teh is oe the tectts? Vtharitait rte y f Y sm, it am ES at Bi TyT. 7} tel? ae rT : t Te Rebs ok TS) Bateia at, Sates os ee tiett elete? Shake ; z i ; Pep teh yay ae seistyetaeetitasaia: ih RS ‘ eieediset Sets SG tpaeeatates Be Tee ets fetetaks>, i ‘i f : *, isos a T i. STi Tsts: iH i ae ~ ie ? est peprperess ee fete eR +4 iv tt i 259 sf syast. qats> NiPie et, a2) , ‘ai args Tet “fy Rat [cons NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN LIVING CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP Francis J. McConnell. CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORLINESS Staley F. Davis, THE CHRISTIAN’S PERSONAL RELIGION Clarence Tucker Craig. ALCOHOL AND THE NEW AGE Deets Pickett. NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY Madeleine Sweeny Miller. CHRIST IN THE HOME OF MARY AND MARTHA Ran OF PRINGE: STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN LIVING> HENRY H. MEYER, Editor WAY | fa ie fal i WADE CRAWFORD BARCLAY, Associate Edito: Ae <0 OGICAL SE L. Ui New Testament Women and Problems of To-day By ss MADELEINE SWEENY MILLER (MRS. J. LANE MILLER) FOREWORD BY S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D. President of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America A group of discussion studies for young women of to-day, in business and in the home, inviting them to consider the experiences of certain New Testament women who met Jesus and his disciples and found in that contact the solution of problems confronted in everyday life. Approved by the Committee on Curriculum of the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1926, by MADELEINE SWEENY MILLER All rights reserved, including that of translation inte foreign languages, including the Scandinavian _ The Bible text used in this volume is taken from the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible, copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, and is used by permission. Printed in the United States of America DEDICATED TO THE GIRLS OF THE SECOND MILE BIBLE CLASS OF THE HANSON PLACE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, WHOSE CONSISTENT CHOOSING OF MARY’S “GOOD PART,” WHOSE SILENT SACRIFICES STUBBORNLY MAINTAINED AMID THE PRESSURES OF METROPOLITAN LIFE, WHOSE GLAD-HEARTED GOING OF THE ‘SECOND MILE”? WHEN THE FIRST WAS TRAVELED WITH DIFFICULTY—IN A WORD, WHOSE AMAZING SPIRITUALITY, HAVE VINDICATED THEIR GENERATION IN THE EYES OF MANY CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE An ACQUITTAL FOR YOUTH. ................ 8 PCH WORT ey eed Moat antea te eM IC HSN sc AHN 9 AutTHOR’sS INTRODUCTION.............000000. 11 I. My Jos anp I—Do WE Frt?............... 15 II. Can I Continue My Business CAREER AND MAINTAIN A Happy HoME?............... 29 Ill. My Twic on THe Famitry TREE—WHAT OF 1 NN Oa c4 89 y Uy De i ake a UAE a a GM dE 40 IV. Contacts Wirsin My Home—Are Tuey CONTHTSITEA DD Coste aeen Sere Cita] nD ANN ETE IAS BLAKE 51 V. My Frrenps—WHERE SHALL I Make THEM? 70 VI. My Letsurre—AsseT or LIABILITY?......... 83 VII. My Heautry anp CLtotHes—Do Turey MATTER TO THE COORTMUINELS bina lic iay eareummii avatar cone ahy 97 VIII. Tue Litrur Lost Arts or Lire—How Can I Pini 09 3 BCA Rg ae COIS ALD EE UTS OME AMET Re ELLAND Be 108 IX. Lire’s DisaproIntMENTs—How Swati I Face RETR Ce HUN SUL ee SUE rar oD ATL aL iaides VeAeh a Mahal ag 121 X. To Wuom Am I NeIcgHspor?................ 133 XI. Wines—Have I Any? ..... oy Sonne 147 XII. SmuencE in THE CHURCHES—OR SERVICE?....158 Poy Sy ALAS) Eos gay cna Rar a Tt aOR ASU a TN 171 SUGGESTIONS FOR BOOKSHELF............... 171 REFERENCE INDEX OF WOMEN OF SCRIPTURE PABNTIONED (IN LEXT ee 173 AN ACQUITTAL FOR YOUTH Oh, tell me not in your elderly way That youth is void of soul to-day! I have watched too much His compassionate touch To listen to what you say. I have seen Christ stand With beneficent hand Where youth chose the heroic and true. I have seen him smile when youth paid the price Of magnificent sacrifice For the sake of meeting an old debt due To parents who gave when their means were few. I have seen Christ pray As youth fought his way Past ghouls that stalked by day. I believe in youth As the friend of truth. He is bold as the knights of old were bold To salvage the best that the centuries hold. Who can the fact of his faith gainsay? He is holy in youth’s intrepid way! —M, 8. M. in the International Journal of Religious Education. FOREWORD TuHE author of New TEstaMENT WoMEN AND PROBLEMS oF To-pay is well equipped by her training and experi- ence to deal with the problems of her sex as viewed from the standpoint of our Lord’s teaching. Mrs. Miller’s con- tacts with diversified types of feminism have been un- usually varied and vital. As a graduate of one of our leading colleges and the wife of an honored ministerial brother, who is exercising an influential ministry in New York Gity, this gifted woman admirably serves as the mediator and interpreter for seemingly opposed ideas and groups. She wisely centers her emphasis in the New Testament, than which there is no more comprehensive and elevating source of instruction for women. Her method is Socratic, eliciting the desired results by means of questions and answers. Her treatment is sympathetic, with those touches of the intimate and the personal which add to the interest and profit of the book. From its introductory appreciation of the modern ap- praisal of woman through the successive twelve chap- ters, which range from business careers and “the little lost arts of life” to “life’s disappointments” and “silence or service in the churches,” the volume’s pages keep an equal pace, and the tide of interest steadily rises. I wonder how much our adolescent girls and young women know of the noble sisterhood Mrs. Miller presents here; of Mary and Martha at Bethany, of Lydia and, Elisabeth, of the blessed Virgin herself. I wonder, again, if the distinctive merits of the book are not traceable to the fact that a cultured Christian woman speaks here for these outstanding women of the New Testament. Surely, including as they do the mother of our Lord and those tender helpers who stood nearest to him during his ministry on earth, they will well repay our better acquaintance. There are numerous claimants for the modern young woman’s intellectual and religious loyalties. Strange gods 9 10 FOREWORD solicit her virgin heart, and untried ways invite her feet. The consequences of her choice travel far beyond herself. As the fountain of the race she is also, to change the metaphor, the rock on which man either builds or splits. IT am confident that many things offered to her to-day are worthy and helpful. I am equally confident that not a few that are loudly advertised as beneficial for her are vicious and harmful. For these if for no other reasons— and there are others not a few—I am deeply grateful that our author has referred the complicated matters she dis- cusses to the Lord of all life and love. Her policy in this reference will in my judgment secure the hearty approval of thousands of wives and daughters. The husbands and sons whom they ensphere with sacri- ficial service cannot fail to approach the problem with renewed intelligence after reading Mrs. Miller’s volume. I wish it a wide circulation among teachers of every grade and in every sort of school, public or private, sacred or secular. Most of all I pray that the Christ upon the altar of whose church this book is dedicated may be glori- fied by its offering to his cause and kingdom. S. ParKEs CADMAN, President of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Lent, 1926. Brooklyn, New York. AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION THE women who sought out Jesus in the Galilean multitude came with many questions on their lips or silent in their hearts. The first inquiry was brought to him, when he was only a Boy, by the mother who had lost his presence. Its answer contained his first revelation about his work in the world: “Knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?” It was Mary’s dilemma, too, about the exhausted wine supply at the Cana wedding feast which occasioned his first miracle. Agitated Martha of Bethany came with the petulant query, “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister did leave me to serve alone?” The Canaanitish woman came seeking relief for her afflicted daughter. And the mother of James and John punctuated her worship with a presumptuous request for places of power in Christ’s king- dom of the Spirit. The Samaritan woman was full of questions, which Jesus used to draw out some of his deep- est revelations about the nature of true worship. The discussion raised by the unnamed woman’s anointing brought to a focus the whole sacramental value of esthetics in devotion. And the plaint of the visitors to the Kaster garden, “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb?” disclosed the problem of removing practical barriers from the way of spiritual revelation. Indeed, few women came without an interrogation of need, and none is recorded as going away with that need unmet. Christ’s customary, bountiful attitude was: “Give ye them to eat. Send them not hungry away.” To-day women are still bringing their vital queries to Jesus, whom they feel moving in the midst of their thronged world of affairs. What are some of the dilemmas they are holding up for solution? Is there guidance for to-day in the truths Christ revealed to the women he met along the path of his crowded ministry twenty centuries ago? There are professional critics of youth who are gain- rah 12 AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION ing their livelihood by noisily proclaiming that young peo- ple in general are morally adrift. “What Ails Our Young Generation?” “The Young Person,” “Is Youth as Bad as It Appears?’ are popular titles in magazines of the hour. And, to be sure, there are many young men and women who have cut all bonds with the past and are experimenting in a costly fashion with this code of conduct and with that. But there are still groups in every community who de- light to search through the treasure chests of their inheri- tance and are finding there undreamed-of jewels, which they are eagerly mounting in carved platinum of new design. Their joy is as exuberant as was that of Sir Walter Scott when he discovered, hidden in a dull old chest, the lost regalia of Scottish kings. Out of the explorations of one such group of young women who have claimed their heritage have come the fol- lowing discussions. ‘These they offer to similar groups of girls everywhere—in business and in the home—in the hope that they will help them to face frankly the baffling situations that make being a young person to-day a more difficult thing than many elders would care to undertake. It is their prayer that in a generation described by Dr. Albert Parker Fitch as “lovable but irresponsible and superficial”; which loudly insists upon “expressing itself” when, too often, there is nothing inside to express, and upon criticizing the church it knows so superficially, these discussions may get across to youth two absorbing truths: First, there are moral laws that are just as definite as the laws of science undergirding the universe. Secondly, these laws of the spirit cannot be tampered with without very definite consequences. Just a word as to the discussion method. For the last few years educators have been increasingly feeling that teaching is not something done by the teacher to the student, as one has tersely said; that the pupil is not an empty cup held up to the pedagogue to be filled. In the realm of religion, young men and women have been forc- ing this discovery upon their elders by demanding that they be allowed to take an active part in the discussion of great truths laid before them. Thus only are they able AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION 13 to develop their processes of critical judgment about con- crete situations and to clarify their own understanding of the Christian way of life. To the discussion method, however, the objection has been raised that scientific ways cannot be successfully applied to spiritual studies; that young people do not have enough resources from reading and experience to conduct a discussion as profitably as a teacher who has a large personal library and the observa- tions of a generation at his disposal; that it raises ques- tions without supplying the “meat” for solving them. But to all these I reply, Jesus himself used the discussion method very frequently. Instead of flinging his opinions dogmatically at his inquirers he loved to draw out their own thoughts by asking them questions. When the lawyer came, inquiring the prerequisites for eternal life, Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” Again, to the query “Who is my neighbor?” Christ replied by relating a concrete story—the parable of the good Samaritan—followed by the very pertinent inquiry “Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neigh- bor unto him that fell among the robbers?” Instance after instance of his use of this very method of drawing out the belief of his learners might be cited. “But whom say ye that I am?” was his method of leading to Peter’s great confession of his Christhood. And when the trick ques- tion was put to him, “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?” he replied with another: “What man shall there be of you, that shall have one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will not lay hold on it, and lift it out?” Again, “Which is easier, to say, Thy sins are for- given thee; or to say, Arise and walk?” What an inter- rogation to hurl at even the wisdom of scribes! So may we ever remain seekers, urging others to become questioners, until the day shall come when we shall run to Jesus, saying, as did Simon and his friends when the needy clamorings of the multitude forced them to hunt out the Master in his desert place of prayer, “All are seeking thee,” who is himself, eternally, the pearl of eae price. The parsonage of Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, New York. ) Ad Hh 7 Wht any ‘ tut tbe CHAPTER I MY JOB AND I—DO WE FIT? To a large discussion group of young women, most of them in business and a few of them married, the follow- ing question was put, together with several others, on a questionnaire to be answered anonymously: “If you were free to follow any career in the world to-day, what would you select?” The replies brought many surprises, Three girls said they would like to be missionaries. Several frankly said, “Wife and mother; I hate business.” Others indicated, “Nurse or social-service worker.” Only one replied, “My present position—that of a modern business woman.” Why were so few in satisfactory situations? Have you ever put this query to yourself? Is your job large enough to challenge your best abilities or does it pinch, like a too narrow shoe? Or is it too large for you, so that you slip up and down in it like a shoe too wide? Much of the world’s discontent is due to misfits. But the very principle of variety of talents (read Paul’s famous passage in 1 Corinthians 12) has as its corollary the fact that there is a congenial task somewhere for every- one in the world if jobs and people could be brought to- gether. This is why colleges are stressing vocational guidance, and Young Women’s Christian Associations and churches are offering lectures on life callings. It is not simply a matter of “Would I be successful in this work ?” but also “Would I be happy ?” Let us examine the career of a New Testament woman with a view to discovering some tests by which we can judge the “fit” of our vocation. MartTHA Luke 10. 38-42. Now as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also 15 16 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN sat at the Lord’s feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving; and she came up to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister did leave me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. But the Lord answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: for Mary hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. John 11. 1-11, 17-40. Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was that Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. The sisters therefore sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. But when Jesus heard it, he said, This sick- ness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified hereby. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When therefore he heard that he was sick, he abode at that time two days in the place where he was. Then after this he saith to the disciples, Let us go into Judwa again. The disciples say unto him, Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because ‘the seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in him. These things spake he: and after this he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. So when Jesus came, he found that he had been in the tomb four days already. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jeru- salem, about fifteen furlongs off; and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary still sat in the house. Martha therefore said unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. And even now I know that, whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even he that cometh into the world. And when she had said this, she went away, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Teacher is here, and calleth thee. And she, when she heard it, arose quickly, and went unto him. (Now Jesus was not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY Ae Martha met him.) The Jews then who were with her in the house, and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, supposing that she was going unto the tomb to weep there. Mary therefore, when she came where Jesus was, and saw him, fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They say unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. The Jews therefore said, Behold how he loved him! But some of them said, Could not this man, who opened the eyes of him that was blind, have caused that this man also should not die? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus saith, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time the body decayeth; for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou believedst, thou shouldest see the glory of God? John 12. 1-8. Jesus therefore six days before the passover came to Beth- any, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus raised from the dead. So they made him a supper there: and Martha served; but Lazarus was one of them that sat at meat with him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of pure nard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, that should betray him, saith, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred shillings, and given to the poor? Now this he said, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the bag took away what was put therein. Jesus therefore said, Suffer her to keep it against the day of my burying. For the poor ye have always with you; but me ye have not always. Tur Riagot KIND OF A JOB Work is a normal state. Successes have usually come when “the people had a mind to work.” Man has turned to a genuine blessing the labor that seemed originally sent as a curse after the desecrated leisure of paradise. Heaven. may be characterized by perfect rest, but, as Henry van Dyke has said, “The blessing of earth is toil.” A certain school teacher almost always succumbs to illness in sum- mer from the sheer inactivity of her long vacation; she is never so happy as when climbing up and down the flights 18 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN of stairs that lead to her task of directing the studies of eighteen hundred boys and girls. Was Martha—and am I—happy in the day’s work ?— Upon first thought one would answer, “No, Martha com- plained too much about being overburdened; if she was so cumbered, she couldn’t have been in the right job.” But if Martha was not happy in her household tasks, the chances are that she did not go about them in the right way. Her preparations for guests were too elaborate. James Hoover, of Borneo, was once entertained in an American home where the hostess was constantly jumping up from the table to bring in additional dainties. “Sit still, sister,’ he pleaded. ‘We have dainties in Borneo— fruits unimaginable to the Western mind. Once you have tasted the ‘durian’ you would travel the world over for this bewitching fruit. I do not mean to be discourteous but [’d much rather have you listen to the good news from Borneo than have you so burdened with serving dainty morsels to me.” Martha’s tendency always was to be too active. It was she, and not the quiet Mary, who ran out to meet the approaching Christ; it was she who fussed about Lazarus having been dead four days and his body decaying when the Lord proposed to restore him. | If Martha had budgeted her time, as modern young housekeepers do to-day, allotting certain time to market- ing, preparation of meals, etc., might she not have found her work less cumbersome? Students at Vassar College recently distributed to the campus group a questionnaire headed by the caption, “Save your time: it may be worth something.” It invited the students to outline their daily activities, showing the amount of time spent on each, in an effort to eliminate waste and develop a well-balanced program of intellectual, spiritual, and recreational pur- suits. Try this yourself. Only by some such methodical arrangement was Susannah Wesley able to allot to John and Charles and all her other children their portion of her time for spiritual culture. Only by such an arrangement was Julia Ward Howe able to be a public servant and a faithful mother. Before applying the test of happiness to your own situation inquire whether you are bringing the right method to your work. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 19 Anyone who dreads the dawn of the business day and drives himself to his task like a quarry slave is not properly adjusted. “I just love my position,” a young woman purchasing agent for a paper-utilities firm re- marked. “I can scarcely wait to get to my office, open the mail, and line up the orders for the day.” She had passed the dilemma stage so well described in a letter writ- ten by a young person just about to be graduated from college and puzzled about selecting a profession: My plight is that right now I am at that age where, not having tried anything, I feel I could be a success at anything. Cut my field of choice down to any one thing and I believe I could make a go of it. I have a rather high opinion of my capabilities. But the question is not one of success but of happiness. In what field would life have the most meaning? ... 1 have for some time harbored the illusion that I could write, be a critic, go into teaching, and aim for a professor- ship in philosophy or in English, or even go into the minis- try. I could run a modernist church. It is one thing to think and another thing to do. Wouldn’t it be awful to make the plunge and then be dissatisfied or fail? You see, in considering a profession I am at a disad- vantage. There is the influence of precedent to overcome, and that precedent is always whispering to me that it would be so much easier to just drift into business and forget it all, and have my home and my car and my daily chores, and live and die and amount to nothing!? Nothing ig more certain to make one unhappy—and in the end unsuccessful—than the divided mind. Once a work has been undertaken, it is unfair to judge its fitness till one has given it the whole of one’s attention. Is it the highest type of work of which Martha—and I—are capable ?—Martha’s abilities were not limited to kitchen talents. Her work may have been menial, but she brought no menial soul to its performance. It is easy to find evidences of a deep spirituality that might have made her as much'a mystic as Mary had she not been more needed at her post by the stove. It was she whose faith was great enough to exclaim: “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not diéd. And even now I know that, whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee.” 1From ‘‘The Contributors’ Column,” Ailantic Monthly, July, 1925; used by permission, 20 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN It was directly to Martha that Christ addressed the im- mortal words that have soothed grieving hearts ever since: “T am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die.” And it was prac- tical, plodding, often-fussy Martha who replied, “Yea, Lord: I have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even he that cometh into the world.” This is a longer conversation on spiritual matters than is recorded even of Mary with Christ. It was Martha who went to Mary with the news: “The Teacher is here, and calleth thee.” It seems evident, therefore, that Martha was really capable of a higher type of work than that which is usually set down opposite her name. But she was doing the thing that was most needed and. that she was also best fitted to do. This, after all, is the real issue. When Dr. W. T. Grenfell was a young interne in the London Uni- versity Hospital he considered various openings that loomed up for him in London. But to them all he applied this acid question: “Js this the thing the world needs most from me and that I can do best?” So he determined to Jeave the city where already too many shingles were hang- ing out and cast his lot in the lonely Labrador, which he has been blessing ever since with his manifold ministry of healing, teaching, and befriending the fisher folk of that bleak northland. Many young women are wasting ten-talent capacities on one-talent jobs and need someone to uproot them utterly. A girl with a Columbia degree and a scintillating per- sonality, enriched by a religious experience that had worked its way through college doubts to abiding certain- ties under the wise preaching of her pastor, was support- ing herself and mother by secretarial work in a life-insur- ance company. “Harriet,” her Bible teacher said very suddenly one day, “you’re entirely too big for your job. Do get out of that office and make yourself a director of religious educa- tion in some enterprising church, or something really fit for your abilities !” “Could I do that? I always thought I would like to AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 21 do something of the sort but didn’t know there was such a job. How would I go about it?” she replied. Within a few months it was arranged to have a brother assume the mother’s support, money was borrowed from the Student Loan Fund of the church, and Harriet was on her way to take up life-insurance business of a differ- ent sort. A girl who had come from Iowa to study nursing in an Kastern hospital was expelled for an indiscretion with an orderly. Alarmed at finding herself in the city with no source of income, she appealed to a minister, begging him to get her some sort of work. Even a file-clerk’s wage would be acceptable. He succeeded in getting her a beginner’s job in a broker’s office at fifteen dollars a week, but soon she returned to him. “I feel so out of my ele- ment,” she said. “I have within me the making of a good nurse. I know it. I came Hast to follow a noble profes- sion, and just see what one hasty misjudgment has lowered me to!” That minister succeeded in having her accepted in a hospital in another city and kept in touch with her until she had become a graduate nurse with her coveted R.N. Now she has fully recovered from that “inferiority complex” which is one of the deadliest foes that can assail a personality. A Methodist nurse who had served overseas during the war came back to America to live with her Christian Science sister, whom she loved very dearly. Together they opened a small store for women’s apparel. But before long Mary felt that she was suppressing her talents, with- holding from the world service it needed sorely. She tried to satisfy the urge by doing nursing through her county Red Cross during the influenza epidemic. Still she felt restless. One day she boarded a train to New York City, went to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and said: “Can you use a good, husky nurse anywhere at all in the world? And would I do?” So high were her qualifications that the board jumped at the chance, and before she had time to regret leaving her sister she was on board a Pacific Mail steamer for Sumatra, where she has been blessing a teeming city with ministra- tions not only of a nurse but often of a physician also. 22 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN There is no doubt in her mind or in the hearts of the city that she is “a good fit,” using her “utmost for the highest.” Sometimes girls realize that they are misfits but are willing to endure that discomfort for the sake of someone else. This sort of thing is the embodiment of noblesse oblige. “Why have you stopped attending art school?” a young woman with marked ability as an illustrator was asked by a friend. “Well,” she replied, “mother’s income is limited, and she cannot afford to send Betsy and me both to school this year. As Betsy. is lame and can’t enjoy many things, I feel her school life means more to her than mine possibly could to me, so I’m just staying at home this winter, help- ing mother with the housework. When Betsy has finished high school, I hope to go back.” The New York Times is authority for another excellent illustration of a misfit consciously endured but gloriously adjusted. When Carmela Ponsella learned what a beau-- tiful soprano voice her sister had she is said to have given up her own music and taken a business position in order that Rosa might cultivate her voice. In due time Rosa was accepted by the Metropolitan Opera Company. Later it was learned that Carmela also had a superb contralto voice. The self-sacrificing sister’s voice was tried, she was ac- claimed with plaudits, and she was engaged to sing with Rosa as a regular member of the great group of Metropoli- tan singers. Could Martha—and can I—keep on without being bored ?—Ability to continue one’s work with anterest, over a long period of time, is a good test of its suitability. The first glimpse we have of Martha, in the early days of Christ’s ministry, shows her serving a meal; and our last view, just six days before his last Passover feast, reveals her still serving a supper to the little Bethany group. However, she seems to have learned in the meanwhile the comfortable way of doing the work for which, after all, she was fitted; for at the farewell meal she prepared for Jesus there is no indication of fussiness, no criticism, even of Mary’s extravagance in buying the ointment. ‘ AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 23 The constant desire of folks to resign, the frequent turn- over of labor in industry in some sections, the restlessness of misfit employees, are all modern evidences of malad- justment and must be corrected. Young people, most of all, show inability to keep at a job unless the skies are perfectly blue, and the atmosphere congenial. Wise are they who, in taking up a work, test its “fit” by asking themselves, “Will it hold my interest a year from now— or several years from now?” Well might God weary of his toil for our indifferent and disobedient old world! But what a strengthening revela- tion of his persistence Jesus gave when he said, “My Father worketh even until now.” Think of a task begin- ning before the world’s creation and still being pursued with unflagging interest in this late day! Let us, like Jesus, diligently “work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” And let us so constantly safeguard the quality of our workmanship that the stinging condemnation sent to the angel of the church of Sardis will find no application to us “I have found no works of thine perfected before my God.” Tue Rignut AttitupE Towarp Work Attitude is an intangible but real and often decisive factor in job fitting. The sense of worthfulness of work- ing, as well as of the dignity and value of any particular task, is absolutely essential for satisfactory adjustment. The girl who inwardly resents the fact that she has no choice as to whether she will work or no is unconsciously prepared to find all sorts of difficulties. If her reason will not let her find fault with the work itself she may find her surroundings or her employer or fellow workers “im- possible.” Or she will not have her defenses up against the real but subtle perils to be met. What is an adequate motive for work?—lIs it money, giving power, or just the sheer joy of work faithfully done, in season and out, for the fine art of doing it nobly, as “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed”? ‘There is no doubt that the money side of a job is important. One ought not to be satisfied long with a job that does 24 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN not make it possible to live in comfort and decency, to help others, and to insure a margin for emergencies. What effect on one’s attitude toward the job itself will be made by the way one spends the earnings from it? A girl said to a friend lately: “I never save a cent. In fact, I often have to borrow from mother by the end of the week. I just love pretty things for my room; and cute little five-dollar hats. And I can’t pass a candy store at noon hour without treating the girls. And, of course, bobbing and waving my hair costs a lot each month.” Her friend, whose family were all many miles away, re- plied: “I’?d be in terror if I did that. Last year I was sent suddenly to the hospital for an operation, and it cer- tainly eased my mind to know I had enough in the bank to see me through and to buy a ticket home after it was over.” One girl with a modest personal income of her own went to work one spring just so that she could buy a new fur coat the following winter. Another remarked: “Since I opened a tithing account at the bank, it is surprising how little I am spending on myself and how much fun I am getting out of life. I can scarcely wait for the first of the month to come to replenish that special account. It is always empty, for I just dote on giving.” When are the surroundings more important than the place?——-Martha’s environment was surely of the best, in the cozy home that time and again proved so attractive to the weary Christ. Little wonder that the simple interior of her dining room has given inspiration to the brush of a great artist of the Negro race—H. O. Tanner—whose painting “Christ at the Home of Mary and Martha” is in the permanent collection of the Carnegie Library in Pitts- burgh. But the modern woman’s working environment is largely not of her own making and often violates her per- sonal ideals. How about telling people that your em- ployer “is not in” when he only wishes to escape inter- views? or telling customers that articles are “greatly reduced” or “pure wool” when you know that this is not true, but that your firm wishes you so to state? What is going to take place in your own character? ‘The firm’s AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 25 emphasis on good investments may gradually make one look exclusively for profits and quick returns, like the “realtoress” who subjected her family to “the six per cent test” in everything and, although not opposed to riding in her sister’s Ford, refused to buy gas, saying, “If you can’t afford to run the machine you ought not to have it.” If the atmosphere of one’s place of business clashes with her best Christian ideals, either it may indicate that the position is not a good fit, or it may offer a challenge to exert a wholesome influence over others. Should one transfer herself or transform the situation? Here are the contrasting ways in which two young women solved the problem: After completing one year in an Eastern medical col- lege where most of the students were either blatant agnostics or of non-Christian faiths a girl wrote to her Bible-class teacher: You will be surprised to learn that I am going to change my college next year. I simply cannot work in a place where people are always either ridiculing my faith or decomposing it by chemical formulas. So I am going to the Women’s Medical College. J believe in God and in science. Both are very dear to me. I have just bought a new Bible, which gives me great satisfaction and is a relief when I am weary with anatomy and embryology. A young woman who continued a wartime position in a great warehouse was appalled by the vulgarities she met in everyday intercourse with the girls in her office. Their conversations in the dressing room relative to the men employees and to their own leisure hours weighed down upon her until she felt that she must surrender her posi- tion, her good salary, and the place of responsibility reached by fidelity through the years. But she clung to it and was eventually able to win her way into the affec- tions and then into the confidence of the younger girls. The atmosphere began to change in the dressing room, and department managers noticed an increased efficiency and more helpful spirit among the employees. ‘The mag- nificence of Emily’s own character began to see itself mirrored in many faces that once had been hideous with low vulgarities; and some who had lived all year for a 26 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN cheap seaside vacation went with her to Silver Bay and actually enjoyed its rare spiritual ministry in the beauty of sky and lake. Can one change the outside from within ?—-Even where the outer atmosphere of one’s place of work cannot be altered, it may be revolutionized by one’s own outlook upon it. One of the most popular paintings in a certain Euro- pean gallery is entitled “The Angels of the Kitchen.” It shows the interior of a medieval monastery scullery, to which a novice brother has been assigned to prepare a meal. A group of visiting noblemen, accompanied by the abbot, pay him a surprise visit of inspection and are amazed to find him on his knees in prayer. His work, however, is meantime progressing, for a host of angels are briskly taking his place, some stirring soup in the cauldron, others grinding spices, carrying water, arranging plates, and pre- paring vegetables. This quaint old conception has a helpful message for all who have menial tasks to do to-day. We may main- tain spiritual attitudes of soul or send our minds on de- lightful pilgrimages even while engaged in distasteful sorts of work. And by cultivating these attitudes we may sur- round ourselves with clouds of unseen helpers who lighten our tasks. It would simply revolutionize the atmosphere of many an office as well as a kitchen to have such a charming picture in sight. To MartHa AT BETHANY: Sprina 33 A! D. Though menial are her tasks, No menial soul she brings To their accomplishment; But joy within her sings, For lo! the Guest who asks Her ministry has taught How toil with meditation blent May be with visions fraught. No longer cumbered, she, but thrilled That his bright face has filied The gloom of her small dwelling place Again with his transforming grace. She little dreams that on that kingly head, Which pensive Mary lavishly anoints, While Lazarus ponders how he raised him, dead, Will soon be pressed dark Calvary’s waiting points. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 2% Oh, come, Lord Jesus, knock again And say wherever toiling men And women feel their tasks a weight, “My Father worketh even until now, And I still work beside thee, dawn and late, And share with thee the drops upon thy tel § —M, S. M. QUESTIONS FoR Group Discussion 1. What motive lies back of your work ? 2. Are you making it difficult for business associates to be Christians: (a) by your attitude toward their religion? (b) by indulging in little moral laxities, such as leaving early, overstaying lunch hour, faking illness, helping your- self to desk supplies, gossiping about the office force, over- dressing to the detriment of employees on lower salaries, undue familiarity with your employer, or encouragement of “crushes” by younger girls? 3. What are the moral dangers arising from your own particular work? 4, When representing your firm are you ever aware of acting on different principles than when making deci- sions of your own? 5. Has your sense of kindness changed to hardness, dis- guised, perhaps, as shrewdness, since entering the business world? 6. Are low wages responsible for any of the discontent among business girls in your community? Are the ma- jority of them making a living wage? Is society paying the margin of difference between what some firms ought to pay and actually do pay their employees? For example, are young women dependent on Young Women’s Chris- tian Association dormitories to give room and meals for very low sums in cases where the girls’ wages are inade- quate for decent living? %. Is it possible to save on the average salary of a busi- ness girl living away from home in your community? Is any sort of health insurance possible? 