ti 
 
 I

 
 CLAIMS OF THE COUNTRY 
 
 AMEEICAN FEMALES. 
 
 MISS COXE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE YOUNG LADY'S COMPANION," THE WONDERS OF THE DEEP," THE 
 INFANT BROTHER," ETC., ETC 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 COLUMBUS : ISAAC N. WHITING, 
 
 MDCCCXLII.
 
 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year l'>4". h% ISAAC N. 
 WHITING, in tho Clerk's ofiice of tin; District Court lor the District of 
 
 Ohio.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Introduction 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Woman's station providentially appointed ... 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Duties assigned to woman in her station - 36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Women and their station among the Hebrews - 50 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Women during the middle ages of the Hebrew commonwealth 76 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Women under the decline and suspension of do. 92 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Nations of Antiquity 120 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Women of the Ancient Greeks - - ... 126 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 Women of the Roman Commonwealth and Empire - 148 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Women in a savage and semi-civilized state of society 167 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Women of Mahommedan countries - 192
 
 IV. CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 Women of Primitive Christianity 205 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Women under defective creeds 219 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Women of Protestant Christianity .... v>30
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Numberless and multiform, have been the demonstra- 
 tions of a corrupt nature, which the human race has been 
 exhibiting during the lapse of ages, subsequent to the 
 grand catastrophe in the garden of Eden. Among these, 
 not the least striking or uniform in its manifestations, has 
 been a spirit of complaint, which seems a part of the in- 
 heritance, the bosom companion of the natural man, 
 whatever may be the scene of his earthly sojourn ; and 
 which to the impartial judgment of angelic -intelligence 
 must appear equally astonishing, whether the subject be 
 viewed in reference to Him, whose justice, wisdom and 
 mercy are arraigned, to the nature of the charges on 
 which the accusations are based, or to the peculiar po- 
 sition of the complainants. 
 
 But however extraordinary it may seem to beings who 
 have never departed from the original rectitude of their 
 nature, it is nevertheless a veritable fact, Ih^t from the 
 moment when the first murderer received from his offend- 
 ed Maker the just meed for his deliberate fratricide, to 
 the present hour, the instinctive feeling of the unre, 
 generate subject of providentially inflicted, though justly 
 incurred, punishment has been the same; whether ad. 
 dressed in the language of rebellious and despairing feel- 
 
 1
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ing which aggravated evil to him, who, like Cain, feels 
 compelled to endure it, or whether confined in silent hitter- 
 ness to the depths of the sufferer's heart. 
 
 " My punishment is greater than I can hear,'' exclaim- 
 ed the guilty hut unhumbled murderer of the innocent 
 Abel, ivhen receiving his sentence from the lips of his 
 justly offended God, "Behold! thou hast driven me out 
 this day from the face of the earth; and it shall come to 
 pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me!" 
 t; Would to God," said the chafed and discontented Israel- 
 ites, " we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land 
 of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we 
 did cat bread to the full, for ye have brought us forth 
 into this wilderness to kill us with hunger.'' 
 
 These arc individual cases, but they may serve as ge- 
 neric delineations of the vasi family of the murmurers, 
 of whom Cain was the prototype. Not content with fret- 
 iul impatience under present evils, they are uniformly 
 found to wither the most acutely under the imaginary 
 forebodings of severer sufferings. 
 
 Were this spirit confined to the people of the world, it 
 would not be so much a matter of surprise; but it is, alas! 
 to be met with continually, among those who having 
 'avouched the Lord to be their God," arc manifestly 
 under a solemn obligation to believe and act under the 
 belief, that the times and seasons are in the Lord's hands, 
 and " the government is on his shoulders,'' who has repeat- 
 edly condescended to assure us of his kind and providential 
 care in the most minute as well as in the greatest events 
 of life. 
 
 We err as much in venturing to decide on the relative 
 enormity of transgressions in order to satisfy ourselves as 
 to their extenuation, as in undertaking to admeasure provi-
 
 INTRODUCTION", d 
 
 dential events underjhe classification of great and minor, 
 from the importance which they may severally assume in 
 our eyes. No sin can in reality be called small, which is a 
 deliberate violation of the laws of Him, who is the legisla- 
 tor of the universe; so no event should be termed insignifi- 
 cant which forms a link in that vast chain by which the 
 Almighty has connected indiscolubly the destinies of the 
 age in which we live, with those which have been follow- 
 ing in close succession from the era of the creation, and 
 with those likewise that are to intervene between the 
 present moment and the final consummation of all thing?. 
 
 What is more common than to hear petulant invectives 
 or gloomy forebodings about " the times," as if God had 
 withdrawn from the supervision of this world's concerns, 
 and had virtually consigned the helm of the universe to 
 human and irresponsible agents 1 For the last few years, 
 through every quarter of the widely extended American 
 States and Territories, the voice of complaint has been 
 continually swelling into louder notes, and many of our 
 wise statesmen, as well as of our private citizens, have 
 permitted themselves to think and give public utterance 
 to the opinion, that the preservation of our personal safety 
 and political liberties, are solely dependent on the cha- 
 racter of those who may be elevated by the will 
 of the sovereign people, to the chief places in the 
 American cabinet. Such views, however, savor strongly 
 of unbelief; for has not the Christian patriot other and 
 stronger grounds for encouragement, than may be based 
 on the principles of action, or changes of policy, adopted 
 by his fellow-men 1 
 
 Yes, blessed be God ! we may confidently trust, that 
 our destiny, whether national or personal, is not indissolu- 
 bly linked with that of any creature. " The kings of the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 earth" may place themselves in battle array against us, 
 " the rulers may gather together against the Lord," and 
 combine wisdom with might in their political machina- 
 tions, yet will they be found impotent to accomplish aught, 
 save what " thy hand," O Lord. " and thy counsel deter- 
 mined before to be done." 
 
 To mourn over the miseries which surround us, can not 
 be improper, provided our lamentation sinks not into hope- 
 less despondency, or betrays us not into petulant murmur- 
 ing, and personal and uncharitable invectives on the con- 
 duct of others. But if Christian patriots, we may not 
 sorrow as those bereft of hope, while we have this immu- 
 table promise of God remaining to cheer us, under seasons 
 of the greatest darkness and discouragement: "all things 
 work together for good to them that love God." 
 
 Let us then take heed while venting complaints against 
 our fellow-men, who may have been permitted to become 
 as the royal Assyrian of old, " the rods of God's anger," 
 employed in chastisement of our national ingratitude, lest 
 we too, like those in the camp of Israel, who murmured, 
 may be " destroyed of the destroyer." 
 
 While forbidden to indulge this propensity of our com- 
 mon nature, we are not precluded, but rather encouraged, 
 to prosecute an inquiry into the probable causes of the sad 
 declension of national prosperity. When a majority of the 
 most intelligent, sober-minded and moral members of a 
 civil community, are foundevincing deep anxiety, as to its 
 present condition, it surely behooves all interested in its 
 weal or wo, seriously to inquire, whether they may not be 
 in a measure responsible for the evils which have already 
 cast a withering blight, or may yet be instrumental in call- 
 ing it forth, over the national prospects of a land, which a 
 half century since, was regarded with intense interest, by
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 the whole of Christendom, while rising in her youthful and 
 vigorous beauty, she bade fair to become the joy of the 
 enlightened spirits of our race. 
 
 Some of the most acute and profound minds in our halls 
 of legislation, as well as in the more private walks of life, 
 have been found pondering over the constitution, whose 
 formation was once alike the pride of American sages, and 
 the joy of pure republican spirits, under the expectations 
 that flaws and inherent weaknesses might be found therein, 
 sufficient to solve a problem so mysterious. But the fa- 
 thers of our country did not construct this system of na- 
 tional legislation by their own unaided strength of intellect ; 
 unlike all other forms of government now in existence, it 
 may be pronounced emphatically " the asked of God,"* 
 the fruit of fervent prayers, poured forth from the fulness 
 of those noble and manly hearts assembled in solemn con- 
 clave, in a hall which not only to the citizens of Philadel- 
 phia, but to Americans universally, must be regarded as 
 a consecrated spot the chamber of Independence. 
 
 Instead of attempting abstruse and philosophical specu- 
 lations, on the probable defects of this joint product of di- 
 vine and human wisdom, for which task inclinations and 
 ability alike unfit me, I would rather seek to arouse my 
 
 * It is a well known fact, that during the deliberations of the Ameri- 
 can Convention relative to the formation of the Constitution of the 
 United States, Dr. Franklin introduced a motion for prayers; which he 
 prefaced with some very striking and pertinent observations, in which he 
 set forth the wisdom as well as policy of dependence on divine aid in 
 their labors; he besought his fellow-countrymen " humbly to apply to 
 the Father of lights to illuminate their understandings," asserting it to 
 be his belief, that an empire could not rise, or a political fabric be pro- 
 perly consolidated, without the concurring aid of the Almighty. The 
 motion was accordingly made and carried. From that time the framers 
 of the constitution unitedly besought the divine assistance in their daily 
 labors, so that the Constitution, when completed, may deservedly be 
 styled the asked of God." 
 
 1*
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 country women and myself, to a consciousness of the re- 
 sponsibility resting on American females at the present 
 crisis of our national history. 
 
 Human society is but the aggregate assemblage of in- 
 dividuals, and of course it is impossible to separate national 
 from private character; the former can have no personal 
 identity irrespective of that derived from the beings who 
 constitute its separate atoms, its intellectual molecules. 
 In all its divisions, females form a large proportion of the 
 components, and on this ground alone, their principles of 
 action and moral influence would seem deserving of atten- 
 tive consideration from the legislator and philanthropist. 
 That their influence both in ameliorating and debasing 
 human nature is in an increased ratio to their numerical 
 importance is, however, a fact confirmed by revelation, 
 historical testimony, and experience; which position I shall 
 attempt subsequently to elucidate. It will be in accord- 
 ance with the designs of the present publication likewise, 
 to embody such suggestions as appear to throw light on the 
 position which the female sex was designed to occupy in 
 the moral universe of God and to give some hints as to 
 the class of duties thereby imposed on women, neither of 
 which points are undeserving of attentive consideration to 
 those, who ardently desire to (ill up their lives with duty 
 and usefulness,and to fulfil thcirdestined vocation as female 
 patriots, and Christian conservatives. 
 
 When GUI' time-pieces cease to accomplish the specific 
 object for which they were designed, do we not as a matter 
 of course, submit them to the inspection of those versed in 
 the mechanical principles on which they were constructed, 
 that the sources of internal disturbance may be ascertained 
 and the evils remedied. No rational being questions the 
 propriety of such a course of procedure, and would smile
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 at the fatuity of another, who, ignorant of the laws of me- 
 chanical powers, should ponder over his open time-piece, 
 alternately gazing at the eeveral parts, one moment fan- 
 cying the main-spring, and at another the fusee, to be the 
 centre of disorder. No ! On such occasions we are con- 
 tent to follow the dictates of reason, and experience con- 
 firms their fitness. Bat why not proceed on similar prin- 
 ciples, when more important interests arc involved ? 
 
 The world itself, with its vast population, is a specimen 
 of God's workmanship, and undoubtedly was originally so 
 created by him, that all its elements were complete and 
 perfect. Infinite wisdom, swayed by boundless benevo- 
 lence, devised and executed each portion of the complica- 
 ted mechanism, which was thus of course peculiarly fitted 
 to accomplish its specific functions, so long as the relations 
 should be maintained, which had been established by the 
 divine mind. 
 
 History and observation, however, combine to assure us, 
 that human society has become sadly disorganized, and that 
 moral, no less than intellectual darkness, have shrouded to 
 a great extent, the creation of our great and merciful God. 
 Revelation steps in to aid us, when baffled reason fails to 
 solve the mystery. With her unerring finger, she points to 
 the explanation contained in the volume of inspiration, 
 " man sinned and fell short of the glory of God," and from 
 that moment, a malign influence has gone forth, pervading 
 the whole organization of this world's concerns. 
 
 Philosophy, falsely so called, vainly attempts to offer 
 another mode of accounting fo_r the all-prevalent and ap- 
 palling wickedness that reigns around; equally fallacious 
 are her promises of a brighter and better day, to be ushered 
 in by the instrumentality of agents and systems of her own
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fashioning, however plausible may be the theories on which 
 such anticipations are founded. 
 
 In carrying on the complicated machinery of the uni- 
 verse, the Almighty Master Mind, has ever maintained his 
 station of supreme control; but from thence he has sent 
 forth his irresistible mandate?, and specific commissions to 
 the various agents to whom he has entrusted the develop- 
 ment and complete accomplishment of his divine purposes. 
 Not one has ever been frustrated nor has one been impe- 
 ded farther than his will permitted. Man has indeed 
 in all ages been wonderfully sagacious in seeking to elude 
 his Maker's eye, or in discomfiting his design. Whether 
 assembled in vast multitudes, he has sought to accomplish 
 his own self-willed impulses, by building " a city and a 
 tower, whose top may reach heaven," or whether arrayed 
 in royal diadem, he has dared singly to confront his God 
 with unhallowed and presumptuous purposes; still the lan- 
 guage of Jehovah to each and to all who have sought and 
 shall yet continue to seek, to traverse the path, on which 
 the broad wheels of his providence have been rolling ma- 
 jestically, from the moment when time began, until it shall 
 be no longer, has ever been, " I will overturn overturn 
 overturn it; and it shall be no more, until he come 
 whose right it is" to govern, and then thrones, dominions, 
 principalities and powers shall bow in willing obeisance 
 before their universal Lord. But while wielding not the 
 sword in vain when arrogance is to be quelled, or obedience 
 exacted, yet " saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth 
 eternity , I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also, 
 that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit 
 of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite one." 
 
 To Him, therefore, let us look in humble confidence, 
 beseeching Him to show to the daughters of America the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 place he has designed., them to fill in his moral universe, 
 and to impart to them grace and strength to discharge its 
 distinctive and appropriate duties. Especially let us im- 
 plore the illumination of the spirit, the promised guide 
 to truth, that we may become instructed in that know- 
 ledge which is most important for us to attain, the know- 
 ledge of ourselves, of our transgressions and corruptions. 
 He " who is exalted to give repentance,'' is also entitled 
 to hestow " remissions of sin." Our iniquities are bound 
 up in the bundle of our country's, and if individual peni- 
 tence abounds, then will that of the nation be secured and 
 its destruction averted; "For if we turn again unto the 
 Lord, our brethren and our children shall find compassion, 
 and the fierceness of his wrath may be turned away from 
 us." " The Lord our. God is gracious and merciful, and 
 will not turn his face from us, if we return unto him." 
 
