The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1900-03-29
Woman's Work.

wv OU1chu WV
SOLOMON found only one person
worthy to be called a man. Perhaps
that solitary and sublime individual
was himself; but, as for the other sex,
not one could measure up to his ideal.
According to Solomon, the perfect
woman is an accomplishing drudge,
one whom a jealous husband might
surely trust, "doing HING good and not
evil all the days of his 1ife"; lshe must
work with her hands, supply food for
the children, buy lands and plant vine
Yards; c1othe her household with scar
let and cover herself with tapestry;
make her husband honorable, and talk
sweetly to him when he returns from
his club, or the council in the gate.
It is complimentary to the women of
Israel that, while there were thousands
of excellent wives, mothers and sweet
hearts, there was not one measurable
by the rule of the po1ygamous king
womanhood was too massive, morally
and intellectually, to be pounded in his
mortar.
The sphere of women's' work and
influence is 1imit1ess compared with
what it was three thousand years ago,
compared with what it was two thou
sand years ago. Then might have been
seen some Portia who would inf1ict on
herself a serious, even a fatal wound,
and invite her own death by swallow
ing fire. Then might have been seen
some Marc Antony who, with "lne
scorn would toss the world away for
C1eopatra's eyes, SO rich-so poor
Woman has discovered her own soul.
AS she has discovered herself to her
self, the world has made such discov-
cries in the female, mind, strength,
spirit, destiny, that woman is no
longer an asteroid, bit of cosmical
dust, but star of the first magnitude.
For nearly two thousand years we
through the great telescope of chris
tianity. The focus has not always
been adjusted properly, therefore the
view has not been clear; we are but
beginning to catch the significance of
the symbolism. But here it is. "There
appeared a great wonder in heaven, a
woman clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her feet, and upon her head
a crown of twelve stars", which in
terpret as signifying that woman in
her ultimate attainment, shall stand
with all coarse and inferior things in
control, with her thought shining
brilliantly as the stars, her movement
through the ever progressive ages of
human history splendid as the move
ment of a mighty constellation, and
the influence of her far reaching love
and service shall be like the light and
warmth of the sun.
The new woman; the woman waken-
ed to life by the Transforming touch of
christianity; noble, intellectual, Gull
tured, is moving to the worlds up1ift
and betterment. You cannot call her
back. This greater age demands the
work that is doing, something more
for the female spirit than to dress coils
and hide in fluff and feather. Woman
is wanted in the kitchen and in the
par1or, in the school room and in
science, in the sweet privacy of the
home, in the needy world without, in
law and IL legislation, on the platform
and in the pulpit, in art and in trade.
''No pent up Utica contracts her
powers" Wherever soft hands can lift
a burden, where love can do it's work,
where the soul can transform by it's
touch a disfgured heart, where
thought shoots upward to its highest
plane, there is woman's work and
woman's world.