8. Is there a moral side to thrift? When ought a girl to begin laying aside an emergency saving fund? 9. If you felt that you were a misfit in your position, would you be willing to pay the price of an “altered fit- 28 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN ting” (going to night school after business, or living on borrowed capital while educating yourself for a career of service) ? 10. What opportunities have you at your disposal to help fit other persons into right work? How far would you be willing to go to make such an adjustment? 11. What would be the effect upon you if you recom- mended a person for a responsible position, which she secured and then disappeared with some of the firm’s money ? | 12. Ought churches to conduct an employment bureau to assist their members and constituents? Is this a legit- imate piece of Christian social service? Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, is doing it. Do you know of any others that might ? 13. What ought a pastor to do when he receives a re- quest for a recommendation to a prospective employer from a young woman who has repeatedly refused to unite with the church ? CHAPTER II CAN I CONTINUE MY BUSINESS CAREER AND MAINTAIN A HAPPY HOME? AN attractive young private secretary, in conversation with the other girls of the office during their lunch hour, was announcing her engagement. “Are you coming back to work after you are married ?” someone asked. “Of course,’ answered the bride-elect. ‘What should I do with myself all day at home? I’m too young to join the Ladies’ Aid Society! Besides, we’re buying a little house in Queens, and two salaries are better than one. So T’ll be back at my desk as usual.” She had evidently forgotten the groups of irritable wives and jaded husbands whom she had often watched rest- lessly waiting for their partners to put in an appearance at a restaurant near an uptown subway exit, The growing tendency of young wives to start out to work in the mornings with their husbands, turning the latchkey on home for the day, leads to the questions: What is the effect of such a regime upon the home? Can a girl continue her business career after marriage and also be a successful homemaker? The New Testament reveals two first-century women who apparently succeeded in doing so. One “carried on” alone in the market place of an ancient city of Asia Minor; the other was partner to her husband in an indus- try conducted within the home. Lyp1A: ImportTEeR oF PURPLE Acts 16. 11-15, 40. Setting sail therefore from Troas, we made a straight course to Samothrace, and the day following to Neapolis; and from thence to Philippi, which is a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a Roman colony: and we were in this city tarrying certain days. And on the sabbath day we went 29 30 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN forth without the gate by a river side, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down, and spake unto the women that were come together. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one that worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened to give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us. ... And they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia: and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed. Prisca: MAKER oF TENTS Acts 18. 1-4, 24-28. After these things he departed from Athens, and came to Corinth. .And he found a certain Jew named ‘Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, lately come from Italy, with his wife Pris- cilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to de- part from Rome: and he came unto them; and because he was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they wrought; for by their trade they were tentmakers. And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks. ... Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spake and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John: and he began to speak boldly in the syna- gogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more accurately. And when he was minded to pass over into Achaia, the brethren encouraged him, and wrote to the disci- ples to receive him: and when he was come, he helped them much that had believed through grace; for he powerfully con- futed the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. Romans 16. 3-5. Salute Prisca and Aquila my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who for my life laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles: and salute the church that is in their house. 1 Cor. 16. 19. The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Prisca salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house. 2 Tim. 4. 19a. Salute Prisca and Aquila. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 31 LypIA: ImportTER oF PURPLE What about her as a business woman?—Lydia was an importer and retailer of a very fine commodity—the purple cloth or garments so eagerly sought by discriminating pur- chasers. The cloth was probably made at Thyatira, a city famous as a center of weaving and dyeing, just as to-day New York City is the center of the garment trades, whose workers throng certain sections of Fifth Avenue sunning themselves at noon, the while discussing the business of their unions. If we can judge from the inscription on a tablet discovered there, even ancient Thyatira seems to have had a “purple guild.” At the time of the incident recorded jn Acts, Lydia was retailing her wares in Philippi, an important Macedonian city whose status as a Roman colony made it a strategic selling center. As considerable capital would be involved in handling such a choice variety of merchandise, Lydia may have been continuing a busi- ness of her husband, just as many widows to-day are doing with marked success. A woman in New York City—Mrs. Alice Foote Mc- Dougal—finding herself left with small sons to educate, bravely took up her husband’s prosperous business as an importer of coffee and has so enlarged it, by establishing artistic tearooms and salesrooms of goods from foreign markets, that her million-dollar success is nationally known. Another widow has chosen to continue the monu- mental-granite work of her husband. In fact, there seems to be no limit to the variety of tasks widows are under- taking to-day, whether it be governing a State, like Mrs. Nellie Ross in Wyoming, or representing a congressional district at Washington, as several have attempted to do. What about her religious life?—Even before that event- ful service conducted by Paul on the river bank at Philippi, which yielded the first recorded convert in Europe to Christ’s way of life—and that one a woman—Lydia was a proselyte to the Hebrew faith—“one that worshiped God.” She had not allowed business to crowd out her religion. Like Theodore Roosevelt, a more active man than whom it would be hard to discover in history, she probably would have affirmed, “No matter where I am or 32 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN what activities or fatigues may be pressing upon me, I make it my habit to worship God somewhere every Sun- day.” Notice the significant result that followed Lydia’s habitual attention to God’s claim upon her time. He opened her heart “to give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul.” What mighty rivers of influence have flowed through all Europe from this small spring! The great things of God often have slight beginnings. The rite of baptism to which she willingly submitted gave her fellowship with the company of believers. What do you think of women who say that they “can be Chris- tians without joining the church”; that they prefer not to be hampered by exactions they are sure they cannot fulfill; that they have certain little pet indulgences they will not give up for any institution? What was the result upon her family of Lydia’s con- version? Have you known young women who have led their whole family to Christ? A telephone supervisor who found in the church the one power able to drown the in- cessant “Number, please” that she heard all day long interpreted so successfully to her family the attractiveness of the church program that she led three sisters, two aunts, and, best of all, her mother and father to open their hearts to her God. Similarly a wealthy young widow, who found herself appalled by the responsibility of rearing two small children without a church home, was induced to taste of the feast she had long neglected ; took a class in the church school, and became so ardent a Christian that she led her sisters and their families—fourteen in all—to follow in her train. What about this first-century business woman’s home ?— Clearly Lydia’s home was one to which she was not ashamed to invite the most distinguished guests. Her only uneasiness was on the ground of her own unworthi- ness to receive such godly visitors as the apostolic party. “Tf ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there,” she said. There was a pressing insistence, a heartiness, about her desire, to enter- tain them; for she “constrained” them to come, not to tea only, not just to dinner, but to make her home their AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 33 headquarters while in Philippi. Have you ever enter- tained your pastor’s family? Why not? Home too crowded? too humble? Or because you are too busy? Home hospitality has gone out of date in many cities, where apartment life cramps old-fashioned customs; yet this virtue is much commended by Paul, who says that those who are given to hospitality often find themselves entertaining “angels unawares.” For a good description of humble rural hospitality ex- tended to a minister read that chapter in Dorothy Car- men’s Faith of Our Fathers, where Hugh Blue is first entertained at dinner in his new parish. For a real under- standing of what the open door of a home can mean to a traveler through the wilderness, whether real or imaginary, turn to Francis Asbury’s Journal and imagine what it must have been like for this wanderer through swampy bogs, infested with hostile Indians, to find entertainment in a comfortable frontier cabin or, after jogging many miles, to come to “Mrs. Merritt’s meeting house,’ where three hundred people were gathered to greet him. Prisca: MAKER oF TENTS What about Prisca as a business woman ?—Tent making seems a mannish occupation for even a twentieth-century woman, yet one of the most efficient salespersons in a prominent motor-camping equipment establishment in New York City is the wife of one of the firm. So it may have been with Prisca, wife of Aquila, a Jew who had gone from Pontus to Rome and then, following the banishment of Jews by Claudius, had located his little shop in the great, cosmopolitan city of Corinth. Prisca, perhaps help- ing just a little at first with the making of the tents, be- came more proficient, as energetic women have a way of doing. By the time Paul reached them she was a fellow worker with her husband, just as in France to-day the wives of pastry-shop keepers and little grocers contribute their dowry money to the setting up of the establishment and then continue to tend the shop while their husbands are otherwise engaged. For reasons of economy the tent shop of Prisca and Aquila was probably in or close to their home. What a picture of wholesome Christian diligence 34. NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN flashes upon our imagination from the words “because he [Paul] was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they wrought; for by their trade they were tentmakers.” What about her religious life?—Just as Paul’s manual labor, by which he earned his own livelihood, deterred him not a whit from devoting himself to religious work (for “he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and per- suaded Jews and Greeks’), so Prisca did not allow her toiling with tent cloth to crowd out active participation in the church life of Corinthian believers. In fact, she actually founded the profession of women directors of religious education when, with her husband, she took in hand the young and promising Apollos, who “taught ac- curately the things concerning Jesus” but knew only the baptism of John. With what infinite tact she must have offered her suggestions to the budding preacher, so deli- cately that he neither resented advice from a woman nor grew discouraged with his profession and abandoned it. The great successes that came to Apollos, so that at times he seemed to rival Paul in popular favor, are a tribute to his teacher as well as to his own abilities. Prisca was to Apollos as Anne Mansfield Sullivan was to blind Helen Keller, who said of her remarkable teacher that the most important day of her whole life was the one when her teacher came to set her spirit free. It was through her leadership that she was able to come up out of Egypt and stand before Sinai where a power divine touched her spirit and gave it sight, so that she was able to behold many wonders. Prisca to-day would be congenial in the com- pany of Maude Royden, the world’s most eminent woman preacher, who combines wonderfully a burning social sym- pathy with a deep personal mysticism. Another evidence of Prisca’s recognized interest in the infant church lies in the fact that her name is sometimes mentioned before her husband’s—rather an unusual order for Hebrews, who were accustomed to “Abraham and Sarah,” “Isaac and Rebekah.” She was at least a co- pastor with him, perhaps somewhat in the manner of a certain Baptist minister and his wife, who divide the min- isterial duties of. a Pennsylvania church, the husband preaching on Sundays at one service, and the wife at the AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 35 other, both being graduates of Shurtleff College and of Rochester Theological Seminary; and of the Rev. Con- stance Coltman (B.D., Oxford), copastor with her hus- band of Crowley Church, Oxford, England. That Prisca remained an alert member of the colony of believers is indicated by the fact that her old friend Paul, in his second letter to Timothy, written so close to the end of his life, sent her an individual greeting: “Salute Prisca and Aquila.” The aged apostle had good reason to re- member the godly pair, who were really married souls, for by some circumstance whose details are unknown to us they had risked their own necks for his sake. What kind of home was maintained by Prisca ?— Prisca seems to have been one of those prudent wives whom the writer of Proverbs hails as “from Jehovah.” And her home certainly was one in which the religious atmos- phere was not only satisfactory to Paul but conducive to his successful evangelistic efforts—rather a high standard for any woman to meet. As in the home of Lydia and of John Mark’s mother it was one in which all the members of the family and working helpers were trying to imitate Christ; for when they later moved with Paul from Corinth to Ephesus, and the apostle was writing his famous letter to their friends in the throbbing, iniquitous city on the isthmus between the seas, he said, “Aquila and Prisca salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.’ A fascinating phrase this—‘“the church that is in their house”! The wife, a religious priestess in her own home—think of it! Is there one in yours? Was there when you were a child? Can a woman of to-day not parallel the twofold genius of Prisca in pursuing business and also maintaining a household distinguished for its religious tone even as did Roxana Beecher? This remarkable woman supplemented the meager salary of her husband—the Rev. Lyman Beecher—by teaching French, drawing, and English in a private school; yet she administered so successfully a household in which there were eight children, besides numerous relatives and visitors to the little Connecticut manse, that several of her sons becamé ministers of the gospel, including the inimitable Henry Ward Beecher; and 36 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN her daughter Harriet was author of the book that not only helped stir America to one of the greatest, moral reforms of history but also revived the popularity of the Bible in France, because people wanted to read “the book that Uncle Tom loved.” No finer description of such a Christian household is to be found in literature than the chapter “The Church’ in Cecilia’s House” in Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean. Borrow a copy if you do not own one and read of the well-ordered, roomy villa entered by a little doorway in the garden wall; and of the singing of children—a new kind of singing, expressing not precisely mirth but won- derful happiness, the expansion of a joyful soul. Then feel the purity, the orderliness, the industry, the cheerful- ness of the house, suggesting a bride adorned for her hus- band. And sense the charm of the Roman matron herself, who advanced in long mantle and coif, with a temperate beauty like that of Greek statuary at its best, carrying one child and leading another by the hand. The whole atmos- phere breathed chastity. No finer literary statement can be found of the immaculateness of family life when hal- lowed by Christianity. Wuat Is tHE CoNcLUSION ? Both of the cases we have considered seem to indicate that it is possible for a woman to carry on a business career and maintain a successful home. But were not Lydia and Prisca of more than ordinary ability, and were the difficulties of the case not simpler under their organ- ization of society than they would be to-day? Is not the whole question altered when there are children in the family ? Helen Taft Manning manages to be dean of Bryn Mawr College as well as mother of robust young children. The following statement of a young woman who tried to con- tinue her business career and still fulfill her own high ideals of Christian wifehood and found it impossible ex- presses the negative conclusion: “I consider homemaking and business both too important for any young woman successfully to give herself to both at the same time.” Many women would not agree with this conclusion. The AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 37 women members of a chamber of commerce recently broad- cast this statement: There are many women in their own businesses, doing un- usual things in the industrial and commercial fields. Among the members of our chamber of commerce there are a toy manufacturer, a neckwear manufacturer, opticians, Owners of small retail stores, a sales engineer, and countless others. Most of these women have their own homes, and several are mothers. In fact, it has been interesting to observe that most successful business women have their own homes, and there they find their recreation. In a debate at the London School of Economics the following viewpoints were expressed by Rebecca West, English author, and Alfred Duff-Cooper, member of Par- liament: Miss West believes that man has rather tired of politics and is eager to return to the tasks of home. Woman, on the other hand, through her rich experience gained in the rearing of her children, would make an ideal politician. Mr. Duff-Cooper feels that since the home is the only bulwark we can trust to safeguard the world against threatening influences it should not be deprived of the unifying center and heart of its presiding spirit— the wife and mother. QUESTIONS FoR Group Discussion 1. What reasons have you heard advanced for the com- bination of the careers of home building and of business? Dislike for housework? Desire for car, property, travel, savings account, or more clothes than husband can afford to buy? 2. What do you think of the argument that it is a pro- tection for some business girls to marry while young and be safeguarded by a home even if they have to continue at business rather than live in the average city boarding house ? 3. If a young married woman feels obligated to assist her parents or younger brothers and sisters, is she justified in going into business life in order to do this without ask- ing her husband’s financial help? Is it right for a young woman with obligations of this sort to get married with the understanding that she will continue in business? 58 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN 4, Why does it seem more fitting for a wife to be eco- nomically dependent on her husband than for a man to be dependent on his wife? Is anything more than custom at the basis of this? 5. Should a wife in business contribute to the household budget or be urged to lay aside her salary for a home or some other purpose? Is it unfair to a husband to de- prive him of the satisfaction of “being a good provider” ? 6. Under such a regime should a husband be expected to assist in household duties? Was the girl being what Dr.. W. Fearon Halliday calls “a true woman” when she said: “I don’t mind going to business every day in the week but I simply will not mop up the kitchen. That’s up to Walter!” ? 7. What are some of the moral perils that may arise from married women’s continuing in business? Over- fatigue, leading to incompatibility with husband, and un- fitness to see issues clearly? Marital loyalty challenged by daily association with men? 8. Do you see any significance in the fact that in 1923 there were more marriages in New York City than there had been for twenty-six years (66,430), while that same year recorded the smallest number of births for any year in that twenty-six-year period? Of the 1,115,670 mar- ried women in that city (excluding widows and divorcees) 9.6 per cent are employed in gainful occupations. 21.1 per cent of the total female population of the country, over ten years of age, were gainfully employed in 1920. What comments can you make on the following very im- portant facts stated by Mary Anderson in the 1925 Report of the Director of the Women’s Bureau of the Federal Department of Labor? Census figures show that the number of wage-earning women is gradually increasing, and that in 1920 there were more than eight and one-half million women in gainful employ- ment, one woman out of every five being a wage-earner. This number represents an actual increase since 1910 of nearly half a million. Such figures prove that the employment of women outside ‘the home is not a temporary condition but a problem that we have with us always. Not far from three million, or one third of all the women workers, were in man- ufacturing and mechanical industries, trade, transportation, AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 39 and public service. ... Perhaps it is not generally realized that one in every five working women is less than twenty years old, and that more than one in every five is from twenty to twenty-five years of age. In fact, at least two fifths of the women who work are under twenty-five years old. An- other two fifths are from twenty-five to forty-four years of age. Or, to state this another way, nearly one half of the women in manufacturing industries, practically two fifths of those in agricultural jobs, in trades, and in professions, and two thirds in transportation are less than twenty-five years old. 9. Judging from cases that have come under your own observation, do you think it possible to do justice to chil- dren and engage regularly in business, whether it be to go out as a laundress and leave the children to street perils and cold lunches; or to go to Wall Street and leave them in charge of a maid? 10. What do you observe to be the effect upon the reli- gious atmosphere of the home when the wife goes to busi- ness? Do “the business couples” you know take an active part in church activities or do they sleep and do their housework on Sundays? Ought a girl who marries a Sunday worker surrender her own church habits for his convenience ? 11. What customs may be inaugurated in a home where husband and wife are in business life to offset the care- lessness in religious matters forced upon them often by the rush of their daily schedule? Would brief daily wor- ship together help? Is this possible in households where breakfast must be rushed through, house tidied, dinner planned, commuters’ train caught, and time clock punched by nine o’clock? How do you appraise the business girl who gets up at six, starts the whole family at its daily routine, cares for the breakfast, and finds time to read the Bible chapter her discussion group at the church have agreed to follow together on that day? CHAPTER III MY TWIG ON THE FAMILY TREE—WHAT OF ITS FRUIT? “AREN'T you just thrilled to think what wonderful ancestors we have?” a young girl asked her sister one day. “Why, mother’s family tree has been traced back to Wil- liam the Conqueror, and we have at least two ancestors on father’s side who came over in the Mayflower.” “Yes,” rejoined her sister, “but I read just the other day of a woman who is said to have five Mayflower forebears. She has been sentenced to prison for indiscreet utterances. I’m not so much interested in my ancestors as I am frightened to think what sort of ancestor I may become.” This puts the whole matter of our responsibility to posterity in a nutshell. It is far less important for us to determine what hung on the old original branches of the family tree than to see to it that our own twigs shall be so pruned and sprayed that when their fruit-bearing sea- son comes they shall display only perfect specimens, with- out scar or blemish. The Bible has given us several fascinating chronicles of mothers and children. In these we may observe the forces of heredity and environment at work. Let us put some of these situations under our microscope and consider them with a view to shunning or duplicating their patterns m our own lives. HERODIAS AND SALOME Mark 6. 17-28. For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife; for he had married her. For John said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife. And Herodias set herself against him, and desired to kill him; and she could not; for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. And when he heard him, he was much perplexed; and he heard him gladly. And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on 40 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN 41 his birthday made a supper to his lords, and the high cap- tains, and the chief men of Galilee; and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she pleased Herod and them that sat at meat with him; and the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went out, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head’ of John the Baptizer. And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou forthwith give me on a platter the head of John the Baptist. And the king was exceedingly sorry; but for the sake of his oaths, and of ‘them that sat at meat, he would not reject her. And straightway the king sent forth a soldier of the guard, and commanded to bring his head: and he went and beheaded him in the prison and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the damsel; and the damsel gave it to her mother. ELISABETH : MoTHER OF A PROPHET Luke 1. 5-14. There was in the days of Herod, king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abijah: and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years. Now it came to pass, while he executed the priest’s office before God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to enter into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the hour of incense. And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zacharias was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: because thy supplication is heard, and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and glad- ness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. Mary, Motruer or Our SAVIOUR Luke 1. 46-55. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath looked upon the low estate of his handmaid: For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 42 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; And holy is his name. And his mercy is unto generations and generations On them that fear him. He hath showed strength with his arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart. He hath put down princes from their thrones, And hath exalted them of low degree. The hungry he hath filled with good things; And the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath given help to Israel his servant, That he might remember mercy (As he spake unto our fathers) Toward Abraham and his seed for ever. Eunicr, MorHer or A MISSIONARY 2 Timothy 1. 1-6. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, according to the promise of the life which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers in a pure conscience, how unceasingly is my remembrance of thee in my supplications, night and day longing to see thee, remem- bering thy tears, that I may be filled with joy; having been reminded of the unfeigned faith that is in thee; which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and, I am persuaded, in thee also. For which cause I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee through the laying on of my hands. Tur ImmortTALIty oF UNwortHy MotTrHrrHoop The mothers of the Wesleys, the Beechers, the Alcott sisters; the little Serbian mother of Michael Pupin; Scottish Margaret Morrison Carnegie; and Sir James M. Barrie’s Margaret Ogilvie, of whom he wrote so tenderly, are all remembered for their beneficent influence. But Herodias, mother of impassioned young Salome, won a shameful sort of immortality by reason of her own distor- tion of life’s most beautiful relationship. The words of the prophet Ezekiel are a fitting caption for her story: “As is the mother, so is her daughter. Thou art the daughter of thy mother.” How much responsibility had Herodias?—To what ex- tent was she to blame for the murderous crime of Salome? AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 43 Consider the gradual steps she took toward her final abso- lute degradation: her initial crime of sensuality in marry- ing her first husband’s brother, who was also her own uncle—Herod; her initiation of the motive to murder John, whose righteous criticism she feared as much as Mary Queen of Scots feared the scorching blasts of John Knox; her unscrupulousness as a mother in sending a young daughter to dance before the half-tipsy revelers at Herod’s birthday party and in coaching her lips to ask for lifeblood. Only on the pages of certain types of modern fiction can such a shameful picture of cold dis- regard for all standards of decency, for all responsibili- ties of motherhood, be found. Can the harshness of the picture be softened somewhat by her enduring loyalty to Herod, whom, exiled upon the failure of the plot she instigated to make him king, she chose to accompany to Gaul, although the emperor Caligula, out of respect to her noble birth, gave her the opportunity of remaining behind ? Consider the somewhat similar instances of Empress Josephine, who longed to follow Napoleon to his island exile; and former Empress Zita of Austria, who accom- panied Emperor Carl to his banishment in Switzerland. The Herodias-John-Herod triangle bears interesting comparison with the Jezebel-Klijah-Ahab, the Queen Ger- trude-Hamlet-King-of-Denmark and the Lady Macbeth- Duncan-Macbeth situations. Not only may Herod and Macbeth be compared in the interesting operation of their conscience but Herodias and Lady Macbeth also. Both wives were motivated by “vaulting ambition which o’er- leaps itself and falls on t’other”—ambition not for them- selves, primarily, but for their husbands. The hesitating conscience of Herod (“he was much perplexed”; “and the king was exceeding sorry”) is close akin to Macbeth’s when, feeling scruples against murdering the gentle King Duncan, he says, “If we should fail?” and Lady Macbeth replies: “We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking place, And we'll not fail’; 44 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN and again: “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers.” Contrast these wives—Jezebel, Herodias, Lady Macbeth, and Queen Gertrude—ambitious for blood, with the mar- tyred Edith Cavell, whose immortality rests not upon crime but upon her sacrificial service. Contrast the atmosphere of Lady Macbeth’s statue at Stratford-on-Avon with the message of Edith Cavell’s monument in London, speaking to the restless throngs whirling about Trafalgar Square, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” How much responsibility had Salome ?—Some Bible stu- dents believe that Salome was already married at the time of the incident and therefore was not a naive damsel but a fellow conspirator, whose modesty had already been the victim of licentious court practices. Others, however, believe that she was an exotic young Jewish beauty, forced into the company of the riotous “lords, . . . high cap- tains, and the chief men of Galilee” by a designing mother ; that she was too young to realize the degradation of her dance under the shameful circumstances and not to be blamed for the murderous request superimposed upon her. This is the picture given us of Salome by the artist in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her age has much to do with the question “Could she have refused to obey her mother’s command ?” Would it be possible for anyone with such an evil heredity and such an immoral environment to resist the crushing affront of evil suggestions? Salome’s case was particularly hopeless because her heredity and environment were both unfavorable. It is not difficult to trace the cropping out of inherited traits in her subsequent life. The evil that she received and acquired she adapted to her own ends; for, true to her family’s traditions, she married her uncle—Philip. Guap MotrueErs oF WISE Sons But let us not close our hasty consideration of mothers’ responsibility for the moral and physical quality of their AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 45 offspring without refreshing our minds with glimpses of a few mothers whose worthy traits found reexpression in posterity. Mothers who have blessed the world—In delightful contrast to Herodias is Mary of Nazareth, mother of the Saviour, so quaintly pictured in the old German carol as the “rose that bloomed at midnight,” whose poetic and lofty outpouring of devotion to God in her Magnificat was echoed time and again in the words of her Son. “M spirit hath rejoiced in God: my Saviour,” sang the mother; and the Son echoed an entreaty to his disciples to abide in the Father’s commandments, that his own joy might be in them and their joy be made full. In Mary’s humility she marveled at God’s consideration of “the low estate of his handmaid”; and down the years her Son echoed, “Whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant.” And think you not that the flaming passion for right- eousness on the part of the wilderness reformer—John— found its original in Elisabeth, of whom, as well as of her husband Zacharias, Scripture records, “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the command- ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” ? And what more gracious picture of motherhood can be found than that of Mary, mother of the young Evangelist John Mark, whose spacious home was so saturated with the spirit of prayer that even her maid—Rhoda—was called in for family worship together with the coterie of believers? The apostle Peter turned first to its hospitable doors upon his release from prison. Even Salome, wife of Zebedee, in spite of the fact that she made the mistake of coming to Jesus worshiping and asking, is ennobled by the very nature of her request for her boys—James and John. If she made the selfish error of mingling requests for personal favors with wor- ship she may be partially exonerated, for hers was the loftiest ambition ever voiced by motherhood: to have her sons in the intimate fellowship of Jesus. Moreover, their hastily uttered assent to Christ’s searching question, “Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” took 46 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN on a meaning through the years of which they little dreamed when they lightly answered, “We are able.’ For Salome was still in the company of the faithful at the dark moment when the shadow of the cross fell upon Calvary ; and in the resurrection garden with the Marys. James demonstrated his “We are able” by dying a martyr under Herod’s grip; and John received from Christ, if not the position of honor in the Kingdom, at least the place of honor at the Last Supper, leaning on Christ and receiving from him the essence of those truths he so inspiredly set down for us in his visions of Patmos. The brief portrait of Eunice, whom Paul commends, to- gether with her mother Lois, for handing on to his young favorite—Timothy—“the unfeigned faith” that dwelt in them, makes us wish that the author of the charming letters to his son in the gospel had dwelt at greater length upon these noble women. Paul was rather parsimonious with his compliments for members of the opposite sex; but here were two who seem to have fulfilled his ideal of love as described in the thirteenth chapter of First Corin- thians. Mothers and the world’s destiny—When Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Haldane died at the age of one hundred years, just forty days after publishing her memoirs—A Century Worth Inving—the press of the world paid tribute to “Scotland’s Grand Old Woman.” But there was more reason for praising her than the publication of a book at such a ripe age. She was one of the greatest mothers of history if we measure her by the galaxy of distinguished sons and daughters whose records appear in Who’s Who. Her own zeal for scholarship was duplicated in the lives of Viscount Haldane, twice Lord High Chancellor of Britain and biographer of Adam Smith; Professor John Scott Haldane of Oxford; Elizabeth Haldane, LL.D., first woman Justice of Scotland; and Sir William Haldane, Crown Agent for Scotland and Prison Commissioner. Benjamin Kidd, in his significant book The Science of Power, has a notable chapter on “Woman, the Psychic Center in the Social Integration.” In it he maintains that the future of civilization lies not so much with the fighting males of the race as with woman, who, by her very nature, AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 47 has learned to subordinate short-range purposes to great principles lying in the future. Woman has been exploited by various systems of power, but from that exploitation her mind has emerged as the actual prototype of the basic systems of religion, morality, and law upon which civil- ization rests. It will be well for civilization to remember that the group that organizes itself around woman’s power to consider the race more important than the individual, and to make infinite sacrifice for far-distant goals, under the stimulus of the emotion of the ideal, will have tre- mendous advantage over other sectors of humanity. If it is true that a nation can impress upon its people any ideal it deliberately sets out to realize, surely woman, through her physical bequests and through her intimate influence upon childhood, is the very center of that cul- tivation. Wuat Is tHr Concuusion ? How shall we prepare ourselves fittingly to discharge our obligation to society in a posterity that shall bless the world? How can we overcome unfavorable factors of heredity and environment if such there be? Much, doubt- less, we may do. Help from the colleges.—Several of the American col- leges have established departments whose purpose is de- liberately to improve the quality of fruit on the family tree. Smith College opened in 1925, under the direction of Dr. Ethel Puffer Howes, the Institute for the Coordina- tion of Women’s Interests, which aims not only to educate the college woman for parenthood but also to consider practical methods by which the educated married woman ean unify her home and outside interests. A cooperative nursery, in which mothers will take turns in caring for a whole group of children, will be a feature of the social laboratory of this institute. The University of Chicago has already in operation a cooperative nursery. Vassar College has a Department of Euthenics, which is so new that alumne are having difficulty in learning what it is all about. Under the direction of Miss Annie L. Mac- Leod students are considering the “science pertaining to the production of fine offspring in the human race,” “the 48 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN science which deals with the unborn or native qualifications of a race.” ‘Twenty-one students this year (1926) are majoring in this work by combining economics courses in labor problems, the family, and charities and corrections with courses in physiological psychology, geography, and heredity. Although dealing in detail with problems of environment the new science of euthenics, with its emphasis upon efficient living, is an important part of the larger science of eugenics, which has to do with the crea- tion of well-born offspring. The following poem by William Woodford Rock is a helpful and stimulating statement of what our attitude should be toward the difficult matter of heredity: *T am the legatee of fierce desires. A strange bequest of sundry hopes and fears, Loves, hates, and hidden smoldering fires, Has come to me unsought far down the years From those whose name I bear; themselves the heirs Of time, and race, through every bygone age Of man. And I am not myself, but theirs Who so devised this jumbled heritage. “Yet I thank God, and thank him with a song, That he gave me a will that is my own, And made me free to choose the right or wrong, And fight and fashion life as I shall choose. And with this gift I sigh for no man’s shoes Nor envy any king upon his throne. So fare I forth intent at last to be Master, not slave, of my strange legacy.’