 The serious tone pervading the present volume, will by 
 some readers be considered as an objectionable feature in 
 a publication designed for popular reading. Be it so ! 
 Nevertheless the author can not dissemble or disguise her 
 
 o 
 
 opinion that the fate of her country is dependent on its 
 moral character, and not on the operation of second cau- 
 ses. " If the calamity of" America, like that of Moab, be 
 " near to come, and if her affliction hasteth fast," then may 
 we be well assured that " the strong staffof " liberty " will 
 be broken, and the beautiful rod" spoiled, not on account 
 of inherent constitutional weaknesses in our government, 
 but because the memorial of our national sins, like that of 
 Ninevah and Sodom, has come up before the Lord of hosts. 
 Nor let this be objected to as the language of enthu- 
 siasm; as if we would be understood to imply that the in- 
 terference of God must be necessarily manifested in a 
 miraculous manner, either for judgment or approval, since
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 this is not his ordinary method of procedure. The de- 
 struction of Babylon was foretold, and Cyrus specified by 
 name as her destroyer, i\\o hundred years before that event 
 rame to pass; he came as God predicted to fulfil his plea- 
 sure upon the capital of the Babylonish empire, yet was 
 there nothing miraculous in his proceedings. God regard- 
 ed him with favor, and as his appointed instrument award- 
 ed success to his arms. Victory followed in his pathway, 
 when the Almighty "opened before him the two leaved 
 gates'" and when he ' ; brolje in pieces the gates of brass 
 and cut in sunder the bars of iron:" yet these events 
 How on so much in accordance with the usual course ot 
 nature, being, apparently traceable to adequate causes, 
 that the sagacious and discriminating mind of Xer.ophoir 
 or Kcrodotu=.t as well as that of many a one, amcr.g the 
 various generations who have studied their writings, could 
 detect nothing which might not by inference, be considered 
 referable to the distinguished abilities and consummate 
 military skill of the Persian hero. There is a striking 
 coincidence observable between the minutkc of this great 
 event as recorded by these two heathen writers, and the 
 predictions of the divinely inspired historians. " Behold," 
 said the Almighty by the mouth of Isaiah, "I will stir up 
 the Medcs against them, which shall not regard silver; 
 and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. Thrir bow? 
 also shall dash the young men to pieces: their eye shall 
 not spare children," etc. Xcnophon makes Cyrus com- 
 mence his address to his soldiery with these words, " Ye 
 Modes, I well know that ye have not accompanied me 
 with the view of acquiring wealth" etc. Pie likewise 
 specifics their ponderous metalic bows, of three cubits in 
 
 * Xenophon Cyropedia. .Book VII. t Herodotus. Book I.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 length, fit instruments to accomplish the work predicted by 
 God. Herodotus concurs with Xenophon in the account 
 of the hundred massy gates of brass, and of the means 
 of access which they presented to the conquerors 
 who, under extraordinary circumstances, found what had 
 been intended as the surest defence of the imperial city, 
 made instrumental to its complete destruction. " 1 will," 
 said the Almighty, " loose the loins of kings to open before 
 him the two leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut." 
 Herodotust informs us, that Cyrus understanding a great 
 festival was to be kept in Babylon, and that the king and 
 his subjects ordinarily spent that night in revelling and 
 excess, wisely judged it would be a suitable period for him 
 to consummate his purposes; he sent a party of his men to 
 the head of the canal leading to a great lake above the 
 city, who at an appointed time broke down the embank- 
 ment which intervened between the Euphrates and the 
 canal, by which means the waters of the former, by the 
 current, were forcibly impelled into the lake, the level of 
 which was lower;' and thus in a short time the channel of 
 the river was drained sufficiently to be fordable. At mid- 
 night the army of Cyrus, in two bodies, entered the cily 
 by the opening in the walls, formed for the passage of the 
 stream. The brazen gates which led down to the river, 
 and" which in ordinary times were closed carefully, so form- 
 ing a metalic and impregnable wall, were on that night of 
 revelry carelessly left open, and through the open portals 
 the army of Cyrus ascended into the city and took posses- 
 sion of it, when it was furnished with provisions, according 
 to a Roman historian, sufficient for the subsistence of its 
 numerous inhabitants, during twenty years. 
 
 * Herodotus. Book I.
 
 12 INTRODUCTION*. 
 
 Many other cases might be citctl, to confirm the opinion 
 as to the manner in which the providential and far-reach- 
 ing designs of God, in respect to national destiny, may be 
 gradually unfolded and consummated b}* an order of events, 
 which seem not unaccountable in the circumstances, under 
 which they have taken place. 
 
 Instead then of folding our hands, in indolent and 
 thoughtless confidence of security, because we can not 
 detect visible indications of national judgment, let us ra- 
 ther ponder on the coincidence existing between our pre- 
 sent circumstances and those of " the daughter of Egypt," 
 when the prophet declared her national malady to be in- 
 curable, and beyond the reach of medicinal remedies. 
 "The -nations have heard of thy shame," exclaimed (he 
 son of Israel in his address to her, " and thy cry hath filled 
 the land; for the mighty man hath stumbled against the 
 mighty, and they are fallen both together." 
 
 If but ten righteous persons had been found in Sodom, 
 then had its destruction been averted, so if the daugh- 
 ters of America be but faithful to their God and to them- 
 selves, then may our beloved country be permitted to re- 
 gain not only the measure of prosperity which it once 
 possessed, but may also rise to the enjoyment of yet more 
 distinguished privileges among the nations of the earth. 
 When the confederate kings of Judah, Israel and Edom, 
 in a season of perplexity, presented themselves at the in- 
 stigation of the first named prince, before the prophet of 
 God, the guilty Jchoram, the sovereign of Israel, with his 
 confederate brother of Edom, received this remarkable 
 salutation from Elisha " As the Lord of Hosts liveth be- 
 fore whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the 
 presence of Jehosaphat, the king of Judah, I would not
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 look toward thee n6r see thee.''* Let us American 
 females, realize the claim which our country has on us at 
 the present crisis, and each one according to our separate 
 position in society, seek as our most precious adorning, the 
 same living piety which characterized the monarch of Ju- 
 dah: then may the Lord so k4 regard our presence" as his 
 children by faith in the Redeemer, that he will condescend 
 in mercy to regard with favor the land of our birth, and 
 cause her to shine, beautifully radiant, " as an army with 
 banners." 
 
 * Jeremiah xlvi.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WOMAN'S STATION" PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED, \. 
 
 A people characterized by intellectual activity, will 
 uniformly be found manifesting a passion for novelty. 
 This was an astonishing feature in the Athenian mind, at 
 the proud era of her national glory, when Greece number- 
 ed Demosthenes, and Thucydides, among her sons. The 
 former describes his countrymen as eagerly thirsting after 
 news, while the latter characterizes them as " excellent in 
 suffering themselves to be deceived by novelty of speech." 
 This peculiarity in their idiosyncrasy, was still observable, 
 when, four centuries subsequent to the Persian invasion, 
 the city of Athens was visited by the great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles, since at that time ' ; the Athenians and strangers 
 which were there, spent their time in nothing else, but 
 either to tell or to hear some new thing." 
 
 On this point, the American and Athenian mind may find 
 a bond of union and sympathy, though the young republic 
 can not trace a lineal descent from the favorite of Minerva. 
 Expositions of scientific truth, theories of political econo- 
 my, opinions in civil, political, religious, social and literary 
 subjects, and suggestions in mechanics, are continually 
 presented to the public, as especially entitled to attentive 
 consideration, whose claims to favor are found frequently 
 to be based on no better foundation than novelty. 
 
 Among the suggested improvements, may be enumera- 
 ted the attempts which have so frequently been made of
 
 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 late year?, to give currency to certain statements in re- 
 spect to the position occupied by woman in the social and 
 political relations of society. Through the medium of the 
 press, by popular oratory, and in public places of resort, 
 r.:id in private circles, the female sex have been represented 
 r.i having been subjected to a rigorous and oppressive 
 vnssahge for near six thousand years, by their restricted 
 confinement to the shades of private life, their condem- 
 nation to the monotonous exercise of an inferior and de- 
 grading class of duties, then state of preclusion from un- 
 fettered intellectual exertion, and their non-participation 
 in political privileges- These ultra reformers have raised 
 their banners ostensibly in the cause of injured woman, 
 :uid as her deliverers from an ignominious yoke, asserted 
 to be equally galling to her, and subversive of the best 
 interests of the human race; and so ingeniously and plau- 
 sibly have they frequently argued, that many ambitious 
 and unprincipled, as well as injudicious minds among those 
 whose partisans they profess to be, have been allured to 
 the standards of their chivalrous chiefs, there to exhaust 
 all their energies in furthering a cause which is falsely 
 deemed fraught with blessings to those whose rights are 
 nominally espoused. 
 
 Alas! minds thus perverted in judgment, and blinded 
 by prejudice, evince an inability to detect the finely mark- 
 ed, but expressive lines, which give grace and personality 
 to woman's nature, when regenerated and sanctilicd by 
 the grace of God. The outline and filling up of that 
 figure both attest it to be the work of "His unrivalled 
 pencil," whose scientific knowledge and practical skill, are 
 alike transcendant. Sagacity and wise discrimination 
 have been equally manifested in the adaptation of the 
 nature of woman to her designated sphere, and vice
 
 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 17 
 
 
 versa. The statue, in the accuracy of its proportions as 
 
 first created, showed the hand of a master, while the niche 
 in his vast temple, prep'ared for it to occupy, was pecu- 
 liarly calculated to exhibit all those heauties in the most 
 appropriate light, and to the utmost possible advantage, 
 so long as it should retain its oiiginal purity. Since 
 the fall, woman has indeed become greatly degraded in 
 the scale of being; but if certain peculiarities in her mate- 
 rial structure, now fit her for the discharge, of those physi- 
 cal relations, in which through every age and in all climes, 
 particularly as a consequence of that sad event, she has been 
 placed, why should it be deemed irrational or absurd, if 
 special purposes of the divine mind should have been ren- 
 dered equally manifest, in the adaptation of the moral and 
 intellectual capabilities of her nature, to a no less specific 
 and appropriate sphere of action, when divine grace 
 should be superinduced upon it. In carrying on the 
 diversified and complicated ecomony of the kingdom of 
 nature, the Governor of the universe has evinced consum- 
 mate skill in producing important results, in securing 
 order and harmonious action by the application of antago- 
 nist principles, thus preserving an exquisite balance be- 
 tween powers, which, if not wisely restrained, would have 
 introduced infinite disorder, and sometimes have involved 
 total ruin. By the exertion of the counteracting forces of 
 centripetal and centrifugal powers, the harmony, beauty, 
 and unchanging regularity of the solar system, has been 
 secured. The irresistible and overwhelming compression 
 of the material particles of which our globe is composed, 
 which would have resulted from the unresisted sway of the 
 law of attraction, has been likewise prevented by the ac- 
 tion of the opposing law of repulsion, which in its turn, if 
 uncontrolled, would have caused to dissolve and dissipate 
 
 2*
 
 n WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 into an seriform fluid, the most solid forms of matter, 
 Attain, in the anatomical structure of the human body, the 
 same principle has been rendered available to the most 
 important purpose?, and man hourly reaps the advantage 
 derived from the possession of antagonist power?) in ex- 
 ertions of muscular strength, from the most simple to the 
 most complicated. In the mechanism, intellectual and 
 moral, of each individual, also we find special affections 
 pointing to distinct and separate objects, and which may 
 be restrained from excess by the operations of God's spirit 
 working by means of other principles of counteractive 
 power, while the action of the whole has an evident ten- 
 dency to promote the well-being of the creature himself, 
 as well as that of his species. May not the Almighty Pa- 
 rent of the human race in framing the mental and moral 
 constitutions of the two sexes, have had respect to the same 
 great principle of procedure, and prepared them to per- 
 form their respective parts in the mechanism of society, 
 under the provisions of the Gospel economy, by endowing 
 each with the power of developing, when regenerate, cer- 
 tain attributes of a common nature in a degree of perfec- 
 tion which would not have been so well attained, had they 
 both been deputed to manifest the same class of virtues 
 and similar features of mind 1 
 
 There are important generalities in their common na- 
 ture, but I apprehend no less certain specific distinctions, 
 the reasons for which are apparent and satisfactory to an 
 inquiring mind. The architect is compelled to employ 
 various tools in perfecting his work; the hammer, the saw, 
 and the plane have each a particular adaptation to cer- 
 tain offices in mechanism ; neither could be dispensed with, 
 nor could the use of one, supersede that of the other. 
 The Almighty has been for ages erecting a holy city, into
 
 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 19 
 
 which hereafter " the glory and honor of the nations" are 
 to be brought, but into which none shall enter that have 
 not been purchased by the blood of Christ. It is charac- 
 terized by the most perfect unity of design and harmonious 
 development of every part; and while in its construction, 
 its divine head, though not compelled by necessity so to 
 do, has had recourse to special instruments for the accom- 
 plishment of every separate purpose. 
 
 The introduction of sin into the world, has induced 
 many and sad changes in its material structure and in the 
 moral and physical condition of its inhabitants. A with- 
 ering blight has-been permitted to a certain extent to pass 
 over the face of external nature, whose surpassing beauty 
 and perfection when springing into being at its Maker's 
 commands, entitled ii to his benediction, and elicited from 
 the admiring hosts of heaven, songs of joy and adoration. 
 The rod of chastisement was however, solely exercised in 
 vindication of divine justice, and not wielded in wrath by 
 an inexorable judge. The attributes of Jehovah's mind 
 are attempered to such perfection, that infinite justice 
 never induces him to forget his purposes of boundless be- 
 nevolence. When therefore his guilty and rebellious 
 creatures rendered themselves voluntarily obnoxious to 
 punishment, perfect holiness required the infliction; but 
 in its execution, " mercy and truth met together, righteous- 
 ness and peaee kissed each other." Jehovah in his office 
 of divine legislator, continued to manifest the ineffable 
 tenderness of his parental nature, and so graciously dis- 
 pensed the very punishments which his violated law de- 
 manded, as to render them actually subservient to the ac- 
 complishment of the glorious scheme of redemption devis- 
 ed in infinite mercy for the fallen and condemned. The 
 course of moral discipline to which human nature is now
 
 20 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 necessarily subjected, preparatory (o its introduction to a 
 higher and holier slate of existence, is inseparably 
 connected with the curse inflicted as a chastisement. 
 
 If our progenitors were created to manifest the divine 
 glory, and V ere quickened into natural life by two distinct 
 emanations of the spirit of God, may not the inference be 
 admitted, that as co-workers for their Lord, our sexes 
 were each destined to specific and responsible offices un- 
 der diseconomy of a wise Providence? so that when rous- 
 ed from the death of " trespasses 'and sins," quickened 
 into spiritual life by God's "kindness through Christ Je- 
 FUS," without dissonance or conflicting action, they may- 
 move on, as it were, " wheel in the midst of a wheel*' 
 "whither the spirit is to go," their v. ings stretched 
 heavenward, but "joined one to another," neither disturb- 
 ing nor impeding, but only accelerating, the motions of the 
 other, whensoever their spiritual natures submit to the 
 constraining power of celestial attraction ? 
 
 Between the judicial sentences passed upon the first 
 pair after the fall, there may be readily perceived striking 
 features of distinction, which I apprehend can not be con- 
 sidered as entirely referable to the diflerent position of the 
 transgressors. I may be pardoned, perhaps, if I suggest 
 whether these peculiarities may not furnish some ground 
 for the opinion that the two sexes, of whom Adam and 
 Eve were the representatives, were each especially ap- 
 pointed to manifest in a more peculiar manner, a separate 
 class of the mental and moral attributes of human nature, 
 and were to shew forth the praise, and to further the cause 
 of their Lord, by series of actions and exhibitions of duties 
 not entirely analagous: while both were alike bound im- 
 peratively, to " work out their own salvation with fear and 
 trembling, remembering that it is God alone who werketh
 
 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 2 I 
 
 in them to will and to do of his good pleasure." Equally 
 were they required to live not unto themselves hut unto 
 their Lord to look not on their own things, hut on those 
 of others, and whatsoever they had to do, whether in word 
 or deed, all was to "be done " to the glory of God." 
 
 Unto Adam the Almighty said, " cursed is the ground 
 for thy sake-, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of 
 thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; 
 and thou shalt eat the herb of the field j in the sweat of 
 thy face sha4t thou eat bread until thou return to the 
 ground, for out of it wast thou taken ; for dust thou art, and 
 unto dust shalt thou return." In these brief portions of 
 Scripture is comprised a prophetic and remarkably faithful 
 description, a striking epitome of the history of fallen 
 man during the progress of near six thousand years! En- 
 dowed with the sterner and more commanding attributes 
 of mind, invested with superior physical strength, he was 
 designed for a more continued and open conflict with ma- 
 terial things; and in the exercise of the duties of his ap- 
 propriate sphere, the relations of which to things " that 
 are seen and temporal," arc much more intimate and ob- 
 vious, than in that assigned to woman, the peculiar course 
 of moral discipline marked out for him, was more espe- 
 cially to be accomplished; and while doing "all things 
 through Christ which strengthened" him, he w r as to " press 
 towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God 
 in Christ Jesus." 
 
 By those actings and reactings of feeling which would 
 result from the collision with his fellows in society; by 
 the observations and close scrutiny to which his conduct 
 and opinions, his prejudices and partialities would be con- 
 tinually subjected in his prominent position, the lord of 
 creation was continually to be reminded, that he was
 
 22 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 through anxiety, toil, and rude conflict with external 
 things, to force his appointed way. At the moment of 
 man's creation, the Almighty wtis by virtue of his divine 
 attribute of prescience, perfectly apprized of the conse- 
 quences that must result to the material world from the 
 operation of those opposing influences which were there- 
 after to be associated with material thing?, in judgment, for 
 the apostacy of man. He was perfectly aware of the 
 change which would occur, in the nature of his occupa- 
 tions, who had originally, while innocent, been put into 
 the garden of Eden to drc?s and to keep it, when vegeta- 
 tion having lost a portion of the original loveliness which 
 it exhibited when its Maker's smiles beamed forth upon it, 
 obscured by no intervening cloud, should spontaneously 
 produce the thorn and noxious thistle. He saw also with 
 vivid perception the obstructions to man's occupations, the 
 toils which would be imposed on him by the convulsions 
 of the trembling earth, the abasement of the lofty moun- 
 tains, and the bowing of" the perpetual hills," that would 
 ensue when, for the wickedness of man: 
 
 " tlie earth should pour 
 
 Rain day and night; all, foundations of the deep 
 J5roke up, should heave the ocean to usurp 
 Beyond all bounds, and inundations rise 
 Above the highest hills." 
 
