Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1895-07-10
REV. DR.. TaLnaGE.
The Brooklyn Divinc's Sunday
Sermon.
Subject: "woman's opportunity"

TEXT: "She shall be called woman
Genesis H., %.
and woman for a specific work and to move
In particular spheres-man to be regnant
in his realm; woman to bc dominant in hers.
The boundary line between Italy and Switz-
erland, between England and Scotland, is
not more thoroughly marked than this dis
tinction 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 anc grass
trees and stars. All this talk about the SUD
periority of one sex to the other sex is an
everlasting waste OF ink and speech. A jew
eler may have a scale so delicate that he can
weigh the dust of diamonds, but where ard
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 q
woman's world? You come out with your
stereotyped remark that man is superior to
woman in intellect, and then open on 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 womans
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
Hartyn. the missionary?
The heart of those men were so large that
after you had rolled into II two hemisphere
there was room still left to marshal the hosts
of heaven and set up the throne Of the eter.
nal Jehovah. I deny to man the throne in.
tellectual; deny to woman the throne al
fectional. No human phraseology will ever
define the spheres. while there is an intuition
by which we know when a man is in his
Ypalm and whQO N Ia In har raalp,
and when either of them Is out Of 1t. No
bungling legislature ought to attempt to
makea definition or to say, "Ihis is the line
and that is the line" My theofy is that if
woman wants to vote she ought to vote, and
that If a man wants to embroider and keep
house he ought to be allowed to embroideI
and keep house. There are masculine wo-
men and there are efIeminate 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 a brown
should plunge as to try to seek ont the height
and depth of woman's duty. The question
of capacity will settle finaiiy the whole ques-
tion, 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 to move
In highest commercial spheres, she will have
great influence on the exchange, and no
boards Of trade can hinder her. want wo-
man to understand 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 incapac-
tty.
1 was in New Zealand last year just aftel
the opportunity of suffrage had been con.
ferred upon women. The plan worked we'll.
There had never been such good order at
the polls, and the righteousness triumphed.
AHav h,y,, 10 10, IL
success Of the ballot box that they need fear
women will corrupt it. In all our cities man
has 30 nearly made the ballot box failure,
suppose We let women try. But there are
some women, I know, of most undesirable
nature, who wander up and down the coun4
try-having no homes Of their own or for@
saking their own homes-talking about their
rights, and we know very well that they
themselves are fit neither to vote nor keep
house. Their mission seems merely to hui
initiate the two sexes at the thought of what
any one of 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 commiseration, but
one Of congratulations; that the grandeur
and power of her realm have never yet been
appreciated; that she sits to-day ON a throne
% high that all the thrones Of earth piled on
top Of each other would not make for her
footstool. Here is the platform on which
she stands. Away down below it are
the ballot box and the congressional assem-
blaze and the legislative hall. Woman
always has voted and always will vote. Our
great-grandfathers thought they were by
their 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. 1t was
q Christian mothers hand dropping the bal.
lot when Lord Bacon wrote and Newton
philosophical and Alfred the Great governed
and Jonathan Edwards thundered of judg-
ment to come.
How many men there have been in high
political station who would have been in.
sufficient to stand the test to which their
moral principle was put had it not been for
q wife's voice that encouraged them to do
right and u wtfe's prayer that sounded louder
than the clamor OF partisanship? The right
OF suffrage as We men exercise it seems to be
. feeble thing. You, a Christian man, come
up to the ballot box and you drop your vote.
Right after you comes libertine or q sot-
the offscouring OF the street-and he drops
bis vote, and his vote counteracts yours.
But II In the quiet Of home life daughter by
her Christian demeanor, wife by her in.
dustry, . mother by her faithfulness, casts
vote In the right direction, then nothing can
xoSl96 IL, anu gu0 luuucuc0 Oh tQAL vote VIII
throb through the eternitiee.
My chief anxiety then is not that woman
have other rights accorded her, but that she,
by the grace Of God, rise up to the apprecia-
ton OF the glorious lights she already pos.
sesses. First, she has the right to make
home happy. That realm no one has over
disputed with her. Men may come home at
noon or at night, and then tarry a compare
lively little while, but she. all day long, gov
erns 1t, beauties it, sanctifies it. 1t is with
In her power to make it the most attractive
place on earth. 1t is the only calm harbor
in this world. You know as well as do that
this outside world and the business world
are long scene Of jostle and contention.
The man who has dollar struggles to keep
It; the man who has 1t not struggles to get it.
Prices up. Prices down. Losses. Gains.
Misrepresentation. Underselling. Buyers
depreciating; statesmen exaggerating. Ten
ants seeking less rent; landlords demanding
more. Struggles about Office. Men who are
In trying to keep in; men out trying to get
In. Slips. Tumbles. Defalcations. Pan.
ics. Catastrophes. o woman, thank God
you have Q home, and that you may be
queen in 1t. Better be there than wear Vic
toris's cornnet. 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 cheerfulness
ot den,eanor. gild it with splendors such a.
an upholsterer's hand never yet kindled.
There are abodes in every city-humble, two
stories, four plain, unpapered rooms, unde-
sirable neighborhood, and yet there Is a man