* QUESTIONS FOR Group DiscussION 1. Are modern mothers who force their daughters to go on the stage or train for cabaret dancing comparable to Herodias? How about mothers whose sole aim is to “marry off” their daughters comfortably so that both may enjoy the material comforts of such an arrangement? What can you do to ennoble their attitude toward life and each other? 2. In the realms of art, literature, and life how many pairs of noble mothers and daughters can you recall such as are depicted in the portrait of “Madame Lebrun and 1‘*Heredity”; copyright, Christian Century; used by permission. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 49 Her Daughter”; and in the life of the poets Grace Hazard Conkling and her little daughter Hilda; of Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Madame Curie and her scientific daughter Irene; and in the musi- cal careers of Louise Homer and her daughter Louise Homer Stires? 3. What are some preventable causes of prodigal daughters? unsympathetic mothers? too lax home re- straints? failure to impart needful knowledge? monopoly of daughters’ wages by parents? salacious books and maga- zines? movies that lead suggestible girls to imitate what they see enacted ? 4. Comment on the statement of Mrs. Mary Hamilton (author of The Policewoman: Her Service and Ideals) : “To cure is the voice of the past; to prevent, the divine whisper of to-day.” Do you agree with her that “danger does not exist for the woman or girl who does right and tends to her own business; a woman can go about New York at any hour without being exposed to insult or real bodily peril provided she shows by her own conduct that she is not interested in anything but her own affairs”? If this is true, why has the Association to Provide Proper Housing for Girls inaugurated a movement to keep girls away from the large cities? 5. Have you ever taken an inventory of yourself and jotted down the desirable traits you would like to accen- tuate in your character and the ignoble ones at whose eradi- cation you should work, just as Burbank worked to eliminate the thorn from the rose, sharp seeds from berries, tartness from grapes? Ask yourself such frank questions as these applied to freshmen by personnel research bureaus of certain colleges: Do I get grouchy without cause? Do I find it difficult to make up my mind about things? Do I worry about nonessentials? Do certain people get on my nerves? Do I ever imagine someone is following me? Do I find it hard to stick to a job until finished? Do I have trouble in repressing evil thoughts as soon as they occur to me? Do I find it difficult to be agreeable to strangers? Do I ever feel tempted to take that which is not my own? 6. Statistics indicate that Harvard alumni, twenty 50 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN years after graduation, have an average of one and three quarters children. In your opinion would eugenists do better to abandon their campaign against propagation of the unfit and encourage larger families among those who should be rearing the leaders of the future? The size of the average American family has decreased twelve per cent since 1890. ?. Do you think prodigies can be selected by science, as a professor of a Western university claims, who has picked one thousand California children from whom “a — full fruitage” is expected and has started a drive for five million dollars for their education? Do “hothouse” methods of culture always guarantee perfect specimens of character and leadership? How can Lincoln and Shake- speare be explained on such a basis? CHAPTER IV CONTACTS WITHIN MY HOME—ARE THEY CHRISTIAN? Frew of us have the power of swaying crowds as does Lady Astor, thrilling throngs of English voters with her charming eloquence; or as Maude Royden, preaching the social gospel with the soul of a mystic; or as Maria Jeritza, bewitching thousands with her golden gift of song; or as Margaret Bonfield, stirring crowds of British workers with her ideals for a renovated society. Yet all of us in our own homes are centers of little worlds whose spirit and problems are miniatures of those of the great universe without. From all of us electrons of influence are constantly flowing, affecting brothers, sisters, parents, children, elderly relatives, servants, tradespeople, for good or for evil. Our greatest chance for exerting vital Chris- tian influence lies not in Borneo nor unprivileged Siam but in the little world of the near-at-hand; for as the ancient philosopher Laotsze said, ““I'o be is to be in rela- tions.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning has given poetic form to this same idea: “Each creature holds an insular point in space; Yet what man stirs a finger, breathes a sound, But all the multitudinous beings round In all the countless worlds with time and place For their conditions, down to the central base, Thrill, haply, in vibration and rebound, Life answering life across the vast profound, In full antiphony by a common grace?” FamIty PATTERNS Many interesting attempts have been made to define the human family. Someone has called it “an antagonistic cooperation.” Dr. E. W. Burgess, of the University of Wisconsin, recently discussed it before the American Socio- logical Society as “a unity of interacting personalities,” 51 52 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN a sort of superpersonality made up of different and often conflicting patterns of ideals inherited from parents’ families. A popular song has made bold to add its defi- nition : “They say a family is an institution, But who wants to live in an institution?” Many people feel that the modern home as well as the modern marriage relation is in a chaotic condition. Dr. Charles Ellwood claims that “the American home is the very citadel of paganism.” But he hastens to add, “It is also the citadel of Christianity.” When we realize how many patterns of ideals are blended in the average family, the husband expecting his wife to follow his image of his own mother, and the wife measur- ing her husband by the image of her own father, it is amazing that it is as successful and going a concern as it is. But even better than the best inherited patterns of char- acter and custom is the design of Christ and his disciples. Have you ever examined the various contacts within your own home to see whether they are in harmony with his intention? Are they a spiritual, as well as a natural kin- ship, such as Jesus had in mind when he said, ‘“Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother”? Let us be bold enough to take as the background of our discussion some of the most misunderstood and misinter- preted passages of the New Testament; the advices of Paul concerning the conduct of women (wives, widows, and virgins); the relations of parents and children, of youth and age, of masters and servants. Many of these maxims may cause us to question their point of view, but as we consider them let us in fairness to Paul remember that were he addressing twentieth-century student bodies or groups of Quota Club business women, instead of ad- monishing first-century extremists and petulant Tryphenas, he undoubtedly would rephrase his recommendations in recognition of Christianity’s present appraisal of woman- hood. For there was probably no man alive in 49 a. p. who was better informed on the newest modes of thought AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 53 than Paul of Tarsus, citizen of the world. Some of his rules possibly he would to-day abandon utterly; but many of them, considered not as fragmentary utterances quoted outside their setting but as portions of a seasoned and inspired outlook upon life as a whole, he would wisely retain as applicable to present situations. ApvicEs TO WoMEN Her relation to her husband.— 1 Corinthians 7. 1-3, 7-9. Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. But, because of fornications, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife her due: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. ... Yet I would that all men were even as I myself. Howbeit each man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they have not continency, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. 1 Corinthians 11. 3-12. But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. But every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head; for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven. For if a woman is not veiled, let her also be shorn: but if it is a shame to a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be veiled. For a man indeed ought not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man: for neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man: for this cause ought the woman to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, so is the man also by the woman; but all things are of God. Ephesians 5. 22-33. Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so Jet the wives also be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, 54 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own fiesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; because we are members of his body. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church. Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she fear her husband. Her relation to her children.— 1 Timothy 2. 15. She shall be saved through her childbearing, if they con- tinue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety. Titus 2. 3-5. That aged women likewise be reverent in demeanor, not slanderers nor enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good; that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to de sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own hus- bands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Religion in the home.— 1 Corinthians 7. 12b-14. If any brother hath an unbelieving wife, and she is con- tent to dwell with him, let him not leave her. And the woman that hath an unbelieving husband, and he is content to dwell with her, let her not leave her husband. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. 1 Timothy 3. 11. Women in like manner must be grave, not slanderers, tem- perate, faithful in all things. Dress and demeanor.— 1 Timothy 2. 9, 10. In like manner, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety; not with braided AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 55 hair, and gold or pearls or costly raiment; but (which becom- eth women professing godliness) through good works. RELATION OF PARENTS TO CHILDREN 2 Corinthians 12. 14. Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be a burden to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. 1 Timothy 3. 4, 5. One that ruleth well his own house, having kis children in subjection with all gravity; (but if a man knoweth not how to Ae his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Ephesians 6. 1-4. Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first command- ment with promise), that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. RELATION OF SERVANT TO MASTERS Philemon 10, 11, 16-19. I beseech thee for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus, who once was unprofitable to thee, but now is profitable to thee and to me: ... no longer as a servant, but more than a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much rather to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then thou countest me a partner, receive him as myself. But if he hath wronged thee at all, or oweth thee aught, put that to mine account; I Paul write it with mine own hand, I will repay it: that I say not unto thee that thou owest to me even thine own self besides. Ephesians 6. 5-9. Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not in the way of eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men: knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, and forbear threatening: knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no respect of persons with him. 56 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN 1 Timothy 6. 1, 2. Let as many as are servants under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and the doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believing and beloved. These things teach and exhort. Pavuu’s IpEAS oF A WIFE'S RELATION TO Her Huspanp Charles E. Jefferson, in his scholarly work on The Char- acter of Paul, frankly expects the apostle’s drastic rules for women to be boldly criticized. To us they may seem as arbitrary and ex cathedra as the blasts of John Knox blown against Mary Queen of Scots and the women of her day. Maude Royden finds them all the more intoler- able because, more than the utterances of any other New Testament author, they determined the attitude of the early church toward her sex. But let us not forget that, “Gntellectual” though the apostle was, able to meet the foremost Athenian philosophers of his age on their own ground, he was also a great lover, constantly craving the companionship of his fellow believers. He was ever send- ing them affectionate letters of greeting or counsel; plead- ing now with Timothy to join him in Rome; again com- mending Luke for remaining his faithful companion or thanking God for such friends as Prisca and Aquila, who risked their very necks for his sake. How else could he have written the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians? Surely in the background of his mind there must have been concrete personalities who inspired the strokes as he painted that superb portrait of Love, just as George Frederick Watts used human models when he struck off his paintings of “Hope,” “Mammon,” and other abstract themes. The Flemish master Rubens is said to have used his young wife as model for Venus or Madonna. Perhaps it was the memory of Paul’s virtuous Hebrew mother, whose name is not even mentioned in Scripture, or the composite memory of many virtuous women which dictated, “Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, . . . beareth all things, be- AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 57 lieveth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Substitute the word “‘mother” for “love” the next time you read this chapter and see how perfectly it describes her. Paul’s own growth in Christian understanding.—In considering the foregoing passages of Scripture let us recognize that Paul’s early attitude toward marriage as re- flected in the first Corinthian letter (chapter 7) is very different from his spiritualized conception stated in Ephesians 5. 22-33. Look first of all, however, at the Saul of preconversion days, when he was vigorously persecuting the infant church in Jerusalem, breathing threatening and slaughter against our Lord’s disciples. Entering into their homes, he dragged women, as well as men, off to prison (Acts 8. 3); and when he went to the high priest asking for letters to the synagogue in Damascus, his purpose was to bring “any that were of the Way, whether men or women, . . . bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9. 2). In other words, the ardent young Jewish reformer showed women no consideration because of their sex. So it is not surprising to note that when he was writing as a Chris- tian leader in Corinth, his attitude toward marriage was at least unsympathetic (1 Corinthians 7). Those who are inclined toward matrimony he does not condemn, but he adds, “Yet I would that all men were even as I myself.” And to the unmarried and widowed he says, “It is good for them if they abide even as I.” “She is happier if she abide as she is, after my judgment: and I think that I also have the spirit of God.” Two reasons he gives for discouraging marriage. First, he feels that the second coming of Christ is imminent and will dissolve marital relations anyhow. “If a virgin marry,” he writes, “she hath not sinned. Yet such shall have tribulation in the flesh: and I would spare you... . The time is shortened, . . . for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 7%. 28-31). Secondly, he discourages matrimony because he would have his friends free to serve and exemplify Christ’s ministry. “The woman that is unmarried and the virgin is careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married is careful for 58 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN the things of the world, how she may please her husband” (1 Corinthians 7. 34). It is Paul’s statement about man’s being the head of the woman (1 Corinthians 11. 3) and woman’s being “the glory of the man” (1 Corinthians 11. 7) which has been the storm center of rebellion and disagreement; but it is easily possible for us to keep our balance even here when we recall the attendant circumstances. In his effort to emphasize the truth that through faith (as contrasted with the tutorship of the old law) all people may become the children of God, Paul had made the sweeping state- ment that in Christ all distinctions of race, social caste, and even of sex are done away with. “For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3. 26-28). Under the exhilaration of such a liberating doctrine the Corinthian women seem to have set aside certain well- recognized conventionalities, gone into the places of prayer without veils upon their heads and spoken in public. With a desire to call them back from these improprieties, so perilous to the life of the infant church, Paul issued the counteractive counsels of 1 Corinthians 11. 5, 7: “But every woman praying or prophesying with her head un- veiled dishonoreth her head; for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven. . . . A man ought not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.” Maude Royden protests against Paul’s indictment of the spiritual inferiority of woman, which makes her removed one more step from Christ than man. It is not a matter of physical inferiority or of custom or expediency or ability to take part in public affairs but an implication of spiritual inferiority which has been of tragic consequence to the world’s womanhood. It is only when we turn to Paul’s later statement in his letter to the Ephesians that we are in a position to under- stand his mature point of view. In this more spiritual conception of the marital relationship he qualifies the AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 59 harsh word “subjection” with the significant little phrase “as unto the Lord.” Just as Christ yearned to have his church spotless, without wrinkle or blemish, so that he might present it glorious, so, said Paul, should man cherish and nourish his wife just as carefully as he would his own body and as spiritually as Christ loved his church. Marital love is to be reciprocal; for not only is the wife to be considerate of her husband, but her loyalty is to be dependent on his loving her, gwing himself up for her. If this conception were carried out, there would need to be no concern about “the chaos of modern marriage” or any advocacy of trial marriage or free love of the Green- wich Village type. The New Testament ideal in practice.—When we think of the many Christian homes where mutual love of hus- band and wife exists, where there is that beautiful “giv- ing oneself up” for the sake of the other, Paul’s pattern still seems to persist. In the common application to the task of home building the question as to who is an au- thority disappears. (And wise it was for another great branch of the Christian Church recently to strike “obey” from the wedding ceremony.) Christ’s words to the wran- gling disciples are again applicable here: “Whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all.” How truly this could be said of many mothers and fathers both, who outvie each other in bearing the burdens of the family, and whose elevation of spirit sets the thermometer of good cheer for the entire household! In the home of Magdalena and Sebastian Bach do you suppose there was any question of superiority between the great soul of the musician and the worshipful, tender spirit of his best helper?+ or in the home of the Brown- ings, where both poets appraised each other’s inspired words? The rare atmosphere of their Florentine home is described by a visitor as being superlatively happy, not only because of the unusual qualities possessed by each but by their perfect adaptation. Their poetic genius seemed enriched and fused by the tie of marriage. Al- though Robert Browning was himself one of the world’s most distinguished poets he spoke with awe of his wife’s 1See T'he Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach, by Esther Meynell. 60 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN genius, losing himself so completely in her glory that he seemed to feel unworthy to unloose the latchet of her shoe, much less to claim her as his own. Travelers to the Orient count the Taj Mahal as one of the greatest jewels they are privileged to gaze upon. This gleaming building of white marble, with its perfect image in the companion pool, is the expression of a Mohammedan husband’s devotion to his wife in the centuries long before the “day of woman” dawned. An American clergyman and his wife were standing not long ago before its gleam- ing minarets, fulfilling the dream of their life. Before the husband had an opportunity of putting into writing their impressions on that occasion, his wife died. ‘The following beautiful words are his jeweled Taj Mahal, dedicated to the companion of that voyage. In granting his permission to quote them here the author—Dr. Wil- liam EK. Barton—said, “Tell the girls for whom you write that a happy home life is above all rewards the world can give a woman in an independent career”: And we sat for a time in silence, and I said, Keturah, if it were in my power I would not build thee a tomb like that. But I would rear to Heaven a memorial of thy Living Deeds and Words more beautiful and lasting than even this Noble Shrine. Humble and obscure must be any tribute that I shall ever pay to thy goodness and thy love, but in the heart te thy husband is a Taj Mahal. And now from the lower steps of that shrine I speak unto all husbands and all wives, saying, Let not your love grow commonplace. Speak often of it each to the other. Do con- stantly little deeds that tell of it. For this sacred and mys- terious tie that bindeth hearts together in that union which is the continual spring and foundation of new life through the generations is earth’s holiest temple and God’s best gift to us through each other. Edward Howard Griggs, in a little volume in his Art of Life Series, remarks that a love that respects personality encourages loyalty. He feels that entire moral equality, and not merely a sex urge taken for spiritual love, is essential for every abiding marriage. Lasting life com- radeships recognize that neither party is flawless and are generously tolerant as both go climbing up to God. He urges that courtesy be scrupulously observed in the inti- AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 61 mate relations within the home, lest the devoted lover become the irate husband, and the gentle sweetheart a nagging, slatternly wife. Paul’s attitude toward divorce —‘“But unto the mar- ried I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord, That the wife depart not from her husband (but should she depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her hus- band) ; and that the husband leave not his wife” (1 Cor- inthians 7. 10, 11). This statement of Paul’s and also that in 1 Corinthians 7. 39 (“A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth”) show his attitude toward divorce to be entirely consistent with that of Christ: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? . . . What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. . . . Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry an- other, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery” (Matthew 19. 5. 6, 9). Divorces have increased seventy-five per cent in the last ten years in America, and a pooling of the ex- periences of hundreds of judges shows that eighty per cent of the proceedings were inaugurated by women. The sympathy of these judges was with the women, and their conclusion is that not the divorce laws but diseased mar- riage conditions themselves need reforming.1 What factors are back of these statistics: Hasty marriages? Greed for money or position? Neglect of parents? admonition? Is there any connection between the divorce situation and the fact that there are several States in the country where girls may be legally married before they may be legally employed? In fourteen States the legal minimum marriage age is twelve years for girls and fourteen years for boys. Has America any right to condemn India when in our own land there are 667,000 persons who were married when under sixteen or to children under sixteen, as disclosed by the recent study of America’s Child Brides by the Russell Sage Foundation ? 1“The Chaos of Modern Marriage,’”’ by Beatrice Hinkle, M.D., Harger’s Magazine, December, 1925. 62 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Tue RELATION OF MoTHERS TO CHILDREN When Paul revolted from Judaism and began to walk in Christ’s way he revolted also against the current idea that woman existed chiefly for the purpose of bearing chil- dren to the lord of her domain. In this he seems par- ticularly modern, for he wanted to see her engaged in the spiritual ministrations for which she was peculiarly fitted. His ambition was for her to be even more than a mother. But by the time he came to write his first letter to Timothy he had reached a very interesting conclusion about motherhood. “She shall be saved through her child- bearing, if they continue in faith and love and sanctifica- tion with sobriety,” he said. In just what sense are mothers saved through the experi- ence of maternity? Is the glorious experience of mother- hood likely to make a woman more spiritual or less? How about those who rebel against parenthood and resent their children? Two young girls in a city high school both met the same moral tragedy. One of them was really re- deemed and sweetened by the care of her child and took a position to support her, going to the day nursery for her each evening after business and lavishing her whole affec- tion upon her. The other girl was so rebellious about her social ostracism that the child had to be taken from her, and its whereabouts kept secret. Older mothers and widows.—Aged women in the home are urged by Paul to refrain from “old wives’ fables,” to be reverent in demeanor, to instruct the young women to love their husbands and children, and to be diligent and chaste. There are women who, their hard tasks being well accomplished, are free to extend the gracious little courtesies and attentions for which the busy world hungers. Do you know any grandmothers who are the greatest bless- ing of their children’s homes? How do the young wives you know receive the counsels of the more experienced ? One bride recently said, “I’d rather spoil every meal for a year and learn how to keep house for myself than have either my own mother or John’s tell me how to do it.” Aged widows who have “extended hospitality, brought up their own children, ministered to the poor” are recom- AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 63 mended by Paul for special offices of Christian service; but he deems it better for younger widows to remarry than to pledge themselves to service and go back on their vows, “going about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.” ‘This advice has a most valuable application to-day, not only in the time wasting of neighborhood gossip but in making house-to-house canvasses in financial, mem- bership, or evangelistic campaigns. Religion in the home.—Paul’s attitude toward “mixed marriages” is very clear. “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers,” he says in 2 Corinthians 6. 14. And in 1 Corinthians 7 he says that in case the wife is a “disbe- liever,” the husband is not to leave her; nor should the wife desert her disbelieving husband. For there are the children to be considered: they are holy if their father is sanctified through the faith of their mother, or their mother through the faith of her husband. Otherwise, they are considered “unclean.” Have we moderns arrived at any better solution of the “mixed marriage” problem than this? Ministers, judges, divorce-law reformers, are all insisting that cases of incompatibility be treated on the basis of what is best for the child whose future is involved, A love relationship is at first a purely personal affair be- tween the two persons involved; but when it fruits in off- spring, a definite obligation to society is incurred. A certain devout young Catholic wife, finding that her moral but irreligious husband would not join her church, persuaded him to become a Methodist and, for the sake of keeping him actively interested, attended all the Sunday services with him, after first going to mass in her own church. Her solution was commendable. The Methodist girl who insisted upon her fiancé’s becoming an active Christian before their marriage was infinitely wiser than her chum, who “hoped to win” her husband after the fires of romance had abated. Concerning dress.—The average girl to-day meets with ridicule Paul’s advice about dress. “What have veiled heads and long hair to do with morality, and why is he so opposed to ‘braided hair’? anyhow?” one asked recently. “Of course, long hair used to be woman’s crowning glory. 64. NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN But short hair is lots more convenient. Paul’s queer statements about our make-up have so prejudiced me against him that I have never been able to appreciate the really important features of his message.” Her attitude of whimsical rebellion was altered when someone explained that Paul was anxious for women to retain their veils in places of worship “because of the angels,” as he quaintly put it; in other words, that they should conduct themselves as if conscious of the “cloud of witnesses” observing their conduct. When he says that she might as well shave her head as go unveiled he alludes to the custom of harlots wearing their hair cut. The same thought is in his mind when, in his letter to Timothy, he protests against braided hair, which was associated with women of light character. Do you frankly feel that Paul’s recommendation in 1 Timothy 2. 9 is entirely valueless for even our day of scanty garments and gaudy color? THe MoutuaL RELATIONS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN In counseling Christian deacons of the first century Paul urges them to rule their children and their own household well; “for if a man knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” But as a counteractive to parental imperiousness he adds, “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” This is the reverse side of the coin inscribed “Children, obey your parents.” The adjustment of parents and children is one of the crying needs of the hour, when boys and girls seem to be even wondering whether “parents are people” at all. “I just love mother,” said a young woman recently; “but her opinions really don’t matter much in my world.” Is this attitude typical of many of your friends, who caress and pet their mothers, yet feel that their intelligence is not great enough to command their respect? For fathers and mothers to be interested in their sons’ and daughters’ activities without lording it over them; for them to be worthy of children’s respect and not break down their wills by a tyranny of opinion—these are some of the details involved in what Dr. Halford E. Luccock has called “the making of new saints.” We do not need to AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 65 canonize the saints who lived’ fifteen hundred years ago but to bring about such conditions in the home and in industry as to make possible new haloes for new youths. The press, radio world, lecture platform, discussion forum, and pulpit of America are all expressing great con- cern over the breakdown of parental authority as a factor in the appalling crime wave of youth. Judge Jean Norris believes that the situation is even worse than the press pictures it. “I am appalled by the callousness of the youth who come before me,” she said in a Brooklyn forum recently. “They are self-centered and have no interest in or respect for fathers, mothers, or teachers.” As a means of preventing crime Judge Norris suggested better reli- gious education in the home and respect for parental au- thority. Not all the fault lies with the younger generation. A half page of one of the country’s leading newspapers was recently devoted to an advertisement made possible by citizens campaigning to help rebuild a spiritual American home. ‘The advertisement consisted in a large picture of a young girl going out of the house in evening attire to a motor car waiting in a blinding snowstorm, while her mother sat calmly reading about “a joy ride crash after a flask party.” These lines accompanied the illustration: THAT IS YOUR DAUGHTER GOING OUT OF THE DOOR For the evening. You are her mother. Do you know where she is going? Do you know with whom she is going? The New York State Prison Commission Reports that in RAYMOND STREET JAIL, BROOKLYN, alone In the Last Five Years— 12,342 Boys and 1,346 GIRLS— Have Been Locked Up! Is Your Daughter Going Out With That Class of Boys? Will Your Daughter Be One of Those Unfortunate Girls? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HELP CHECK CRIME? 66 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Another means of drawing parents and children closer would be the cultivation of a new set of modern notions by elders. Mothers and fathers who allow themselves to be illiterate about the great currents of world events can- not expect deference from the twentieth-century school- girl. Toe Mutua RELATIONS OF SERVANTS AND MAstTeEers Paul again gives a piece of reciprocal advice to servants and to those who employ them. Employees are to give loyal, unstinted service, not glossing over their tasks on the surface to produce a quick effect, but doing them as “servants of Christ.” On the other hand, employers are to refrain from unwarranted rebukes and to remember that there is One who is Master of servant and master alike. In the statement “They that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren” we see the dawn of a social brotherhood that the world is still trying to bring to pass through collective ownership and bargain- ing and all the other experiments looking to permanent harmony between capital and labor. The same idea of the golden rule of brotherhood is brought out in the little letter of Paul to Philemon, whose eslave Onesimus was “unprofitable” and ran away. While absent from his master the slave was converted and was henceforth so valuable that Paul would have liked to keep him to minister to him in the “bonds of the gospel.” But he honorably returned him to his owner, more valu- able than before, because he was no longer a servant, “but more than a servant, a brother beloved.” Housewives agree that there is a “help” crisis in the United States to-day. Is this a matter of economic forces only, or is it a problem that could be solved by better per- sonal relations between employer and employee? Are domestic servants justified in feeling that there is a stigma attached to their situation, or is the degradation only in their own minds? Do you know of many homes where the maids are called in at family worship, as in the house of John Mark’s mother? (See the story of Rhoda in Acts 12. 12-17.) If there were family wor- ship to summon them to, there might be an atmosphere AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 67 that would resolve difficulties on both sides. Social workers recognize the general-housework job in a family that is indifferent to its helpers as happiness- and friend- ship-loving human beings as one of the most fruitful sources of moral peril. THE Sum oF THE MATTER The intricate problem of keeping all the contacts within the home Christian, so that not only will “new saints” be made of its members, but even tradesmen delivering goods may feel the good will that radiates through its door, has one very simple solution: Keep Christ in the midst—the midst of the living room, dining room—yes, and even of the kitchen. A little girl of seven was looking at a print of the popular home picture “Christ Among the Lowly.” As she heard her mother explain that Jesus had gladly come as a Guest to the table of even that humble family, the child exclaimed, “But, mother, a guest is one who only comes sometimes. I want him to stay in our house all the time!” Old-fashioned wall mottoes are entirely out of date, but let us emblazon over the spiritual hearthplace of our homes this supreme injunction of Christ: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.” QUESTIONS FOR Group DiscussION 1. What is your idea of marriage: (a) A mutual part- nership on the fifty-fifty basis, a sort of give-and-take affair of two equally responsible persons very much alike in qualifications? (0) A relation in which man and woman accentuate their differences and, from the contrast, derive mutual inspiration and helpfulness? 2. Do you agree with Dr. Beatrice Hinkle, of New York City, that the attainment of a “new reality” and genuine- ness by man and wife in marriage is the first step toward realizing sincerity between nations? ‘Think out what rela- tion one problem has to the other. 3. Has the economic independence of women made rela- tions between the sexes in marriage more, or less, genuine? 4. Do you believe that marriages would be more perma- 68 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN nent if common intellectual and religious interests were deliberately cultivated? How would you go about help- ing a friend who had failed to keep pace with her hus- band’s advancement? Is a woman who nags at her hus- band because he is less educated than she likely to draw him out into completer companionship ? 5. Do you believe many unhappy homes are due to the husband’s over-emphasis upon “being a good provider” and his consequent absorption with business rather than family interest? How about the attendant idleness of the wife of the successful “provider”? What would you suggest to make her surplus leisure useful to society? Do you believe overdevotion to household tasks may make a wife an uncongenial and irritated evening companion for her husband? 6. Is there some one person who generally controls the temperature of your home? Is it you? Is it an atmos- phere of warm affection, encouraging cooperative effort and applauding the success of individual members? Louisa M. Alcott’s family used to listen to the little girl’s poems and declare them to be as “‘good as Shakespeare’s.” %. Do any members of the household “get on your nerves”? Why? Do you need to let their distasteful habits exert a tyranny over your disposition? Have you ever cultivated the art of “getting on with queer people’? Have you any “pet peeves”—those extravagant indulgences so ruinous to one’s disposition ? 8. If being a parent is life’s biggest business, do you think the average girl is receiving sufficient “vocational guidance” along this line? Where is she receiving her parent-training course: from her mother, friends, syndi- cated news columns, Y. W. C. A. lectures, books? Would a wholesome, spiritualized education about marriage tend to reduce divorces ? 9. How much of the antagonism between parents and their own children is due to lack of common standards in the homes of the school group governing such matters as hours for being home, size of weekly allowance, rules for dance chaperonage, etc.? Could the fathers and mothers agree on such standards with advantage to both genera- tions ? | AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 69 10. Can there be too great attachment between parents and children? A certain girl who was never allowed by her mother to,make up her own mind about anything fell into such a dilemma when a splendid young man asked her to marry him that she lost her mental balance trying to decide between him and her mother. What was wrong? Ought a girl to measure her lover by what her father has achieved in the added years? 11. Why and in what ways are parents responsible for the welfare of children other than their own? (See what Miriam Van Waters says about it in Youth in Conflict.) 12. Mention all the ways you have observed in which elderly people may suffer aside from physical disability. Do elderly people attract you or make you impatient? 13. With what feeling do you visualize your own old age? with dread? or in the spirit of Julia Ward Howe, who at ninety received an honorary degree from Smith College and felt that it was “too soon to go, when she was only beginning to live”; for life was “like a cup of tea— all the sugar at the bottom”? 