The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-06-21
WOMAN'S OPPORTUNITY.
Subject OF the Latest Sermon by
DR.. Talmage.
The Influence Of the Mothers Of Our COun
fry-Work That VIII Make Greater
Impression Than the PriTi-
Iege of Voting

TaImare was preached at St. Louis,
the subject being "Woman's Oppor-
tunitv" and the text from Genesis ii.
eS: 'She shall be called woman" DR..
Talmage said:
God. who can make no mistake,
made man and woman for a specific
work and to move in particular spheres
man to be regnant in his realm;
woman to be dominant in hers The
boundary line between Italy and Swift
erland. between England and Scot
land, is not more Thoroughly marked
than this distinction between the
empire masculine and the en-
pire feminine. So entirely dissim-
liar are the fields to which God called
them. that you can no more COM
pare them than you can oxygen
and hydrogen, water and grass, trees
and stars. All this talk about the SUI
periority of one sex to the other sex Is
an everlasting waste of ink and speech
4 jeweler may have a 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, a mans world against
a woman's world? You come out with
your stereotyped remark that man is
superior to woman in intellect; and
then l 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 ran
in the item of affection; but
! ask you where was there more ca
pacitv to love than in John the dis
ciple-and Matthew Simpson, the
bishop. and Henry Martyr, the mis-
sionarv? The heart of those men was
so large, that after you had rolled into
it two hemispheres, there was room
still left to marshal the hosts of
Heaven. and set up the throne of the
eternal Jehovah. l deny to man the
throne Intellectual I deny to woman
the throne affectionaL 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 a woman is in her
realm. and when either of them is
out of il. No bugling legislature ought
to attempt to make definition, or to
say: This is the line and that is the
line" My theory is, that if a woman
wants TO vote, she ought to vote, and
that If man wants to embroider and
keep house, he ought to be allowed to
embroider and keep house. There are
masculine women and effeminate men.
Ny theory is that you have no right 70
interfere with any ones doing any
thing that is righteous Albany and
Washington might as well decree BY
legislation how high brown-thrasher
should fly, or how deep a trout should
plunge, as to try to seek out the height
and depth of woman's duty.
The question of capacity will settle
finally the whole question, the whole
subject When a woman is prepared
to preach, she will preach, and neither
conference nor presbytery can hinder
her. When a woman is prepared 20
move in highest commercial spheres.
she will have great influence on the
exchange, and no boards of trade can
hinder her. I want woman to under
stand 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 ques-
ton of incapacity.
was in New Zealand last year Just
after the opportunity of suffrage had
been conferred upon women. The
plan worked well. There had never
been such good order at the polls. and
Righteousness triumphed. Men have
not made such a wonderful moral sue
cess of the ballot box that they need
fear women will corrupt it In all our
cities man has so nearly made the bal
lot box a failure, suppose we let wom-
en- try. But there are some women, 1
know. of most undesira BILE nature. who
wander up and down the countrv-hav-
ing no homes of their own. or forsaking
their own demonstrating about their
rights; and we know very well that
they themselves are fit neither to vote
nor to keeps house. Their mission
seems merely to- humiliate the two sexes
at the thought of what any one of Us
might become. No one would want 20
live under the laws that such women
would enact, or to have cast upon So
c:ety the children that such women
would raise. But l shall show YOU
that the best rights that woman can
own. she already has in her possession;
that her position in this country at
this time is not one of commiseration.
but one of congratulation; 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 her foot
stool Here is the platform on which
she stands Away down below it are
the ballot box and the congressional
assemblage and the legislative hall
Woma- always has voted and always
will vote. Our great-grandtathers
thought they were by their votes put
ting Washington into the presidential
chair No. His mother, by the prin-
ciples she taught him. and by the
habits she inculcated, made him presi-
dent II was a Christian mothers
hand dropping the ballot when Lord
Bacon wrote. and Newton philoso-
phized, and Alfred the Great governed.
and Jonathan Edwards Numbered of
judgment to come. How many men
there have been in high political sta
ton who would have been insufficient
to stand the test to which their moral
principle was put, had it not been for
a wife's voice that encouraged them to
do right, and wife's prayer that
sounded louder than the clamor OF
T1areiSan Shirf