 He too knew the period, when the elements of nature 
 would come at his bidding, saying, " Here are we, ready 
 to co-operate in thy providential designs, either to form thy 
 chariot, on which thou wilt ride forth to judgment, or to 
 mark the pathway, on which thou wilt-descend as a father 
 to chasten thy erring children!" And while beholding 
 the consequences that would hereafter result from the
 
 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 23 
 
 operation of the curse tin material things induced by man's 
 sin, and the punitive power with which thenceforward 
 they would be invested, with prospective wisdom the Al- 
 mighty so formed his constitution, as to render a success- 
 ful struggle with these opposing principles a means of 
 strengthening not only his physical, but also his mental 
 nature; and thus afforded him opportunities for rising to a 
 station of dignity and importance in the moral universe, 
 to which he would not h,ave attained, had his position been 
 one involving no necessity for invigorating conflicts. 
 There was poetic beauty as well as profound wisdom 
 couched in the classic fable of Hercules, who, according 
 to the ancients, was decreed by the gods to immortality, 
 and to attest his divine anger only by a continuous conflict 
 with, and conquest of, a host of the most formidable oppo- 
 nents. 
 
 As the descendant of the first Adam, the sinner inherits 
 as a part of his birthright, the appointment to toil and 
 conflict, both physical and moral, without, external 
 temptations beset, within, his own inbred corruptions; 
 but when "justified by faith," he finds " peace with God," 
 he is admitted to the blessed privileges of a regenerate 
 son of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven; and 
 he receives the charter of a heavenly inheritance sealed 
 with the signet of his Lord, and made sure to him on this 
 condition: " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with 
 me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set 
 down with my Father in his throne." 
 
 There were important plans of the Governor of the 
 universe to be forwarded, which required an agent such 
 as man would always be, did he by faith in the Redeemer, 
 but conform his character to the manifested will of his 
 Creator; an agent fitted to exercise dominion in the world
 
 24 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 of mind and matter, one who could maintain his suprem- 
 acy by power strengthened by influence, but not by 
 power, created by influence. 
 
 If, in the sentence inflicted on Adarn as a penalty, a re- 
 ference may be seen to the peculiarities of man's con- 
 stitution and destiny, may there not be discovered in that 
 passed on his partner in transgression, a satisfactory expla- 
 nation of facts connected with the history of woman in 
 every age ? Sorrows, mental and physical, were by the 
 terms of that decision to be abundantly multiplied unto 
 her, and she was decreed to circumstances of temporal 
 subjection to man, who henceforward as her lord and 
 master, was to rule over her. Most literally and univer- 
 sally has this prediction been fulfilled. During all ages, 
 from the times of the patriarchs to the era of the 19th 
 century, in all climes, from the icy regions of the frozen 
 zone, to the fervid sands and luxuriant groves of the torrid, 
 has woman's history substantially harmonized with the 
 divine declaration. As nations have progressively advan- 
 ced in civilisation and refinement, there has been indeed, 
 a perceptible difference manifested in their appreciation 
 of the female character; but since the promulgation of 
 Christianity, though her relative position has not been 
 materially altered, as the Gospel authorizes and sanctions 
 the subjection imposed by the judicial sentence pronoun- 
 ced on woman, yet has her temporal condition with that 
 of her species at large, been exceedingly improved, while 
 her spiritual interests have been secured on a broad and 
 imperishable basis, if she reject not the blessings so freely 
 and mercifully set before her: "There is neither male 
 nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Many strenuous attempts have been made, by the fair 
 advocates of equal rights, to secure for their sex certain
 
 STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 25 
 
 privileges, both sociafand political, of which it is affirmed 
 woman has been unjustly and arbitrarily deprived, to her 
 own detriment and to that of mankind at large; while the 
 justice and wisdom of the Almighty in assigning to her a 
 subordinate place 'in the social and political relations, is 
 called in question, as if it were not an assumption, but a 
 verity, that habits of submission necessarily presuppose 
 inferiority in the party subjected, an opinion, the fahity 
 of which I shall not now pause to consider. But even 
 were it an established truth, that the humble employments 
 and. circumscribed sphere to which woman was assigned 
 without her instrumentality, were calculated to degrade 
 her in the universe of God, I know not on what ground, 
 as a sinner redeemed by grace alone$ she can presume to 
 rebel against the decision of her Supreme Ruler. She 
 will rather recall the moment when her maternal head and 
 representative stood before the bar of God, as a criminal 
 justly obnoxious to punishment. As Eve had taken prece- 
 dency in sin, so might she have anticipated a severer con- 
 demnation; nor let her daughters presume to arraign the 
 conduct of her judge. " Shall the thing formed of clay 
 say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus ? 
 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same 
 lump to make one vessel unto honor and another to 
 dishonor ?" 
 
 It is not, however, a fact, that woman was " a vessel 
 formed for dishonor;" and appointed to an inferior mis- 
 sion under the divine economy. The external, visible and 
 temporal scene in which we are now moving is but the 
 vestibule of God's great temple; a narrow and often dark 
 passage through which we must pass, and wherein thou- 
 sands can be clothed with the pure vestments wherein, 
 they are to soar to immortality before reaching the great 
 
 3
 
 26 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 city, the holy Jerusalem, in the which there is to be "no 
 need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the 
 glory of GooF is to " lighten it, and the Lamb is the light 
 thereof." 
 
 While reverently submitting to his mandates who as- 
 signed woman her relative position in society, under 
 circumstances which, at first sight might savor ef harsh- 
 ness, let us with docile and inquiring spirits seek to disco- 
 ver whether there may not be some alleviation, if not an 
 adequate compensation for these seeming ills. Truly 
 there are mercies, special mercies, involved in the very 
 nature of the curse imposed on our sex, and like the re- 
 nowned Israelitish leader, we may extract our sweetest 
 nutriment from the lips of the avenger, who may per- 
 haps, heretofore, have been viewed solely as the messenger 
 of evil. 
 
 Regenerate woman was destined to no ignoble office in 
 the moral universe, but like the Graces of ancient story, 
 was commissioned to develope in harmonious and matured 
 beauty those virtues, by whose presence even the wilder- 
 ness of Ibis world was to be made " to rejoice and blos- 
 som as the rose.'' The highest happiness of man has been 
 made by God to consist in the pure and elevated tone of 
 moral feelings which can only result from a cordial and 
 believing reception of Christianity, and not in the mere 
 nominal assent to its truths, and in the consequent con- 
 formity to the standard of faith and holiness placed before 
 him in the Word of God. If the ultimate design of God 
 in his dispensations towards our race be inquired after, 
 the page of Scripture will be found yielding a ready re- 
 sponse to the interrogatory: " this is the will of God, even 
 your sanctification ;" the Lord Jesus who primarily " came 
 to seek and save that which was lost," " suffered also for us,
 
 STATION PRO VIDE NTIALLV APPOINTED. 27 
 
 leaving us an example that we should follow his steps," 
 and assures us that he came down from heaven, not to do 
 his own will, but the will of his Father; ' my meat," said 
 he, " is to do the will of Him that sent me. And this is 
 the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he 
 hath given rne I should lose nothing, hut should raise it 
 up again at the last day." God then has not left us igno- 
 rant of what was the design of our creation and redemp- 
 tion, and consequently what should be the end and aim of 
 our being. It appears obvious that that dispensa- 
 tion would seem most perfect and most fraught with bless- 
 ings and mercies to the subjects of it, which should most 
 especially tend to accomplish the great purposes of our 
 Maker. "VVe firmly believe that the circumstances in 
 which woman has been placed arc, when viewed aright, 
 and by the grace of God duly Improved, powerfully calcu- 
 lated to devcfope and foster those Christian virtues which 
 the Word of God specifies as the most important attributes 
 of the renewed nature, and the possession of which is the 
 test, though not the ground of our acceptance, which can 
 alone be found in the one, full, and complete oblation and 
 satisfaction of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 If such be the case, then may woman, if true to herself, 
 find an ample recompense for any severity in the terms of 
 the penal sentence, by which her situation in society has 
 been determined. Experience as well as philosophy cor- 
 roborates the truth, that there* is a tendency in our nature 
 leading us to find increased facility in every successive re- 
 petition of actions, to the performance .of which, natural 
 feelings had created a disinclination. Thus the child who 
 from the dawn of reason has been trained to habits of un- 
 reserved obedience in minor points of duty, will be found 
 the most prompt in evincing the same spirit when great in
 
 28 YTO.MAIVis STATION PEOVIDEXTIALLY A 
 
 tcrcsts are involved, and in after years he will prove 
 himself the most scrupulous observer of the laws of his 
 country, the best conservative, whatever his station may 
 be. So on the same principle, may Christian women, 
 while yielding submission to the law which imposed on 
 them subjection to earthly masters, as one of the statutes 
 framed by the unerring wisdom of the legislator of the 
 universe, find the habit of deference towards those to whom 
 temporal supremacy has been delegated, rendered subser- 
 vient to the promotion of their highest interests. Submis- 
 sion to an Almighty Ruler becomes immeasurably less 
 difficult, when the mind has been accustomed to recognize 
 the authority, and cheerfully to conform to the will of an 
 earthly master, as a law emanating from Supreme Intelli- 
 gence. When "in singleness of heart as unto Christ," 
 and in the exercise of a lively faith, this portion of the 
 divine law is received by woman, as of personal obligation, 
 and when by God's help, she frames her moral nature ac- 
 cordingly, she will find herself 
 
 " advanced 
 
 Far nearer in the habit of her soul 
 To that still region whither all are bound." 
 
 JSor let her in the pride of her heart, rebel against this 
 enactment, as one calculated to cramp and degrade her 
 in the scale of moral being. The attributes of God's cha- 
 racter at once repel such an idea. It is the motives of ac- 
 tion, which ennoble the individual, not the nature of his 
 employment, in the eyes of those capable of justly appre- 
 ciating moral excellence; and religion secures woman while 
 in the intelligent performance of duty, from scriptural 
 motives, from a SCKSC of degradation. Her Almighty Pa- 
 rent's design in her creation frill not be accomplished by
 
 STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 29 
 
 her, if she receives the law without seeking to understand 
 the principles on which it was based, and the result to 
 which its observance was intended to lead her individu- 
 ally; she will otherwise passively and indolently yield to 
 its requirements as if from painful necessity, and become 
 a mere automaton in the hands of man, impelled to the ex- 
 ercise of her motive powers, mental and physical, solely 
 by the manifested will of her superior in creation. No! 
 Her Maker in designating her to a peculiar post in the 
 economy of grace, contemplated far higher results, and we 
 firmly believe that in marking out her station and employ- 
 ments, he expressly arranged them in such a manner that 
 hy the operation of a living principle within, she would be 
 stimulated to persevering effort and uniform contest with 
 the corruptions of a fallen nature by which she would 
 more especially be assailed from the nature of her prescri- 
 bed duties, and to such ardent aspirations, after conformity 
 to the divine image, that she might be more continually 
 reminded of her entire dependence on her Redeemer as a 
 deliverer from the guilt and power of sin ; and thus amidst 
 her weakness and infirmities might more effectually " press 
 towards the mark lor the prize of the high calling of God 
 in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Meekness, humility, gentleness, love, purity, self-renun- 
 ciation, subjection of will, are especially characterized as 
 the fruits of the spirit, and the most important attributes of 
 our nature, in the full development of which, the immortal 
 and glorified soul is to show forth its perfection by him, 
 whose perceptions of moral beauty far exceed those which 
 can be realized by the highest exercise of the finite "intel- 
 lect. This class of virtues woman was appointed to mani- 
 fest, and her sphere of action, as a fallen creature, was most 
 happily adapted to perfect and matu re their growth. The
 
 30 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 belief appears almost universally to have obtained, thai 
 her nature was designed to be the most genial soil for 
 maturing the heavenly seed, since even among heathen 
 nations we find her constantly associated as the prominent 
 agent in the sacred rites of superstitious observance. In 
 the Pythia of Delphi, the Syballai and Vestates of Rome, 
 before whom the wisest and proudest citizens were com- 
 pelled to bow in reverential homage, we may read an in- 
 stinctive impression that woman was commissioned to 
 guard the most sacred elements of our common nature, and 
 the same truth is corroborated in ancient mythology. 
 Does not the voice of public opinion tacitly sanction the 
 same view in imperatively demanding as the appropri- 
 ate and crowning graces of the female character, the ex- 
 hibition of those virtues, which in their outward manifesta- 
 tions, make the nearest approach of which unassisted 
 human nature is capable, to the characteristic beauties of 
 the Christian pattern. Even when cultivated on such 
 principles as natural religion dictates, they are the iai rest 
 flowers which our fallen world can produce, though then 
 at best marred and imperfect adumbrations of the lovely 
 growth of celestial origin, of which we may affirm, " It is 
 the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." 
 
 In the ear of Christian women of refined and cultivated 
 minds and of sound judgments, there is ever a still small 
 voice whispering to them in accents the most persuasive, 
 and bidding them resist the sophistries of a shallow and 
 false philosophy, and sedulously to cultivate (hat class of 
 virtues which harmonize the most nearly with the purposes 
 of the divine mind. 
 
 These views may be objected to as fanciful and unso- 
 phistical, and the variations in the manifestations of female 
 and male character may be explained by the different re-
 
 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 31 
 
 lative position which "the two sexes occupy in society. 
 But if the part assigned to woman in the vast and diversi- 
 fied economy of human life, be of necessity essentially dis- 
 tinct in many of its features from that to which man has 
 been called, is it irrational to suppose that she may, by the 
 wisdom and benevolence of her Creator, have been organi- 
 zed both materially and immaterially, with a special 
 adaptation to her destined sphere of action, when by the 
 grace of God she should be made to see the responsibili- 
 ties of her situation as the most efficient moral guardian 
 and guide of the human race ? 
 
 In the infinite richness of imaginative power, Jehovah 
 delighted to model in distinct forms of beauty, the arche- 
 types of the mineral, vegetable and inferior orders of ani- 
 mal creation; pausing at each successive step, he sent 
 forth in the advancing ranks only such as ascended, one 
 by one, in the scale of existence, above those that preceded 
 them, until man, the lord of all, appeared, created in the 
 image of his Maker, and designed to shadow forth the 
 perfection of the Divine Mind. At that moment, Jehovah 
 paused in his glorious work, and resumed the exercise of 
 his peculiar functions, only to prepare for Adam his help- 
 meet and companion, woman.* 
 
 As every preceding step of his progressive work had 
 been characterized by the production of a higher exhibi- 
 tion of the material principle, it would seem improbable, 
 that the crowning and closing act would have been marked 
 by an imperfect fac-simile of a previous creation. Reason 
 and revelation would on the contrary lead us to anticipate 
 in woman, an original being, one advanced, rather than 
 degraded below her predecessor in destiny. Her earthly 
 
 * Blockhouse's History of the Bible. Chapter I.
 
 32 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 nature was indeed formed of materials furnished from the 
 mortal frame-work of man. but the etherial essence which, 
 quickened into life, was imparted when her Maker breath- 
 ed into the lifeless form, a portion of his divine and vivify- 
 ing spirit; and may we not consider these two distinct 
 emanations of the Spirit of God, as special and separate 
 acts of consecration on the part of the divine head, by 
 which the progenitors of our race were severally designa- 
 ted as commissioned co-workers under the supervision of 
 " him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own 
 will ?" 
 