14. State frankly what is the usual attitude of clerks and tradespeople toward you. Do they try to avoid wait- ing upon you or serve you eagerly? Why is this? When you have been impatient, hurried, exacting, has it made any difference in them? 15. Have you ever known any servants or employees to lead their masters or employers into a more vital religious experience? A secretary risked her position to persuade her boss to come out for Christ on a vital point of busi- ness policy. A maid in a suburban community insisted so consistently upon her mistress sending her to the vil- lage church each Sunday that the latter was led to resume her interrupted habits of worship herself. CHAPTER V MY FRIENDS—WHERE SHALL I MAKE THEM? WueEN Doris McDonald closed her desk and realized that she had dictated her last letter as personnel director of the Eastern Electric Corporation she was conscious of closing a definite phase of her life. The whole building, too, was regretfully aware that the girl who had accom- panied the corporation glee club, played forward on its champion basketball team, and been an unfailing source of radiant good cheer to the employees was quitting her business career to be married. As soon as the five o’clock bell rang, a throng of girls and men surrounded her desk; someone threw over it an embroidered linen cloth; a gleaming silver tea service and a vase of roses appeared; and a chorus of voices sang out: “Happy wedding to you, Happy wedding to you, Happy wedding, dear Doris, Happy wedding to you!” Out of the dull atmosphere of desks and filing cases a dainty collation appeared as by magic, and the whole organization threw its energy jubilantly into the pre- nuptial plans of their fellow worker. Liven the staff photographer came up to immortalize the occasion with a flashlight. How did it all come about? Simply because this girl’s every contact in the everyday world of affairs was a friendly contact. From elevator boy to aged watchman, from manager to the newest typist, everyone considered her his friend. Their farewell testimonial was simply an outpoured appreciation of her humanity, blooming in the coldly efficient atmosphere of a public-utilities corpora- tion. She had made her friends right where she was. In fact, she had won her fiancé there. So may we all at busi- ness, in our homes, at church, or in our playtimes make friends right where we are. The only friends Jesus ever 70 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN ral had were those he made this way through his brief journey of tremendous service. THE SAMARITAN WOMAN John 4. 3-30, 39-42. He left Judea, and departed again into Galilee. And he must needs pass through Samaria. So he cometh to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph: and Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman therefore saith unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman? (For Jews have no dealings with Sa- maritans.) Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knew- est the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink: thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said unto him, I have no husband. Jesus saith unto her, Thou saidst well, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: this hast thou said truly. The woman said unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which ‘we know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh (he that is called Christ): when he is come, he will declare unto us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. 72 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN And upon this came his disciples; and they marvelled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why speakest thou with her? So the woman left her waterpot, and went away into the city, and saith to the people, Come, see a man, who told me all things that ever I did: can this be the Christ? They went out of the city, and were coming to him.... And from that city many of the Samaritans believed on him because of the word of the woman, who testified, He told me all things that ever I did. So when the Samaritans came unto him, they besought him to abide with them: and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his word; and they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy speaking: for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world. SoME OF JESUS’ FRIENDS Luke 8. 1-3. And it came to pass soon afterwards, that he went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God, and with him the twelve, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and in- firmities: Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuzas, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who ministered unto them of their substance. John 11. 11. He saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep. John 15. 18-15. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you. No longer do [ call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you. Matthew 26. 50. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, do that for which thou art come. SUPREME ADVENTURE IN COURSE OF THE Day’s RovuTINE Right where she was, engaged in the most ordinary duty of her everyday routine, the unnamed woman of Samaria met Jesus, the first Friend who had ever been interested in her spiritual welfare. She was drawing water as she had done hundreds of times before when AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 73 she encountered her life’s supreme experience. Every woman of her village came there daily. Every village of Samaria had such a well. In fact, the very history of womanhood in her part of the world was linked up with wells. It was by the fountain of water in the Mesopo- tamian city of Nahor that Abraham’s servant had found Rebekah to take back to Isaac for wife. It was by a well in an Eastern field that Jacob met Rachel coming to water her father’s flocks. The well where Mary of Nazareth was accustomed to mingle with the other village maidens is pointed out to imaginative travelers in the Holy Land to-day. It was the one legitimate community center where the women were allowed to congregate for chatty ex- change of current news. The Samaritan woman did not go forth to meet Jesus. She would have promptly laughed to scorn any such suggestion of a spiritual Guest, for her interests were anything but religious. She was not the sort to go on arduous pilgrimages to far-off shrines, as thousands of non-Christian women are doing to-day in India, seeking peace for their souls in the filthy waters of the Ganges or in divers “holy places.” Yet she met Jesus, even where she was, by the historic well curb at Sychar. Jesus’ way of finding friends.—It was in just this way that Jesus made most of his friends. Having failed to win for his enterprise the approval of his blood kindred, early in his ministry he fared forth to win friends on the dusty highways of Galilee, on crowded lake shores or grassy hill- sides, in thronged market places or at the meeting points of Pharisees. He was not one passively to “live in a house by the side of the road” where the races of men went by; he plunged into their midst, joining their pilgrimages, mingled his voice with their own, imparting forgiveness here, good cheer there, healing where it was needed and giving spiritual guidance. It was only when oppressed by the importunities of those who would call him Friend that he withdrew to earth’s quiet places. Friends sprang up all along his way, even as, In Burne-Jones’s exquisite painting of the Nativity, flowers spring up about his infant feet, though winter snows cling to the distant hill- side, and provident Joseph gathers sticks for a fire. 74 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN A young woman rose in a Lenten prayer meeting held in a city church and told of her efforts to befriend those who needed her influence right in their office: “Once I was unhappy because I could not be a missionary in India; to-day I find I can make friends for Christ right where I am.” A Sunday-school teacher had long been trying to win the Christian friendship of a most attractive girl but had seemed unable to “get under the surface.” One day when shopping in a certain store she found the young woman clerking there. ‘The girl was astonished to see her anywhere outside the church, which had been their only contact. She exerted every effort to please her and, before the woman left, volunteered to come to Bible class the following week. Right where she was, in her everyday business environment, the new friendship was begun. The American Association of Museums has adopted for its personnel a courtesy code that would develop the spirit of friendly cooperation in any group of workers wise enough to adopt it. Faith in the unselfish motives of coworkers, honor based on a high sense of justice, freedom from jealousy and criticism, are emphasized, as well as loyalty to the director. Among all workers in the museum [says the code] there should exist a friendliness in regard to each other. Where many are working together in close contact, each should have for the other a respect for his personality and intelligence, his feelings. JInconsiderate acts, gossip, inquisitive ques- tions, practical jokes, while often amusing, are always un- charitable and often cruel. Being friends with one’s family.—The “where she was” may be in the home as well as at business. Jesus’ own kin became believers after the resurrection, and one of his brothers—James—died a martyr for his sake. There is no life relationship that is not sweetened by friendship. John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins but more than cousins—friends—the one a forerunner, the other the Fulfiller of his prophecies. Parents ought always to be congenial friends for their children. Cicero was more than a father to Tulla. Mrs. Coleridge was more than a mother to Sarah. The father- and-son-movement and mother-and-daughter-week idea are AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 75 not based on any new revelation of psychology. Castor and Pollux were famed in mythology as brothers who were also friends. Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Charles and Mary Lamb, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, were brothers and sisters who drew their intimacy from the springs of an abundant friendship. Naomi was mother- in-law to Ruth, but more than that. Only a devoted friend could have implored: “Entreat me not to leave thee, And to return from following after thee; For whither thou goest, I will go; And where thou lodgest, I will lodge; Thy people shall be my people, And thy God my God.” At a certain evangelistic service a young woman ex- pressed herself as desiring to become a friend of Christ, but “not to-night.” No reason was given. But the next evening she returned with another girl who resembled her markedly. They were twins. The sister who was under conviction would not take the great step to Christ with- out first telephoning to her twin, ninety miles away, and having her too become acquainted with the great Friend. Overcoming barriers to friendship.—Note that the un- savory reputation of the woman of Samaria did not deter Christ from befriending and illumining her. She was inferior racially. At least according to the popu- lar point of view current among Jews of Christ’s day. She was of “mixed stock,” descended from some of the Assy- rian colonists who had settled in Samaria and intermar- ried with Israelites. Although her people kept the author- ized Jewish feasts, and their worship form was Jewish, they accepted only the first five books of the Old Testa- ment and interpreted them as directing the erection of their sanctuary not in Jerusalem but on Mount Gerizim. The Jews considered dealings with Samaritans to be un- thinkable and made their inferiority so proverbial that the “good Samaritan” of the Lord’s parable was a strik- ing paradox. The woman was inferior in her code of courtesy. Her ungracious reaction to the gentlemanly approach of the Master was rude. With rather a flippant cynicism she put 76 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN her first question: “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman?” Again, when Jesus put at her disposal, not the stagnant water of the well of stored-up raindrops, but living water, bub- bling and springing up fresh with energy, her sarcastic reply was: “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.” Her third taunt was an ironical question as to whether he considered himself greater than their father Jacob, who had given her people the well by which they were even then standing and who was the spiritual giant from whom all her race dated their genealogy. The laugh of derision with which some young people meet those who seek to draw them into the Kingdom is sometimes a good indication that their wills are having their last fling of discourtesy, even as the woman of Samaria. The dark- est hour of their religious experience often heralds the dawn of their faith. She was inferior morally. Christ frankly told her that he realized that she had had five husbands, and that the one with whom she was then living was not in the mar- riage relation. She was evidently a woman of disrepute, a harlot of the town; yet for the sake of offering her the living water Jesus humbled himself to speak with her. His ministry reached down to the lowest depths of sin and misery, and then—miracle of miracles !—to this prostitute of a hated race he intrusted one of the most precious jewels of his treasure—the revelation of the true nature of wor- ship: “God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.’ Whether at Gerizim, Jerusalem, Mesopotamia, Chicago, or Manhattan this revelation still holds. Can you afford to risk your own reputation by contact with girls whom you know to be morally inferior to you? If someone should see you walking along the street with one known to be ostracized from respectable circles, what would happen to you? But how did they come to be “outcast”? A New York “Follies” manager broadcast a request for chorus girls. The next day brought a stream of applicants, not, however, from the city, as he had expected, but from outlying coun- try districts, where girls had been listening in and had AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY ws heard his offer. It is just such a helpless surplus of un- trained workers for whom the city cannot possibly find enough honorable jobs who are a menace to themselves and to others while adrift. The Salvation Army was ap- proached by a delegation of chorus girls in New York City, asking that organization to build a home near Times Square for chorus girls out of work. If every city could have several houses like the new home of the Girls’ Friendly Society in Boston, where wage-earning girls can secure airy rooms and home privileges for a nominal sum, there would be fewer modern “Samaritan women.” The dweller-in-furnished-rooms has become a distinct social type which must be reckoned with. There is a cer- tain section in Chicago where the whole population moves every four months, where “Vacant” signs are displayed only for an hour, where no addresses are left behind, and where no old-fashioned social relationships exist. Here 23,000 persons are living in furnished rooms. It is esti- mated that 52 per cent of them are single men, ten per cent single girls. Thirty-eight per cent are couples, of whom 60 per cent are living together unmarried. A cer- tain social worker visited the rooms of two lonely girls in this locality. The first one she found engrossed in writ- ing a letter to the “Lovelorn” editor of a cheap daily and surrounded by magazines featuring tales of girls lost in the city’s night life. “Why should I dig and work all day long and not have anyone to come home to at night and ask me what I’ve been doing?” she exclaimed. “A girl just has to have that in her life or—well, she has to get her thrill out of just what ’'m doing now—imagining myself the heroine of exciting romances.” The second girl’s room resembled a museum. The tiny bureau con- tained thirty articles, including a doll, pictures of a farm- house and the group who lived there, a snapshot of a spired village church, and a high-school commencement program. “T’ve just got to have this junk around me,” said the girl. “And see, I’ve bought this parrot, so there’ll be some- thing to speak to when I come home from work. I’ve trained her to say, ‘Good-by, Jennie’ in the mornings, and ‘Hello, Jennie’ at night.” If there are any rooming houses near your church, could "8 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN your class make a survey of the girls who live there and initiate a deliberate effort to befriend them? SHARING THE GREAT FRIENDSHIP Observe that the Samaritan woman, once she had felt the prophetic power of Jesus shining through his words to her, rushed away into the city to bring her associates to meet the new Friend—Jesus. One of the most glorious things spoken of women in all the New Testament is recorded of this outcast woman. ‘To the people she ex- claimed, “Come, see a man who hath told me all things that ever I did: can this be the Christ?” Their response was instantaneous: “and many of the Samaritans believed on him because of the word of the woman.” So satisfac- tory did Christ deem the fruits of that contact that he remained two whole days in the vicinity, so that those who had first come because of his new convert themselves gained abiding experiences of his power and believed, not simply because of her testimony, but because they felt for them- selves that he was Saviour of the world—not of Israel only but of Samaritans as well. Have you ever chanced to observe how naturally young Christians may be interested in introducing their friends to Christ? This is at the basis of all win-my-chum cam- paigns. “What did you give your boy friend for his birthday ?” a girl asked her chum. “T gave him a New Testament,” was the surprising reply, “and last Sunday he united with my church. The strange thing about it all is that we are much better friends now than ever before. We can talk about things that really matter.” Making friends in church.—Do you know of any safer place than the church for young people to meet congenial friends? “If it had not been for the wonderful friends I have made in this churth I would have given up my job and gone back home defeated with homesickness,” said a successful young man in a recent prayer meeting. Hundreds in every city could bear similar testimony to the effectiveness of the warm-hearted, outreaching ministry of city churches with social programs that befriend strangers. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY v9 Has not the country church a similar responsibility to migrant workers huddled in dismal boarding houses; to seasonal farmhands, traveling salesmen, school teachers, etc. ? Jf your church happens to resemble the one described in the following incident, what can you do to make its policy toward strangers more friendly? In a certain English church, which has a question box in its vestibule, the minister preached one Sunday on “Recognition of Friends in Heaven.” The following week he found this communication in the box: DEAR Srz: I should’ greatly appreciate it if you could make it convenient to preach to your people on “The Recognition of Friends on Earth,” as I have been attending your church for nearly six months, and nobody has taken any notice of me yet. Friends in life’s crises—A certain woman whom the court had thought wise to separate from the custody of her young daughter drifted into an Epworth League meet- ing in a delirium of despair. Her intention was to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge after the meeting and, if no one was passing by, to end her life’s tragedy there. At the close of the service a young girl grasped the stranger by the hand with a word of welcome and an invitation to return. Not until the forlorn woman revealed her story in the pastor’s “confessional” was the worth of the friendly word revealed. Tests oF FRIENDSHIP Note the persons whom Jesus explicitly spoke of as his “friends”: Lazarus, Judas—what a contrast! Yet is it not true that for both of them he paid the cost he stead- fastly counts in the fifteenth chapter of John? His serv- ice to Lazarus precipitated his own arrest (read John 11. 47-53 and 12. 9-11 for the connection), and his faithful- ness to Judas survived even that friend’s treachery. He dared to show his friends all his own plans and motives even at the risk of frequent misunderstanding and lack of sympathy, sure that only by the unconcealed sharing of purposes could they come to be able to share his aims and his work. What sort of equality do you believe necessary 80 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN between friends? Intellectual, so that the same interests may be followed, without having whole areas of thought that cannot be discussed? Have you known instances where people differed widely in financial and social stand- ing yet were warm friends? Must there be moral equality, so that standards of action will be uniform? Are people of widely different ages capable of deep friendship? It was always Jesus’ high standard, not the possible lower one, which prevailed. In that difficult situation of proffered and accepted friendship with the woman of Samaria people might be surprised at the unconventional conversation, but there could be no hint or suggestion that his standard was lowered to hers: “they marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why speakest thou with her?” In friendships between members of opposite sexes do you think moral leadership lies with the girl or the man? If the facts behind army desertions were studied they would reveal that in many instances a girl is the real causal factor. A certain young man living on a Western mili- tary reservation came to a city pastor’s study one evening. He sought admission to church membership. Everyone was impressed when, the following Sunday, he came to the altar in uniform. “The Christian centurion,” people thought. Only a short time later the pastor received a telephone call asking him if he would assist the same young man to cross the Canadian border. A young woman to whom he was very devoted had persuaded him to over- stay his leave in order to prolong his time with her. He had yielded to her whims to the extent of being tech- nically guilty of desertion, and arrest was imminent. One girl’s selfishness had destroyed not only his military career but his religious declaration made before the eyes of the world. What is the standard among your friends, both girls and men, concerning petting parties? What do you think of the sorority that insisted that its members allow their escorts to kiss them in order to maintain the popularity of the sorority? ‘The following statements show two cur- rent points of view. A college senior said, “Of course I see no harm in allowing a young man to caress me pro- AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 81 vided I like him.” A young business woman explained her sudden refusal of a certain young man’s customary offer to “see her home from church” because he insisted upon kissing her good-night when they “weren’t even engaged.” With whom do you agree? Is unemotional friendship between young men and women possible? If your own convictions on this are not clear, look up the stories of Jerome and Paula, Ambrose and Monica, John Locke and Lady Markham. George Eliot said of Herbert Spencer: Since we understand that we are not in love with each other, there is no reason why we should not have as much of each other’s company as we like. He is a most delightful creature, and I always feel better for being with him. The brightest spot in my life, next to my love of old friends, is the de- liciously calm, new friendship that Herbert Spencer gives me. We see each other daily and have a delightful “camaraderie” in everything. The poet Cowper, inspired at the age of fifty by Mrs. Unwin, said, “She is so excellent a person and regards me with a friendship so truly Christian that I could almost fancy my own mother restored to life again.” Consider, however, the statement of a wise woman that “Platonic friendship between young men and women may continue on one side but never on both: one or the other is bound to suffer in the affections even if there is no moral damage.” Does it make any difference what is the con- trolling purpose of both lives? “T have a friend whose discipline I need”—is not this thought of the modern poet the same as is expressed in Proverbs: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend”? “A friend is one who will not let you be less than your best” is a definition given by a man who has been a stimulating friend to generations of college young people. QUESTIONS FOR Group DIscuUSsION 1. Where have you made your best friends—in the un- usual experiences of travel, etc., or in the everyday con- tacts of home and business? 2. Do you find yourself as scrupulous about keeping in touch with old friends as your mother is—by correspond- 82 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN ence, etc.? Or are modern haste and overactivity making friendships difficult, and long lists of correspondents, such as characterized the genial poet Josephine Preston Pea- body, utterly impossible ? 3. What can be done for a person who suffers when she feels herself among strangers? Will cultivation of inter- est in others’ affairs tend to wipe out self-conscious reticence ? 4, Is friendship likely to be marred by too much disci- plining and corrective process? What do you understand by the words of Zechariah: “I was wounded in the house of my friends”? (Zechariah 13. 6.) 5. Do you believe that girls have as great a capacity for lasting friendships as men? Do minor differences tend to separate them more easily? Are women in business, ac- cording to your observation, as fair to their associates and competitors as are men? 6. A girl responding to a questionnaire gave as her experience that the greatest obstacle to her being a suc- cessful Christian was “men.” Does your experience tally with this? %. Are “Platonic” friendships safer for people of one temperament than another? For what type are they dan- gerous? 8. What is your attitude toward coeducation? Why? How do you interpret the fact that three fourths of the women in college in the United States are in coeducational institutions? (96,908 were in 354 coeducational and 31,- 769 in 115 women’s colleges in 1920, according to the United States Bureau of Education.) 9, Are sex problems that confront the deans in coeduca- tional colleges any different than in women’s colleges with men’s adjacent? In which is there more frank friend- ship and in which more lovemaking? In which are happy marriages more likely to result? 10. Do you believe that the girls of your community are provided with adequate places and opportunities for eae legitimate, safe, and congenial friends among both sexes! CHAPTER VI MY LEISURE—ASSET OR LIABILITY? “T WONDER what play my boy friend will take me to see Sunday night?” chattered one flaxen-haired stenographer to another in a home-bound trolley. “We’re going to see ‘Little Annie Rooney,” rejoined her companion. “You’d better come with us.” Neither girl, apparently, had the remotest idea of sug- gesting to her escort that they attend one of the attractive church services available in their city. Perhaps Doctor Cadman was right when, at a great Sunday conference for men, answering a question put to him as to the rela- tive progress of men and women in religion, he said: “I think men are doing a little better than women and have been doing so for the last seven years. I hate to say this but I have noticed a very much more marked difference in men than I have in members of the opposite sex.” The gentle Scotch essayist Robert Louis Stevenson was right when he said: “It is surely beyond a doubt that peo- ple should be a good deal idle in youth. Extreme busy- ness is a symptom of deficient vitality.” Yet the problems arising from idle-hour occupations make one wonder whether leisure is really an asset or a lability, something to be relished or dreaded. In the early days of the factory age the problem was to secure enough leisure to keep one’s balance physically and mentally. In our generation two hours a day have been added to the leisure of millions of men and women and their working week shortened nearly twelve hours. Is it for good or evil? The fatigue that follows strenuous periods at business or in the schoolroom lowers one’s powers of resistance to temptation and makes him reach out instinctively for the thing which will amuse, divert, and lift him wholly from the world of necessitous competition and grubbing. Nine times out of ten, when the word “leisure” is mentioned, “recreation” auto- matically links itself to it. 83 84. NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Let us see whether we can find in the lives of any New Testament folks some light on the right use of leisure. LEISURE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE First CENTURY Diversions: (a) Visiting.— Luke 1. 39-45. And Mary arose in these days and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah; and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come unto me? For behold, when the voice of thy salutation came into mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed; for there shall be bien raion of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord. Luke 5. 29. And Levi made him a great feast in his house: and there was a great multitude of publicans and of others that were sitting at meat with them. Luke 10. 38, 39. Now as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet, and heard his word. Matthew 21. 17. And he left them, and went forth out of the city to Bethany, and lodged there. John 12. 1, 2. Jesus therefore six days before the passover came to Beth- any, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they made him a supper there. (b) Weddings.— John 2. 1-5, 11. And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: and Jesus was also bid- den, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 85 unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.... This beginning of his signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed on him. (c) Religious festivals.— Luke 2. 22, 23, 41-45. And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord).... And his parents went every year to Jerusalem at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up after the custom of the feast; and when they -had fulfilled the days, as they were returning, the boy. Jesus tar- ried behind in jerusalem; and his parents knew it not; but supposing him to be in the company, they went a day’s jour- ney; and they sought for him among their kinsfolk and ac- quaintance: and when they found him not, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking for him. Self-improvement: (a) Phystcal up-building.— Mark 4. 35, 36. And on that day, when even was come, he saith unto them, Let us go over unto the other side. And leaving the multi- tude, they take him with them, even as he was, in the boat. Mark 6. 31, 32. And he saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apayt into a desert place, amd rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desert place apart. Mark 2. 23. ‘And it came to pass, that he was going on the sabbath day through the grainfields. Matthew 13. 1. On that day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. (b) Mental development.— Acts 17. 16, 19, 21-23, 28. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he beheld the city full of idols.... And they took hold of him, and brought him unto the Areo- pagus, saying, May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by thee? ... (Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else, 86 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN but either to tell or to hear some new thing.) And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus. ... What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto you. ... For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said. (c) Spiritual refreshment.— Matthew 4. 1, 11. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. ... Then the devil leaveth him; and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. Mark 1. 35. And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose yp and went out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed. Mark 6. 46. And after he had taken leave of them, he departed into the mountain to pray. Galatians 1. 15-18. But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me: but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and tarried with him fifteen days. RECREATION IN SOCIABILITY Visiting. —Of all the journeys recorded in literature none is more beautifully chronicled than the pilgrimage of young Mary of Nazareth, over the hills of Judea, to the home of her cousin Elisabeth in one of the priestly cities of the land—possibly Hebron. All the records of Queen Elizabeth’s “royal progresses” through merry England; of John Ruskin’s “Hours in the Alps,” and of Bayard Taylor’s “Views Afoot?? are surpassed by the simple state- ment so packed with meaning: “And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah.” Over and over again to-day her errand is reenacted by many a young wife, hurrying to the home of a married sister to confide very precious tidings, to seek AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 87 just such strengthening counsel as Mary imbibed from the future mother of John the Baptist, and to speed along the months of waiting and of readjustment to a new relationship to humanity. Just as the poet Coleridge was spiritually so exalted by the sheer beauty of the valley of Chamounix that his soul poured out its ecstasy in his famous sunrise hymn, so Mary was inspired by her cousin’s salutation to give voice to her Magnificat, the most heavenly lullaby-psalm ever uttered by woman (Luke 1. 46-55). Christ too found visits to sympathetic friends a fruitful use for his rare hours of leisure. To Bethany he often turned, lodging at the home of Lazarus and his sisters or dining at the house of Simon the leper. Visits to his own townsfolk in Capernaum seem to have been less en- joyable than those he made among the simple people, who held much in common with his outlook upon life. Some of us can remember the thrill that “going visit- ing” and “having company” gave us in our childhood. The company dinner may have been an important feature, but there was also a real adventure in acquaintance, and joy in other persons as persons. Has visiting gone out of vogue to-day? Is it that friendships mean less to folks; or that their homes are too crowded for home hos- pitality? Where people use their leisure wholly for com- mercial forms of recreation, what else do they sacrifice besides their savings? For most of us the opportunity for visiting whether as hostess or guest comes during vacation or over week-ends. Haye you ever attended week-end house parties where moral difficulties developed, or where friendships were strained to the point of breaking? Think down into why this happened. It surely could not happen in visits to shut-ins in their homes or hospitals or jails, or in writing good- cheer letters to sick and distant friends. But would there be any real recreation and diversion in doing that? Have you tried it to see? Weddings and other social ceremonies.—Such occa- sions enlivened the leisure of women in a century whose primitive means of housekeeping reduced their free time to a minimum. LEarly and late the wives of righteous Hebrews toiled at the preparation of food according to 88 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Mosaic rules; at the fastidious cleansing of their cooking vessels and the making of simple peasant garments like Jesus’ seamless cloak, which. tradition says that Mary wove for him. In homes like Mary’s the manifold activi- ties of the virtuous woman as described so poetically in the last chapter of Proverbs were daily repeated. She rose up while it was night to give food to her household; laid her hands to the distaff and reached them forth to the needy; clothed herself in fine linen and looked well to the ways of her household, so that her children rose up and called her blessed. With a daily program like this such an event as a wedding would loom large on her horizon, so we can understand the importance attached to the wedding that Mary attended with her Son Jesus at Cana in Galilee. The glad atmosphere of rejoicing and of festival only accentuates the painful embarrassment that sympathetic Mary felt for her hostess (possibly a kinswoman) when it was discovered that there were too many guests for the refreshments provided. How like a normal, careful housewife Mary appears when she ventures to confide the circumstance to Him who, she was confident, could somehow remedy it! Jesus seems to have hesitated to use the power he had just refused to exert for himself. And it was perhaps a reference to other talks they had had which caused him to use the ceremonious address that our English version makes sound almost harsh: “Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.” Yet some inner working of the Father’s will led him to make that wedding the occasion of his first “sign” in Galilee. In so doing he has hallowed every Christian marriage festival since, for his mingling with the happy guests that day is remem- bered every time the marriage ritual is recited. Several other interesting New Testament passages re- veal further details about Oriental weddings which punctu- ated so pleasantly the leisure hours of first-century women. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins reveals the custom of going forth to meet the bridegroom with lighted lamps; the story of the woman who lost her wedding gift indicates the importance which was attached to the bride’s head ornament, made of pieces of silver; the discourteous AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 89 refusal of the invited guests to attend the wedding feast, prepared by the generous host of Christ’s parable empha- sizes the serious breach of etiquette involved in such pro- cedure. Religious festivals—These occasioned keenly antici- pated pilgrimages to central places of worship. What friendly intercourse and laughing buoyancy must have characterized those annual journeys of Nazareth townsfolk to the great capital city of Jerusalem at Passover time! What exchange of anecdotes, what a welcome change of scene, as the companies of travelers left behind the dark drudgery of their little homes and sallied forth into the sunshine until the hills and temple domes of the sacred city loomed before them! How we wish that we might have listened to their talk as they sauntered on! Chaucer’s lines well express the longing for change from the daily humdrum, not only of early English nun and knight, mer- chant and prince, but of all hard-working families, walking along the Palestine roads or riding in a second-hand flivver on American highways: “Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes.... Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmers for to seken straunge strondes.” The Feast of Tabernacles, too, brought its atmosphere of rejoicing. Booths of green were erected on the roofs of homes in commemoration of the earlier days when boughs of trees had sheltered the wandering nation.. Women were admitted to certain parts of the sanctuary from which they were customarily excluded. Music filled the air, and legends of bygone experiences were revived. What religious festivals contribute to the enjoyment of the rural communities in your vicinity to-day? Harvest home, booth festivals, the Christmas entertainment, and Armistice Day celebrations are coming to be a part of modern church life. Has your church a pageantry schedule, whereby the observance of religious festivals engages a large part of the leisure of its young people and keeps their good times under the roof of the church? A certain group of talented young women in a city Bible 90 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN class spent the leisure evenings of five months rehearsing a splendid cantata. They invited their young men friends and husbands to join their chorus. The net result of their effort was as follows: two evenings of wholesome recrea- tion for eight hundred people; two hundred dollars cleared for their class service fund; personal savings accounts in- creased by money saved from commercial amusements that would otherwise have filled the rehearsal evenings; new friendships formed among Christian young people. Much to the surprise of the pastor and audience the cast got to- gether on the stage after the last curtain call and spontane- ously broke into singing, “God Be With You Till We Meet Again,” showing the spiritual value they attached to the enterprise of their leisure moments. Best of all, one young man who had persistently resisted the demands of the church upon his life said, “A few more performances like this will persuade me to join the church after all.” RECREATION IN SELF-IMPROVEMENT Leisure, as Christ understood it, was designed not ex- clusively for the purpose of sheer pleasure but also for self-improvement. Physical upbuilding.