The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1908-05-30
WoMAN's WORK FOR THE PRESS.

| W0MAN's WORK FOR THE PRESS.
| b Mrs. [. !. csriisle, sf The West Peiss Leade,
| Delivered Last Week Il Hattiesbsrs Before
| The Mississippi Press Assseiatisa.
4 When our first parents went out fror
paradise, the woman went out with tn
accusation of her companion ringing il
her ears: ''The woman who thou caves
to be with me, she gave of the tree an.
! did eat"
Through the ages she has borne ths
weight of that accusation. She hal
borne it in the degradation of her sex tt
the level of the beast. She has borne i
as mans slave, his plaything. Harems
seraglios, zenanas, all tell the story Of
woman's bondage to man for four thou
sand years. Those were dark days o.
the sex. When we read from the page,
OF history of the injustice and wrongs
heaped upon her, when we contemplate
her condition in heather lands today
the wonder is that she today, through
all the centuries of oppression, retained
even a spark of the devine nature, even
a vestige Of resemblance to the devine
image.
In the first ages woman was the yoke
fellow OF her man in industrial pursuits
1t was she who built the primitive home
OF bark and branches. She prepared
the simple meal of roots and herbs. Her
hands fashioned the rude dishes from
the clay that lined the banks of the
streams. She skinned and cured the
game her warrior husband brought home
from the hunting fields. She was dis
tinctly useful, and her savage mate toll
Grated her because she ministered to his
material needs and assisted him in sub.
DUNG the stubborn forces of.nature.
A later period came. A time when
with nature subject to him, mans treat
ment of woman assumed the form of
possession as chattel or as a plaything
and he only married her for reasons OF
state, family pride or profit. Each coun-
try had its peculiar method of degrading
and humlliating its womankind. Under
the Roman law man might marry a
woman, appropriate her property, cast
her adrift and marry again. Naturally,
he wished to marry as often as possible,
and the woman who had the courage to
free herself from such humiliation, wa e
compelled by law to wear the dress of a
leper. And really the memory of man
runneth almost back to the time when
there was law on the English statute
books giving man the right to chastise
his wife, which, perhaps, gave rise to
that facetious couplet,
"a woman, dog and walnut tree,
The more you beat 'em the better they
be-"
The epigrams of all countries show
the contempt in which woman has been
held. The polite French say: ga man
of straw is worth a woman of gold. ''The
canny Scotch say: ''The next best thing
to no wife is a good wife," The Ger
man believes: 'There are only two good
women in the world-one of these is
dead and the other cannot be dead" Ar
Arabian proverb affirms: Swords are
women; deeds are men," An old En-.
glish saying runs thus; "If a man lose
woman and a :afthing he will be sorry
he lost farthing."
But during all these riffs were there
no riffs in these clouds of Egyptian dark
ness? Were there no instances where
some woman kept her first estate and
proved to the world that the Creator
never intended that she should be thus
dragged in the dust? Yes; history re-
cords instances OF noble, brave women
who served their generation when i
seemed there was no man to do it. Sac
red history tells us that Deborah judget
Israel, and Barak, the warrior, refused
to 90 to battle unless she went with him
and as rebuke to his cowardice, Sise'
"a, the mighty Syrian captain, was slair
by woman. Ancient history furnish
es no more dauntlass warrior, states
man and emperor than Zenobia, queer
of Palmyra, whose glory failed wher
Zenobia was captured by the Romans
The Peerless Cornelia, mother of tn
Gracehii, shines out as bright star il
the midnight darkness Of prohigat'
Rome.
These were the foreglearns Of thatglo
rious day, when in the fullness OF TIM
her redemption should be accomplished
when woman should come into that he
ritage to which she was destined by al
omniscient Creator.
| The modern woman is a creature o
evolution, product of Christian ciyili
zation. When Christ was born on tn
Judean plains, she was born again
She reached the nadir of her degrade
ton in the four thousand years befor
the Savior came. She shall reach tn
zenith of her happiness and usefulnes
when Christian civilization is at its pin
nacle. 1t is the status of woman tina
differentiates Christian civilization from
the civilizations of Rome, Greece, Indi
and Egypt.
| But she has not sprung full-arme'
land panoplied, like Minerva, into tn
arena of action. / have said she is
creature of evolution, product o
Christian evolution. Her full redemp
ton is not yet accomplished. The deg
relation of woman in heathen lands at
| tncfc that Che has had To nrenare her