 It may possibly be asserted that arguments contravening 
 the opinion, that woman was destined to a holy and honora- 
 ble office under the divine economy, as the most effective 
 instrument in the moral regeneration of a fallen world, 
 may be furnished by the fact that through succeeding ages 
 her relative position has been substantially the same, in 
 its characteristic distinctions of inferiority and seclusion. 
 In the foregoing pages the writer has attempted to show 
 the tendency of woman 1 s subordinate position when recogni- 
 zed and submitted to on religious principles, to mature the 
 very graces which the word of God specifies as essential 
 features of the renewed and sanctified nature; and she 
 would now suggest whether the circumstances of seclusion 
 to which the female sex are restricted, may not be found 
 equally conducive to their spiritual improvement. The 
 diligent and humble minded student of the sacred volumes, 
 while poring over the narratives it contains, will assidu- 
 ously seek to collect facts in order that she may generalize 
 from them practical purposes. While doing so it will be- 
 come apparent that the most distinguished characters de- 
 scribed therein are represented as having been prepared 
 in seclusion for the exercise of the important spiritual
 
 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 33 
 
 functions to which thqy have been especially appointed. 
 Thus Moses, previous to "his entrance on his arduous and 
 momentous duties as lawgiver to the church of God,, twice 
 passed forty days and nights in holy retirement. In sacred 
 seclusion did v Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah and 
 Ezekiel, under the ancient dispensation, gird on the divine 
 panoply wherewith they went forth to withstand the as- 
 saults of the world and the flesh, as well as of the prince 
 of darkness, and to speed on their Lord's appointed work. 
 In the lone and dreary wilderness, did the Son of God 
 humbly retire preparatory to the opeu assumption of the 
 duties of his mediatorial office, .though he went rather as 
 our surety and champion to conflict with and conquer the 
 prince of this world, the great adversary of his people. 
 When the great apostle of the Gentiles was to be fitted 
 and trained for his career of glorious missionary exertion, 
 and the once .sanguinary Saul of Tarsus was to be instruct- 
 ed in tho knowledge of 4i whatsoever things were pure, 
 lovely and of good report," when the bitter persecutor 
 was to be taught to emulate the gentleness of a nurse 
 cherishing her children, then was he not sent, as human 
 wisdom might have dictated, ' ; to Jerusalem, to them 
 which were apostlps before" him, to receive counsel and 
 tuition, but to a three years sojourn in a secluded part of 
 Arabia; in privacy, removed from the active scenes of * 
 busy and bustling world, the depths of his corrupt nature 
 were sounded, and the knowledge of his Lord and " the 
 power of his resurrection" attained, by which he was to 
 be enabled thenceforward to have his conversation in hea- 
 ven, and to " walk in love as Christ also had loved him," 
 until he rapidly advanced toward the ** measure of the 
 stature of the fulness of Christ," and became a bright and 
 instructive example of Christian faith and holiness.
 
 34 WOMAN'S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 
 
 Let not woman then repine, if being called to a mission 
 of the highest importance to man as a moral heing, she 
 has in conformity to the example of her Lord and his 
 apostles and prophet?, to he trained for service in the 
 shades of retirement and in the exercise of duties which 
 may seem distasteful to the eye of. -sense accustomed to 
 measure objects by a standard accommodated only to the 
 perceptions of the unsanctificd nature. 
 
 An attempt has now been made to ascertain the station 
 allotted to the female sex in the dispensation of providence 
 to a fallen race: the duties incident to it, both in relation 
 to God and our fellow-creatures, will require ntlcntivc 
 consideration, and may be treated more advantageously 
 under several distinct heads.- It may be well to examine- 
 by the combined light of history and observation, how far 
 woman has in the different ages of the world, and under 
 varying dispensations been conforming to the declared in- 
 tentions of her Maker. As the human heart is naturally 
 .'it enmity with God, and its volitions are only made to ac- 
 cord with his, when it is regenerated and sanctified by the 
 spirit of holiness, so might it be rationally expected, that 
 mankind would be continually endeavoring, cither directly 
 or indirectly, in this particular, as in others, to counteract 
 the divine intentions, r-ithcr by seeking to place woman 
 in a situation different from that assigned her by her Maker 
 and Redeemer, or by education in capacitating her for the 
 legitimate exercise of her specific functions. 
 
 A\ bile we believe that the plan devised for the redemp- 
 tion of mankind from sin, and their restoration to holiness 
 and happiness, was sketched by one who was perfectly 
 aware of the necessities of our nature, and was adapted 
 to the necessities of all who will conform to it, we arc 
 constrained to acknowledge that there always has been,
 
 WOMAN S STATION PROVIDENTIALLY APPOINTED. 35 
 
 and still continue to be, many who voluntarily deprive 
 themselves of the benefits designed by God for them. If 
 woman's station was specifically adapted to further the 
 attainment of this great end, to her personally^and to her 
 species at large by her agency, it by no means follous that 
 she will universally conform her desires or her conduct to 
 her true destiny. She is utterly incapable of doing either, 
 unless she is made a new creature by faith in Christ Je- 
 sus; of course it will necessarily follow that under these 
 dispensations alone, where moral light is diffused freely 
 and fully, will she by her course of actions harmonize with 
 the will of her Maker. We shall find on attentive ex- 
 amination of the history of the most polished and intellec- 
 tual heathen nations, that the female sex occupied a posi- 
 tion very inferior in importance to that held by it under 
 the Jewish or Christian dispensation, and that in proportion 
 to the moral, and not intellectual, character of a people, 
 will be the estimation in which women arc held, and the 
 extent of influence exerted by them.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 
 
 Before entering on the specification of the duties assign- 
 ed to \voman in her station, I earnestly desire to be pro- 
 perly understood as to the ground on which their perform- 
 ance is supposed to be based. In asserting the opinion, 
 that woman was designed to act as the most important 
 instrument in the regeneration of a fallen world, by 
 by the moral agency which she was to exert in the mani- 
 festation of those Christian graces, especially designated 
 by Scripture, as the fruits of the spirit, I would be deeply 
 grieved if I should be considered as implying that there 
 could be any foundation for a presentation of meritorious 
 claims to reward, by her, on the fulfilment of diuy; as if 
 the purchase of eternal life, or the graces of the spirit, 
 were to be received by " the works of the law, and not by 
 the hearing of faith." 
 
 No! She is to discharge her appointed task in the uni- 
 verse of God, not as a hireling endeavoring to mete out 
 her labors, cheered by the expectation of a remuneration 
 earned by her own industry, but as a dear child, in the 
 spirit of love; she is to seek to know and do her Father's 
 will ; feeling powerless in herself, but depending confidently 
 on the strength promised her by him as her covenant, God 
 in Christ Jesus. Whatever she does in her station, must 
 be done " heartily as to the Lord not with eye service 
 as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart as unto God."
 
 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 37 
 
 The most important channel through which woman was 
 to direct her speciabmoral agency, was-that of the maternal 
 relation. Philosophy and religion concur in pointing out 
 the tendency.of-early impressions in shaping the moral and 
 intellectual character, more especially the former, and ex- 
 perience confirms (he (ruth of-the opinion. Mos,t desirable 
 ivas it, then, that, the appointed guardians of the moral in- 
 terests of man, should be invested with certain distinctive 
 privileges, Sfy, virtue of which they would be enabled to 
 exert a peculiar measure of irfiuer.cc over that precious 
 treasure committed to* (heir keeping, at the period when 
 it is in a ductile state, and most. capable of being acted 
 upon by extern-it agency. 
 
 In the implantation of a special instinctive affection as 
 an element of the' material constitution, distinct from the 
 operation of moral principle and reason; and in the be- 
 nevolent arrangement by whjcb woman's physical organi- 
 zation was'endued with the power of generating nourish- 
 ment peculiarly appropriated for the sustenance of the 
 infant frame, during the period when the delicacy of its 
 material structure makes such a provision necessary, we 
 find two powerful auxiliaries provided by Providence to 
 aid her in the discharge o her moral functions. An im- 
 portant purpose was certainly designed to be subserved, 
 by the introduction of the highest order of creation into 
 existence, in a condition of physical weakness and helpless 
 dependence Air exceeding that of any of the inferior orders 
 of the animal kingdom, and this object was most happily 
 and effectually secured. As the very exigency of circum- 
 stances in which the new born babe is placed when usher- 
 ed into being, points out the necessity of superadding some 
 new and impulsive emotion in the mother's breast, to carry 
 her onward ii a course of devoted and self-denying exer- 
 
 4
 
 38 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 
 
 tion, for which an extraordinary stimulant is requisite, so 
 the physical interests of man were guarded by the opera- 
 tion of the maternal principle, impelling to the discharge 
 of the maternal functions, while the occasion of their ex- 
 ercise was to .be instrumental, in cementing " into a stronger, 
 holier and more enduring bond of union,'' the chain by 
 which the maternal nature was connected with, that of the 
 child. A mothers bosom having been provided as a 
 sanctuary to which the helpless babe might instinctively 
 flee for the solace of its infantile griefs, and for the enjoy- 
 ment of the highest gratifications df which its imperfectly 
 developed faculties are susceptible; it was to learn instinc- 
 tively to associate its most "pleasurable emotions with her 
 image, anid consequently to become more accessible to the 
 influences winch shie might exert o.ver it, ' iha.ri to those 
 presented through any other medium. -While engaged in 
 sending forth the warm and genial current from her- own 
 frame, to solace the bodily necessities of her babe, the mo- 
 ther was to find an opportunity, for eliciting on its fair face 
 the careless manifestations of its being a creature of 
 celestial origin. 
 
 By that precious but fleeting response of her expression 
 of affection, the Christian parent was to be reminded of 
 the dignity of her-ofiiee; having awakened the. affections 
 of her child, she was thenceforward to employ the power- 
 ful influence thereby acquired, in seeking, as her peculiar 
 dut} r , to train it for immortality, to "draw it with the 
 cords of love." This powerful principle of attraction the 
 Almighty recognized and sanctions by his own example. 
 Love animated the Father to devise, the Son to execute, 
 and the Spirit to co-operate in the glorious work of re- 
 demption. " I drew them with cords of a man, with bonds 
 of love," says the Lord himself, when speaking of his
 
 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 39 
 
 ancient people. The human heart was then constituted 
 in such a manner'th'at it could be most efFeictually moved 
 and roused from its state of inaction and insensibility ot 
 moral feeling, by striking some chord of the affections. 
 While Scripture attests these truths, it also teaches that 
 mothers possess o peculiar fitness for carrying it into exe- 
 cution; siflcc by implication it sanctions the opinio.n r that 
 their love' transcends in depth and tenacity, that of all 
 ojher human weings. "Can a woman.," Jehovah inquires, 
 " forget her sucking child, that she should not have com- 
 passion on the son of her womb ? Yea they may forget, 
 but 'J- will not forget thee!" ' 
 
 v ln asserting the belief, that the moral regeneration of 
 -mankind, through the means of a sanctified influence sent 
 forth to act on the infant race, before corruptions should 
 have become, fully developed, and evil habits strengthened 
 by perseverance in ill-doing, was the first and leading ob- 
 ject to which woman was commissioned under the divine 
 economy, I would not be supposed to imply, by any 
 means, that it"<vas'the intention of her Maker to restrict 
 her operations as a moral agent to this one field of useful- 
 ness. 
 
 Her sphere was designed to be of wider dimensions; 
 and while her ministrations were more especially to be 
 directed to the ybu-ng, she Was also required to extend 
 them to others of a riper age. -The Almighty foresaw that 
 man would be compelled, from his peculiar circumstances, 
 to mix in the turmoil of 4he world's concerns, and una- 
 voidably to concentrate much of his natural energy, and 
 occupy a large portion of his time and thoughts in the dis- 
 charge of his allotted work; and thus be tempted by an 
 absorption of interest in temporal things, to exclude the 
 wish and desire, as. well as the eflbrt to attain such as are
 
 40 DTTTIKS ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 
 
 eternal and imperishable. Or if by the operation of the 
 spirit of God on his heart, he should be elevated to a higher 
 position on the stage of moral being, yet it was seen, that 
 while possessing a corrupt nature, the. tendency of his 
 lawful professional occupations, and secular business, 
 would unavoidably be, if not fo weaken his sense of moral 
 responsibility, at least to impair his devotional fervor and 
 to engender a lukewarmness of spirit, by the reaction and 
 weariness of his physical and moral powers, induced by 
 his habits of life. -Under such circumstance?, it was most 
 desirable for man, in reference to his highest interest?, 
 that she who was created as the help-meet both for his 
 pO[qt;uo oq jtjiSmj J 9jn):u JTMIDJUUIUJI ptn: jt!u.o)L'iu 
 more effectually by her habits of seclusion, to preserve the 
 flame of devotion habitually in'more lively exercise in her 
 own bosom, so that its brilliancy a.nd -vitality might not 
 only cause her to shine in the beauty of holiness, but ena- 
 ble her also to cast a reflected and vivifying li-ght over all 
 who might come within her sphere of influence. 
 
 When disabled by infirmity, or. worn down by the en- 
 croachments of disease, the pressure of. pecuniary anxiety, 
 or by the approach of death, (hen wns woman again" to 
 exercise her important functions. When over the heart 
 of tho SMfh-rcr a moral darkness had crept, which obscur- 
 ed the light of conscience, and rendered the perceptions 
 of truth obscure and distorted, then was she designed 
 to prove a ministering angel to- her companion , r ;nd lord; 
 Taking her station at his side, 'vhen "summer friends and 
 flattering foes," were alike deserting him, she was with 
 one hand assiduously to exert every energy lo minister to 
 his bodily comfort, while with the other she was to seek 
 to hold up to his darkened vision, " the candle of the Lord, 
 to search out all the inward ports," assisting him by her
 
 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 41 
 
 counsels, her prayers, and her affectionate but faithful in- 
 structions, in finding out the plague-spot resting on his 
 heart. 
 
 As to her gentle nursing the helpless babe was to be 
 committed, when entering on the new and untried scenes 
 of existence, and as her hands were to be endowed with 
 a. peculiar aptitude for ministering to the necessities of its 
 delicate physical structure, while the instinctive tender- 
 nes-s of her nature was to lead her with self-sacrificing 
 affection, to delight in spending and being spent in its ser- 
 vice, so when life was ebbing to its close, or in seasons of 
 temporary debility and suffering, was woman again invol- 
 untarily to be looked to as the nurse, the comforter, and 
 the support of man! As she was to receive the new born 
 soul to her arms, arid in its budding state was most effec- 
 tually impowered to- foster it for life, or when unfaithful 
 would prove 'its surest guide to -paths of evil,. so when 
 the spirit of one in riper years was realizing the approach- 
 ing separation from earthly and material thing?, to woman 
 was the dying eye instinctively to be directed for sympa- 
 thy, consolation, or, holy instruction! 
 
 The very strength of her affections was designed to lead 
 her to forget her own selfish feelings in the anxieties of the 
 wife, mother, daughter or sister, that under the operation 
 of such excitement, the physical weakness of her nature 
 might be powerfully nerved for endurance, and watchful 
 nights and days of solicitude, pass over her without causing 
 that exhaustion which stronger frames, under the influence 
 of less absorbing emotions, will be found almost uniformly 
 evincing. 
 
 Many and numberless were the occasions foreseen bj 
 the Almighty, where opportunities of usefulness would be 
 presented in the exercise of the duties of their allotted 
 
 4*
 
 42 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IK HER STATION. 
 
 station, to members of the female sex, by which they would 
 be placed in the most responsible situations possible. The 
 solemnities of a dying chamber, he was aware, would often 
 seize the sufferer by surprise: and their approach rouse 
 him when "dead in trespasses and sins," or while slum- 
 bering in the nominal profession of Christianity, and no 
 heart would be awakened to anxiety for his spiritual wel- 
 fare, save those of the beloved and loving female relatives 
 who would surround his bed; their tender and faithful 
 exhort.'iiions, their judicious and scriptural rxhibitions of 
 truth, their fervent, importunate and persevering pray- 
 ers, would then be powerfully efficacious in the hand of 
 Providence in preventing the sun of the departing one 
 from going down in darkness and gloom forever! When 
 the secret transactions of the chambers of death shall be 
 unveiled at the great day, It will probably be found, that 
 in many, many a one. the darkness of despair has vanish- 
 ed by the blessing of God having accompanied these heart- 
 stirring and solemn, but noiseless, unobtrusive exercises, 
 of woman, in one of her appointed iields of missionary 
 exertion. 
 
 The sphere of female influence, however, as a moral 
 agent, was not designed to be confined to the domestic 
 circle. Her Lord appointed her to the post of relative 
 duty, as her first and most important work, and that which 
 was to engage the largest portion of her time and thoughts, 
 and in the discharge of which she was most especially to 
 glorify him. But he likewise commissioned her to go 
 to his brethren also, the representatives of his church. 
 She was to be a nursing-mother to the Israel of God, a 
 teacher to the lambs of his flock; a special visitor to the 
 dwellings of the indigent and afflicted; a ministering spirit 
 il c orphan and widow in the seasons of bereavement
 
 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 43 
 
 and necessity; she was to feed the hungry, clothe the 
 naked, to smooth the pillow of the sick and friendless, 
 in short, by every possible means consistent with feminine 
 modesty and decorum, she was to imitate the example of 
 her divine Redeejner in his ministrations to the broken- 
 hearted, the mourner?, and the prisoner in his noisome 
 dungeon. While placing before her, her Lord's elevated 
 standard of practical godliness, she. would, it was seen, be 
 perpetually reminded of her natural inability to obey its 
 holy requirements, and would thas, under the teachings of 
 God's Spirit, be effectually convinced, that it was only by 
 the exercise of living faith in her Redeemer, working by 
 love, that she could be enabled to make her course of ac- 
 tion harmonize with the will of God in her creation. 
 