—Jesus found nature’s healing in- dispensable. Scripture is full of his physical footprints as he walked through Judea and Galilee. “As they were on the way to Jerusalem, . . . he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee.” “And after these things, Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Judea.” “Passing through Jericho” he saw Zaccheus. On the day of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem he walked as far as Bethphage and only then commandeered the ass which was to bear him through the city streets. Every day he was teaching in the Temple; at night he went out and lodged in the Mount of Olives, just as busy people to-day hurry to the open spaces of the suburbs after the day’s toil in the crowded city. The very terms he used to Peveribe himself were symbols of the road. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me, *he said. “If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not.” His inspiring symbolism was carried over into the minds of the disciples, AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 91 When John was looking for a phrase to describe the deser- tion of the weakling pupils he said, “Many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.” And when he came to write his epistles he declared, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” “And this is love, that we should walk after his commandments.” It was from his walks through the countryside that Christ gathered observations that couched concretely his messages of overwhelming revelation. The vineyards of purple fruit, the birds of the air, the golden grain of the fields, the wayside flowers, the ill-fated ox fallen into a pit, children at play—how think you that Christ noted these except as he sauntered leisurely along on foot? It was John Finley, president of New York University, who called the attention of a vast radio audience to the fact that the word “saunter” is derived from Sainte Terre, or Holy Land; and harks back to the day when Crusaders sauntered or walked through the Sainte Terre on their way to Jerusalem. So valuable does Doctor Finley feel walking to be as a leisure-hour activity that he has offered medals to those who will walk a specified distance and report to him. The lost art of walking could not only help save our generation from physical degeneracy and prove a spiritual panacea but also revive the old adage “Solvitur ambulando” (problems may be solved while walk- ing). , ‘Christ believed, too, in brief vacation periods for physt- cal refreshment. A certain young girl recently declared: “T have decided that the man I marry must be fond of life in the open. For one who truly loves nature and all the sincere, fundamental things at the heart of the world must certainly be wholesome and pure.” The athletic facilities offered by city parks, playground associations, colleges, and churches put physically profitable leisure at the dis- posal of every young person. Mental development.—Jesus’ knowledge of the Scrip- tures and Paul’s ability to hold his own in the stronghold of Greek philosophy in Athens and to quote from their own poets urge us not to cut ourselves off from the revela- tions of the world’s great minds. “Books are the precious 92 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN lifeblood of the masters.” Henry Ward Beecher used to say that if he found that people whom he visited contented themselves with plain furniture and simple clothes in order to purchase books they rose immediately in his esti- mation. A certain mother is making a practice of re- reading Cesar’s Commentaries (bridge chapter and all!) with her young son and is looking forward to brushing up on The A’nerd next winter. She is giving up numberless bridge parties to do this but finds her mind delightfully alert. “What sort of books have you read within the past year?” was a question put to a young woman applying for a post on the foreign-mission field. What would you answer to this question? A librarian is authority for the statement that most of the serious reading of to-day is being done by men. A few girls take out books of poetry and volumes of plays, but most of them select well-thumbed stories of love. An increasing number of first-rank colleges and uni- versities are giving night students the same status as those enrolled in day classes, so that they may earn degrees. It takes longer, of course, to complete the required number of courses, but many are able to shorten the time appre- ciably by giving their vacation time to summer courses. Most cities have regular evening divisions of the public grade, high, and trade schools. The following item was sent from London to the New York Times: “London’s 191 night schools were attended by 117,358 students.” In New York City alone, where the aggregate registration in institutions of higher learning rolls up to 90,000, 51,788 persons are attending public night schools. This means that to the many alluring invitations flaunted in their faces by the lights of Broadway after a fatiguing day in the office these folks are saying, “No,” for the sake of an educational ideal. Is it not encouraging to find such numbers of adults who are willing to expose themselves to “the pain of a new idea”? Spiritual refreshment.—Leisure makes for just such spiritual refreshment as Christ found himself in need of when he “went out every night to the Mount of Olives” or entered into a boat, saying to his disciples, “Let us go AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 93 over unto the other side of the lake’ He, as well as Paul, stored up the power for his future ministry during a wilderness retreat when he measured his own strength. Nor can we forget how leisurely was his thirty-year period of preparation for his three years of public ministry. Vacations are necessary for everyone who cares for his own spiritual safety and vigor. He who begrudges him- self a day’s holiday will grow stale and unfit for his life’s work and get into a hopeless rut, like the proverbial Lon- don busman. When given his first holiday in twenty years this poor fellow could think of nothing to do. So, al- though surrounded by the British Museum and galleries of art, Westminster Abbey and other churches rich in monuments of the past, he just jumped on a bus and took a ride. “The bow that’s always bent will quickly break; But if unstrung ’twill serve you at your need. So let the mind some relaxation take To come back to its task with fresher heed.” This old fable of Phedrus is right and it finds its modern echo in the words of John Masefield, who poetically urges us to come out of our cage and take our souls on a pil- grimage. QUESTIONS FoR Group DiscussIOoN 1. What is the first thing to which you naturally turn when you have leisure? Is this characteristic of your best self ? 2. Are your idle-hour occupations harmful to you in any way? harmful to anyone else? 3. How can you test whether a certain amusement is harmful? Can you improve on Susannah Wesley’s rule ?— Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure, take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, im- pairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes the relish off spiritual things: in short, what- ever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind—that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself. 4, If a girl who is associated with you in business or 94 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN social circles is making a wrong use of her leisure, what can you do to wean her away? 5. Has the public dance hall any grip upon girls with whom you come in contact? 6. How do you stand with regard to the broadcasting of prizefights ? %. Do the plays, the films, and the newspaper comics in your community tend to build up public sentiment for temperance, decency, and good taste, or would this press statement describe your situation ?— Western newspapers, for instance—or nearly all of them— support the prohibition law editorially. But the comic strips and other syndicated stuff they get from New York too fre- quently take vicious slaps at the prohibition law. New York vaudeville, shipped to the provinces, does the same thing. So do a dozen other influences. Altogether it constitutes a campaign of suggestion to law violation which is extremely annoying to native American communities. New York is the home of the American theater and it is promoting the corruption of the drama by the importation of European ideas of “art.” Indeed, New York is going Europe one better: it seems to be specializing in profanity, blasphemy, and nakedness. It is useless to say that New York cannot stop this, for it succeeds in doing about anything it wants to do. It drove public prostitution off its streets, to the city’s everlasting glory. It can drive filth off the stage when it gets ready. When it does it will be serving the entire coun- try, not simply the city. 8. What are some of the effects you would expect from the fact that there were 93 criminal plays out of a total of 223 showing at one time in New York City? 9. Do you find it easier or harder to live up to your highest ideals after seeing the sort of play or film you usually select? 10. Do you think Christian people can help reform the stage more by patronizing those plays which do contain real moral messages, such as Channing Pollock’s “The Fool” and “The Enemy,” or by absenting themselves al- together from the theater? 11. Are the women of your community doing anything to clean up public newsstands where magazines of a low order and degrading books are on sale? Make a point of observing the type of illustrated newssheet and novel AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 95 that many who:sit next to you in trolleys, etc., are read- ing. 12. Is there any difference between playing cards for money at home and gambling at Monte Carlo? Do you approve of lotteries and “chances for charity”? 13. Mention all the concrete ways you can in which the burden of housewife and mother has been lightened. As- sign relative places of importance to (a) scientific devices; (6) public activities concerned with child care; (c) com- munity playgrounds and public-library story hours; (d) education tending to make childbearing easier and less of an interference with ordinary activities; (e) the popu- lar sanction of restaurant dining. How are most of the mothers whom you know to be enjoying these helps em- ploying their added leisure? 14. Do you agree with the woman writer who said that the rearing of a few children does not constitute sufficient activity for the life time of any woman sound in body and mind ? 15. In what ways are “home girls” and women not gainfully employed guilty of economic waste in the use of their leisure? How about habitual window shoppers and tea gossips? What would you suggest doing about girls who are not producing anything useful for society but are simply consumers of leisure and of the fruits of parents’ or husbands’ labor? 16. What do you think of part-time work as a solution for women who find home tasks insufficient to absorb all their energies? What sorts of work may be done in women’s surplus leisure ? 1%. Do your leisure activities have any value for your community ? 18. When have you last attended a stimulating lecture on current events, new books, or some live topic of the day? When visited your nearest museum? 19. What recreational facilities of a wholesome sort are _available for young women in your community? Hockey, tennis, or boating in the parks? Gym classes in churches or Young Women’s Christian Association? What is the recreational program of your church for its young people? 20. What did the young man mean who said: “‘T’he rea- 96 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN son why there are so many ‘bachelor maids’ nowadays is the too-high cost of courting’? Do the girls you know demand that their new friends spend money generously for their enjoyment? 21. Name all the means of recreation at your disposal which do not involve any expense. CHAPTER VII MY HEALTH AND CLOTHES—DO THEY MATTER TO THE COMMUNITY? “T’~n not be at Bible class next Sunday,” announced a tastefully dressed and beautiful girl of eighteen to her teacher one day. “My firm is sending me to Saranac to- morrow.” Her flushed cheeks, thin figure, and glistening eyes summarized her story, and she added the details. “The medical examiner said I have not been spending enough money for food and have contracted tuberculosis.” Inquiry as to how she budgeted her weekly salary of twenty dollars revealed that she was paying ten dollars for room and dinners, two dollars for lunches and carfare, and spending eight a week on clothes. “I simply must have lots of cute little five-dollar hats,” she said, “and silk hose almost every week. Then, I am paying for my fur coat on installments, and of course I get a ‘wave’ every Satur- day. I have to keep up my appearance in a big office like ours, you know. So I’ve just been skimping on break- fast and lunch.” The girl’s story could be duplicated a hundredfold over in every city. There is a very definite relation between health and clothes; between health and morals; and be- tween clothes and morals. Clothes, carfare, and room rent — eat up funds which should go for food. The shortage of inexpensive lodgings in decent houses creates a critical situation. The Young Women’s Christian Association, through its dormitories and room registry, in 1924 helped 44,185 girls in New York City to obtain suitable lodgings. Despite its noble efforts and those of the Association to Promote Proper Housing fifty thousand girls are exposed yearly in New York City to the “perils of the landlady.” A proposed clubhouse in upper Manhattan is to have one thousand rooms, nine hundred of which have been spoken for in advance by women who describe themselves as being “neither working girls nor people of independent income.” 97 98 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Widespread interest in personal and public health is one of the ‘most salient characteristics of our age. The na- tional health-education movement in the United States is carried on by. an innumerable host of popular agencies, such as baby clinics, open-air schools; child health week, with its pageantry of vitamins; free dispensaries; Boy and Girl Scout and Camp Fire creeds; Red Cross propaganda ; institutes of public health; schools of nursing; intensive surveys of definite communities; the creation of “health zones” in districts notoriously unhealthful; and the benef- icent world sweep of the Rockefeller Foundation. The preschool child, the American Indian, the Negro, the farm woman—yes, and even the people of our own fireside, who start the day with broadcast setting-up exercises served with music, are all receiving their share of attention. Yet, through these progressive, scientific methods of promot- ing physical vigor we have really only just caught up with the emphasis Christ himself placed upon health and the physical welfare of individuals. No other aspect of his ministry is recorded with greater detail. Probably no modern physician has so wide a variety of baffling diseases in his practice as confronted Christ in the congested, poorly drained, unspeakably dirty thoroughfares of Judea. Jesus’ Purpose IN HEALING The mother of Peter’s wife.— Luke 4. 38, 39. And he rose up from the synagogue, and entered into the house of Simon. And Simon’s wife’s mother was holden with a great fever; and they besought him for her. And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her: and imme- diately she rose up and ministered unto them. The daughter of Jairus.— Luke 8. 40-42, 49-56. And as Jesus returned, the multitude welcomed him; for they were all waiting for him. And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and besought him to come into his house; for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as he went the multitudes thronged him. ... AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 99 While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Teacher. But Jesus hearing it, answered him, Fear not; only believe, and she shall be made whole. And when he came to the house, he suffered not any man to enter in with him, save Peter, and John, and James, and the father of the maiden and her mother. And all were weeping, and be- wailing her: but he said, Weep not; for she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. But he, taking her by the hand, called, saying, Maiden, arise. And her spirit returned, and she rose up im- mediately: and he commanded that something be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed: but he charged them to tell no man what had been done. The widow of Nain’s son.— Luke 7. 11-17. And it came to pass soon afterwards, that he went to a city called Nain; and his disciples went with him, and a great multitude. Now when he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, there was carried out one that was dead, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had com- passion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came nigh and touched the bier: and the bearers stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother. And fear took hold on all: and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet is arisen among us: and, God hath visited his people. And this report went forth concerning him in the whole of Judea, and all the region round about. HEALTH AND SOCIAL EFFICIENCY Men have paused to note the concern of this afflicted woman’s friends for her serious condition; others have marveled at Jesus’ sympathetic attitude as he stood by her bed while she was consumed by what Doctor Luke terms “a great fever”; and by Christ’s absolute command over the grip of the disease. But the most significant item of the incident to us as women is recorded in those won- derful climactic words of Luke: “and immediately she rose and ministered unto them.” Fitness to serve—Is not a chief purpose of health fitness to minister to one’s family and community? It is not enough simply to prevent our own selves from becom- ing public charges in hospitals and asylums for the insane ; 100 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN it is, rather, a matter of keeping one’s “tone” so vibrant and the white corpuscles that battle against invading dis- ease germs so active that health will just overflow in rich service to others. Joan Jones received the bitterest blow of her life when the medical examiner for the Woman’s Foreign Mission- ary Society told her that her heart was too weak for the climate of India. “I am going anyhow,” she declared. “T’ll pay my own passage over; and if at the end of two years I am still alive and carrying on for Christ, you can refund the money and enroll me as one of your mission- aries in regular standing.” Strangely enough her health improved as soon as she reached India. “And immedi- ately she rose up and ministered” in the city evangelistic work at Baroda, which had been abandoned after Helen Robinson’s death at sea. She was actually able to post- pone her furlough to free a disabled fellow worker; and when she returned to the States after five years, her physician said: “You are better than when you left America. Go back to India just as soon as possible.” Elizabeth Barrett, feeling herself a chronic invalid, doomed to an early death, secluded herself with her books and poems, evading for several months the importunate requests of the young poet Robert Browning, to call upon her. When finally she began to sun herself in the strong vigor of his great Christian personality she took a firmer grip on life, rose up from her invalid’s couch, and, as poet, wife, and mother, ministered unto the world from her gar- den in Italy for many years with the greatest poems that have ever come from the pen of an Englishwoman. The relation of health to morals—Our health matters to the community not only because tt is a prerequisite to all social service but because tt has a direct bearing upon our moral welfare and the welfare of others for whom we are responsible. A considerable proportion of the crimes and moral offenses that clutter our courts are due to im- poverished vitality, malnutrition, organic degeneration, and overtaxed nervous systems. Dangers to the health and moral welfare of women and the race are increasing with their increasing participation in industry. Social studies seem to prove a definite effect of speeding up and of long AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 101 hours upon health and also upon ability to meet moral crises. Nervous speed is required in most industrial occu- pations; for example, in the telephone industry the aver- age calls in one hour are 223, or 3 1/2 a minute; in the canning industry, one girl can inspect two cans of peas a second, or 72,000 in a day; in shoe factories an expert can make 48,000 eyelets a day. Twenty-nine States allow women to work from fifty-five to seventy hours a week. In seven States there is no limit. In addition there are the effects of industrial accidents and the moral perils of night work for women, as in subway booths, theaters, etc. All these things take place in our own United States. How about the physical and moral health of women who work in the mines in India or live in the overcrowded fac- tory dormitories of Japan and China? There are obvious benefits to women’s health resulting from their widespread participation in golf, tennis, and swimming. National contests produce such types as Helen Wills, who at seventeen won the national tennis champion- ship; or Gertrude Ederle, who was the first woman to swim the English Channel. These are quite different in their effect from the popularity contests that make sensu- ous beauty rather than health their basis. The recon- struction program of France emphasizes athletics for her young women, including cross-country runs, field meets, and other outdoor activities. Both here and in Europe there is a rapid extension of the summer-camp idea. Young girls spend from one to six weeks with fine young women counselors. The idea is beginning to extend to older women also. THE SoctaL AND MorAut ImMporTANCE OF CLOTHES Clothing and health.—In the opening paragraph of this chapter we have seen how one girl surrendered her health for the clothes she carried upon her back. There are other relations between clothes and health. The conditions under which clothing is made are vitally important to the health of the wearer. The New York City Women’s Club not long ago held a unique fashion show in the interest of public health. Society girls were used to demonstrate that gowns can be modish even when they contain the 102 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Prosanis label, which guarantees manufacture under sani- tary conditions and minimizes disease by contagion from workers in sweatshops. The conditions of manufacture are of even greater im- portance to the health of the garment maker. For years the Consumers’ League, public nurses, and public-spirited physicians have been crusading to improve conditions under which women labor in the garment industry. In New York City (which makes 75 per cent of the dresses, coats, and suits worn by women in the United States) prior to 1910 most of the factories were located in dark base- ments, tenements, and attics with inadequate sanitary pro- visions and poor fire escapes. ‘To-day a Joint Board of Sanitary Control is ceaselessly inspecting factories, en- couraging unions to maintain clinics for diseased women workers, and stressing disease prevention, healthful pos- ture, cleanliness, and personal hygiene. Similar progress has been made in other cities. Dress and morals.—The late Dr. John Henry Jowett used to put this matter very cleverly when preaching from that great text “And behold a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes.” This was his epigrammatic statement: “White robes are simply washed habits”’—transformed ways of life. Current literature is laden with articles debating whether “flapper Jane is as bad as her mode of dress seems to indi- cate, or whether there is not less fire than the smoke indi- cates.” College professors range in their convictions from the one at New York University who believes that “rolled stockings are all right” but wonders whether they are worn really for comfort or just to imitate, to the more conserva- tive one who reminds us that “there was a day when it was customary for girls never to appear on campus in a shirtwaist without a coat or with her collar and cuffs on the outside of her coat.” Imagine the tempest that would rage in the home of a present-day girl packing her trunk for college if a letter should arrive containing such instructions as the follow- ing sent by Miss Lyman, the first lady principal of Vassar AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 103 College: “We may beg that expensive trimmings. be laid aside and may suggest that the skirts of the dresses be left plain unless, in remaking, some fold is needed to hide a defect.” In the early days of Vassar each senior was made to stand upon a high walnut table in the lady principal’s room to have her graduation dress inspected ! But it must be remembered that such injunctions as this came from the same age that regarded our American girls as placid and delicate, capable only of mild exercises in the “calisthenium” or the indoor riding school, which gave such éclat to young college women in the 1860s; and which considered “oratory and debate (whether public or private) not feminine accomplishments.” ‘The same leap that has led to recent debates of Vassar teams with Oxford men has led to the wide program of athletics, including skiing, the glory of autumn runs on the cinder track, the wild hilarity of basketball and the hockey fields; and to the healthier, rosier American girl who deems no subject too daunting for her consideration. The Vatican and the Hebrew Union of Orthodox Con- gregations in this country have both officially protested against immodest dress of women. The resolution of the latter, deploring the indecent mode of dress “at present customary among the female sex,’ and urging “the daughters of Israel to clothe themselves with proper modesty and, in particular, the ladies attending services, so as not to conflict with the holiness of places of wor- ship,” is remarkably akin to the plaint of Isaiah 3. 16-23. This picture of the world’s first flapper, as painted by the prophet many centuries ago, startles us with its modernity : Many daughters of Zion and of the Gentile world too are still “haughty, and walk with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet.” Apart from its immodesty the current mode of dress among many young people has an immoral aspect because of the economic waste it entails. Man has settled on a pretty definite standard, which enables him to get longer service out of his wardrobe than his wife and sister, who often find their gowns and wraps out of style before they are paid for. A man can step into his tailor’s shop, select 104 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN material for a suit, be measured, and place his order within fifteen minutes; while a girl may easily shop all day for an evening gown and come home fagged out from a fruit- less search, having accomplished nothing more than resist the unbecoming or the ultra fad of the moment. Fashions change, literally, overnight. And only when girls come to realize that the whole situation is all a definitely set- up scheme of manufacturers to force extremes that will quickly be passé and thus entail additional purchases will they select their wardrobes on the basis of becoming color, quality of material, and moderate conservatism in style. Could dress be only slightly standardized, half the worries of the “female of the species” could be avoided, and a good part of the time and money fruitlessly expended be di- verted to more profitable ends. HEALTH AND CHILD WELFARE With the stories of Jairus’ daughter and the lad of Nain before us we can readily see the attention given by Christ to the restoration of young life. In one instance the twelve- year-old daughter of an influential and courteous ruler of a synagogue was revived from the sleep of death and re- turned to her parents. In the other instance the only son of an obscure widow of Nain was given again to the sorrowful but uncomplaining mother just as the neighbors were following his body outside the town gate. It was possibly a vision of his own widowed mother at Nazareth which induced Christ to intercede with the powers of death and set upon stricken youth his mark of evaluation. As a result of these official stamps of his concern for young life and of his habitual setting of a “child in the midst” each succeeding century of Christendom has been outstripping the others in its attention to child welfare. At the first national baby congress of the United States, held in 1924, more than eight thousand babies were ex- amined. And it is not only the little darlings of the rich who are receiving the ministry of health. Great institutions are at work in behalf of the unprivileged boys and girls. For instance, there is the Bowling Green Neighborhood Asso- ciation, formed by Wall Street business men to study and AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 105 to improve the health conditions of the eight or ten thou- sand people who stay “back of the buildings” in the world’s most congested financial district when the army of office workers makes its nightly exodus. The property that was originally hired in the midst of the tenements for a settle- ment house has been outgrown, and to-day, through the gift of Hamlin Childs, a new Dormitory Community House (Wall Street’s own charity) is in process of con- struction as a witness of the “attempt of business men to do their duty” and give child health a place on the ticket. The infant-mortality rate of the Bowling Green District at the lower tip of Manhattan has been reduced from 321 a thousand to 116 a thousand. The baby-health competi- tion, conducted close to New York harbor, where shrieking tugs are constantly heralding the arrival of newcomers from other lands, takes on an international aspect, as mothers—Syrian, Polish, and Italian—vie with one an- other for the supremacy of their cherubs and the capture of the gold pieces awarded by the business men. QUESTIONS FOR Group Discussion 1. What inferences can you make from New Testa- ment passages as to Christ’s rules for his own health? Can you find any definite allusions to exercise, moderation in diet, simplicity of daily habits, freedom from worry, observation of rest periods, on his part? With these ex- amples as a basis can you draw up for yourself a practical health-creed which would be pleasing to him? 2. Have you any tested health rules you would recom- mend to other girls? 3. What can be done to check the patent medicine menace to health? How about this from the pen of poet John Dryden as a suitable motto? “Better to hunt in fields for health unbought Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise for cure on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.” 4, What is your community doing to fulfill the words of Christ: “I came that they may have life, and may have 7 abundantly” ? 106 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN 5. What do you believe to be the relation between a healthy body and a pure and cheerful soul? Are men more likely to respect “women with a wallop” of robust health and outdoor sportmanship ? 6. Does Shakespeare’s maxim “The apparel oft pro- claims the man” still hold good? Is his standard of dress up to date ?— “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy.” 7. Have you ever seen, in subways, trolleys, on the street, or even in church, modes of dress which made it difficult for you to be pure-minded? What must be their effect upon men? 8. Can you find any scriptural basis for making your- self as attractive as is consistent with Christian char- acter ? 9, What effect does the manner of dress of a school teacher have upon her pupils? What is your evidence for your opinion ? 10. Are children aware of their mothers’ clothes to appreciate, condemn, or be ashamed of them? 11. Frankly what is your attitude toward the relative good looks of a flapper, carefully groomed with cosmetics, as compared with a healthy, youthful face set off by a becoming mode of dress? 12. Are personal cleanliness and good grooming more important than clothes per se? 13. Can we sum the matter up by saying that it is the motive that gives the moral slant to dress? What differ- ence of motive is there between Rosa Bonheur’s wearing ~ trousers and short hair when visiting the Paris stockyards to make studies resulting in such masterpieces as “The Horse Fair” and the modern girl’s appearing on city thoroughfares in knickers and sweater or on beaches with scantier bathing suits than even men are accustomed to wear? 14. The girls of a certain club wondered why young Mrs. X did not buy one new hat or dress all winter long. When spring came, she invited them to meet in the beau- tiful home she and her husband had just purchased. EE ee AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 107 Ought you to restrict your personal expenditures for a similarly sensible goal? 15. Estimate the number of hours and the number of dollars you have spent in purchasing your wardrobe dur- ing the past three months. Could you have reduced either without serious sacrifice? To what helpful cause might you have devoted a part of this time and money? CHAPTER VIII THE LITTLE LOST ARTS OF LIFE—HOW CAN I FIND THEM? _In a lofty nave of a certain English cathedral, which is a mellow dream of Gothic beauty in architecture, is an enormous window of painted glass rich in tone and change- less in color. But no one has yet succeeded in discovering the process by which it was made centuries ago. The secret of its beauty is as much of a lost art as the fabrication of prehistoric Mexican carvings in pure gold, of Tyrian dyes, of Egyptian scarab jewels, of medieval French tapestries, or Raphael’s inimitable blue. Just so, there are many little fine arts in life which have become all but lost in the tank- like onrush of human progress—fine arts that would make life richer and more pleasurable if they could be recovered or reproduced in our mechanical age, fine arts that were the very essence of Christ’s nature and his way of life. THREE OF THE Lost ARTS Good cheer.— Matthew 9. 2, 20-22. And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are for- given. ... And behold, a woman, who had an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the border of his gar- ment: for she said within herself, If I do but touch his gar- ment, I shall be made whole. But Jesus turning and poe her said, Daughter, be of good cheer; thy faith hath mad thee whole. Matthew 14. 25-27. And in the fourth watch of the night he came unto them, walking upon the sea. And when the disciples saw him walk- ing on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a ghost; and they cried out in fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. 108 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN 109 Acts 27. 22-25. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer; for there shall be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God whose I am, whom also I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must stand before Cesar: and lo, God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer. John 20. 11, 18, 15. But Mary was standing without at the tomb weeping.... Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him... . Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? John 16. 33b. In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. Meditation.— Luke 2. 19, 36-38. But Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart. . .. And there was one Anna, a prophetess ... who departed not from the temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications night and day. And coming up at that very hour she gave thanks unto God, and spake of him to all them that were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. Courtesy.— Luke 7. 36-40, 44-47. And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he entered into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. And behold, a woman who was in the city, a sinner; and when she knew that he was sitting at meat in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster cruse of oint- ment, and standing behind at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee that had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what manner of Peroran this is that toucheth him, that she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Teacher, say on.... And turning to the woman, he said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? [I entered into thy house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath wetted my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. Thou gavest me no kiss: but she, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but she hath 110 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loveth much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. Goop CHEER There was nothing more characteristic of the human Jesus than his joyousness, his optimism. One phrase that was very often on his lips and is recorded frequently, under a wide variety of circumstances, is “Be of good cheer.” The basis of joy.—A glance at the settings under which he gave this oft-reiterated encouragement will show how manifold are the reasons he found in life for men and women to keep up their spirits. ‘To the palsied man it was forgiveness of sin; to the woman suffering from an old ailment, release from suffering; to the storm-tossed disci- ples, the assuaging of terrifying mental complexes; to a discouraged Paul, persecuted in his name, the whispered assurance of his own companionship on the far journey to Rome. Even life’s darkest moment of grief over a lost loved one Christ reckoned to be consistent with cheer when to the weeping Mary he said, “Woman, why weepest thou ?” And as if to summarize all grounds for joy he made the supreme entreaty: “In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” In other words, none of us can frame a plausible excuse for gloom. The gentle Stevenson, who gave us the buoyant lines ; “The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be happy as kings,” was constantly pushing back death by sheer will to go on creating. He wandered the face of the earth, from Saranac to Samoa, in search of health, singing of the road of the loving heart. Dickens too, with his genius for good cheer, has set down for our inspiration a real basis for joy in the - conversation between crusty, selfish, old Scrooge and his nephew, poor but thriftily attempting to meet the needs of his large family. Scrooge, concluding his statement about Christmas being humbug—“‘just a time for paying bills without money, for finding oneself a year older but not an hour wiser’—exploded: “What right have you to _ be merry? You're poor enough!” to which the indomitable % AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY NOE: nephew made that memorable retort: “Come, then! What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough!” The most cheerful girl in a certain club is one whose mother is a hopeless prisoner of her mind in a sanitarium. Though constantly overshadowed by this oppressing grief and by the realization that her family’s reverse of fortune has deprived her of the college education that was to have been hers she goes forth radiantly to work each morning in the subway rush. Her unquenchable good cheer makes her a favorite among young and old. She says, “I once saw a little verse, attached to a modest bouquet some- one had laid at the base of the memorial cenotaph in Lon- don, which just expresses me: | “Friends may think that I forget you When they see my cheery smile; Yet they never know the heartache That the smiles hide all the while.’ ”’ The distinction between good spirits and good cheer.— Good cheer is something abiding, the crucible of “‘over- coming”; while good spirits are a mood of a moment, which may for no good cause suddenly descend to “the dumps.” Young people are often thought of as supreme optimists, but, as Dr. John Hutton of London indicated, youth is the most easily discouraged sector of the race. “Tt tends to lose heart when discouragements thwart its ambitions.” Young Timothy, writing to Paul about the difficulties of his parish, wanted to give up and was held to his task only by the unescapable logic of the great apostle, who wrote him, “Take thy share of hardness.” Youth’s good spirits are admirable, but because they have not become stabilized into good cheer, the leadership of the universe cannot yet be turned over to them, much as they may desire it. Genuine good cheer comes from accepting one’s share of the world’s hardness, going through with one’s work faithfully from day to day, playing the game, and finding life happier, simpler, and more worth living all the while. Good cheer in the face of death.