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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
bird with one wing, never soaring to the diviner heights because he ignores the balancing power divinely provided.
Who can estimate today the potency for the uplifting of the race, the purifying of nations, the better organization of state and municipal governments, the lifting up and purifying of that typical paradise, the home where woman’s full right to be a helpmate for man is fully recognized. Some women are, through gifts, graces and providential surroundings, eminently fitted to be helpmates, and were they recognized as such the world would then have its full complement of power and would rapidly solve many of the social questions and other problems which today vex and perplex the most astute minds. God is waiting for the world to recognize His thought of woman before His edict shall go forth that is to free the world of much of its thralldom, much of its sorrow and mourning, before its moral mists shall be cleared away.
The world must learn to estimate His thought of her when He said: “ Male and female created He them, and blessed them.” As the world is now, woman as a class is largely cursed, not blessed. This is not God’s plan, for wherever His love and guidance holds sway she is blessed equally with man. God has no other thought for mankind than that they shall be blessed. What right have we to divorce from being blessed man’s helpmate, when God in His Word declares His purpose to bless her equally when male and female created He them, and blessed them, in the day when they were created.
He made clear His designs concerning her as a helpmate outside of the home when he called Deborah to be a poet, a prophetess, a judge and a warrior. Where is the man combining in his person and work all this versatility of talent and variety of office? It has been stated by high authority that Deborah was the only person in the nation, amid its millions, that could save the people at that time. She could decide the law cases of the people as judge, and sing the national songs as a poet, yet man in general denies woman’s right to express at the ballot-box that God-given power that would, when added to that of good men, free our world from its greatest evil and the home of its deadliest foe, viz., the liquor traffic. What a shame that our race should be thus bound, simply because we are not willing that God’s thought of woman should enter into the management of the world’s affairs, and thus make it possible for His Kingdom to come, and His love to “ reign where’er the sun doth his successive journeys run.”
In the days of Josiah, the king, Huldah, the prophetess, who was also a wife, received a message from the king, a deputation of the high priests and princes of the nation, to inquire of the Lord concerning his people, she being the only one, judging from the sacred narrative, who was qualified to expound the Word of the Lord, and reveal the message of Jehovah to his people.
Queen Esther fasts and prays, lifts up her heart to God and her hand to the scepter of the king; turns the sword of the foe to his own destruction and saves her people, and puts the blush to King Saul, who failed to obey the command of God against Amalek.
First in the “ Fall,” God’s greatest thought of her seems to have been when he made her the mother of redeemed humanity through the incarnate Son. The gentile world was looking forward to this event when Virgil wrote to Pollio, the consul, concerning his expectation of the golden age in connection with the birth of the long- expected Messiah. It would seem as if this divinely exalted relation to humanity’s weal should forever settle the question of woman’s right as an equal- factor with man in the development of the social, political and religious life of the human race.
In mythology woman is high in distinction, although Jupiter sits enthroned in the heavens as supreme; by his side sits Juno, the mother of gods and goddesses. In idolatrous worship woman has a most exalted position; hence, great was Diana of the Ephesians.
In personifying the church prophecy makes mention of her in the most exalted terms: “Rejoice greatly, O, Daughter of Zion! Shout, O, Daughter of Jerusalem!