 In seeking to sketch (he duties inseparable from wo- 
 man's station, we have heretofore directed our attention 
 to such as are comprised under the head of moral agency, 
 and in which action was to be applied through the medium 
 of the conscience and affection?. Her mission, however, 
 would, it, was foreseen, not fully cover all the ground 
 assigned for its operation, if, in addition to her first and 
 highest source of influence, she was not enabled to combine 
 sanctified intellectual effort. This would be more espe- 
 cially desirable in the maternal relation; since children, 
 when advanced in age and intelligence, would be more 
 readily disposed to yield submission to female authority, 
 and thus more fully realize the benefits resulting from 
 female influence, when it was enforced and expanded by 
 the manifestation of mental superiority. 
 
 Much was to be also effected in furthering the moral 
 and intellectual interests of mankind^ by intellectual Chris- 
 tian females, who with, the acuteness of perception for 
 which their sex was to be distinguished, should seek to
 
 44 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 
 
 ascertain the characteristic traits of those, over whom 
 they were to he empowered to exercise influence; and 
 should seize every favorableoppoftwnity which might he 
 presented, for developing the idiom of constitution, moral 
 and intellectual, hy detecting and fostering the natural 
 bias of mind, if correct, towards particular studies, hy 
 suggesting trains of thoughts, forming mental taste?, 
 influencing the choice of pursuits, private arid-professional, 
 seeking to unfold the youthful energies and to train the 
 scions of intellect in the most ad'vantagc.cus manner possi- 
 ble, in order that the favored recipients of these rich pro- 
 vidential boons might be the most, effectually enabled to 
 glorify the Giver of them, and to benefit their fellow-crea- 
 tures. Nor were the beneficial effects designed to flow 
 from the combined exercise of talent and pic!y to be limit- 
 ed in their-scope to the domestic circle, or indirect action 
 by suggestive. power in that sphere alone, though this was 
 to be the chief field for the exercise of female intelligence, 
 as of all other means of influence exerted, by them. 
 
 Intelligent Christian women were, when placed in cir- 
 cumstance of distinction, to become instrumental in accele- 
 rating the onward progress of literature and scientific 
 discovery as well as in promoting the religious and civil 
 interests of mankind; but these efforts, in order to their 
 permanence and effectiveness, were to be chastened by 
 feminine virtues. They were to be the efficient patron- 
 esses of literary merit, the generous benefactresses of 
 the votaries of religious and secular learning, the nursing 
 mothers to those whose enthusiastic spirits, chilled and 
 despoiled by collision with the more selfish and calculating 
 minds of the other sex, will be disposed to abandon pro- 
 jects, on which the welfare of the church of Christ, the
 
 DITTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 45 
 
 cause of science, or the destinies of an unknown continent, 
 were dependent. 
 
 The mind of woman was also fitted for usefulness of 
 yet other kinds. It was 'so constituted, that it might be- 
 come a fountain, from which might he siMit forth healing 
 streams to fertilize and gladden the garden of the Lord; 
 and more especially were these watt rs, when purified, as 
 were those of Ma rah, by the infusion of a divine medica- 
 ment, a living faith calculated to alford a peculiarly 
 beneficial nutriment to the tender nurslings in the vine- 
 yard of . thr; Lord, whose well-doing h a matter of espe- 
 cial'interest to him. But the intellectual powers of re- 
 gene rate ^vomen,'as> embodied in'their writing?, was not 
 to be limited in its- sphere of action to the young. Many 
 of the most practical and influential religious writers were 
 to be sent forth from their, ranks, ;toL instruct and enlighten 
 their fellow creatures of riper yea~rs; yeM,,even to be in- 
 strumental in- the conversion of many ;ouls, fettered in tho 
 bondage of Satan. Some among their number were to be 
 commissioned instructors alike'at trip ftrcsidss of the pea- 
 sants and in the princ'ely mansions of the nobles and poten- 
 tates of the earth, -and who under God were to become 
 powerful meansof protecting their country; when infidelity, 
 like a ftaod, should, threaten to overwhelm ite barriers, 
 religiou?, social and political. 
 
 Woman's mission included -yet another particular, one 
 of which I have deferred enumerating, not because it was 
 less important than the preceding, but because it is insepa- 
 rable frofli their faithful discharge. As far as'circumstan- 
 ces permit, it is (he duty of exhibiting a lovely and consist- 
 ent example, of the powerful efficacy arising from which, 
 the Almighty was fully sensible. He knew that impres- 
 sions could be made by this means, on those whose power
 
 16 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HSU STATION. 
 
 of perceiving moral beauty in any other form, would be 
 apparently destroyed, atnl he commissioned woman, 
 through its silent eloquence, to accomplish a work in his 
 economy of grace, which could be more effectually secur- 
 ed in that way than in any other. As in the case of Mo- 
 ses,. so in hers, the glory of divu\e grace is to shine forth 
 in its beautiful i> r uliancc on her personally, and by this 
 means the Lord is to manifest his glory for the conviction 
 of the impenitent. 
 
 Among the privileges attached to the station of women, 
 there is one which, we doubt not, God designed to be in- 
 strumental in effecting highly beneficial purposes, but in 
 respect to the responsibility annexed to which, there is 
 perhaps more obtuseness or insensibility manifested, than 
 to any other imposed on our sex. 1 advert to the place- 
 assigned them in all civilised countries, as directresses of 
 the public taste. Their quick and lively fancy, their vivid 
 and delicate perceptions of the beautiful, render them 
 more acutely sensitive to any violation of the rules of pro- 
 priety and congruity. the subjects with which taste is 
 chiefly conversant. These endowments, stimulated by a 
 more sensitive temperament, and perhaps stronger pro- 
 pensity to personal 'vanity, make their possessors eagerlv 
 avail themselves of the- prerogatives of office, but seldom 
 we fear, do females, even Christian. females, realize suffi- 
 ciently that they are solemnly accountable for their use 
 or abuse of. them. This insensibility, so generally mani- 
 fested on this subject, may probably be in a measure 
 referable to the fact, that in making a decision upon mat- 
 ters of taste, (using the word in its proper acceptation,) the 
 individual thus acting, is conscious that the powers of his 
 understanding have not been exercised as perceptibly as 
 on many other occasions, but will feel rather as if she had
 
 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 47 
 
 been impelled to a -decision, by some peculiar quality 
 which the object of her selection possessed, having been 
 the occasion of exciting pleasurable sensations or- by " 
 some particular property of another, which she feels com- 
 pelled to reject, having awakened an equally instinctive 
 painful, sensation. 
 
 For innate propensities she will not of course be con- 
 sidered answerable, hut for the use she makes of them she 
 is accountable, and if " to create taste is to call forth and 
 bestow power," then in this respect has she beea-invested 
 with no ordinary degree of it, and should consider herself 
 as under .an imperative obligation not to betray the inter- 
 ests of her Lord, her fellow-creatures, or her own soul by 
 its misuse. Jt i? my intention subsequently to suggest some 
 -friendly hints to my countrywomen on their duty in this 
 respect at the present eventful crisis. 
 
 An attempt has now, been made to condense into the 
 form of an imperfect epitome, those points of woman's 
 mission which, to the author's mind, appear manifestly to 
 indicate the declared intentions of God toward her. He 
 has assigned her an important station in his moral universe; 
 he has, I believe, specially endowed her with relation to 
 her destiny;, and he freely offers, not only instructions to 
 direct her, but strength to epable her to conform her 
 course of,actionto his requirements and appointments. 
 But he compels no one, irrespective of frer own free will as 
 a moral agent^ to discharge her appropriate vocations. 
 On the contrary, we find many cases continually presented 
 to our notice, and the records of past and present times 
 also assure us of the existence of innumerable others, who 
 have not chosen to fulfil the destiny marked out for them 
 in the creation of God, but have walked in a path, to 
 which the perverse inclinations of their corrupt natures
 
 48 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO WOMAN IN HER STATION. 
 
 have inclined (hern, unmindful of their high privileges, 
 and carel'rsly disregardful of the consequences which 
 must inevitably result not only to those who openly reject 
 the overtures of the Gospel of salvation, hut also to those 
 who 4; forget God,'' and do 'J not like to retain God in 
 their knowledge." 1 
 
 To such, the view here drawn of woman's position in 
 the mechanism of Chat system devised by the Almighty to 
 reinstate a d> graded and corrupt race into the possession 
 of their forfeited privileges, and of a more glorious kind 
 than were origir ally cijoycd by their progenitors in their 
 state of innoce-nre, would present nothing pleasing or con- 
 genial to their inclinations, neither would they desire or 
 be willing to seek information as to the only mode by which 
 the fallen can be enabled to meet the wishes of their God. 
 Others, however, may be found conscientiously desirous 
 to do the will of their Maker, but who may be heard giv- 
 ing utterance to a similar spirit to that to which Moses 
 gave vent when summoned to the discharge of arduous 
 duty: " Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, or that 
 
 I should bring forth the children of Israel? 1 am not 
 
 eloquent, but slow of speech," or like Jerubbaal, when 
 commissioned to deliver Israel from the oppression of their 
 Midianithh rulers: "Wherewith shall I save Israel?. .. . 
 lam the least in my father's house." The former class J 
 would affectionately remind of the fact, that legislators, 
 whether human or divine, have never admitted disinclina- 
 tion to duty as furnishing a plea for cancelling personal 
 obligation to legal requirements. God's purposes towards 
 the female sex will necessarily remain as immutable and 
 permanent as any others formed by his unchangeable 
 mind, and can never be counteracted with impunity. 
 To those disposed to allege weakness and natural cor-
 
 DUTIES ASSIGNED TO "WOMAN IN HER STATION. 49 
 
 ruptions as furnishing grounds for backwardness and re- 
 luctance in undertaking the discharge of specific functions, 
 I would likewise tenderly address a word of admonition. 
 He who appointed us to our station was perfectly aware 
 of our inherent incapacity to fulfil its dutic?, but he has in 
 his treasury, and reserved for each applicant, ample pro- 
 vision for every possible exigency. His promises are so 
 immutably conjoined with his injunctions, that if we do 
 not fulfil his intentions in our creation, the failure will be 
 solely attributable to us, and not to him. " Christ is the 
 way, the truth, and the life," and his precious word is 
 pledged to his people, that " heaven and earth shall pass 
 away," sooner than one of his promises shall be nullified. 
 " I am the vine," &aid Ire, "ye are the branches; he that 
 abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much 
 fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." Fear not, then, 
 " certainly I will be with thee," saith our God to each of 
 his. believing daughters, "I will not fail nor forsake thee, 
 only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest 
 observe to do according to all the law" which God com- 
 mands thee. The book of the holy Scriptures" shall not 
 depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein 
 day and night, that thou 'mayest observe to do according 
 to all that is written therein; for then thou shalt make thy 
 way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. 
 Have not I commanded thee I Be strong and of a good 
 courage; be Hot afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the 
 Lord thy God is with -thee whithersoever thou goest!" 
 
 5
 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 The Hebrew nation stands conspicuous in the records 
 of our race, on account of many singular and interesting 
 peculiarities in their religion. Their religious rights 
 were retained in greater uniformity, their national and 
 individual idiosjncracies manifested more strikingly and 
 continuously, and their existence as a distinct political 
 body preserved immeasurably longer than that of any other 
 people whose history has been recorded. The mighty 
 nations who contended with, and partly succeeded in sub- 
 jugating them, have either descended into the gulf of obli- 
 vion, or have been so far modified in political character as 
 to present few points of resemblance to their primitive 
 originals; but from the days of Abraham to the destruction 
 of Jerusalem, when their national existence was externally 
 suspended, the Jewish people continued to exhibit the 
 same peculiarities of moral and intellectual constitution. 
 
 On this account alone, more time and attention will una- 
 voidably be required for the consideration of the general 
 tone of character of their females, and the agency exerted 
 by them. Moreover, as the civil polity of the Hebrews 
 was peculiar, being fundamentally (heoacratical, and or- 
 ganized during the times of the patriarchs, judges and 
 kings, in such a manner that the jurisdiction of Jehovah 
 as the Supreme Ruler might be equally recognized; 
 it becomes peculiarly important to study the relation
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 51 
 
 of woman to her country as amoral agent; though her 
 social privileges were by no means s6 great, as to 
 permit her influence to be exercised in the free and uncon- 
 strained manner permitted under the Christian dispensa- 
 tion. 
 
 I'shajl therefore, endeavor to examine WOMAN IN HER 
 STATION, among the Hebrews, more closely than my limits 
 will permit or than would be requisite to my purpose 
 when treating of other ancient nation?, and shall subdivide 
 my subject for convenience, under three general heads: 
 I. Woman under the early ages of the Hebrew common- 
 wealth; II. Woman under tbe middle ages of the He- 
 brew commonwealth; III. Woman under the decline, and 
 to the suspension of the Hebrew commonwealth. 
 
 I. WOMAN UNDER THE EARLY AGES OF THE HEBREW 
 
 .COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 . " *..*'-*- 
 
 In investigations in any .department of .knowledge, 
 it is generally considered important to observe several 
 particulars. Authentic facts must be collected; their 
 causes traced; and some general truth or principle dedu- 
 ced from them. In endeavoring to estimate the degree of 
 moral agency exerted by the female sex, during the ages 
 which elapsed from the creation to. the deluge, we labor in 
 some respects under great disadvantage, since there is but 
 one volume which we can consult, from which to collect 
 data to assist us in our attempt; and even this solitary re- 
 cord of humanity during about two thousand years, con- 
 tains a narrative of but few events, and is compressed 
 within an exceedingly brief compass. 
 
 While the number is small of recorded facts, those spe-
 
 52 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 cified are, however, essentially important, and we are 
 spared the troublesome process of separating from them 
 any incidentally associated with them, and not necessary 
 to ascertain the truth which we are desirous of investi- 
 gating. 
 
 Scarcely are we introduced to- the female head of the 
 human race in the sacred narrative, before we are forcibly 
 struck with events noticed in her history, authenticated by 
 God himself, and the relation of which to the destiny of ear 
 race, is not left to our finite intellect to determine. Sub- 
 sequently we hear of the prince of the fallen angels, obtain- 
 ing permission from the Lord to tempt one of his most be- 
 loved and esteemed children, for the purpose of humbling, 
 purifying,and subsecpaently exalting htm, to.a high degree 
 of holiness and blessedness; but we are never informed 
 why the same apostate spirit was allowed to assail Eve; 
 this is one of the secret things which belong alone to the 
 Lord our God. It was sufficient for us to know that she, 
 being a free agent, was tempted : and that when she ' saw 
 that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant 
 to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to ry/ake one wisc.sAe 
 took of the fruit thereof and did cat; and ga?c also unto her 
 husband n'ith her, and he did eat." 
 
 Thus on the dark register of human crime, which has 
 been swelling ominously from age to age, we find first in- 
 scribed a brief but striking attestation of woman's sin, and 
 woman's perversion of her power over man. The cause 
 of Adam's concurrence with her in guilt, will perhaps be 
 evidenced on a patient observation of facts noted in the 
 subsequent history of our race; the exercise of woman's 
 moral agency under Providence, either for the correction 
 or promotion of evil, and the response of man's nature to 
 such monitions; the general principle to be deduced
 
 , 
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS- 53 
 
 Christian women ought never to be slow to perceive, or 
 reluctant to improve practically. If the power of one 
 mind over another, be estimated by the important conse- 
 quences flowing from actions to which it impels, then might 
 it be safely affirmed, that Eve's moral ability transcended 
 that of any of her descendants, when she by her persua- 
 sions influenced him, to whom she had been granted as a 
 help-meet, to become a joint actor with her. in a tragedy, 
 involving the destinies of all succeeding generations of the 
 human species. With what inimitable beauty has Milton 
 represented the nature and extent of Eve's ascendancy 
 over the mind of Adam, in the reply which he describes 
 him as making to her iirst communication of guilt, and 
 earliest persuasive attempt to induce him to become her 
 follower in the path of transgression! 
 