—Christ’s surprised question to Mary in the Easter garden seems to imply * 112 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN that he allowed no place for despondency even in moments of supreme human sorrow. To be sure, he once wept for his friend Lazarus but ceased his mourning as soon as he realized that there was at hand a great need that he could meet. Continued mourning which blinds one to service that should be rendered is not of the spirit of Christ. Is your faith in immortality so real that you can approach grieving friends confidently, with Christ’s own queries ?— “Woman, why weepest thou?” “Why are ye troubled? and wherefore do questionings arise in your heart?” “Be not amazed; . . . he is risen; he is not here.” MEDITATION Its present unpopularity —“I just hate to be alone. If an evening comes when I have no definite engagement after business, [ always phone one of the girls to come over and talk to me while I catch up with my mending or rid out my bureau.” ‘Thus spoke a certain girl who fairly well represents the spirit of her age. The frenzied activity that fills all our days and nights has made us afraid of solitude and filled it with blue bugaboos, goblins of gloom, and solemn specters of introspection. Some people are so annihilating their own personalities by constant rushing about that were they to look in a true mirror, no reflection would come back. We go to work in crowds, worship in crowds, play in crowds—in fact, we have surrendered to “the crowd mind,” which is giving psychologists good ground for fear about our future. Edward Alsworth Ross calls the crowd “the lowest form of human association” and claims that “thronging paralyzes thought.” He be- lieves that “crowds are morally and intellectually below the average of their members.” Our acute need for solitude.—We all need a desert place (even if it is only within the kingdom of our mind), a prayer place like the little stone chapel of Queen Mar- garet at Edinburgh. If you are a business woman you need to shut your soul in, thrust yourself headlong into the universe of God, and roam there until you have wrested something of sheer spiritual beauty to counteract the very practicality of your daily affairs. If you are a mother you will find many things to “ponder” concerning the goodness AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 113 of God and the precious revealings of him in the upturned face of your child. .Mary’s life in the little house at Nazareth must have been cluttered with wunescapable rounds of monotonous tasks, so that she felt, as did Julia Ward Howe: “How can I wipe noses and see to flannel petticoats and still be expected to read and meditate and do things of abiding value? As to the soul of me—the part that feels and thinks and imagines—I fear it will have to wait until the next world, for there is no place for it in this!” Yet Mary meditated on all the sayings of the shepherds and the Wise Men, “pondering them in her heart.” It is indeed a fine art to be able to resist suc- cumbing to “the tragedy of trifles’ and to wrest from each day something of abiding value to the real self of us. The reason why so many young people are so confused about their selection of a life calling is that they refuse to take time to sit at the feet of Christ, as did Mary, and “hear his words.” Maude Royden’s tender sympathy and gracious helpfulness are the flowers of a deep, silent fel- lowship with God. She came out of Oxford with a feeling that she ought to study her Bible at least as diligently as she had been pondering the Greek philosophers. Her scholarly approach to a neglected Book led to a tremendous yearning for a personal knowledge of a Christ of power. One day the secret of making that power a reality in her own life was revealed by a Quaker who had had a similar experience and had heard a voice speak to her, “Be quiet and hear what I have to say to thee!”” To many of us he is saying those very words: “Be quiet and hear what I have to say to you.” This is essential to be even a good worker. It is said of Thomas A. Edison that when he was told that an operation was necessary to cure him of the deafness that was shutting him out from so much of the world’s affairs he at first consented reluctantly; then, on the very day it was to be performed, sent word to the doctor not to come. He preferred to remain deaf because he wanted “to go on thinking and found he could think better when the notses of the world were shut out.” The peril of a meditative temperament.—“I don’t like that word ‘meditation,’?” said an alert business woman. 114 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN “Tt sounds so medieval and suggests being shut up in one of the nunneries for which the Middle Ages were famous. Meditative people are so apt to be morbid and impractical and just plain lazy.” However, there is a way of “dream- ing and not letting dreams your master be.” ‘The alterna- tion of action with meditation is a wholesome corrective. We are led to believe from the phrase in Luke 10. 39— “Who also sat at the Lord’s feet”—that Mary was accus- tomed to doing her share of the household duties; and we know that in addition to choosing “the good part”—-sitting at the feet of the Christ Guest and pondering over his words—she also bestirred herself upon the occasion of a later visit shortly before his death to secure the precious ointment “and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair.” Even Anna the prophetess, who “de- parted not from the temple, worshiping with fastings and supplications night and day,” burst into action when she beheld the Child-Christ blessed by Simeon; for “she spake of him to all that were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Hilda of Whitby, by her wholesome blending of action with meditation, offers a great contrast to some of the other medieval mystics—a contrast that is very acceptable to the modern woman. ‘This once-pagan girl of a dark age was made abbess of the great new monastery at Whitby, where both men and women devoted themselves to the pursuits of their order. Her administrative powers were so exceptional that a great center of religion and culture flourished under her regime, and many prominent people sought her advice and her interpretation of the love of God. In the days when monks were bending over the copying desks that left to posterity such exquisite sacred manuscripts, she made her abbey a center of religious edu- cation, sending out monks to convert half-Christianized parts of Britain. It is said that five of her students became bishops, and that she was the great inspiration of Cedmon, the “father of all English poetry.” A similar blending is found in the life of Lady Helen Lucretia Cornelia, whose life story is depicted in the great central window of the library at Vassar College. This remarkable young woman received her doctorate from the AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 115 University of Padua in 1678 after training under the emi- nent theologian Hippolytus and other professors. But her intellectual prowess and meditative habits did not deter her from engaging in many works of charity. When, at the age of only thirty-eight, her immortal soul returned to God, the mourning city observed her passing with a fu- neral that was a counterpart of her triumph when crowned a doctor. Her body was attired in a Benedictine oblate, over which was placed the symbol of a doctor, and the brow of the laureate was crowned with a double garland of lilies and laurels: the one indicative of the purity of her life; the other typifying the profound learning of this young woman who, in that time so long preceding the day of feminism, used. her intelligence to the greater glory of her God. The use of meditative moments.—A genuine acquaint- ance with God may be cultivated by just sitting and listen- ing for his voice. How do you know that he may not dictate to you some such utterance as he spoke to Frances Havergal in her thrilling poem beginning, “Reality, reality, Lord Jesus Christ, thou art to me!” The Bible may be really discovered, perhaps by reading it in a fresh trans- lation such as Moffatt’s, or Goodspeed’s, or Mrs. Helen Barrett Montgomery’s. Read it as if you had never seen it before, “for pleasure rather than for piety.” People would be more sensible if they read fewer books about the Bible and spent their time on the Book itself. Some of the world’s really great literature may be given the attention it merits—books that give vistas of whole eras in history and judgments of life’s deep things, which cannot be discussed in any other way. “Do young Ameri- cans read anything at all? Do they know anything? Why do they think God wasted his time in putting a Browning or a Shakespeare into the world?” We may be sure that we have become proficient in the fine art of medi- tation when, even in the midst of a crowd, we can get “apart” and ‘think a while. “T almost never say my prayers With smoothly folded eyes— So many prayers go blundering Each day to paradise. 116 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN “1’d think that God would tire so Of prayers all neat and trim When rows and rows of them each day March stiffly up to him. “T wait until some cool, fresh dawn When he goes down our walk, And then I run and slip my hand Within his hand and talk.’ CouURTESY The charm of it.—Much of the charm that people felt for Christ was due to his exquisite courtesy of manner. Whether to a despised woman of Samaria—surprised that a gentleman, and a Galilean at that, should address her; or to little Zaccheus, whose sense of inferiority Christ dispelled by inviting him to come down from the tree to be his host; or to the suave young ruler himself, so ex- emplary in courtesy, Christ’s approach was the embodi- ment of grace in conduct. The secret components of his courtesy are revealed in the Sermon on the Mount: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” ‘“‘Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him two.” “All things there- fore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them.” In an unforgettable way Christ enacted his conception of courtesy in the incident of the sinful woman of the streets, who, slipping into the banquet room of the rich Pharisee, did for Christ those little niceties which the host had overlooked and was re- warded by appreciation from his own lips. Look up Jesus’ rules for guests (Luke 14. 7-11), for hosts (Luke 14. 12- 24), his “rules of the road” for Christian workers (Luke 10. 1-20), and his requirements from his personal friends (John 15. 14, 15). We all like courteous people if their courtesy is not sham. The late Walter Hines Page, in a letter to a friend, con- fessed that it was by genuine courtesy that he had achieved what he had been able to achieve; and that it was for this that the people liked him who did like him. The late Dr. John Henry Jowett, that prince of. English preachers, was one day walking over a muddy road in the 1**Devotions,’’ by Elinor L. Norcross; from the Christian Century; used by permission. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY BAA? hills behind the British camp. Right on the edge of the ruts, on their very lips, as it seemed, he saw dainty little flowers strangely blooming. “So may it ever be in my life,’ he thought: “exquisite flowers of delicate courtesy blooming in the very ruts!” The unselfish expressiveness of a courteous personality. —Have you ever watched a person who is ill at ease being introduced to a group of strangers? Have you ever noticed how he freezes up, hiding his embarrassment behind a wall of blasé reserve? What a warming contrast to see the approach of a really gracious personality, reaching out ‘in generous giving of self in wholesome abandon! Real courtesy is not “holding back” but “letting go” the assets of one’s whole moral make-up. It is self-expression to the nth power. Mrs. Helen Gould Shepard is its embodiment when she is entertaining groups of Japanese girls from American schools, in her home at Irvington. She is able to address each by her own unpronounceable name (having studied the guest list diligently beforehand) and makes the sincerest of inquiries into their happiness in this far country, putting them all immediately at ease. At Christ- mas her courtesies are not handed over en masse to a professional shopper, but in person she goes to select an appropriate fur robe for a Young Men’s Christian Asso- ciation secretary in the Northwest or a “silver luxury” for her pastor’s dinner table. Although courtesy fulfills the definition of a fine art in that it is “primarily designed to make others happy” and in that it is “unselfish,” as all great art is, it often proves to be a very practical art, as illustrated in the strange story told by Mrs. James Hoover, of Borneo. One day when her missionary husband was away from their little home in the tropical wilderness, Mrs. Hoover was terrified to see from her window a group of massive head hunters surrounding the house. Her first inspiration was to try the weapon of courtesy, so, sitting down at the little organ, she began to play hymns. Fascinated by the new sounds, the natives sat down in a circle and, before long, nodding like children to the rhythm of a lullaby, they were fast asleep. Grote judged by individuals.—It is a tendency of all of 118 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN us to generalize from some one or two outstanding experi- ences. If you have found one specially courteous sales- girl do you not patronize that store? or avoida Y. W. C. A. in a city where some temporary office helper was indifferent to your needs? A woman who is nationally known in advertising circles as one of the very few business women with an earning capacity of ten thousand dollars a year, in an address to the Brooklyn Business and Professional Women’s Association, said there is no gainsaying the fact that women in business, like all the rest of the world’s women, do not play the game; they are not loyal to one another as men are, and at their first opportunity they ram down the throat of every man every adverse statement they have ever heard made against every other woman. Doctor Cadman takes an opposite point of view about the courtesy of women in business. “Buying a railroad ticket from a woman clerk is a pleasure; from a man, an experi- ence,” he declares. A cure for war.—Just as Jesus was recognized by his way of breaking bread in the house of his friends at. Emmaus, so is the real soul of a nation known by its way, of dealing with other peoples. Walter Hines Page, American’s wartime ambassador to Great Britain, writing to the President on October 25, 1913, called attention to America’s customary neglect of polite manners in nego- tiating little, unimportant dealings. Accumulating through generations these little rudenesses has made Kurope regard us as a nation thoughtless of the little fine arts of life. The more he saw of diplomatic customs abroad, the more important he considered the details of international courtesy. He even suggested, half in jest, to Colonel House, that we needed in Washington a master of courtesies and wrote to him on November 12, 1915, that he believed the first step toward peace was courtesy; and the second step was courtesy; and the third step a fine and high courtesy. He deplored our government’s way of ad- dressing nations with which we have much in common, not as old friends, but as strangers. Our communications to England he found not discourteous but wholly wn- courteous, which is worse. One of the most distinguished citizens of America’s AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 119 Northwest—Justice Thomas Burke—died pleading for a more courteous method of communicating our will to for- eign nations. His last words, spoken at a meeting of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, were an expression of profound regret that Congress had unneces- sarily offended Japan in its method of handling Japanese exclusion when the desired results might have been just as well gained in a more courteous way. “I implore the coun- try to come to a realization of the greater value in foreign relations of good manners and kindly courtesy,” he said and was stricken fatally before finishing his sentence. Might not the following slogan, posted in congested traffic centers, be suggested to nations as well: “Courtesy pro- motes safety—try wt’? QUESTIONS FOR Group Discussion 1. How could you raise the good-cheer thermometer of your business place? 2. If you came upon a girl in “the blues” how would you go about helping her? Would you take her out for a good time or get at the real basis for her depression? Which would be likely to produce the quicker result? 3. Who is the most cheerful person you know? Has she more means than the average girl of her group? Has her life been consistently fortunate or punctuated by mis- fortunes ? 4. Do you find yourself so preoccupied with your own affairs that it is very difficult to interest yourself in the concerns of others? 5. How can you reorganize your daily schedule to get in “a meditative moment”? Could you cultivate this mood while on your way to business? 6. Do you find it difficult to concentrate on reading? How can you discipline yourself to enjoy books? %. Could you organize round-robin reading circles within your discussion group, each girl purchasing one book and passing it on to the others? To whom would you turn for advice about selecting worth-while books? Would you include more modern books or ones proved worthy of your time by the test of years? 8. What is the danger of the dreamer? Show that it 120 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN is not only possible to combine the temperaments of Mary and of Martha but necessary to do so if we are to live abundantly. 9. Are you as punctilious as you expect others to be with you in the little courtesies, such as answering invitations, returning borrowed property, calling at times of illness, avoiding jostling in crowds, and pushing ahead of one’s turn in a line? 10. What if other people fail to measure up when you extend courtesies? Ought you to “call them to time” or cease remembering them with greetings, gifts, and other attentions? Unless you really care for them should you go “the second mile” ? 11. If a friend injures you ought you to go frankly and demand an apology or avoid contacts with her? 12. Think of the most charming person you know. Enumerate the elements of her appeal to you. 13. Is it easier to be courteous to “inferiors” or to those who are your superiors in business? 14. What “courtesy methods” does your firm employ as regards relation and good will of employees to one another? as regards service to the public? What addi- tional courtesies would you suggest? 15. Should a woman employee consider her men col- leagues impolite if, in group conferences about business, they do not rise when she enters or offer her a chair or ask her permission to smoke? When she demands equality of opportunity should she expect the old measure of chivalry to be accorded her? What do you think of the statement a man recently made: “It’s awfully hard to be gallant to a flapper’? Why does he feel that way? Do girls want courtesy? Why is it that young women often turn down men friends of refinement and choose ones “coarser in the fiber’? How much responsibility have girls for establishing the courtesy code of their circle of acquaintance? Does the same man often have different standards of personal conduct when with different women ? 16. Do you have any foreign-born acquaintances to whom you can interpret a friendly Christian America by your own courtesy of attitude? CHAPTER IX LIFE’S DISAPPOINTMENTS—HOW SHALL I FACHK THEM? A YOUNG woman who was teaching school and happily filling her hope chest with treasures for the home that was soon to be established suddenly found herself overwhelmed by a catastrophe that bore down upon her soul like a de- vouring beast. Her fiancé, a brilliant young Christian, had worked his way through college with a Phi Beta Kappa record. After patiently helping younger brothers to complete their education he had obtained an assistant professorship in a State university and was saving a snug little nest egg for the future home when seized with a fatal streptococcus infection. The letter written by his sweetheart in response to an expression of sympathy from her Bible class lays bare her soul’s response to one of the most tragic disappointments which can come to any young | woman: My Drar GIRLS: I want to thank you for your genuine sympathy. Words at a time like this seem of little comfort, yet the assurance of your love does make me feel a bit better. Life seems so hopeless now. All the dreams, the hopes, the ambitions, that Walter and I had are never to be realized! At times I wonder how I shall ever bear such a crushing sor- row. Just why this had to happen, when life seemed so full of happiness for both of us, I cannot understand. But I am trying hard to remember that God is infinitely wise. And when the visions of our home, which will never be, arise to taunt me, I force myself to remember that we are eternity- bound creatures. I’m glad that I knew and loved Walter, and his serene, modest, unassuming life will always be a hallowed memory and benediction to me. God grant that I may find consolation in the love of our Father in heaven—TI need it. The sorrow of this young woman is only one of a host of disappointments that are coming daily to girls in every 121 122 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN land. The strong faith it called forth in her case is defi- nitely inspiring. Let us see whether we can find in the New Testament any record showing how women who had actual contact with the living Christ and his disciples met the crushing disappointments that crashed down upon them. DISAPPOINTED FRIENDS OF JESUS Luke 8. 1-3. And it came to pass soon afterwards, that he went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God, and with him the twelve, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuzas Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who min- istered unto them of their substance. Luke 23. 27-31, 55, 56. And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turn- ing unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the breasts that never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the moun- tains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? ... And the women, who had come with him out of Galilee, followed after and beheld the tomb, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. And on the sabbath they rested according to the command- ment. Luke 24. 1-7. But on the first day of the week, at an early dawn, they came unto the tomb, bringing the spices which they had pre pared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, while they were perplexed there- about, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel: and as they were affrighted and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. Acts 1. 14. These all with one accord continued stedfastly in prayer, AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 123 with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. BEREAVEMENT The world’s womanhood has never witnessed a greater disappointment than that which befell the group of min- istering women who followed Christ through the crowded days of his public ministry; for, coupled with sorrow for the death of their first wholly sympathetic friend, came the collapse of the dream that had induced them, as well as the men disciples, to “leave all and follow him.” What this meant in a day when the freedom of women was largely restricted to their own homes, to the paths that led to village wells, and to certain portions of the sanctuary, it is hard for us to imagine. Only some great, impelling motive, such as gratitude for the healing of their own or loved ones’ infirmities, or for the casting out of “evil spirits,” bad tempers, and surly dispositions could have induced them to bear the jibes and taunts of a cynical world, which was always prompt to put the worst interpre- tation upon women’s motives. The hope that gave worth to life. oY Althouah some of those who “ministered unto them of their substance” were prominent, as, for example, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, and Salome, the wife of Zebedee, many of them are heroines as unnamed and as unknown as the mysterious warriors who sleep at Arlington, in Westminster Abbey, and under the Parisian Arc de Triomphe. They are just referred to as “many other women’’—the sort who to-day would be side-aisle Christians—folks who sit in the less prominent places of the church, seeking not public recog- nition but simply a chance to serve in their own sincere way; not asking, like the sons of Zebedee, for a con- spicuous place in the Kingdom but finding ‘sufficient re- ward in the success of his plans. These unnamed women of faith were in the first century, and are still in the twentieth, the living stones upon which the church is built. So sure had the disciples been of Christ?s imminent recognition as Messiah that their disappointment over his arrest and condemnation by Herod was staggering. In- 124 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN stead of the happy words of commendation usually spoken by kings to their faithful followers on coronation day these were the ominous words that fell upon their ears: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, . . . ‘Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.” The courage of a worthy life—How thrilling are the words that tell how the disappointed women met their catastrophe! It is picturesque, faithful Luke who gives us the climax record: the women, who had come with him out of Galilee, followed after and “beheld the tomb returned and prepared spices and ointments.” In other words, they looked their sorrow squarely in the face and met it with an act of further faith and service. There was no betrayal, as with Judas; no denial, as with Peter; no skepticism as in Thomas’ case; no loud tumult of lament, as with the paid mourners who bewailed with uproar the young daughter of Jairus. These women met the chal- lenge of disappointment with the silent dignity of more service. Some people cannot stand up under sorrow because they refuse to face it frankly. A certain woman whose hus- band died before she could reach the hospital was so pros- trated that she could not look upon his body. She ordered the body taken to a funeral parlor and brought to her home only on the evening of the service. What would you say was the matter with this woman? Finding comfort in service—How inspiring are the lives of those who, like the women of Christ’s company, behold the tomb and return to prepare spices and oint- ments! Madame Marie Sklodowska Curie, discoverer of the most wonderful substance of healing known to modern medicine, was happily at work one day in 1906, administer- ing the humble household of her professor husband and two daughters; and giving her whole soul to collaboration with Monsieur Curie in the study of the two elements they had discovered—polonium and radium. Suddenly a mes- senger called her to the door and told her that her hus- band had been killed by a wagon on his way to the uni- AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 125 versity. The terrible blow of losing him who was both father of her daughters and dearest colleague in the science that made them more than husband and wife seri- ously impaired her health; but even her irreparable loss did not deter her from the beneficent studies that were blessing all mankind. So persistently did she lean over her microscope that she was called to succeed Monsieur Curie at the Faculty of Science. ‘Then, in 1911 she won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and later was instrumental in establishing the Radium Institute for Research in connection with the great Pasteur Institute of Paris. When the war broke out, she offered herself to the governmental school of radiology to train one hundred and fifty girl operators. Sometimes she accompanied the ambulances of the radiological auxiliary to the French Medical Service, whose prompt action saved the lives of many of the wounded. So great was the serv- ice of this woman scientist, who bent her God-given talent not to the destruction but to the saving of human life, that she was given an ovation by the women of America and presented by President Harding with a gramme of radium on their behalf. It is hard to estimate how much the sufferings of the world have been reduced because of this noble woman who “beheld the tomb . . . and returned and prepared spices.” There have been few more devoted royal couples than Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the shy young Ger- man who rose from the obscure role of a “foreigner” disin- terested in England’s politics to the position where a na- tion was at his feet. Victoria adored him, and he was ever a princely lover, gallantly relieving her of as many irksome duties as possible by rising early to get her offi- cial mail and messages in shape. His death brought para- lyzing grief, but the resolution of her girlhood, recorded in her journal on the day of her coronation, sustained her. “Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this sta- tion,” then wrote the eighteen-year-old queen, “TI shall do my utmost to fulfill my duty toward my country. . I am sure that very few have more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.” Her “will to be good” stamped itself on the remaining years of her long reign 126 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN and upon the whole period, which is named for her “the Victorian Age.” While Mrs. William Perry Eveland was spending her furlough from missionary duty in Malaysia in the moun- tains of Pennsylvania, her husband—Bishop Eveland— failed to return one rainy night from a fishing trip, with which he sought to refresh his body, tired to the breaking point with work in the Orient. At dawn a lad found him, dead, near a high-power electric wire, which had come into contact with his steel fishing rod. Mrs. Eveland, childless, shocked, with loneliness and grief, refused to live the quiet life of ease her sisters suggested but instead plunged deeper than ever into work for Malaysia. Here is a recent statement of the work of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church: “Sixteen missionaries of the peninsular and island fields were brought to the platform by Mrs, Eveland—one third of the whole number for that entire field, whose popula- tion is sixty millions.” It indicates the scope of the serv- ice to which she dedicated herself more fully than ever when “she beheld the tomb . . . and returned and prepared spices.” Possibly more poignant than even the grief for a fiancé or a husband is a woman’s sorrow for a lost child. A young Philadelphia matron, mourning for her little girl as those that have no hope, was strangely blessed by a dream, which is a modern parable for those who weep. Prostrated with grief, she threw herself upon the bed and sobbed herself to sleep. And lo! a great procession of people passed before her, arrayed in white and making as if they were on their way to a high festival. She noticed that each one lifted aloft a lighted candle, which illumi- nated the face of Christ. One by one the mother scanned them, looking for her Mary. At last a child’s sweet figure came along with the procession. Her little arm was upraised, but her candle was not lighted. “Mary, light your candle, dear!” exclaimed the mother. “The others are all burning.” And the child replied, “I did light it, mother, but your tears keep putting it out.” With a start the young woman awoke and returned to the room where the father sat alone. Her face was so aglow with smiles AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 127 that he at first thought she was beside herself. And from that day to this her parable of the tear-extinguished candle has gone out to many in sorrow and been applied as oint- ment to many a grieving mother heart. BrRoKEN PLANS Reverse of fortune——It is Goethe who said that “sor- row’s crown of sorrows is remembering happier days.” Is financial loss likely to entail a loss of faith? The Baroness Leja de Torinoff had from girlhood felt a sym- pathy for the unprivileged peasants of Russia akin to that of Count Tolstoy; but, although heiress to several estates, she was powerless to improve their condition because of the criticism of neighboring nobility. So, with a dis- couraged fatalism, she succumbed to the conventional Rus- sian outlook upon society and religion. The first year of the war took her husband. Troops were quartered in her loveliest castle. Her only child was interned in Germany, and she counted herself fortunate in making a providential escape to America. But her exodus from prosperity to want proved to be a transition from spiritual Siberia to salvation; for to-day, as an American citizen and devout Protestant of warmly evangelical faith, she counts her lost prosperity as nothing compared with her present satisfac- tion in going up and down America, singing and telling the story of Christ’s leading and his amazing care for her and her daughter. Closed doors—and open roads.—Alberta Lee set her heart upon going to Malaysia as a missionary nurse and completed her three-year course in a Methodist hospital. At last the day came when she could offer herself to the Board of Foreign Missions. But she was rejected because her elementary education had been deficient. When, a few months later, she recovered from the shock, she enrolled for special night courses in Columbia University, carried this work along with supervision of hospital dispensary cases, and ultimately became superintendent of nurses in a great city hospital, where she exerted a profound reli- gious influence over the hundreds of young nurses pour- ing into the training school from country communities. Mary Ann Evans, as a girl on her father’s farm in 128 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Warwickshire, England, in the 1820s felt herself so ham- pered by limited educational opportunities and so disap- pointed at being born a girl that when, at the age of thirty-seven, she submitted her first novel to a publisher, she signed herself by the nom de plume “George Eliot.” In her Daniel Deronda she said, “You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s force of genius in you and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl”? How wonderfully she freed herself, even in her day, from this handicap is shown by the intensive studies she made for Romola, which she says she began as a girl and finished as an old woman. In preparation for writing Daniel Deronda she is said to have read a thousand vyol- umes. Physical handicaps.—Literature is full of instances of writers who have been spurred on by invalidism to accom- plish astonishingly fruitful labors. From Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Nellie Revell and Beckie Tabor of our day we can trace the triumph of spirit over physical suffering. It is said of Sidney Lanier, whose life was a ceaseless battle with ill health and adversity, that he wrote his master poem “Sunrise” when too feeble to raise food to his mouth and with a temperature of 104, fearful lest he should die before he had finished the poem. ‘The late Joseph Conrad, feeling his strength waning, goaded him- self on toward the completion of his novel Suspense, dur- ing the final weeks of his life. Painfully he wrote, dictat- ing at the same time, so that someone else might type the manuscript. Helen Keller, having won her own victory over terrific physical handicaps, wrote to a little girl in Brooklyn hope- lessly crippled in an accident: I have just read in the newspaper about your accident and I feel I simply must write to you. I am very, very sorry. My heart is full of sympathy and love for the dear, brave little girl who is bearing everything with such sweetness and courage. All my life I have had unusual obstacles to over- come and in spite of them I have found life beautiful. lL have been able to do something for myself and others. You too, dear Fanny, will learn to find beauty and happiness in the world. Grief and pain are but the soil from which springs the lovely plant unselfishness. Be gentle and learn how to AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 129 suffer. When one suffers patiently one suffers less. ... Be- lieve me, dear, the future is shaped out of the past. What- ever you can do to live bravely, without impatience and with- out complaining, will help you to live some future day in joy- ful contentment. When trouble first comes, we do not know what to do with it. We are bewildered; but after a little while we learn our new part—the thing we can do best—and we take up the task God puts into our hands with a smile in our hearts. I am sending you the story of my life because I hope it may encourage you. You will see that even deafness and blindness are obstacles that can be overcome. A little lame daughter in an Ohio Methodist parson- age was helped through friends to undergo an operation enabling her to walk; but she remained terribly crippled and resentful because she could not engage in a normal girl’s activities with her friends. Then her wise father interested her in becoming a superior scholar. She was able to complete her college course and do graduate special- ization and is to-day a brilliant member of the faculty of a large woman’s college. She is admired for the transcend- ent beauty of her face, honored for the glowing quality of her mind, and loved for her genius for friendship. ° Potencies unfulfilled.—Statistics show that there are proportionately more single women in the United States now than in colonial times. Is economic independence the explanation? Is it a matter of choice? Or is society to blame for not providing adequate means for young people to meet their own kind legitimately? This was the sub- ject of a spirited discussion at a recent college reunion. What do you think about it? A survey of eminent American women revealed the fact that only half of them were married. We have only to think of a Jane Addams or a Lilian Wald in the settle- ment world, or of a Julia Stimpson in the nursing pro- fession, or of the late Amy Lowell in the world of letters to realize what some of America’s “surplus celibates” (whether by choice or necessity) have accomplished. The majority of America’s four hundred thousand school teachers are single. Much of the vast missionary en- deavor of the world is carried on by those who will never know a home of their own. The worlds of science and invention are tenanted by women who in other days might 130 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN have been lonely spinsters dreaming, in Myrtle Reed fash- ion, of “lavendar and old lace.” Lady Astor has called our attention to the fact that much of the benevolent work of the world is being carried on by spinsters, who “expand” as they grow older. She thinks that in contrast bachelors tend to “contract” and grow narrow, selfish, and crotchety. There are certainly “old maids” of both sexes. Perhaps fewer men than women who remain single find or make for themselves intimate affections through which to spend their energies in that daily exercise of unselfish service which normally comes in the demands of marriage and parenthood. In our day as never before the thousand doors of the house of serv- ice are flung wide to give opportunities to girls who are for one reason or another deprived of a romantic experi- ence. The records of an Isabella Thoburn, founding a col- lege for girls of India, and of Mary Reed, ministering to her leper colony, are thrilling spiritual romances. The disappointment of childless homes.