The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1901-09-20
OR.TAL1AdR's SERnON
The Eminent Dlvlne's Sunday
Discourse.

copyright 1901
WASHINGTON, ID. C.-In this discourse
DR.. Talmage extols home as q field OF use
fulness and especially encourages wives
and mothers; text, Genesis !, n, Male
and female created He them"
In other words, God, who can make no
mistake, made man and woman for a spe-
cihc work and TO move in particular
spheres, man 10 be regnant IN his realm,
woman to be dominant In hers. The
boundary line between Italy and Switzer-
land, between England and Scotland, Is
not more thoroughly marked than this
distinction between the empire masculine
and the empire feminine. So entirely DIS.
similar are the fields 10 which God called
them that you no more compare them
than you can oxygen and hydrogen. water
and grass, trees and stars. All this talk
about the superiority Of one sex to the
other sex is an everlasting waste OF ink
and speech A ieweler may have scale
so delicate that he can weigh the dust Of
diamonds, but where are the scales so deli
cate that YOU can weigh in them affection
against affection, sentiment against senti.
ment, thought against thought, soul
against soul, mans word against wom-
ans word?
You come out with the stereotyped re-
mark that man Is superior to woman in
]
swarthy, iron typed, thunder-bolted writ
ings of Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth
! Browning and George Eliot. You come on
/ with your stereotyped remark about wom-
ans superiority TO man in the item OF at.
lection, but / ask you where was there
| more capacity TO love than IN John, the
| disciple, and Robert MeCheyne, the
| Scotchman, and John Summerteld, the
/ Methodist. and Henry Martyr, the mis-
] "a, Of
large that after you had rolled into it the
! hemispheres there was room still left to
] marshal the hosts of heaven and set up the
/ throne intellectual. l deny to woman the
| throne affectional No human phrase
ology will ever define the spheres, while
there is an intuition by which We know
when a man is in his realm and when
woman is in her realm, and when either
/ of them is out of it. No bunghng legisla.
or to say, This is the line and that is the
line" ~
My theory is that If 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
there are effeminate men. My theory is
that you have no right to interfere with
any ones doing anything that is righteous.
!
decree by legislation how high q brown
thrasher should fly or how deep trout
should plunge as to try to seek out the
height or the 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 wOm-
an is prepared to move in highest CONNER.
oso 81 ohn ha~ 1nAv
on the exchange, and no boards of trade
can hinder her. / want woman to under
stand that heart and brain can overflow
any barrier that politicians may set up,
and that nothing can keep her back or
keep her down but the question Of capac-
ity. e <
know there are women Of most unde-
sirable nature who wander up and down
the country, having no homes Of their
own or forsaking their own homes, talk
ing about their rights, and we know very
well that they themselves are fit neither
to vote nor fit to keep house. Their mis-
sion seems. to be to humiliate 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 WON.
en- would enact or to have cast upon
society the children that such women
would raise. But / will show you that
already has in her possession, that her
position in this country at this time is not
one OF commiseration, but one Of congrat-
ulation; that the grandeur and power OF
her realm have never yet been appre.
ciated that she sits to-day on a throne 50
high that all the thrones of earth piled on
top of each other would not make her a
footstool. Here is the platform on which
she stands. Away down below it are the
Z ha al
blage and the legislative hall.
Woman always has voted and always
will vote. Our great-grandfathers thought
they were by their votes putting Wash.
ington into the Presidential chair. No
His mother, by the principles she taught
him and by the habits she inculcated
made him President. 1t was a Christian
mothers hand dropping the ballot when
phized and Alfred the Great governed
and Jonathan Edwards Numbered oil
judgment to come. How many men there
have been in high political station 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 a wife's
prayer that sounded louder than the ella.
NOR OF partisanship! Why, my friends
the right of suffrage as we men exercise
~ seeLns 10 DC IeeDIe Gnlng. GU,
Christian man, come up to the ballot box
and you drop your vote Right after yol
comes hbertine or q sot, the offscouring
of the street, and he drops his vote, anC
his vote counteracts yours. But if in The
quiet of home life a daughter by hel
Christian demeanor, a wife by her indus
try, a mother by her faithfulness, casts
vote in the right direction then nothinl
can resist it, and the influence of that
vote will throb through the eternities.
woman have other rights accorded her
but that she by the grace of God rise "
to the appreciation of the glorious right.
she already possesses. l shall only hav,
| time to speak of one grand and eli ahsnrh