 "With thee 
 
 Certain my resolution is to die: 
 How can I live without theei how forego, 
 Thy svyeet converse and love so dearly join'd, 
 To live again in these wild woods forlorn! 
 Should God create another Eve, and I 
 Another rib afford, yet loss of thee 
 Would never from my heart: no, no! I feel 
 The link of nature draw me: flesh of my flesh, 
 Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state 
 Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe." 
 
 In this eventful moment, when woman stood as it were 
 in trust with the destinies, eternal and temporal, of her re- 
 motest posterity, she was empowered by the Almighty to 
 exert a degree of mor?l influence either for weal or woe, 
 which musfc have invested her with exceeding interest in 
 the sight of the angelic intelligences, unappriscd of the re- 
 ult. She was a free agent, a probationer, not only as 
 it regarded her own destiny, but that of the species 
 
 5*
 
 64 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 dependent on her, whom she represented as the federal 
 bead. Had she been irresistibly impelled to reject the 
 "temptation first presented through the machinations of the 
 prince of evil, then would there have been no opportunity 
 for the exercise of virtue, orthe advancement of her moral 
 nature, which had been made inseparably dependent on 
 the involuntary conquest of unholy suggestion. For let it 
 ever be remembered that Eve's position was entirely dif- 
 ferent from ours, when assailed by temptation. Her will 
 had a natural bias to duty. ours a native repugnance to it ; 
 her understanding was vigorous, harmoniously developed, 
 and in all Us power illuminated by the Spirit of Holiness, 
 while ours are continually liable to be led astray, and dis- 
 posed io pervert and distort the truth, and can only re- 
 ceive the monitions and effectual aid of the Holy Ghost, 
 when regenerated through faith in the Redeemer. It was 
 by exciting desires for the indulgence of unhallowed cu- 
 riosity, and the attainment of a more independent station 
 in creation, that Satan succeeded in overcoming the virtue 
 of the mother of our race; and made her instrumental in 
 bringing so sad a change over the destinies of mankind; 
 and by similar suggestions has he repeatedly, in subse- 
 quent ages, attempted, and successfully attempted, to de- 
 ceive and involve in eternal ruin her fallen daughters. 
 Lest man under the irritation engendered by the conscious- 
 ness of guilt, might be tempted too harshly to wreak his 
 vengeance on her, who was the instrumental cause of it, 
 the Almighty with most merciful consideration informed 
 him, that woman, the leader and guide to sin and sorrow, 
 was subsequently to become the mediate one, by whom in 
 his human nature was to be introduced into the fallen 
 world, Jesus, the Son of God; the victor who was to tri- 
 umph over sin, and the great adversary of mail, and who,
 
 1VOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 55 
 
 by his sacrifice and righteousness, was to elevate his re- 
 deemed people to a higher degree of glory and blessedness 
 than the first originally enjoyed in Paradise. 
 
 Taking a medium between the calculations of different 
 chronologists, we suppose, that less than two thousand 
 years intervened after the expulsion of our guilty progeni- 
 tors from the garden of Eden, until th<3 Almighty made the 
 solemn annunciation to Noah, of an approaching catastro- 
 phe which was to destroy the corrupt generations of men, 
 and to convulse the earth, their dwelling place, to its cen- 
 tre. During these succeeding centuries, we find woman's 
 agency in society unnoticed by the sacred historian, except 
 that a brief but expressive intimation is given us, that it was 
 by the malign and powerful influence which a portion of 
 them exerted in their relative stations, that men were im- 
 pelled rapidly in the progressive descent towards that 
 complete moral degradation which compelled the right- 
 eous God to send forth the commission for their destruc- 
 tion. But even in that season of general and awful apos- 
 tacy, there were still found some of the sex faithful to their 
 God, since among the seven conservatives of our race, 
 during the season of judicial visitation, were numbered 
 three females. 
 
 Between three and four centuries after the catastrophe 
 of the deluge rolled by, briefly chronicled by Moses, 
 in which no events are recorded of special interest, save 
 the unsuccessful attempt to build the Tower of Habel; at 
 length Abraham, the father of the faithful is introduced 
 to our notice. Not for any intrinsic excellence of his own, 
 was the son of Terah selected from among his cotempora- 
 ries, and thenceforward through a lapse of years, made to 
 standout as it were in relief from the rest of humanity; 
 the memorial of himself and his posterity given by the sa-
 
 56 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 cred historian, presenting to us for a considerable period 
 the only authentic record of the human race, when num- 
 bers must at that time have been by no means contempti- 
 ble. To prevent the universal prevalence of idolatry, 
 to secure a scion in the wilderness of this world upon which 
 might be engrafted the heavenly seed, to preserve it as 
 much as possible from the deteorating effects of noxious 
 thorns and thistles indigenous to its soil: to prepare a 
 lineage to whom the sacred oracles of divine truth might 
 be committed, and among whom the ordinances of spiritual 
 worship might be preserved until the corning of the Mes- 
 siah, "the desire of all nations;" was Abram called to 
 go out into a place, which he should after receive for an 
 inheritance; and by faith "obeyed and went out, not 
 knowing whither l:e went. 
 
 The family of Noah had retained a knowledge of the 
 the simple principles upon which civil society is based, and 
 of the arts necessary in those primitive times. The pre- 
 vailing form of government appears to have been patri- 
 archal, and their habits nomadic. Abraham in all his 
 journeyings was attended by his flocks and herds, in which 
 his wealth almost exclusively consisted ; for in the inven- 
 tory of his personal property, his cattle are always enume- 
 rated most prominently. But wherever the father of the 
 faithful might pitch his tent, there did his beloved and 
 beautiful Sarah accompany him. Her relative post de- 
 monstrated indeed that she was the daughter of her whose 
 transgressions had been the cause of consigning her female 
 posterity to a submissive position, but the faith and holy 
 love which glowed in the bosom of Abraham, made him 
 recognize those moral and intellectual charms of " Sarah, 
 his wife," whose direct and indirect influence over him 
 was strikingly developed in the progress of their history,
 
 AND THEIE. STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 57 
 
 and led to results momentous in their bearing on the des- 
 tiny of Abraham, and on that of the nations descended 
 from him. 
 
 The passion which the beautiful Sarah inspired in her 
 husband's breast, was of so ardent a nature, that under 
 the consciousness of the powerful stimulus which it exerted 
 over his own actions, he learned constantly to anticipate a 
 similar result upon other minds exposed to the same at- 
 traction ; and he who could forsake the ties of kindred and 
 the land of his nativity at the command of God, became so 
 far enslaved undcc the dominion of earthly affection, by 
 "that fear of man which bringcth a snare," that he was 
 betrayed into duplicity and evasion, dishonorable to his 
 God, unworthy of his own character, and injurious to 
 others. For her sake, the Egyptian monarch, and, in sub- 
 sequent years, the king of Gcrar likewise, loaded Abraham 
 with favors, and accumulated wealth upon him. These 
 princely boons, it must be remembered, were tendered as 
 voluntary acts of homage to her charms, and tributes to 
 her purity, and were not the degrading rewards of forfeit- 
 ed virtue, or compensating offerings for an injury which 
 wealth is wholly insufficient to alleviate, much less to 
 , atone. 
 
 It was by the instigation of Sarah, whose powers of cap- 
 tivatlon the patriarch and the monarch had alike demon- 
 strated, that the father of the faithful Avas Induced to select 
 a second and inferior wife in the person of a menial Egyp- 
 tian. As the mother of Ishmael, Hag%i' became the head 
 of a great nation, identified in i ts, history with much that 
 iS interestkvg, in' the religious, historical and scientific re- 
 cords of our race.* The princess of her people by her 
 
 * Herodotus informs us that we are indebted to the Arabians for the 
 invention of Algebra, and also for the numerical characters, '
 
 />8 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 ascendant power, subsequently impelled her lord to 
 " cast out the bondwoman and her son," although Ishmael 
 was endeared to him as his first born son, and the awakencr 
 of the parental sympathies in his affectionate bosom. 
 Many imagine that Sarah was actuated solely by feelings 
 of personal pique and severity in requesting the expulsion 
 of her Egyptian bondwoman and her son, but if Ishmael's 
 contemptuous behaviour was an ebullition of youthful in- 
 fidelity, and hostility towards his brother, as the child of 
 promise, as is thought by some learned and pious men, and 
 the opinion is tacitlv sanctioned by St. Paul in his epistle 
 to the Galatians, (hen may she not have been to some 
 degree influenced by a regard to the divine honor, and 
 not impelled by a jealous concern for (he preservation of 
 her own dignity and that of her beloved Isaac. Undoubt- 
 edly she acted as God's moral agent, in effecting an im- 
 portant purpose of the divine mind., the separation of his 
 chosen people, in the person of Isaac their representative, 
 from the idolatrous influence of the surrounding heathen 
 nations, and the securing of the promise to them especially. 
 Sarah was certainly the medium on this occasion of lead- 
 ing the temporal head of the Church of God, to pursue 
 the path marked out by Divine Wisdom for the accom- 
 plishment of purposes, on which, as far as we can ascer- 
 tain, were dependent the future destinies of the whole body 
 of believers; this one act being connected by a chain 
 of important consequences, with the present condition of 
 the church militant and triumphant; 
 
 The circumstances connected with the death of Sarah, 
 arc deserving of particular attention, not only as demon- 
 strating the deep affection and veneration with which 
 Abraham regarded the 'object of his long and unabated 
 attachment, but likewise as indicating the moral and intel-
 
 \VOMEN AND THEIR STATIN AMONG THE HEBREWS. 59 
 
 lectual power which this female character, in its appoint- 
 ed station, possessed, over the people who were her co- 
 temporaries. 
 
 It is a well known fact, that by mankind generally, but 
 more especially among ancient nations and oriental people, , 
 the funeral solemnities for the deceased are considered as 
 the criteria on which the relative position of the departed 
 may be pretty accurately predicted. We find this attest- 
 ed in a striking manner by Homer, and other classic 
 writers; extraordinary mourning, then implied something 
 remarkable in the rank or virtue of (he individual lament- 
 ed; since under ordinary cases of domestic afflictions the 
 expressions of grief were moderate and unmarked by any 
 striking external observances. 
 
 Sarah's death was, however, deplored by her husband 
 as a severe calamity, and there is exceeding pathos in the 
 brief description which Moses gives of his bereavement, 
 and the sorrows which it occasioned; neither did his emo- 
 tion appear to be unwarrantable in the eyes of the nation 
 among whom he sojourned as "a mighty prince." With 
 respectful and affectionate sympathy they immediately 
 entered into his sorrows, and tendered their acknowledg- 
 ments of regard to him and to his departed one; " Hear 
 us, my lord," said they to him, "in the choice of our se- 
 pulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from 
 thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead." 
 Nay, they besought him to take as a free will offering of 
 kindness and respect, the spot which he had selected as 
 the most pleasing location for the last dwelling place olMI 
 her who had been so dear in life. 
 
 Homer describes Achilles as finding his only solace 
 under the loss of his beloved Patroclus, in seeing " the 
 warrior's funeral pile prepared," by the combined armies
 
 60 WOMEN AND THEIR. STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 of Greece, who " bade hecatombs to burn," and " forests 
 fall," in commemoration of the slumbering hero. But the 
 moral virtues of woman in her appointed station received 
 a more marked and enduring tribute of respect, when the 
 representatives of a stranger nation rose up to offer sym- 
 pathetic-condolence with her mourning k>rd; and signali- 
 zed her interment by furnishing in the title deed to her 
 place of sepulchre, the "earliest instance on record of the 
 regular conveyance of landed property, the field and the 
 cave that was therein, and all the trees that were in tire 
 field, and that were in all the borders round about."' 
 
 Sarah may be considered as giving us a striking repre- 
 sentation of the character, conduct and influence of woman, 
 in the exercise of some of the specific functions among the 
 ancient people of God. In the wife of the beloved Isaac 
 we may behold different manifestations of the same power. 
 Saralrs ascendancy was principally exhibited over her 
 husband, while Rebecca's was exerted chiefly through the 
 maternal relation. She, however, also, like her mother- 
 in-law, became instrumental in furthering the temporal 
 interests of her lord, when, in conformity to his fathers 
 example, he sojourned in the land of Abimilcch, one of the 
 Philistian kings. Once more we behold woman's nature 
 made the channel for communicating the far-reaching in- 
 tentions of the Divine Minjd; to Rebecca, and not to her 
 luuband, " the heirs of promise," was information given of 
 the eventful history of the two great nations, who were to 
 descend from them. She appears confidently and belicv- 
 *fngly to have expected the fulfilment of the predictions 
 made to her, and probably on that account learned to re- 
 gard Jacob with especial affection, as the divinely pre- 
 dicted ancestor of the promised deliverer of Israel, though 
 she dishonored the power and faithfulness of her God, by
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 61 
 
 distrusting him so far-as to suppose he needed means and 
 opportunities which she might -employ, for the accomplish- 
 ment of his purposes. She confided unhesitatingly in the 
 assurance of her Maker, but her faith was not in such 
 lively exercise, as permitted her, like the father of the 
 faithful, " to hope against hope," she wanted something 
 tangible on which to rest, and blindly and presumptuously 
 stretched forth her feeble hand to give what she consider- 
 ed a necessary impetus to the whee's of Providence, in- 
 stead of lifting, up her voice in importunate supplication 
 to the mighty God, and, like the Psalmist, resting her ex- 
 pectation on him alone. She appears to have erred less in 
 this matter than did her husband; she from her confident 
 assurance, that the Almighty would fulfil his promise, 
 ventured to assume the responsibility of rashly persuading 
 the subject of it to employ unwarrantable means in attain- 
 ing it; while Isaac, blinded by parental partiality towards 
 an unworthy child, was tempted to forget and misinterpret 
 the predictions, though we can not suppose him to be ca-> 
 pable of wilfully desiring to counteract the purposes of the 
 Lord. The suggestions of mistaken affection betrayed 
 Rebecca into a _perversion of maternal affection, to the 
 power of which as a principle of action among the He- 
 brews, Jacob testified, when in the pride of manhood he 
 instinctively yielded to the decision of his mother's mind, 
 By the indulgence of undue anxiety as to future contin- 
 gencies, she impelled her sons to the palpable sins of filial 
 deception, fraternal unkindness, and direct falsehood, thus 
 entailing on him remorse of conscience, and severe and pro- 
 tracted retributive sufferings; besides ensuring to herself 
 years of future sorrow, and augmenting, if not engendering, 
 antipathies between her sons, which were perpetuated by 
 their posterity ; the Edomite and Jewish nations to the latest 
 
 6
 
 62 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 period of their histories, continuing to cherish mutual ani- 
 mosity, though their respective progenitors were once the 
 infant occupants of the same couch, and received their 
 earliest nourishment from the same bosom. 
 
 The land of Judea was anciently divided into districts 
 of pasturage, agriculture and commerce, and, as is usual 
 to other nations, these different pursuits, as well as the 
 progress of civilization, tended to give a somewhat differ- 
 ent aspect to the female character. In Sarah and Rebec- 
 ca, we have seen examples of the influence exerted by 
 women in pastoral life, where the highest ranks among 
 them, as under the same circumstances in heathen nations 
 of antiquity, disdained not to tend their flocks and draw 
 water from the fountains to relieve their thirsting flocks, 
 and the parched lips of the weary traveller.* 
 
 The sacred historians exhibit female character under 
 the various phases which it might naturally be expected 
 to assume in the different circumstances which marked 
 the eventful history of the Hebrews. In each and all we 
 find the moral agency of woman infinitely transcending 
 both in kind and degree, that which was exerted by the 
 sex among the most intellectual heathen races of antiquity. 
 
 Let us now glance at the Hebrews, when dwelling as 
 a mightily oppressed and enslaved people in Egypt. Such 
 a condition is generajly conceded to be exceedingly ad- 
 verse to the development of intellectuality and elevation 
 of character. How, then, did woman, the subjected one 
 among those whose lives were made by their harsh task 
 masters " bitter with harsh bondage" how did she, whose 
 desire was to be with her husband, whatever his condition 
 might be, appear in this awful crisis of her nation's his- 
 
 * Odyssey. Book VII and XX.
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONtf THE HEBREWS. 63 
 
 tory ? Undoubtedly the Israelitish nation, during the 
 long season of their sojourn in a country, pre-eminent at 
 that period for its knowledge in science and the arts, had 
 greatly improved in their condition, previous to the jeal- 
 ousy excited against them, and women participated in the 
 benefit, so that they became considerably distinguished 
 among the Egyptians for their intelligence, application 
 to business, domestic economy, accomplishment and skill 
 in the arj:s, considered appropriate to their sex. 
 