—Many women who would make far better mothers than many who are such are finding satisfaction for their instincts in caring for unmothered children of the world. Helen Gould Shepard has adopted a few children to do her share of mothering the forlorn boys and girls of the world. ‘There are college women in almost every class who are doing this. Even on the mission fields, where salaries are meager for the support of even one individual, women are adopting native children. Thus, by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, mothering those who are motherless, they are inheriting the kingdom prepared for them from the foun- dation of the world. Even where it is not advisable to adopt children much joy can be derived in the service of the pitiful troop of orphans. A certain young woman whose heart was full of unclaimed love of child life was one day driving past the little hospital building of a home for children. “Could anything be more pathetic,” she exclaimed, “than to be both ill and parentless?” Just then a thin little arm ap- peared at a window as it turned the page of a scrap book on the hospital cot. It was an unconscious S O S eall,, which the young woman heeded, and an invitation to a AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 131 ministry that has continued for years with an inestimable return of joy. Many boys and girls in their teens are quite as much in need of mothering as are these little children, and the single woman who is meeting and solv- ing problems similar to theirs—whether of lonesomeness or disappointment or temptation—can have a truly crea- tive share in the next generation if she loves unselfishly. The same motives animate many of the splendid women of culture and means who go year after year to Doctor Grenfell’s many-sided missions in the Labrador, paying their own expenses and receiving no salary, just for the privilege of making the blind see, the crooked straight, and the orphaned “no longer desolate.” THE SECRET Have you ever wondered why the ministering women who were friends of Jesus in the first century—and since —were able to “behold the tomb” and then to return and prepare spices? A single verse in Acts 1 explains it: “They all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer, with the women, and: Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” If the women continued in prayer, it must have been habitual with them. Nothing can continue that has not previously existed. ‘Those who pray in time of prosperity will find it their stay in hours of adversity. These loyal women who refused to be separated from the Master even by death had fulfilled his requirements for discipleship; had for his sake left houses, brethren, sisters, father, mother, children, lands, and had received the “hun- dredfold” promised. Their heritage from Christ was not only the assurance of eternal life but the stamina that en- abled them to stand all the discouragements that lay this side of eternity. QUESTIONS FoR Group DIscussION 1. Tell, if you are willing, of the greatest disappoint- ment you ever experienced. What was its immediate effect upon (a) your disposition; (b) your religious faith; (c) your subsequent life? 2. Have most of the disappointments of your life been 132 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN due to circumstances outside your control or to factors within your own life? 3. Have you any passages in the Bible to which you habitually turn for encouragement? How about Deuter- onomy 33. 25; Isaiah 40. 31; 1 Corinthians 15. 58; Ro- mans 15. 13? 4, How can one increase his ability to sympathize with disappointed or bereaved friends? 5. Can you mention any instances, in literature or life, in which persons have definitely turned acute disappoint- ment to constructive ends? 6. If a friend has disappointed you in failing to measure up to your ideal for him, what is to be done? %. If you feel disappointed with your own character, what Bible passages will you select as the foundation for the new structure? 1 Corinthians 10. 13; James 1. 12; 1 John 2. 1-3? CHAPTER X TO WHOM AM I NEIGHBOR? PRAYER FOR FREEDOM From RacE PREJUDICE Gop, who hast made man in thine own likeness and who dost love all whom thou hast made, suffer us not, because of difference in race, color, or condition, to separate ourselves from others and thereby from thee; but teach us the unity of thy family and the universality of thy love. As thy Son, our Saviour, was born of a Hebrew mother and ministered first to his brethren of the house of Israel but rejoiced in the faith of a Syrophenician woman and of a Roman soldier, and suffered his cross to be carried by a man of Africa: teach us, also, while loving and serving our own, to enter into the communion of the whole human family; and forbid that, from pride of birth and hardness of heart, we should despise any for whom Christ died, or injure any in whom he lives. Amen. The word “neighbor” has undergone an interesting evo- Jution with the progress of the ages. With several illumi- nating passages of Scripture before us let us consider the real meaning of neighborliness for us as twentieth-century persons. NEIGHBORS One who is near at hand.— Luke 1. 57, 58. Now Elisabeth’s time was fulfilled that she should be de- livered; and she brought forth a son. And her neighbors and her kinsfolk heard that the Lord had magnified his mercy towards her; and they rejoiced with her. Luke 15. 3-6, 8, 9. And he spake unto them this parable, saying, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have 1Mornay Williams; used by permission. 133 134 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN found my sheep which was lost. ... Or what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost. John 9. 7%, 8. He went away therefore, and washed, and came seeing. The neighbors therefore, and they that saw him aforetime, that he was a beggar, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? One who satisfies a need.— Luke 10. 29-33, 36. But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Jesus made answer and said, A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and de- parted, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. ... Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers? A member of the world family of the Father.— Matthew 15. 21-28. And Jesus went out thence, and withdrew into the parts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanitish woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. And he an- swered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. But she said, Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was healed from that hour. The marks of a good neighbor.— Matthew 22. 37-39. And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 135 mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Ephesians 4. 25-27. Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye the truth each one with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil. James 4. 12. One only is the lawgiver and judge, even he who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou that judgest thy neighbor? THE ENLARGING NEIGHBORHOOD Near neighbors.—The simplest possible conception of neighbor is expressed in the first group of Scripture passages quoted above where one idea is that of being near geographi- cally. The neighbors mentioned as rejoicing with right- eous Elisabeth over the birth of her son—John the Bap- tist—form a pleasing, folkish background for this beauti- ful incident, just as the community forms the human set- ting for the episodes of a great pageant. They are the same sort of neighbors as those mentioned in the parable of the woman who lost one piece of silver and the neigh- bors of the man who, having lost his hundredth sheep, found it. It was the folks who lived adjacent to him that the father of the prodigal son invited to make merry over his boy’s return. And it was because the people who were close at hand were such poor neighbors that the blind man at the pool of Siloam could not get into the healing waters. It was never difficult in the Orient to summon a caucus of neighbors. They sprang up on every occasion, either through curiosity or for mutual defense. Down through the centuries, as late as medieval days, cities were just overgrown neighborhoods. In the walled towns of that fascinating age, when people shut themselves within battle- ments of stone and circling moats, and their very existence depended on their hanging together, mere proximity kept them neighbors. But when the prosperous towns and free cities began to expand with the widening commercial horizons of the fif- teenth century, and with the industrial revolution, which came with the use of machinery from the eighteenth cen- 136 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN tury on, neighbors became less and less essential in the life of the individual. To-day, when city areas are made up of huge apartments and hotels whose vast population, shops, offices, and subway entrances make them towns in themselves, it is possible to live for years without having the slightest neighborly contact with those on the opposite side of an eight-inch wall. The neighborhood to-day is shown to be made up of those who have common inter- ests, regardless of thewr place of residence. 'The old defini- tion of neighbor as one who is near at hand is obsolete, but in outgrowing its original meaning it is taking on a new and deeper significance. Needy neighbors.—In the parable of the good Samari- tan the neighbor is described as one willing and able to meet the need of an ill-fated brother-traveler. The nephew of Scrooge, in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, possessed this generous genius. It is just the opposite of Thackeray’s picture when he said, “How lonely we are—a pair of in- finite isolations, with some fellow islands a little more or less near to us!” Now nations, in the sense of the folks who make them up, are learning to be neighbors in each other’s need. Recall the heroic work of the various coun- tries of Europe, even while they themselves were crippled and destitute, to take care of the refugees, the children, and the sick from other nations. You all know the work of the Near East Relief. On behalf of the thousands of refugee orphans America must continue to be moved with compassion, bind wp wounds, pour on them oil and wine, set broken bodies on beasts of progress, give many shillings for their care to the inn keeper, and, when that is spent, come back and repay it again. An example of neighborliness on a large scale is the Rockefeller Foundation. Its marvelous work includes hastening progress in medical schools in this country, England, Siam, and China. Hookworm disease, malaria, tuberculosis, yellow fever, it has combated in many lands. Its budget has contributed to rural health campaigns, pro- vided for 864 fellowships in 33 nations in one year, given funds to the education of nurses at Yale, and maintained a modern medical school at Peking. The medical program of the modern missionary enter- AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 13% prise corresponds to the Samaritan’s binding up of wounds. Its economic improvements (such as Sam Higginbottom’s agricultural experiments with waste land in India and the transformation of African jungle space into vegetable gardens) correspond to the giving of “shillings,” and orphanages are modern “inns” to befriend the lonely way- farers of the world. Different neighbors.—But loftier than the definition of neighbor as one who is near at hand and even nobler than its conception as one who meets a fellow’s need is the subtler idea suggested by the incident of Christ and the Canaanitish or Syrophcnician woman. Here was a for- eigner, a Syrian by descent, speaking Greek and living in Pheenicia, who insisted upon wresting her share of Christ’s feast of spiritual power even if only the crumbs were her portion. Her story is more than a revelation of the great Neighbor answering the cry of an anxious mother. It forms a New Testament background for our whole Chris- tian attitude toward races other than our own. Its mes- sage is the same as the one that came in Peter’s vision, which prepared him to minister to a Gentile centurion. Jesus and Peter, both by blood and education, were ardent Jews. An inbred preference for their own race had been stamped upon their nation’s consciousness ever since they were forbidden to intermarry with the Canaanites as a safeguard against defilement of their religion. With this in mind let us consider the incident of the Canaanitish woman. Jesus had just been trying to explain to the Pharisees and his own disciples the distinction between the cere- monial cleanness of washed hands and the real purity of a heart whose motives are wholly noble. He was exhausted with the fatigue that comes to every ardent preacher who tries to persuade an argumentative, hostile, uncompre- hending audience. And for respite he “went away into the borders of Tyre and Sidon.” It was far from his intention to preach the world an object lesson in interna- tional neighborliness. But the Canaanitish woman dis- covered him by her mother wit and so insistently demanded his healing for her daughter that she proved positively annoying to the disciples. Jesus refused firmly at first to 138 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN grant her request because he understood that the Father’s will for his life was to bring a message to his own race first. His principle was that of “concentration” for the sake of a later expansion of his message. As Doctor Cadman recently expressed it, one cannot swing around the circumference of a circle without first striking the center. | To understand this passage the play of words must be taken into consideration. The word Christ used for dogs signifies the little household pet, or “doggie,” which hides under the table to pick up choice tidbits, rather than the repellent sort of scavenger dog, which prowls about Orien- tal streets. The woman was quick to claim the share that even the “doggie” has in the family meal. By this turn of meaning she proved her right to Christ’s healing power. Her faith was irresistible and led him to go beyond the bounds he had felt set for his ministry at that hour. With verses 21-28 before you tabulate all the characteristics of this “foreign-born mother” which appear there. Her devo- tion to the daughter “possessed of an evil spirit” (verse 22), her persistence (verse 23), her reverence (verse 25), her humility (verse 25), her cleverness (verse 27), and her supreme quality of faith crowned by Christ’s spoken acknowledgment of it (verse 28)—are there any other traits ? WorxLD NEIGHBORS The fact that Jesus, a Jew, found the divinely ordered plan for his life modified to meet the need of a foreigner gives us the best possible basis for considering world neighborliness. He himself doubtless rejoiced that the obstacle which held back his help was removed. No better figure has ever been devised to express international rela- tions than the one Christ had in mind on that occasion— a family, with elders, children, and pets gathered around the table. Common origins, common characteristics, com- mon sonship of one Father, have been admitted by many thinkers; but the nations of the world have not yet under- stood its challenge to fellowship. Both sincere internationalist and ardent nationalist.— Do you feel yourself stirred by the “superpatriotism” of AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 139 humanity, for whose sake Edith Cavell laid down her life? Neighborliness of the highest type—spiritual kinship—is operating to-day at International House. That beautifully equipped building on Riverside Drive, New York City, is a hostel for more than five hundred students from nearly sixty lands. In addition it is headquarters for 1,250 mem- bers of the Intercollegiate Cosmopolitan Club, representing 70 nations—Liberia, Gold Coast, Turkey, Persia, and many other remote corners of the globe. There it is not uncommon to see girls from Bolivia sipping tea in the cozy “home room” with friends from China, India, Japan, or Ozecho-Slovakia. This practical experiment in interna- tional neighborliness best expresses its spirit in the sym- bolic candle service held annually. Each representative of a nation, in costume, lights the taper of his neighbor, say- ing, “I represent —————.” When all the lights are ablaze in the auditorium, seating one thousand girls and men, the ceremony is concluded with the words: “As light begets light, so love, service, and good will are passed on to others.” ‘The same message appears on one of the two seals emblazoned on the walls of the room. On the other is the motto: “That Brotherhood May Prevail.” The stu- dents’ system of self-government is a daring innovation and an inspiring suggestion of the confidence that must be brought to play among nations whose standards of morality are widely divergent. Society and the power of public opinion are the only checks upon conduct. Poor citizen- ship in International House ostracizes the offender. Harry Edmonds, director and inspirer of the building, says the principle of self-government works out very successfully. These students came willing to accept the crumbs under America’s table, but through the generous spirit of a Christian citizen they are sharing the children’s bread. Alexandra K. escaped with her father from burning Smyrna and came to America. Gaining a humble clerical position, going to college at night for expert accountant courses, laundering her scant wardrobe at one and two o’clock in the morning in the Young Women’s Christian Association dormitory, where she lodged, she was just able to get along. “How do you like America?’ someone asked her. 140 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN “Oh, everyone is so different here from the Christians I knew at the college in Smyrna. I thought they would all be like that. And oh, at business—well, I’m terribly disappointed !” A Japanese student had a different experience: When I first went to Vassar, the original national trait of the Japanese—reserve—kept me from expressing my whole self. At the beginning of my first summer holiday I went to the Young Women’s Christian Association student conference at Silver Bay. I never dreamed-that such a change was coming to me. The beautiful place, with lovely mountains and lake, inspiring speeches, interesting discussions, and jolly sports, was fascinating; but the greatest and most wonderful thing to me was the inexpressibly warm, lovely atmosphere that pervaded the conference and the group of girls, so eager, intelligent, and friendly. In that natural, happy fellowship I was no longer the critical, sensitive, passive self but I began to feel normal and to enjoy heartily my new experiences. I was so happy that my family could not believe me when I wrote such cheerful letters after the exclusion bill. The climax of my happiness came when I spent the re- mainder of my. first summer with the family of my best Amer- ican friend. There I was treated not merely as a friend but as a real daughter and sister. There I forgot entirely the dif- ference of nationality and experienced the real joy of being perfectly at home in America. When I went back to Vassar the next fall, the whole world looked different, and I enjoyed the work and friendship tre- mendously. Though my life in America is very shost, I feel so at home here that I often wonder why we have wars. From my expe- rience I know that we can know people of other countries so well that we feel no difference when we are with them. Are there any foreign students in your community whom you could introduce to Christian home life? Could you organize a “hospitality league” to entertain lonely for- eigners at Sunday tea? Do you know that the New York Bible Society distributes Scriptures in 67 languages, havy- ing given nearly a million copies to new immigrants in one year? Have you ever made any “reconciliation tours” among the foreign-born of your locality to become ac- quainted with their point of view? It may be possible to “oo around the world” in your own community. Clip from magazines items showing how young foreigners educated 1 From the Woman’s Missionary Friend; used by permission. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 141 in the United States are being given places of leadership in their own land. World-neighborliness and world peace.—Which step should come first? Glenn Frank, president of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, says: “War, no matter how justifiable it may seem at the moment, is certainly a spiritual lia- bility, not an asset, to any people. It makes men unfit for procedures of peace and inspires no lasting literature of hope.” It is worth while to know and cooperate with all the forces making for peace and fellowship. There is the League for Intellectual Cooperation among the thinkers of the world. In this league the beneficent science of Madame Curie or Louis Pasteur, applied to the preserva- tion of human life, is in sharp contrast to the skill of machine-gun inventors and chemists bent on destroying humanity scientifically. In the Walter Hines Page School of International Relations, at Johns Hopkins University (planned as a tribute to the statesman who pleaded for courtesy among nations), one of the questions to be ex- plored is whether excessive industrial gain is a cause of war here. The work of the Sulgrave Committee of the Anglo-American Society, is to preserve such historic links between the two English-speaking countries as the ancestral home of George Washington and the old manor house where the British Committee for the Promotion of Anglo- American Friendship was formed. Then, there are the world cruises of individuals, the “floating universities” of students carrying on their studies as their ship carries them among the currents of world affairs, the foreign branches of American universities (such as New York University is providing in Paris), and several colleges such as Yale-in-China. For those who do not travel there are international radio programs, such as that historic broadcast on New Year’s Day, 1926, when to the Japanese consul’s greeting— “Citizens of the world, a happy new year to you”—were added messages from other statesmen in many tongues, and from its transoceanic wireless stations the Associated Press relayed to the world the events of that day, and people in three continents “listened in” and heard what the world was saying. Do you believe that the more we 142 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN are acquainted with other nations the more we will esteem and respect them? A letter just drifted in from a little French woman, with whom a postwar correspondence had been maintained. After a silence of two years she was writing to tell of the arrival of a new baby, of the progress of her other child in school, of their participation in the Christmas play directed by the parish priest, of her own efforts to increase the family income by working in the fields with her husband, and a whole budget of heartsome, woman-to-woman chat. Could anything tend more to knit one nation to another than just this intimate personal cor- respondence between persons who have never seen each other and probably never will? We cannot hate these per- sons. The wholesale hatred of war is a dark phantom. During the war the Junior Red Cross sponsored such an intercourse between the children of the world. Why not resume it? Missionaries and others can arrange contacts. Women and the pursuit of peace.—Women’s organiza- tions are helping by the publication of such documents as Rhoda McCulloch’s and Margaret Burton’s On Earth Peace, a study book issued by a united committee on the study of missions; and Mrs. H. M. Swanwick’s Builders of Peace. Judge Florence Allen pleads for an interna- tional law, declaring war a crime and penalizing it under the laws of the nation. Get the March, 1925, issue of the Womans Press at your local Young Women’s Christian Association and gaze into the strong face of the poet- educator Gabriela Mistral, who says: Above the individual, like an ardent flame, floats the stand- ard of nationalism; above nationalism waves the banner of race; but, free and untrammeled, far above nationalism and race, streams the oriflamme of the Spirit; for the Spirit knows naught of limitations, which are consumed and annihilated in its ardent white flame.* The International Federation of University Women meets triennially, talking over aims and ideals in a frank and unembarrassed manner, although it seeks and receives very little publicity. Doha Bertha Lutz, of Brazil, a graduate of the Sorbonne in Paris, was elected president in 1925, and three of the other officers were chosen from 1Copyright; used by permission. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 143 Latin-American countries. During the Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, called in Washington in January, 1925, by nine national women’s organizations, women who were eminent in the world of sociology, religion, history, statesmanship, went to the bottom of the situations leading to war and considered proposals for solving international troubles by some other method than force. THE QUALIFICATIONS OF A Goop NEIGHBOR , Several suggestions lie in Scripture. Ephesians 4. 25 emphasizes the necessity of truth between neighbors: “Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.” This applies not only to false propaganda in times of war but to the easy flow of genuine information and enlighten- ment in the everyday intercourse of nations. The ac- companying injunction: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil” applies to countries as well as to individuals. The query of James: “Who art thou that judgest thy neighbor? One only is the law-giver and judge, even he who is able to save and to destroy” pricks our national conscience. How can we condemn the Burmese for making human sacrifices in the course of their animistic worship when sacrifices of human life are being made daily in American industry? or judge Japan guilty of exploiting Korea, or Belgium of committing atrocities in the rubber growing areas of the Congo, when Mexico is exploited by Ameri- can money? Christ’s own words, however, go to the very core of the matter: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Only when governments give to others the same consideration, courtesy, and portion of the world’s good things that they seek for themselves; and only when they admit that they are their “brother’s keeper” will the day come that “Man to man the warld o’er Shall brothers be for a’ that.” Four of Israel’s prophets speak of the Hebrew race as “mother.” ‘Tio every man his native land is motherland. And it is only when we treat and speak of other men’s 144 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN lands with such respect as we would give to our own or other men’s mothers that the world’s history will read as Christ prays it will. When nations are willing to be as generous with their impoverished creditors as the few con- secrated persons who are sharing their incomes with partners on the other side of the world, and when coun- tries back up their cheap words with the costly gold of good will, we may expect to see the fulfillment of the great prophecy of Paul in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus: “So then ye are no more strangers and so- journers, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.” QUESTIONS FoR Group Discussion 1. What feature of Christ’s resurrection message (Mat- thew 28. 19, 20) clearly indicates that his plan was for the gospel to reach the last man and woman and child? What other incident can you mention as showing his broad sym- pathy with all races? (John 4.) 2. Can you mention any modern “foreign mothers” whose constructive faith for their children was quite as insistent as that of the Syrophcenician woman? Read the autobiography of Michael Pupin, the autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, the early chapters of Dr. W. T. Gren- fell’s life, and Anizia Yzierska’s Hungering Hearts. 3. Which do you find easier—to give money for the women of India or to be kindly in your everyday contacts with the foreign woman who cleans your office or launders your clothes? Are the elements of neighborliness the same in both instances? 4. When the women of New York State work for a forty-eight-hour week for themselves and for children, are they in any sense being neighbor to the women who work under foul conditions in China? 5. Do you find yourself particularly antagonistic toward people of any one race? Are they folks with whom you AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 145 have had personal contact? Can you account for this prejudice? Has it any reasonable foundation? 6. Are you an aggressive booster of your own race or do you, with Bishop Fisher of India, class the pretended superiority of the white races over the darker peoples of the earth as “Nordic nonsense”? Are you aware of the fact that almost every race has believed itself to be su- perior ? ?. Is there any difference between a “backward” and an inferior race? 8. What constitutes a “superior” race? 9. What will happen if the races blessed with superior advantages do not share them with less fortunate races? 10. Why are Chinese students in China reacting against Christianity as “the capitalists’ weapon”? Is Christian- ity the cause of this anti-Christian campaign? Do you think a country is obligated to protect investments with the life of her young men? For the control of what essential natural products can you conceive of nations going to war? 11. What is the effect of American motion pictures upon non-Christian lands? 12. Is there anything unneighborly about the relation between “classes” in America? 13. What would happen in your Sunday discussion group if a young Jewess should come into your midst and say that she had made up her mind to study Christ’s way of life? Would she be welcomed in the social activities of the group? 14. Do you believe in interracial marriages? What has been your observation of their result in happiness of the individuals and in quality of their children? 15. What solutions of race prejudice can you think of besides intermarriage? Discuss and add to the following suggestions made by a great meeting of Student Volun- teers : Eliminate the white-superiority complex among children in primary grades of public schools. Have students of other races address students. Take advantage of every opportunity to understand people of other races with whom there are natural contacts. Develop more truthful journalism. 146 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Break down discriminations between races in dormitories, college fraternities, glee clubs, churches, etc. Correct definite wrongs against races when local situations arise in your community. 16. Do you believe we can instill any ideal in a nation we may desire if we inculcate it in the young of two or three generations? Add to these methods by which mothers might instill the idea of world neighborliness in the minds of young children: stories of other lands’ boys and girls; missionary education; putting in their hands such maga- zines as World Neighbors, Everyland, National Geo- graphie. 1%. Do you know of any better way to bring world neighborliness than to begin living as if all were brothers? CHAPTER XI WINGS—HAVE I ANY? “Lo! I am winged! Therefore must I quest! I must go on. Wings at my shoulder tug!” THEsE lines from Maude R. Warren’s festival pageant “The Winged Soul,” with which Wellesley College cele- brated its fiftieth anniversary, are an expression of the creative urge of faith which many young people are feel- ing to-day. ‘They were suggested by the old idea of the philosopher Plato in his Phedrus—that there are some souls who before birth push past their fellows and catch a glimpse of the splendor of the gods as they journey back and forth over the paths of heaven. These souls, when they find human birth, are forever restless until they work out for mankind some counterpart of the beauty they beheld; and in this flaming zeal that “frets them on” they attain their wings. The same thought is given modern phrasing in a recent letter from a college senior to a generous parent: The feeling I have is a desire to spread my wings—to clear out and lead a life of freedom—to do something different. But I don’t know where I’m at and I’ll admit it. Is there anything you can suggest? You’ve left the thing up to me so far, and I’m glad of it—I’ve had a chance to do some thinking on the subject—but it seems as if I’m approaching the end of the rope. Will you tell me what you’d like me to do?? It is with this creative urge, this surging up of the life of constructive faith, this onflowing of the developing powers of youth, that we are to deal in this chapter. How can one strengthen such wings as he has? How can he start to develop them if he has only shoulder blades to begin with? WincED WoMEN The Greek sculptor Praxiteles portrayed the Victory of 1From the ‘‘Contributor’s Column,” Adlantic Monthly, July 1, 1925; used by permission. 147 148 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Samothrace as a winged woman sweeping forward on the prow of a swiftly moving vessel with her garments flutter- ing in the breeze. This figure from a bygone civilization has many a prototype in the world to-day. But before we consider some of the world’s modern Winged Victories let us consider two women of creative faith who winged their way to Christ and immortality twenty centuries ago: A woman who interrupted Jesus.— Mark 5. 25-34. And a woman, who had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, having heard the things concerning Jesus, came in the crowd behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I touch but his garments, I shall be made whole. And straight- way the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her.plague. And straight- way Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned him about in the crowd, and said, Who touched my garments? And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trem- bling, knowing what had been done to her, came and fell down. before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. The Magdalene: Herald of Immortality.— John 20. 11-18. But Mary was standing without at the tomb weeping: so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; and she beholdeth two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herself, and saith unto him in Hebrew, Rabboni; which is to say, Teacher. Jesus saith to her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto my brethren, and say to them, AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 149 I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God. Mary Magdalene cometh and telleth the disciples, I have seen the Lord; and that he had said these things unto her. Tue WinGs oF NEED Notice the part played by will power in the invalid woman’s flight to Christ. It is hard for us to picture the reticence of this unnamed woman who “came in the crowd, behind,” pushing to the front of an Oriental throng unused to the presence of women in the streets. More- over, years of invalidism had increased the reserve natural to her sex and left her miserable and impoverished by fees and drugs. She was uncertain, too, as to how Christ would receive her. Only sheer will kept her wings from collaps- ing utterly. A firm framework.—Determination is the almost in- destructible duralumin framework of all wings. What else buoyed up the gallant young American flyers while drift- ing eight days with food and water supply exhausted and receiving from their radio such devastating messages as “All hope given up for flyers. Cease searching’? Deter- mination, too, gave lifting power to the wings of Miss Taisia Stadnichenko, a young woman who came to this country as a refugee from Russia. Three years later she achieved what scientists called “the impossible” by invent- ing a microthermal furnace tiny enough to be placed under a microscope for the observation of successive stages of petroleum refining—an invention that is destined to elimi- nate much waste. The woman’s winged desire seemed in a sense presump- tuous, for she actually interrupted Jesus when he was on so important an errand as the healing of the daughter of Jairus, the influential ruler of a synagogue. ‘To have interrupted Jesus at any time would have been bold; but at such a moment, when the delay she caused was punctu- ated by the message that the little girl had meanwhile died! Yet every act of creatwe faith has an element of boldness. Young Katharine of Siena dared attempt to get the Italian church and state together and complete her life task at the age of thirty-three. Catherine Booth, when her William was offered a charge she did not consider 150 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN worthy of him, dared to rise in Wesley’s City Road Chapel, London, exclaiming, “William, don’t you go!” She there- by opened the way for his founding the Salvation Army. Practical results —The results of her flight to Christ were both immediate and far-reaching. She wrested from him whom she had previously known only by hearsay the most personal possible boon—her health; and in addition she gave painter-laureates from the first century on an inspiration for their portrait of the Great Physician. Many rash soarings have a practical aspect. Phoebe and John Brashear—those rare-spirited Pittsburgh astronomers and makers of lenses—gazed so long at the stars together through smoke of their industrial environ- ment that when the great separation came, “Uncle” John wrote over his beloved companion’s tomb, “We have gazed too long at the stars together to be afraid of the night.” Yet these watchers of the skies brought back to sordid earth from their star wanderings practical impulses to better the lives of the glass blowers and mill workers of the Smoky City’s South Side and elicited from them the uncommon love of common people. Touching heaven and earth.—lIs it not possible to com- bine the qualities of those two fascinating characters from Greek mythology—Icarus and Anteus? Icarus was the youth whose escape from prison was accomplished by wings his father ingeniously fastened to his shoulders with wax; but his soaring ambition took him so near the sun that the wax melted, his wings fell off, and he dropped into the sea afterward named for him. Anteus was the giant whose strength came, not from wings, but from actual contact with Mother Earth. Each time Hercules threw him to the ground, he grew stronger. With our feet upon the earth, and our wings among the clouds, what wonders may be accomplished! It was a similarly happy combination of qualities that the prophet Ezekiel ascribed to the four re- markable creatures mentioned in the first chapter of his book: each one had four wings, but “they had the hands of a man under their wings.” What a combination of heavenly motive power and earthly practicality! Living cherubim, with faces as of man and movement as of flashes of lightning! a AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 151 Clipped wings.—Sometimes an Icaruslike soul is held down to earth by physical weakness. Soaring spirits are thwarted by inability of the body to sustain them. Josephine Preston Peabody often wondered why she was born with a thousand wings of the spirit and hampered with a ball and chain about both her feet and hands. Her frail body was almost consumed by her passionate urge to capture the world’s beauty in poetic form. She has been likened to a Vesuvius imprisoned in a delicate por- celain vase. But how much nobler it is to be consumed by creative fires than never to mount at all! A young flier whose plane burned over a Pennsylvania forest was heard to remark shortly before his death: “People who get their thrills from Broadway wonder why I risk my life flying. The mere feeling that I am, by faithfully carrying the mails more speedily than formerly, doing my bit for the progress of humanity makes me feel that I could fly. even without a plane.” Those who themselves have no wings often try to inter- fere with others’ flying. The complaining disciples were embarrassed by the importunate action of a woman. They were thinking, perhaps, of the spectacular healing Jesus might accomplish at the home of courteous Jairus. Robert Browning, in his poem “Andrea Del Sarto,” gives a match- less picture of the disastrous effect of a wingless wife— Lucrezia—upon the art of her husband, the “faultless painter.” So visionless was this unappreciative beauty that with the careless passing of her robes she smeared paintings that other artists vainly tried to equal. WIinas oF BLESSING Some hidden power seems to have kept Mary Magdalene flying when her wings were broken and dragging in the mire of defeated hopes. Human feet alone could not have borne her to the shadowy garden with her last fine offer- ing of precious tribute. Her sorrow must have been shod, Mercurylike, with wings—such wings as Isaiah pictured: “Hven the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait for Jehovah shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.” Had Mary’s creative faith not found wings that 152 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN Easter morning, womanhood would probably not have had the honor of heralding to the world the message of im- mortality—His immortality and ours. The exercise of faith—Overmuch ease and happiness tend to make vague our sense of dependence on God. Our wings become stunted and finally disappear like unused vestigeal organs. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman said to a group of church women: It is not easy to keep close to the cross in an age when luxuries are every woman’s right, and when she may have, by pressing an electric button, comforts and conveniences not known in the age of Queen Victoria. The tremendous increase in scientific invention has given women opportunities to see and do more in a day than their grandmothers did in ten years, but there has not been a corresponding spiritual growth. We need to-day a better and deeper religious life. We need to get young people to love Christ. The great- est peril of the present generation is the tendency to give the center of the stage to things which do not matter. Singleness of purpose.