St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1907-10-12

II is a well-established fact that in
times of great religious awakening
and persecution, where there are no
honors of office or pecuniary compen-
sation for service, women are ac-
corded greater power and recognition
than in periods of the church's pros
perity Therefore, when the hierarchy
was established, when the position OF
minister became prize to be con-
tended for and not burden to be
borne, when the Office of deacon, pres
byter or bishop was sinecure Gag
erly sought by men who employed
every possible device or intrigue to
reduce the number Of classes eligible
to these positions, women were natur-
ally the first to be prescribed.
This reaction against women was
begun in the third century by Tertul-
Ian. Influenced by his mighty ambi-
ton upon his conversion to the new
religion, he Immediately began to re-
construct the simple life of Christian
ity. Imbued by the pagan contempt
for women, he waged unrelenting war
against them, declaring Woman!
thou oughtest always to walk in
mourning and rags, thine eyes filled
with tears of repentance to make men
forget that thou hast been the de-
struction of the race. Woman! thou
art the gate of hell
Many of his disciples were in &C
cord with these sentiments and fol-
lowed his example with unfiagging
zeal They diligently preached of the
beauty of self-effacement, of the love
illness of self-sacrifiee and modesty,
of the admirable qualities of womanly
obedience and subsection, emphasiz-
ing the immodsstF of her preaching
and teaching.
While the church denounced wom-
an as the source of all evil, in in
stituting the worship of the Virgin it
deifed her 1t was not the woman
with her human desires, hopes and
aspirations that it exalted, but the
saint, secluded from life's interests,
struggles and temptations.
IL WAS Uul ndCul al LuG4L uuI1uE lUE
reactionary period Of the church life,
while the attitude of its foremost
teachers and writer's was that of AFRO
CANT contempt for women in all OF
their human capacities. they should
gradually lose the position which they
enjoyed in the early Christian church
For a thousand years they labored
with unceasing devotion for the tri-
umph of the faith, the difference De-
ing that with Jesus and the early
church fathers they labored with hon
orable equality with men, and after
The triumph of Tertullianism they
served in obscure positions, neither
receiving nor demanding recognition,
and under the domination of men.
The worst result of any form OF
slavery is to produce In the enslaved
a love of seryitude and to create a
spirit of protest against release from
this bondage. Hence the persistent
repetition from century to century IN
a grossly ignorant and superstitious
age that woman is sex or superior
wickedness and mental fnferiority, re-
sponsible not alone Tor her own sins
but also for those of men, could have
but one result. 1t created within
women themselves a passion for self
depreciation, humility and self-hatred,
and it also implanted in the minds OF
men a superstitious horror of the nat
ural powers of women, the effect of
which is not yet wholly eradicated
from the mind of either sex.
Notwithstanding all that the forces
of ignorance, superstition and ecclesi-
astical selfishress have accomplished
in opposing the development of WON
en and in preventing their highest
usefulness in the church, the pages of