 It was not, however, by the exertion of unassisted intel- 
 lectual power, that the daughters of God's chosen people, 
 were to be instrumental in performing the important part 
 which had been assigned to them, in the release of their 
 nation from its rigorous bondage. The sorrows abun- 
 dantly multiplied unto them, had, by the blessing of God, 
 served as a most efficacious spiritual discipline. The 
 minds of some of their number strengthened by a belief in 
 God's protecting care,* dared to brave the wrath of a 
 tyrannical king and the jealousy of his subjects, refused to 
 be instrumental in the destruction of the male infants of 
 their race. While the heart of one among the oppressed 
 and sorrowing mothers of Israel, was nerved to other deeds 
 of love, as she watched with trembling anxiety the ex- 
 ceeding loveliness of her babe, either warned by divine 
 counsel specially communicated to her, or else impelled 
 by the holy energy of maternal piety in lively exercise, in 
 faith committed her beloved and beautiful Moses, in the 
 extremity of his helplessness, to the cold waters of the 
 Nile; and while placing him in an ark, solitary and un- 
 protected by human arms, from the watery element, pro- 
 
 * Dr. Lightfoot, in his sermon on 2. Sam. xix : 29, expresses the 
 opinion, that Puah and Shiprah, in saving the male children of the Is- 
 raelites, were actuated by faith and piety, and did not attempt a lie.
 
 64 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS, 
 
 bably strengthened her soul by communing wkh the God 
 of her fathers, who had preserved the human race in the 
 consecrated hiding place from the devouring \\aters of the 
 flood. Moses, the chosen deliverer of Israel, selected and 
 commissioned of the Almighty, was yet farther indebted 
 to woman's moral agency. In faith she had rescued him 
 from a murderous death, at his entrance upon his eventful 
 career of existence; in laith she had nourished him dur- 
 ing three months of peril, and then in the exercise of be- 
 lieving confidence, and hopeful expectation, had consigned 
 him to a eatery couch; he was yet to be watched over 
 at a distance by a sister's vigilant tenderness, plucked from 
 the flood by female hands, and nurtured by the princely 
 daughter of Pharaoh, who unlike her sanguinary father 
 and countrymen generally, could be moved by the softer 
 feelings of humanity; to show pity to " one of the Hebrew 
 children," when the helpless babe appealed to her sympa- 
 thy. The tender love of his sister, quickened by intellec- 
 tual acuteness, was the appointed means under Providence, 
 of restoring Moses to the parental roof, and probably to 
 her pious instructions as well as to those of his believing 
 mother, was he indebted for his early religion? instruction, 
 while by the munificent bounty and affection of Thermu- 
 this, his adopted and princely parent, was he initiated into 
 the learning of the Egyptians, which, in his subsequent 
 position, as lawgiver of the Jewish nation, became so im- 
 portant to him. 
 
 The agency exerted by the Hebrew females over the 
 destiny of Moses, was exceedingly influential in promoting 
 the Exodus of their people; but it appears from compari- 
 son of parallel passages of Scripture, not to have been re- 
 stricted to this indirect mode of exercise. Miriam, the 
 affectionate guardian of her infant brother, was also hon-
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONO THE HEBREWS. 65 
 
 ored as a prophetess in Israel, and is supposed by many 
 divines to have been especially commissioned to deliver 
 the messages of God to the Israelitish females, while her 
 brother directed his efforts principally to the men of the 
 nation. Moses describes her, as seizing her timbrel, and 
 in her prophetic character calling out in this stirring lan- 
 guage to the host of her female companions: " Sing to the 
 Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and the 
 rider hath he thrown into the sea." Seven hundred years 
 subsequent to her death, we find the Lord, by the prophet 
 Micah, adducing her name conjointly with her two bro- 
 thers, as the deliveress of his people: " I sent before thee 
 Mose?, Aaron and Miriam." While reverencing her piety 
 and.zeal in the cause of God, she teaches us the dangers 
 which may accrue personally to a pious female, or to her 
 friends and country, when departing from her station, she 
 presumes to intermeddle with concerns over which she has 
 no lawful cognizance. Presuming on her privileges as an 
 honored instrument of prophetic ministrations, she rashly 
 undertook to animadvert on the conduct of the Jewish 
 lawgiver, and instigated Aaron, her inferior not only in age, 
 but apparently in intellect, to join with her in a public 
 recrimination of Moses; she received condemnation, and 
 a temporary but fearful chastisement from the Lord, the 
 spectacle of which appears to have awakened deep emo- 
 tion in the breasts of both of her attached brothers. While 
 Miriam, the prophetess and the intellectual representative 
 of her Hebrew sisters, was excluded by the command of 
 God, from the camp of Israelseven days as a sinner and a 
 leper, the whole nation "journeyed not," the sins of 
 one female affected the movements of a people, typical 
 it must be remembered, of the church of God, when peni- 
 
 6*
 
 66 WOMEN* AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 lent and forgiven she relumed; the Israelites ^'removed 
 from Hazeroth and pitched in the wilderness of Paran." 
 
 During the sojourn of the people of God in the wilder- 
 ness, many circumstances tianspircd which testified thnt 
 with the increased moral light diffused around them, wo- 
 man's position was becoming of increasing importance. It 
 is a truth, acknowledged by men of the most refined and 
 unprejudiced minds, that the female sex never prove their 
 real worth, as help-meets and companions, until the dark 
 hours of adversity arrive, when, sustained by divine as- 
 sistance, and nerved by the strong sensibilities of their na- 
 ture, they become emphatically the stay and supports of 
 the naturally stronger intellect of men. It may have been 
 then, during the bitterness and dejection incident to their 
 bondage in Egypt, or during the toil?, privations, and suf- 
 ferings attendant on the sojourn of forty years in the wil- 
 derness, that the women of the Hebrews, like Jochabed and 
 Miriam, were stimulated to a course of devoted affection, 
 which elevated them in the esteem of their countrymen. 
 For we find Moses at the close of his legislative career, 
 promulgating legal enactments, in which women were es- 
 pecially interested. The degree of courtesy manifested 
 by Moses towards the orphan daughter? of Zelophehad,- 
 and his readiness to bring the claims of young females be- 
 fore the Lord, and to adjudicate in their favor when the 
 divine pleasure is known, presents a striking contrast to 
 the rudeness as well as injustice with which female peti- 
 tioners for justice were used in the far later and more in- 
 tellectual eras of Grecian and Roman history. The 
 Athenian laws prohibited females from appearing in court 
 without a guardian, and would not allow them to dispose 
 of property, without their consent. Among the Romans 
 they labored under similar legal disabilities, and even
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 67 
 
 greater, because they were not allowed to inherit pro- 
 perty, and to prevent the elusion of the law on the part of 
 wealthy and affectionate fathers, the Voconian law was 
 passed, which prohibited any woman from inheriting an 
 estate, even if she were the only and beloved child of a 
 rich parent. 
 
 From the death of Joshua to Samuel's introduction in 
 sacred history, a period of four centuries and a half elapsed, 
 and during that time the situation of the Hebrew nation 
 was constantly varying. Apostacies and multiplied idola- 
 tries were followed by severe retributive judgment; these 
 were made the occasion of introducing seasons of repent- 
 ance, followed in their turn by providential deliverances. 
 So that to a superficial reader of the book of Judges, the 
 ages which it chronicles seem among the darkest of Jewish 
 history, although the aspect in which human nature is pre- 
 sented, is only in character with the description given of 
 it in Scripture, when left to the unrestrained control of \(s 
 evil propensities. The book of Judges may become very 
 useful to us, if we look at it as at a mirror, in which na- 
 tional character and interests are reflected, both as they 
 manifest themselves under the dominion of religious princi- 
 ples, and when idolatry has become the dominant power. 
 
 " The Israelites," says the great historian of their nation,* 
 speaking of the times just referred to, "taking no warning 
 by their former misfortunes to amend their manners, and 
 neither worshipping God nor submitting to the laws, were 
 brought unto slavery by Jabin, the king of the Canaanites, 
 and that before they had more than a short breathing time 
 after the slavery under the Moabites; for this Jabin came 
 out of Hazor, a city that was situate over the lake Seme- 
 
 Winston's Josephus. Book V. Chap. V.
 
 68 WOMEN AN0 THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 choniti?, and had in pay 300,000 footmen, and 10,000 
 horseman, with no fewer than 3000 chariots. Si-era was 
 the commander of all his army, and the principal person 
 in the king's favor. He so sorely beat the Israelites when 
 they fought with him, that he ordered them to pay tribute. 
 So they continued to undergo that hardship tor twenty 
 years, as not good enough of themselves to grow wise by 
 their misfortunes. God was willing also hereby the more 
 to subdue their obstinacy and ingratitude towards himself." 
 Truly, we exclaim, here is sketched a melancholy pic- 
 ture! To what earthly protestor might we naturally sup- 
 pse the fearful glances of the Hebrews would !>e instinc- 
 tively directed? Is it to the monarchs of Eg\ [it, or of As- 
 syria that they think of making application? JNo! It was 
 to woman their appeal was made! Not intellectual, un- 
 aided woman, but to the faithful servant of the Most High 
 God! " The children of Israel cried unto the Lord: and 
 Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lnpidoth, she judged 
 Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree 
 of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount 
 Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her for 
 judgment. And she sent and called Barak, the son of 
 Abinoamous, of Kedeshnapthali," etc. The office of judge 
 at that period of the Jewish history, was the highest ex- 
 ecutive office in the nation, and the holder of it was su- 
 preme arbiter in civil controversies, and chief administra- 
 tor in public services, when of the stronger sex, he was 
 also sometimes a military leader, but this was but an 
 accident of office, not a necessary prerogative; neither Eli 
 nor Samuel were military men; their authority was limited 
 to law only ; and in doubtful cases they had recourse to the 
 Urim and Thummim; no necessity was imposed on them 
 of appealing to the judgment of others; they were not
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 89 
 
 empowered to levy ta*es, enact laws, or appoint any offi- 
 cers but such as were military, yet could they convene 
 assemblies, and preside in their decisions, and issn.e orders 
 to the nation at large. The office was held during life, 
 but was not hereditary. No emoluments of office were 
 received by the judges, who were simple and unostenta- 
 tious in their habits, and nobly patriotic in their devotion 
 to their country's good.* The duties assigned to this su- 
 preme officer of stale, necessarily required vigorous and 
 acute intellect, combined with sound judgment, to ensure 
 the faithful discharge of the responsible trust; but they 
 professed to consider themselves as cfficeit of God, deriv- 
 ing their ability from him, and their most anxious desire 
 appears to have been, that the authority of their Supreme 
 Ruler should be recognized, and submission to his will 
 secured. 
 
 fn the elevation of Deborah to the highest executive 
 office in the power of her country to bestow, we read a 
 striking demonstration of the esteem in which her intellect, 
 but more, especially her extraordinary piety, was held. 
 Instinctively did the Hebrews, in that awful season of na- 
 tional calamity, admit the power which God had designed 
 believing woman to exert over the destiny of her country, 
 for it was not a temporary ebullition of party feeling which 
 placed the wife of Lapidoth at the helm of her country at 
 that eventful crisis, it is not said that a few enthusiasts 
 looked to her for supernatural assistance, but " the chil- 
 dren of Israel came up to her for judgment,'* implying 
 the public concurrence in her favor; and either under 
 her benign administration, or as its result, it being con- 
 
 * Jahn's History of the Hebrew Commonwealth. Chapter III. 
 Section XXII.
 
 70 WOMEN AND THEIR. STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 ducted in dependence on the presence and protection of 
 Him whom she loved to magnify as her help. " the land 
 had rest forty years."' 
 
 She justified the opinion formed of her character, and 
 acted with that prompt decision which marks a strong and 
 well balanced mind. Though fully capable by her intellec- 
 tual superiority to direct the military movements of the 
 people, she knew too well woman's station to place her- 
 self at the head of the Hebrew army; she summoned Ba- 
 rah, the chief captain of her people, to her presence, and 
 commanded him to take his post at the head of his country 
 and forces, with a decisive and authoritative manner that 
 would starlle UP, had she not sustained all her orders by 
 the unanswerable assertion: "Hath not the Lord God 
 commanded ?" she reproved the pusillanimity of Barah, 
 who seemed to cling tenaciously to her with the feeliwg 
 of instinctive dependence, which a feeble mind is apt to 
 assume towards one of superior order, especially when it 
 is seen to be illuminated and ennobled by the divine pre- 
 sence; he shrunk from undertaking the responsible and 
 hazardous trustcommitted to him, unless under the proviso, 
 that she would accompany and sustain him. 
 
 We behold Deborah the presiding spirit in the warlike 
 host: she urges on Barah to accomplish the work assigned 
 him: but it is not her foes or her country's she contem- 
 plates in the assembled hosts of Siscra; they were the 
 enemies of her God; and as such, she knew they should 
 inevitably perish. But when the victory was gained, De- 
 borah commenced a song of praise, in hopes more deeply 
 to affect her countrymen with feelings of love and grati- 
 tude to "the avenger of Israel;" she scrupulously re- 
 minded her people that their obligations were due, not to 
 her wisdom or power; to the Lord alone she desired to
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR. STATI0N AMONG THE HEBREWS. 71 
 
 ascribe the glory. " Lord," she exclaimed, " when thou 
 wentest out of Seir the earth trembled, the heavens drop- 
 ped, the clouds also dropped water!'' In this poetic effu- 
 sion, the first embodying on record of sanctified female in- 
 telligence, Deborah raised a memorial to the spiritual 
 agency of woman, which as far transcends in real glory as 
 it has done in permanency, the vaunted labors of Semira- 
 mis or Nitovus. It has been permitted a place in the 
 oracles of divine truth, and the aspirations of her once 
 ardent soul, have become a part of the sacred treasure, 
 on which the children of God, of both sexes, and of every 
 rank, and in all climes, have feasted through countless 
 generations. How many minds have been acted on by it 
 
 J J 
 
 under God's blessing! to the discharge of how many holy 
 deeds has it stimulated, the great searcher of hearts alone 
 can tell! 
 
 In the progress of the sacred history, the importance of 
 an elevated tone of female piety as a conservative princi- 
 ple, both in respect to the temporal and spiritual interests 
 of a nation, is rendered more and more apparent. The 
 Hebrews, about an hundred years after the death of De- 
 borah, had, by their sins, again provoked the displeasure 
 of God, and were sorely chastened, in being subjected to 
 the cruel yoke of the Philistian nation during forty years. 
 In this season of affliction, " a man of God" whose counte- 
 nance was like the countenance of" an angel of God, very 
 troubled," was despatched with communications of prom- 
 ised deliverance to the oppressed and afflicted. To be- 
 lieving woman, in her station of retirement and devotional 
 seclusion, was he twice sent to unfold his joyful tiding?, 
 and to man it was only granted to share her privilege, 
 when he had made the matter a subject of prayerful peti- 
 tion. Manoah, the husband of the favored individual,
 
 72 WOBIEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 proved himself too weak in faith (o sustain the vision of the 
 angelic messenger, and in his dismay, exclaimed, "We 
 shall surety die, because we have seen God." His wife, 
 who appears to have been intellectually and spiritually 
 more advanced in the habits of her soul, checked his dis- 
 trustful expressions by the stronger faith and more confi- 
 dent assurance of the merciful disposition of the Almighty, 
 which she evinced. "If the Lord were pleased," she 
 replied, " to kill us, he would not have received a burnt 
 offering and a meat offering at our hands; neither would 
 he have shewed us all these things; nor would he. as at 
 this time, have told us such things as these." How beau- 
 tifully does divine grace exhibit its wondrous power, when 
 it is infused into the heart of woman, in such measure, that 
 her feelings of natural timidity and weakness being nerved 
 by its consciousness of superinduced divine strength, she is 
 enabled with Christian courage, to "endure as seeing 
 Him who is invisible." 
 
 On the faithful observance by this pious female, of all 
 that the Lord commanded her, was the deliverance of Israel 
 from the Philistian's yoke, made dependant by Divine 
 Wisdom: the promise was made to her personally, on 
 her was the correspondent duty and the self-denial impo- 
 sed. That she scrupulously submitted to the divine re- 
 quirements is evident, since the promised child appeared 
 as predicted: even in the season w r hen Samson's miracu- 
 lous powers were rendered most apparent, he obediently 
 
 deferred to the claims of a mother, who for his sake had 
 
 7 
 
 submitted to a long season of self-denying bodily privations, 
 and who probably exercised herself in special devotion on 
 his account. 
 