—See what Mary accomplished by bending her efforts to one purpose. There were many very laudable causes to which she might have directed her- self that morning. The poor of Jerusalem were ever in need of raiment and food, children were crying for love, the parched lips of many a leper would have blessed her for a cup of cold water. But the Master was dead! Spices and oil for anointing his body were the paramount call of the hour, and to their preparation she devoted herself. And from that concentration behold what riches flowed: the joyfulest news her own ears could possibly have craved: “He is risen!” the privilege of being the bearer of good tidings to her friends; the sound of his own voice address- ing her by name: “Mary”; the promise of meeting him again in the place of her usual daily activities, where she had been accustomed to see him. Young Mary Lyon, campaigning for funds with which to establish a seminary at Mount Holyoke for “young women in the common walks of life” because she felt that “women must be educated,” gave herself so persistently to the cause that at times she was obliged to sleep for two or three days just to “come back” from the fatigue. When Louisa May Alcott desired to accomplish a certain amount “AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 153 of writing she would go from little quiet Concord, where everyone knew her, to Boston, shut herself up in a room, concentrate on her task, and emerge in a month or two “tired, hungry, and cross” but with her goal attained. It is by bending toward the one goal of uplifting Tur- key that Halida Hanoum Edib in our generation has wrought such wonders for her own sex. However we may view her politics we cannot but admire her creative courage. The first of the Turkish women to lay aside her veil, so symbolic of Oriental seclusion through the ages, she gave herself whole-heartedly to the education of her sisters through clubs, the press, and such organizations as the Red Crescent nursing order. Recognized by Mustapha Kemal as the embodiment of the new Turkey, she was made minister of education and sent her sons to the Uni- versity of Illinois so that she might devote her whole energy to her country. Once in a certain battle she used her discarded veil as a bandage to symbolize the freedom she aspired to bring her country’s women. After her mar- riage with the Anatolian minister of health she devoted her creative urge to crusading for health and education. In patient seclusion she has written her memoirs of the soarings of the winged women of the new Orient. Lifting self and others too—The message Mary heralded changed the whole atmosphere of the world’s future from dawn-grayness to the warm rosiness of the risen sun. So may we bring about new atmosphere and new social orders if we have a mind to do so. Dr. George A. Coe, of Columbia University, has voiced a gripping protest against a “static world,” in which persons of cul- ture and potential influence are content to see the world go around just as it is without raising one whit the level of conditions in which people live or making it more fit for them. How WIncs ARE TESTED The same situation that utterly wrecks the wings of one person may demonstrate the lifting power of another’s. The circumstances of Christ’s last days veered the course of Peter, showed Thomas that he had too much ballast of doubt aboard, and sent Judas crashing to the earth. Yet 154 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN this same sequence of events was the final step in the mak- ing of Mary Magdalene. Testing by tempests.—A certain pastor’s mail budget recently contained striking evidence of how a hospital may mean a glorious triumph of faith in one person at the same moment that it is witnessing another’s agony be- cause scientific studies seem to conflict with the faith of childhood—a faith that has not been allowed to develop along with other faculties. The young woman studying mediciné writes, in part: I decided to ask you because you were so far away that no one would be any the wiser if what is asked cannot be done; and because I don’t know any other person of your profession. ... Since I was a junior in high school, about five or six years ago, I have known positively that there is no such thing as future life and no such thing as a personal God, which of course excludes Christ and prayer. Therefore, I should not be affiliated with any church. . .. How can one slip quietly out of affiliation with the church? Quietly, so that no one— mother, for instance—will be unhappy? It must be done quietly or not at all. The young wife battling for health after long delaying treatment in the hope that God would heal her by prayer alone, to demonstrate his power to her materialistic friends, is finding larger faith: God has been so very helpful to me in these past weeks, and I am very happy that I am at last doing everything in accord- ance with his will, so that there is a very marked physical improvement. Having been through all sorts of investigations by X rays, electro cardiograph, hectographs, shots of vaccines, and a complete rest (I have not been off this bed since I arrived here and have been on full diet), all these, with God’s hand blessing them, have been helpful to me. So you see I ought surely to improve—now; but all this had to come as a direct message from our heavenly Father above to me, though it took longer than usual for me to accept it. But God will bless me, I know; and if it had not been for his wonder- ful love, I’d surely be very disheartened by now. I know he will take care of me—that is all—and even down here he has made my days brighter by putting it in to the hearts of many of his children to send me messages. If the medical student’s egotism could have been tem- pered by the invalid’s spiritual appreciation of the benef- AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 155 icent ministry of science, her attitude toward the church might have changed. Her narrow little mind had evi- dently not discovered the faith of such men as Louis Pasteur, who found in the revelations of science a “third testament.” Testing by weights——Anizia Yzierska, the immigrant girl who was “a nobody from nowhere,” with no knowledge of English, living in a New York cellar, by sheer determi- nation made herself wings by which she mounted to a lofty prominence in the literary world through her stories of life as she saw it in the Hast Side Ghetto. In Hunger- ing Hearts, Salome of the Tenements, and The Bread Givers she has given the best presentation yet written of the real problems and tragic conflicts in the lives of for- eign-born parents and first-generation Americans. Not oF Mary ALONE Not of Mary alone Asked Christ on the Easter morn, When death’s cold sealing stone He burst with life newborn: “Woman, why weepest thou? Know ye not, I am risen now?” But of every woman in Galilee From Jordan’s stream to the jeweled sea; Of every woman by old laws bound In temple and street where fetters ground, In homes bereaved and courts oppressed, He asked with voice which brought sweet rest: “Woman, O woman, whom seekest thou? Know ye not, I am risen now?” To-day he asks in the self-same way Of lives whom toil is wasting away In towns whose tasks no joys allow For young hearts slain with hungering pain; “Woman, O woman, why weepest thou? Can it be that I rose in vain?” —M. S. M. QUESTIONS FoR Group Discussion 1. Of all the women you have ever known personally, whose work has been the most truly creative, judged by its helpfulness to the largest number of people over the long- est period of time? 156 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN 2. This is the New York Times list of twelve living American women who have achieved “greatness as great- ness goes in modern American life”: Geraldine Farrar Edith Wharton Carrie Chapman Catt Amy Lowell (since deceased) Molla Mallory Minnie Maddern Fiske Alice Paul M. Carey Thomas Ida Tarbell Mary Pickford Jane Addams Agnes Repplier What names would you eliminate from this list, and what add? 3. What reason can you assign for the fact that the list did not contain the name of one mother? Does mother- hood prevent or encourage intellectual and artistic crea- tive effort? Doctor Halliday, the great Christian psycho- analyst, has observed that those who do not bear children often turn to creative writing. Maude Royden believes that the sacred function of motherhood so enriches the soul that married women ought to be encouraged to enter the Christian ministry for the enlargement of human sympathies which they could contribute. 4. As you look back at the teachers of your youth do you feel that they encouraged the development of your individuality and urged you to help mold the world’s future? or did they simply require you to assimilate the knowledge they parceled out ? 5. Does society as now organized tend to stifle or to encourage creativeness? What is meant by “the American fad for standardization”? Mention several concrete in- stances of standardized tastes and habits. 6. What do you understand by Vida Scudder’s state- ment: “Life’s drama is smothered in details; ’tis largely composed of irrelevances. Our selective instinct should supply emphases and suppress the irrelevant’? %. What is meant by “the tragedy of trifles’? How would you set about rescuing someone who has succumbed to it? 8. If an educated woman is one who helps bring about the social changes needed by her community, can you be classed as such? 9. When in your life have you experienced the joy of AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 157 finding your creative energy attaining its goal: as a teacher, creating hunger for education; as a physician, bringing about physical well-being in critical cases; as a social servant, helping create a health zone in a squalid community; as a business woman, bringing smooth-run- ning order into the tangled complexities of office work or personnel ? 10. Do you find yourself living only for to-day, chasing such “goat feathers” as blow across your path? or have you determined upon one unifying motive, underlying all your business hours, play time and periods of worship? What is that motive? 11. Have you ever made an inventory of yourself, such as is conducted by personal-research bureaus, which ask their clients frankly to state whether they are able to pur- sue a task steadily; to indicate the effect of interruptions, of adverse criticisms, etc. ? 12. What is your definition of a “dawdler”; of a “doer”? To which class, frankly, do you belong? Are women less influential to-day than formerly because they are not focusing their effort on one definite goal? Can you match Queen Elizabeth, Katharine of Russia, Queen Victoria, with women who are molding your age? CHAPTER XIT SILENCE IN THE CHURCHES—OR SERVICE? To a head nurse in Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, of the Labrador Mission, came one day with this challenge, born of his supreme faith in human nature: If you really want to have the time of your life, come with me and run a hospital next summer for the orphans of the northland. There will not be a cent of money in it for you, and you will have to pay your own expenses, like all my vVol- unteers who come up from the colleges of America. But Ill guarantee that you will feel a love of life you have never before experienced. It’s having the time of anyone’s life to be in the service of Christ. Lire THROUGH SERVICE And when the capable young nurse returned from help- ing Doctor Grenfell make the lame to walk, the blind to see, the orphans to be mothered, the lonely to be comforted, her whole reaction to the experience was: “I never knew before that life was good for anything but what one could get out of it. Now I know that the real fun lies in seeing how much one can put into life for others.” Adventure and education.—Thus have modern mission- aries approached hundreds of the finest women and men of young America, showing them that service for Christ is life’s supreme adventure; summoning them to do the im- possible, just as Jesus was always doing; and making Christ more real in their lives than he had ever been in their imaginations. Doctor Grenfell’s emphasis upon gww- ing young people something to do for Christ is in line with the newest emphasis of educators, who predict that within twenty-five years the test of admission to our highly endowed institutions will not be athletic prowess, intellec- tual pedigree, or mental ability, but willingness to serve. While rejoicing that America’s philanthropy for one year totals $2,500,000,000 (exclusive of appropriations by States and cities and of gifts to churches), these educational 158 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN 159 pioneers feel that money is not sufficient benevolence. Service is more fundamental. In this tremendous projection of the service idea woman is to play a significant role. The popularity of “the cling- ing vine” and the “doll’s house” type has already passed. As someone has graphically put it, women are using their heads for something more than a “parking place for hats or a foundation for a permanent wave.” They are engaged in occupations undreamed by their grandmothers: sea cap- tains, bankers, leaders of orchestras, managers of fox farms, lighthouse keepers—busy in all but thirty-five occupations open to men. We gladly venerate the fearless women who were among the earliest Christian martyrs, and the Scottish Cove- nanters, who died of exposure in roofless cells on the out- skirts of Edinburgh; and the Pilgrim mothers, whose _ hearts were full of dark forebodings, in spite of which they came. As we think of them we sigh: “Oh God, to us may grace be given To follow in their train”; yet some of our contemporary women are engaged in Chris- tian service involving quite as great sacrifice as theirs. And for all of us there are alluring gateways to service if we will only open them and patiently prepare ourselves for the way that spreads before us in pleasant perspective. WomMEN IN THE Harty CHRISTIAN CHURCH By way of determining woman’s place in Christianity’s program of service to-day let us consider in our conclud- ing study what Paul, as a father of the infant church, had to say about woman in the work of the Kingdom. What Jesus did for women was emphasized in our first chapter; in our last let us consider what woman has done for Jesus as a demonstration of her gratitude. For if she owes everything to Christianity, Christianity owes also much to her. Paul’s early attitude toward woman.— 1 Corinthians 14. 33-35. For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. 160 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN As in all the churches of the saints, let the woman keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but let them be in subjection, as also said the law. And if they would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home: for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church. His later appreciation of her service.— Acts 17..12, 33, 34: Many of them therefore believed; also of the Greek women of honorable estate, and of men, not a few. ... Thus Paul went out from among them. But certain men clave unto him, and believed: among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. Romans 16. 1, 2, 6, 12, 13, 15, 16. I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church that is at Cenchree: that ye receive her in the Lord, worthily of the saints, and that ye assist her in what- soever matter she may have need of you: for she herself also hath been a helper of many, and of mine own self. ... Salute Mary, who bestowed much labor on you.... Salute Tryphaena and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord. Salute Persis the beloved, who labored much in the Lord. Salute Rufus the chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine. ... Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints that are with them. Salute one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ salute you. Philemon 1, 2. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our beloved and fellow-worker, and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in thy house. Philippians 4. 1-3. Wherefore, my brethren beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my beloved. I exhort Euodia, and I exhort Syntyche, to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yea, I beseech thee also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life. 1 Timothy 5. 9-11. Let none be enrolled as a widow under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, well reported of for good works; if she hath brought up children, if she hath used hos- pitality to strangers, if she hath washed the saints’ feet, if AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 161 she hath relieved the afflicted, if she hath diligently followed every good work. But younger widows refuse: for when they have waxed wanton, against Christ, they desire to marry. 1 Corinthians 7. 34. The woman that is unmarried and the virgin is careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married is careful for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. Other women church workers.— Acts 9. 36, 39. Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did.... And Peter arose and went with them. And when he was come, they brought him into the upper chamber: and all the widows stood by him weeping, and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas made, while she was with them. CHRISTIAN WoMEN A NEw TYPE Paul’s early attitude toward the activity of women in the church, as indicated by his advice in 1 Corinthians 14. 33-35, strikes every thinking woman as ultraconservative. We must remember that these words were addressed to the women of dissolute Corinth. In this busy com- mercial city on the Isthmus was a shrine of Aphrodite, where no less than a thousand women were employed in sensuous rites of worship. Wishing to shield the women disciples of Jesus even from suspicion, Paul went to extremes. First he warned them to be veiled when en- gaged in prophecy, then he decided that it would be better for them not to prophesy at all but to “keep silence in the churches.” Unjustifiable deductions.—Do you know any women who are making Paul’s statement, which he himself modified by a later appreciation of their service, an excuse for re- maining silent in churches to-day when opportunity is given for testimony and public prayer? Do you consider their excuse valid? How do you react to the following open letter written by a clergyman to a prominent editor ?— DEAR EDITOR: Saint Paul advises that women should keep silent in the 162 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN churches. ‘To-day in some of our churches it has become so bad that the men are ordered to keep silent by the women. It seems to be a matter of conscience with the women. Any religious progress for the future must be engineered by the men. Just as little as armies can be run by women, or States, or big business, so little can churches. The twen- tieth century must see a return of the command of the churches to the men, a return to the Pauline spirit, a return to government by men in the church. It is high time. Let it be a matter of conscience with the men. Rev. H. C. BLANK. Paul’s enlarging concept.—There is such a sharp con- trast between Paul’s attitude in the first passage quoted and his elsewhere outspoken appreciation of the good works of women that we wonder how to account for the reversal of opinion. What led him to change his mind? It was accomplished by just one thing: the compelling quality of her service. This made him glad to acknowledge her as a fellow worker, a sister, and even as a mother (Romans 16. 13). Three interesting phases of Paul’s attitude to- ward women are apparent: After persecuting them co- equally with men before his conversion he regulated their conduct in public for the sake of decorum, and in the maturity of his ministry, by many open statements of ap- preciation, he gave woman due credit for her good works in the fellowship of faith, Many women were converted through Paul’s preaching, including “Greek women of honorable estate,’ and Damaris, who was one of the few rewards of his preaching in Athens. But many, also, “labored much in the Lord.” Paul gives unstinted praise to their efforts in such statements as Philippians 4. 3. After exhorting the querulous women Euodia and Syn- tyche to try to work more congenially and “be of the same mind in the Lord,” he urges his Philippian friends to “help these women, for they labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.” OFFICIAL RECOGNITION IN THE CHURCH One of his most detailed eulogies concerns’ Phebe (Romans 16. 1, 2). This Christian matron, living in the Kastern port of Corinth, is believed to have been a widow; AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 163 for she was able to go alone to Rome, as she could not have done with propriety had she been unmarried. That she was wealthy is guessed from the fact that she was able to finance the long journey from Corinth to Rome and from Paul’s allusion to her having been “a helper of many, and of mine own self.” She may have been going on a legal errand pertaining to her personal business—perhaps a lawsuit. In this case Paul’s commission—to deliver a message to the friends whom he was so eager to see in Rome—would have been incidental. Others believe that the phrase “servant of the church” points to her mission in Rome as an official errand for the believers, since Phaebe was a “deaconess,” the only one of the women workers who is so called in the New Testament, though the other women mentioned in Romans 16. 12 were also of that call- ing. Deaconesses.— There were three distinct religious offices held by women in the Pauline age of the church: dea- coness, widow, and virgin. Of the three the deaconess seems most important. Her duties were not fundamentally dif- ferent from the tasks of deaconesses to-day, although it is probable that she was not officially ordained but simply “set aside.” Her work was to instruct women converts, prepare them for baptism, assist at baptisms and anoint- ings for the sake of propriety, visit the portions of the homes given over to women, care for the poor, and possibly serve at tables, like the seven men appointed to free the Twelve for the more important ministry of preaching. Later, in the patristic age of the church, the deaconesses stood at the women’s entrances to the churches, greeted the worshipers, and helped them to find seats in an orderly manner. Are you familiar with the qualifications for deaconess work to-day? A deaconess is defined by the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church as “a woman who has been led by the Holy Spirit to devote herself to Christlike service under the direction of the church; and who, after proper training and probation, has been duly licensed and consecrated.” She must be at least twenty-one years old. No vow of perpetual service is required, although deaconess work should be considered a life service, not to be discon- 164 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN tinued except for good and sufficient reasons. The form of her work and the wearing of distinctive garb are de- termined by the organization with which the deaconess serves. The 804 deaconesses and probationers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in active service in 1925 were thus distributed : Teaching MINIsStry (ee eae t owen 4 ome or ble a & aeenateatee 80 Healing; Ministery ee ee SG ewe ehavels so eve toe Pe Be Be 87 Welfare ministry. ei TR oi iigce te taal ote 139 Cyeneral MINIskiy es ai Sieh Cae Redes ae ln 183 Pastoral Ministry ee ee a tee ee 315 Widows.—These formed another group of Christian workers in the early church. The qualifications for be- coming a member of this class in good standing were very strict, as stated by Paul in his first letter to Timothy (1 Timothy 5. 9,10). Surely any who met all these require- ments merited the “relief” accorded to widows so scru- pulously by the early church; but they were in no sense objects of charity because of their old age and their past virtue. They earned their “pension” through their con- tinuous service in the way of instructing the younger women and possibly caring for orphans and nursing the sick. It can be easily seen that strict supervision was necessary to prevent members from creeping in who had other means of support or who were inclined to be indolent. The deaconesses, as a superior order, may have been selected from the widows, who continued as a class until the Middle Ages. ‘Their duties, as suggested by Paul in 1 Timothy 5, are only what might be expected of every Christian: “She hath her hope set on God, and con- tinueth in supplications and prayers night and day.” Paul made no provision for young widows who did not wish to marry again but said, “I desire . . . that the young widows marry, bear children, rule the household, give no occasion to the adversary for reviling.” Here again he was fitting his advice to the social organization of his times. Does the concern of the early church for the poor of its own parish persist to-day? Is the communion-Sunday poor fund emphasized in your church and used for such pur- AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 165 poses as the early collections? There is an “apostolic suc- cession” about such customs as this, which should make us all honor them with our gifts. Virgins—The duties of virgins in the work of the church virgins are not so clear as those of widows. The four virgin daughters of Philip the Evangelist are recorded as “prophesying” at the time when Paul was guest of their father at Caesarea on his way from Tyre to Jerusalem. The importance of the widows decreased as the church later laid emphasis upon chastity, and the ideal of ascetic expressed itself in monastic life. Women of exceptional ability—A higher order of serv- ice than that of deaconesses, widows, or virgins was carried on by a few women like Prisca (see chapter 2), who, by her instruction of such young men as Apollos, would qualify to-day as a director of religious education or a | woman preacher. In fact, one worthy commentator has paid her the compliment of attributing the authorship of the book of Hebrews to her inspired genius. Moprern CHurcH Work FoR WoMEN Full-time service.—How active do you think women should be in the official work of the church to-day? Do you believe that women should be preachers of the gospel ? According to the Methodist Discipline they may be or- dained deacons and elders and assigned to “supply” ap- pointments but may not be members of the Annual Conferences or be included im the “traveling ministry.” A flourishing organization of women preachers exists. It was only because the doors of the Methodist Epis- copal Church were closed to her that Frances Willard abandoned the dream of her girlhood to preach the gospel and devoted her life to temperance reform. For the same reason Dr. Anna Howard Shaw finally applied to the Methodist Protestants for her ordination. As early as 1852 Dr. Antoinette Blackwell occupied an American Congregationalist pulpit. At the age of ninety-three she wrote her last theological book. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore also distinguished the calling of ordained women preachers in America. Both Congregationalists and Unitarians in the United States to-day admit women to the full ministry. 166 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN The world’s most noted woman preacher to-day—Agnes Maude Royden—is an Anglican. Her genius is doing ac to bring the ministry of women into repute in every land. The English Wesleyan Church has long deferred the ad- mission of women to the ministry, although it had promi- nent women preachers in Wesley’s day, such as Mary Bosanquet. She led a distinguished group of women preachers, devoted her fortune to the maintenance of an orphanage and charity center at Leeds, and was married to John Fletcher, who Wesley had hoped would be his suc- cessor. Such a one, too, was Sarah Crosby, who itinerated through central England and is believed by many to have inspired George Eliot’s “blessed woman” in Adam Bede. The director of religious education has a professional standing equal to that of the ministry of pulpit and pas- torate. Have you ever considered for yourself this pro- fession? Write to the Board: of Education! for informa- tion regarding its opportunities, the training involved, and where that training may best be obtained. What other lines of distinctly Christian service are open to young women to-day besides religious education, deaconess work, and the ordained ministry? Make a re- port on opportunities in hospital and other health service, dietetics, institutional management, pastors’ secretaries, Sunday-school visitors, girls’ workers, directors of parish- house activities, and the specialized demands of home and foreign mission fields. Volunteer service.—Dorcas, whom Paul probably never knew, inspires us because she is the forerunner of all those unofficial, volunteer “church mothers’ without whose assistance the great work of Christianity could not be effec- tively carried on to-day. We are not so much concerned, for our present purpose, about the miracle of her resurrec- tion as the fact that Peter considered her life so fruitful that it was worth his while to restore it for prolonged serv- ice. Nota selfish life or a sinful one did he single out, but one that seemed too noble to be snuffed out untimely. Dorcas finds successors to-day in many a Ladies’ Aid society, service guild, hospital auxiliary, church-unit group 1 Address, 740 Rush St., Chicago. AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 167 leader, or volunteer administrator of the local poor fund. No remuneration is involved in her service; indeed, the leisure of affluence and financial independence are both in- volved in her supplying of garments for the poor and other “alms that she did.” She was the old-fashioned sort of social-service worker who maintained personal contact with the needy of her community. Dorcas was not “ordained,” there was no official ecclesiastical stamp upon her service, but her life entitled her to be heir of Christ’s bequest (Matthew 25. 34-46). The service motive—Notice that she is termed “disciple.” In all the New Testament this is the only instance where the feminine form of the Greek word trans- lated “disciple” is used. In this single word the whole motive of her service is revealed. It is Christian. Is it possible for women to perform Christly service without themselves believing in him? What is the distinction be- tween “social service” and “Christian service”? Look up and report some of the noblest service tasks being carried on by women—tasks that do not bear the official label of the church but are helping to bring His will to pass in the world. You will be inspired by the work of the American Women’s Hospital clinics, motor dispen- saries, etc., in Macedonia and Greece. Then, there is the work of Mrs. Mabel Willebrandt, assistant attorney-general of the United States. From her office in the Depart- ment of Justice in Washington this young woman lawyer has aided in the struggle to enforce the eighteenth amend- ment. Her work also has to do with game protection, pure food, prison supervision, taxes, etc. She believes that there are great opportunities for women in the practice of law; for it is not sex, but temperament, which is a barrier to success. This young former school- teacher looks to women to play a large part in helping to keep the country dry. Other thrilling pieces of Chris- tian patriotic service are those of Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago; Julia Lathrop and Grace Abbott, pio- neers in the federal Children’s Bureau; Mary Anderson, the Swedish woman who came to the directorship of the Woman’s Bureau of the Department of Labor after play- ing successive roles as housemaid, garment maker, spool- 168 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN factory worker, organizer in the National Boot and Shoe Workers’ Union and war worker in the Women in Indus- try Division of the National Defense Advisory Committee ; and Mrs. Florence Knapp, called from the dean’s chair of the Home Economics College of Syracuse University to be New York State’s first woman secretary of state. What possibilities for service and what responsibilities do you see in the positions of women as State governor, judge, members of the government foreign service, repre- sentatives and senators in Congress? | QUESTIONS FoR Group Discussion 1. Why has Dorcas been called “a woman who is always wanted”? What characteristics make people “wanted,” ordinarily and in emergencies? 2. Does the removal of prejudice against women in public service involve a greater responsibility for us as Christians to engage in such service, or does it make it pos- sible for the work to be done effectively by any woman? 3. Should women who are members of Christian churches give themselves to charity organizations main- tained by the public at large or leave these to women who are deaf to the appeals of organized Christianity ? 4, How far do the walls of “home” extend? Define “home,” 5. Must one go outside his own home to carry on a wide service? Could you duplicate, if invalidized, the vision of Mrs. Dora Vannix? Bishop Burleson of South Dakota has appointed her to a “wheel-chair ministry.” As secre- tary of the Church League of the isolated in her State she keeps in touch with 460 families, sending them letters, con- ducting a church correspondence school, and bringing the church into homes that would otherwise certainly be with- out it in that sparsely settled section of our country. 6. Is our excuse of being “too busy” to help really sin- cere? Are we too busy or too indifferent? Do you know of any women of your generation who are doing work like Elizabeth Fry’s and at the same time rearing ten chil- dren; keeping a beautiful home for them and husband; preaching and traveling widely in the interest of reform? %. Have you ever realized how much of the world’s AND PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 169 benevolence is carried on by unmarried women? What do people mean when they speak of a “State going mother- ing’? Do the duties here involved give adequate outlet for “bachelor maids” and childless mothers to enjoy “other motherhood” for the sake of society? 8. How much is “service” recognized as a basis of fame to-day? Of a total of sixty-four statues in the Hall of Fame in New York University seven represent women: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Lyon, Charlotte Cushman, Maria Mitchell, Emma Willard, Frances E. Willard, and Alice Freeman Palmer. Of the twenty-seven nominated for election in 1925 only one was a woman—Dorothea Lynde Dix. On what achievement does the claim of each of these rest? Can you find satisfactory explanation for this ratio in the fact that no person is eligible until twenty- five years after death, and the activity of women in serv- ice is of comparatively recent date? Or are women living too comfortably and losing the “wings” of creative effort referred to in Chapter XI? 9. Would you say that young people of to-day are inclined to be altruistic or self-centered? The following statistics are quoted from Women and Leisure, by Lorine Pruette: (a) Three hundred and forty-seven girls were asked, and 334 replied, whether they would rather be famous, brilliant, beautiful, or valuable. Seventy-one replied “famous,” 31, “beautiful,’ 159, “brilliant,” only 61, “valuable.” Twelve combined their answers. (bo) Two hundred and ninety-four girls were asked whether they would rather succeed themselves, or help the man they loved to succeed, or help their children to succeed. They re- plied as follows: Help children, 33; help husband, 155; suc- ceed in own line of work, 106. (c) When asked whether they would rather be wealthy, famous, of service, or happy regardless, the replies ran: wealthy, 16; famous, 44; happy regardless, 134; of service, 145. 10. Miss Ting Chu Ching, after studying in the United States, England, and India, has succeeded an American woman as national General Secretary of the Young Women’s Christian Association for China, with a secre- tarial staff of fifty-four Americans, sixty Chinese, and others. A Chinese woman edits the Burma News in Ran- 170 NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN goon. Denmark has appointed the world’s first woman Cabinet member—Fru Nina Bang—as minister of educa- tion. What would be the effect of spreading the career of such a girl before a woman who says habitually, “I don’t believe in foreign missions” ? 11. Do you see any hope for purification of American politics in the fact that Barnard College reports the en- rollment of women in its new department of government to be doubling each year? 12. Name in the order of their importance several great tasks in which all the women of the world may well unite. How about a women’s world federation for peace? for prohibition of intoxicants and legalized vice? 13. What are some of the obstacles which you, per- sonally, would have to overcome if you were to engage suc- cessfully in a life of service? Prejudice of your family? Defects in your own disposition? Deficient education? Natural reticence about activity in public? Laziness? Tendency to become easily discouraged? Reluctance to surrender personal comforts? 14. Would you accept a call of life service if it should come to you? Does prayer play any vital part in deter- mining your attitude toward your service plans? APPENDIX SUGGESTIONS FOR BOOKSHELF INSPIRATIONAL The New Testament (American Standard Version and An American Translation, by Edgar J. Goodspeed). Infe’s Inttle Pitfalls, by A. Maude Royden; G. P. Put- nam’s Sons. Moral Standards of the Rising Generation, by A. Maude Royden; Womans Press. Christian Fundamentals (in question-study form), by Oolooah Burner; Womans Press. Doing the Impossible (chapel talks to young women and men), by John E. Calfee; Fleming H. Revell Com- pany. The Girls Year Book; Womans Press. The Womans Press (magazine) ; 600 Lexington Avenue, New York City. BIBLICAL Bible Types of Modern Women, by W. Mackintosh Mackay; George H. Doran Company. Women of the Bible, by Annie Russell Marble; The Century Company. Who’s Who in the Bible (a directory of Scripture char- acters), by E. Fletcher Allen; G. P. Putnam’s Sons. The Mother of Jesus: Her Problems and Her Glory, by A. T. Robertson; George H. Doran Company. HISTORICAL The Church and Woman, by A. Maude Royden; George H. Doran Company. (See also the sketch of Miss Roy- den’s life in Painted Windows.) Saints and Ladies, by Clarissa Spencer; Womans Press. A Century Worth Liwing, by Mary Elizabeth Haldane ; Hodder & Stoughton. 171 172 APPENDIX Inves Worth Living (studies of women, biblical and modern), by Emily Clough Peabody; University of Chicago Press. SocIAL AND PsyYCHOLOGICAL Women and Leisure: a Study of Social Waste, by Lorinne Pruette; E. P. Dutton & Company. Sex and Commonsense, by A. Maude Royden; George H. Doran Company. Youth in Conflict, by Miriam Van Waters; Republic _ Publishing Company. What Als Our Youth? by George A. Coe; Charles Scribner’s Sons. Mental Hygiene as Taught by Jesus, by Alexander B. Macleod; The Macmillan Company. Salvaging American Girlhood, by Isabel Davenport; EK. P. Dutton & Company. Girlhood and. Character, by Mary E. Moxcey; The Abingdon Press. ) The Psychology of Middle Adolescence, by Mary E. Moxcey; The Caxton Press. The Education of Women, Goodsell; The Macmillan Company. Psychology and Morals, by J. A. Hadfield; Robert M. McBride and Company. The Psychology of Phantasy, by Constance KE. Long; Moffat, Yard & Company. The Normal Mind, Burnham; D. Appleton & Company. APPENDIX 173 REFERENCE INDEX OF WOMEN OF SCRIPTURE MENTIONED IN TEXT Anna, 109, 114. Apphia, 160. Damaris, 160, 162. Daughter of Jairus, 98, 104, 149. Dorcas, 161, 166, 167, 168. gee 41, 45, 84, 86, 133, 135 Eunice, 42, 46. Euodia, 160, 162. Hepoore, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, Jezebel, 43, 44. Joanna, 72, 122, 123. Julia, 160. Lois, 42, 46. Lydia, 9, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36. Martha, 9, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 26, 8A, 120. Mary Magdalene, 72, 122, 148, 151, 154. sag (mentioned in Romans), me eG aa of Jesus, 9, 11, 41, 45, 46, 73, 84, 86, 87, 88, 109, tise 123, Mak Mary, mother of Mark, 35, 45, Mary of Bethany, 9, 15, 16, 17, ue 19, 20, 22, 26, 46, 84, 87, Mother of Peter’s wife, 98. Mother of Rufus, 160. Naomi, 75. Nereus’ sister, 160. Persis, 160. Phoebe, 160, 162, 163. Prisca, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 56, 165. Rachel, 73. Rebekah, 34, 73. Rhoda, 45, 66. Ruth, 75. Salome, daughter of Herodias, 40, 41, 42, 44 Salome, mother of James and John, 11, 45, 46, 123 Samaritan woman, 11, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78. Sarah, 34, Susanna, 72, 122. Syntyche, 160, 162. Syrophoenician woman, 133, 134, 137, 138, 144 Tryphaena, 160. Tryphosa, 160. Woman of city, a sinner, 11, 109, 110. via with issue of blood, 108, Woman who lost silver, 134, 135. ‘ is mae FD wh Fes Z VALS Mh Ai ye i oe ‘ A ie Date Due as a \. i = > lent UT RO al «9 ~O ra > o & 7 ~ > UO Leaaeet we é i Dizi x LAB Mi ol NOV 28 200 © ’ eS ony id i ?. Ayre ene i ? thy? Library l| al vigtey: I | | 0 minary-