 It would be scarcely possible, by any labored or prolix 
 description, to give a more vivid representation of national
 
 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THB HEBREWS. 73 
 
 misery than is conveyed in the brief but impressive sen- 
 tence with which the divine penman concludes the book 
 of Judges: " every man did that which was right in his 
 own eyes." 
 
 The causes of political disturbance were chiefly refera- 
 ble to two heads i-r-the, disunion and jealousy of the tribes, 
 and the pusillanimity and effeminacy of the people, 
 both of which evils owed their origin to idolatry^ which is 
 uniformly represented in Scripture as ihc fruitful parent 
 of all national calamity. Under this state of things open 
 defection from the faith, and secret, apostacy abounded; 
 even Kli, the priest of the Lord, though sincere himself, by 
 his parental unfaithfulness became the occasion of leading 
 his sons to a course of action which made kt the Lord's peo- 
 ple to transgress." In this critical and ominous crisis of the 
 history of the Hebrews, the God of Abraham yet remem- 
 bered his covenant p^pmise, and devized a plan, by means 
 of which the knowledge of him was preserved, and a way 
 prepared for the promised Redeemer of Israel. The his- 
 tory of Samuel, the reformer, deliverer and judge, the 
 priest and prophet of Israel, whose wisdom and piety 
 were under God,^ind by his special appointment, so emi- 
 nently serviceable to his nation, is one that especially 
 commends itself to the hearts of women. In " the asked 
 of God," granted by him in answer to the petitions, which 
 rose from Hannah's " abundance of complaint and grief," 
 we read a remarkable attestation, from the mouth of 
 God, to the efficacy of prayer in woman. " I have pour- 
 ed out my soul before, the Lord," exclaimed the wife of 
 Elkanah, when meekly replying to Eli's severe reflection 
 tiori on her character; as if to account for the patience 
 with which she bore an allegation so grievous. If Han- 
 nah's case is strikingly illustrative of the devotional excr- 
 
 7
 
 74 WOMEN AND THEIR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 
 
 cises in the sight of the Almighty, no less is it deserving 
 of imitation as a model to females of faithfulness in duty. 
 "For this child I prayed," said she when full of piotisjoy, 
 she brought him up to the temple of God at Shiloh, for 
 presentation: " And the Lord hath given me my petition, 
 which 1 asked of him: therefore also I have lent him to the 
 Lord as long as he liveth; he shall be lent to the Lord."' 
 No reference it is observable, is made to Elkanah, though 
 Hannah's special affection for him had been previously 
 noted. Having given up her most precious earthly trea- 
 sure to him from whom she had received it, and unknit, 
 as it were that sweet and holy tie which cemented the 
 hearts of mother and child, in the daily and hourly inter- 
 change of affectionate words and tender glances-, Han- 
 nah returned to a home no longer enlivened by the pre- 
 sence of her beloved son. But when we might naturally 
 expect to hear some maternal regrets, some outbursts 
 of wounded and agonized feeling under the separation,- 
 we find her strong in faith rejoicing in the Lord. It was 
 not sufficient for her that she had beheld her duty so 
 'plainly traced out, as to be constrained to submit to it for 
 duty's sake, she had risen to a higher measure of holiness 
 and could find delight and her sweetest enjoyment in its 
 fulfilment. In the prayer or spiritual song.whieh she pour- 
 ed forth so eloquently on that occasion, we find the natu- 
 ral sensibility of her nature, animated by the breathings of 
 the Holy Spirit; and she who could once in the ful- 
 ness of her emotions only " speak with her heart," 
 while " her voice was not heard," was now by the pre- 
 sence of the Comforter, inspired to predict with an enlarg- 
 ed, and fervent, and prophetic spirit, not only the future 
 dealings of Jehovah with her own people, but also his pro- 
 vidential dispensations towards'the human race, even to
 
 WOMEN AND THfiTR STATION AMONG THE HEBREWS. 75 
 
 the consummation of all things; while this beautiful tri- 
 bute of maternal gratitude, of pious, adoring, thankfulness 
 of woman to the Lord her "rock," has remained as a 
 chalice, in which the praises of God's people have been 
 continually offered through all subsequent ages. 
 

 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WOMEN DURING THE MIPDLE AGES OF THE HEBREW COMMON- 
 WEALTH. 
 
 Hannah having obtained the object of her fervent re- 
 quest at the hand of the Lord, and dedicated her heloved 
 Samuel to the service of him, from whom she received the 
 precious hoon, in the character of prophetess tolernnized 
 his consecration, as we have seen in the last chapter, and 
 then probably withdrew to the hallowed scenes of domes- 
 tic privacy; for her name no more occurs in the sacred 
 pages, nor are the circumstances of her death, or the lo- 
 cality which marked her last resting place, handed down 
 to posterity. She had, however, herself reared a mauso- 
 leum to perpetuate her memory, in the holy canticle 
 which her son was permitted the precious privilege of in- 
 scribing in that part of the divine oracles, of which he was 
 the in fi pired writer. It is not improbable that she was 
 permitted to live, to behold the glorious fulfilment of her 
 fondest expectations, when " all Israel, even from Dan to 
 Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established to be a pro- 
 phot of the Lord;" pre-eminent in this office above all 
 who had appeared subsequent to the time of Moses, and 
 he with whom prophecy was first regularly established. 
 
 Samuel was, moreover, distinguished for wisdom, piety, 
 and inflexible integrity in the discharge of his high func- 
 tions; but the people, notwithstanding, became either im- 
 patient under his mild and equitable but unmilitary gov-
 
 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 77 
 
 ernment, or feared that after his death, his degenerate 
 sons, would prove themselves wholly incompetent to fill 
 his place, and exercise supreme authority in such a man- 
 ner as was considered essential to the preservation of the 
 interests of the Hebrew Commonwealth. 
 
 A king was therefore desired hy the Jewish people, and 
 God acceded to their earnest request, by directing Samuel 
 to annoint Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin to be king over 
 Israel. By this alteration which took place during the 
 administration of Samuel, the theocracy of the Hebrews 
 was rendered less prominent, though it was by no means 
 entirely subverted;, it continued (o modify the monarchial 
 government of the chosen people of God, rendering it es- 
 sentially different from that of any other nation which has 
 ever existed; the succession to the royal houses being for- 
 mally regulated by divine authority, and expulsion from 
 the throne, determined by the same overruling power. 
 Saul appears to have discharged his official functions, as 
 far as his subjects were concerned, in such a manner as to 
 call forth no animadversions from them; but he forgot the 
 relation which he sustained to the invisible and Supreme 
 head of his nation, the" King of kings and Lord of lords:" 
 he became self-sufficient and disobedient to the divine 
 requirements, and after having wilfully provoked the dis- 
 pleasure of Jehovah, received from Samuel an annuncia- 
 tion of the transfer of the sceptre, to another and more 
 humble minded individual in the person of David, the 
 youngest son of Jesse the Bethlehemite. The appointed 
 successor of Saul was of a princely family in Judah, pos- 
 sessing an understanding naturally vigorous, a heart deeply 
 imbued with a love of divine truth. In the scenes of se- 
 clusion, to which his pastoral occupations necessarily con- 
 signed him, his pious mind seems to have been expanded 

 
 ?8 \VOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 by deep reflection and meditation on the sublimfe and glo- 
 rious truths of religion. The majesty, incomprehensible 
 power, holiness and infinite love and mercy of the God of 
 his people; the glorious anticipations of prophecy; the 
 wonders of creation, the corruption and misery of man's 
 state by nature, and the holiness and blessedness which was 
 to be his portion when redeemed by the mercy of Him 
 whose advent he devoutlynnd joyfully anticipated; these 
 were the subjects on which he pondered by day. and medi- 
 tated during the sleepless watches of those cloudless and 
 beautiful nights, which arc experienced in the climate of 
 Judca. Sanctified meditation produced the same effect 
 on David which it has uniformly done in the case of others 
 who, in subsequent periods, have sought to add to their 
 faith that intellectual and moral fortitude or vigor, which 
 is most important to the character, but which caii never 
 be attained so effectually as by resolute perseverance in 
 disciplining the processes of the understanding, to well 
 sustained reflection. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the original endowments of mind 
 and heart, and the spiritual altainmentsof David, gilded 
 by the military achievements which he had wrought for 
 the deliverance of Israel, yet were the Hebrews careful 
 to recognize his right to the throne as consisting mainly 
 in this: " The Lord said to thee, Thou shall feed my peo- 
 ple Israel, and thou shall be a captain over Israel." 
 
 He justified God's selection of him as the ruler of his 
 chosen people, whose interests he labored assiduously to 
 advance; he brought the public affairs into order, and im- 
 proved the civil condition of the nation, while he gave es- 
 pecial attention to the promotion of religion and morality. 
 He composed for the service of the priests animating and 
 instructive psalms, and incited other eminent individuals
 
 jj 
 
 WOMEN IN THE .MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMON WEALTH. 79 
 
 to the same work; and by these and other wise and judi- 
 cious expedients, without having resource to compulsory 
 measure?, he succeeded in subduing the idolatrous practi- 
 ces which, had been previously prevalent in Israel. The 
 limits of the Hebrew commonwealth were extended and 
 confirmed under his wise administration, until its power 
 extended, as had been predicted, to the Euphrates. By 
 subjecting the Edomite?, and conquering other eastern na- 
 tions, he was also instrumental in inspiring among these 
 people a fevcrent fear of the God of Israel, whose vassal 
 and liege subject he was ever ready to acknowledge him- 
 self. While David stands conspicuous as a sovereign in 
 Holy Writ, and is exhibited unhesitatingly by the sacred 
 historian as an obedient, sincere and zealous worshipper 
 of the Almighty, no attempt is made to disguise and palli- 
 ate the grtevoiw sins which he was afterwards impelled to 
 commit under* the 'power of remaining corruption. In the 
 fifty-first Psalm he has handed down to posterity, for the 
 instruction of penitents in all ages, the memorial of his re- 
 pentance, his self-abhorrence, his self-abasement, and his 
 belief in the forgiving love of God, as pledged for the sal- 
 vation of the sinner, and the sanctification of his corrupt na- 
 ture. The history of David, in its progress, gives the 
 sacred historian repeated opportunities of unfolding to us 
 incidentally, fls it were, many particulars respecting the 
 social state of the Hebrew women, and exhibits the influ- 
 ence which they possess as moral agents. The power of 
 female attraction over the heart of this eminent servant of 
 God, was developed in an extraordinary manner; but its 
 results, in some instances, proved that the increased luxu- 
 ry and advancement in arts ascribed by David to his pre- 
 decessor, in the pathetic lament which he made over his 
 lifeless remains, had in no degree, improved the tone of
 
 80 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 female morals. In Abigail and Bathshcha, we find, dis- 
 tinct manifestations of female character, though both were 
 entirely unlike what had been exhibited to us previously 
 in the women of the early ages of (he Hebrew common- 
 wealth. The former appears to have been remarkable 
 for pruJence and sagacity, as well as for piety an.d per- 
 sonal beauty. Her conduct through the whole transac- 
 tions in which she bore so conspicuous a part, evinces her 
 to have been endowed with no ordinary decision, acuteness 
 and business tact, and her dependents appear to have de- 
 ferred to her wisdom entirely, to extricate them from the 
 dilemma in which they had been thrown by the churlish 
 and evil tongucd Nabal. There was no ordinary intellec- 
 tuality manifested in her effort to dissuade -David from 
 prosecuting his purpose and vengeance, but it was not, we 
 feel assured, through mere finesse that she alluded to his 
 future prospects, or as a matter of policy, by which artfully 
 to ingratiate herself in his favor; she was evidently a de- 
 vout personage, and recognized in him the divinely ap- 
 pointed sovereign of her people, the vice-roy of her God. 
 She could not disguise the folly and wickedness of her hus- 
 band, but with consummate address, made use of this very 
 fact as an argument to induce David to refrain from the 
 execution of his purposed revenge, Abigail with winning 
 accents, sought to exert her influence as a moral agent, in 
 dissuading a warrior in the pride of his heart from cmbru- 
 ing his hands in blood; and the truth of her appeal was 
 recognized and submitted to, by the previously irritated 
 and chafed David. Unable to resist her pleadings, he 
 acknowledged himself conquered and exclaimed, -"Bless- 
 ed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to 
 me; and blessed be thy advice, which hath kept me tint 
 day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself
 
 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 81 
 
 with mine own hand," etc. Would that females had ever 
 been found ready like Abigail, to stay the spirit of revenge, 
 and mollify with the precious ointment of pious, intelligent, 
 respectful and affectionate counsels, the irritated and fe- 
 verish spirit of the stronger sex, instead of provoking them 
 to more violent recrimination! The beauty, prudence 
 and intelligence, combined with the piet) of Abigail, made 
 a deep impression on the mind of David, and induced him 
 after her husband's death, in conformity to the custom of 
 the times, to add her, with other favorite females, to his 
 numerous list of wives. His sanction of polygamy we feel 
 constrained to lament, as inconsistent with his spirituality 
 of character, and as causing the name of his Lord to be 
 dishonored, while to him personally it proved the occasion 
 of much subsequent sin and misery. Had one woman like 
 Abigail continued to maintain a virtuous hold over the af- 
 fections, and a moral sway over the understanding of Da- 
 vid, what hours of deep remorse might not have been 
 spared to him, and what great occasion would have been 
 spared to " the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme?" But 
 David, having accustomed himself without hesitancy, to 
 marry any woman for whom he chanced to feel affection, 
 in a season of self-ip.dulgence and confident security, pro- 
 ceeded to commit one of the most grievous crimes, which 
 justly subjected him to death by the judicial law of Moses. 
 The enormity of the deed was immeasurably increased by 
 his intimate acquaintance with all the requirements of 
 duty, human and divine, by his position as the chosen and 
 divinely appointed head of the JewisJi people, and by his 
 previous profession of religion. Had Bathsheba rejected 
 his guilty advances, she might, like the virtuous Abigail, 
 have merited the same commendation, and received a 
 blessing, as the messenger of God, deputed to check the
 
 82 WOMEN' IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 progressive advance of sin, and forcibly crush the root of 
 bitterness while yet in its n iscent state, and before it had 
 expanded into the odiousness which marked its full devel- 
 opment. 
 
 The account handed down to us of Bathsheba certainly 
 indicate that her intellectual charms "were in no respect 
 inferior' to her personal .beauty, since she appears to have 
 exerted almost unbounded sway over the minds both of 
 her husband aud son. In her conduct at x the time when 
 Solomon's succession to the throne was in jeopardy, we 
 observe her political sagacity, decision, and promptitude 
 strikingly exemplified; and Nathan the prophet, evidently 
 placed, great confidence in' her judgment and discretion, 
 since he entrusted to her the management of a most im- 
 portant transaction, essential to the safety of the kingdom 
 of Israel. We can detect no evidence that she strengthen- 
 ed or confirmed her influence by any striking manifesta- 
 tion of the virtues especially assigned to woman in her 
 proper station. Some persons have endeavored, indeed, 
 to maintain the opinion, that the mother of Solomon was 
 the virtuous matron mentioned in the thirty-first chapter 
 of Proverbs, which it is asserted was transcribed from 
 memory by Solomon from the instructionss of Bathsheba, 
 especially directed to him. But a majority of our most 
 learned divines, have adduced cogent arguments to prove 
 the fallacy of this supposition; the numerous Chaldaic 
 expressions observable in the -original, afford, it is said, in- 
 dubitable evidence that it was composed at a time anterior 
 to the era of Solomon, and probably by Lemuel, some 
 neighboring prince who had been blessed in having for a 
 mother a pious Israelite. 
 
 Notwithstanding obscurity rests upon the name of the 
 two individuals so strikingly alluded to in this portion of
 
 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 83 
 
 Scripture, it is yet an inestimable treasure to us, when ' 
 endeavoring to form an estimate of, the notions of ferr.ale 
 excellence entertained by the Hebrews of the middle ages 
 of the commonwealth, as it Is to this period allowed to be 
 referrable. It furnishes documentary evidence of what 
 was considered the standard of duty, recognized by the- 
 highest order of female minds in the nation, and exhibiss 
 in its beautifully graphic touches, criteria, by which we 
 may measure the importance of the sex in the civil and 
 
 social relations, and the influence exerted by them as ob- 
 
 P * 
 
 served in we aspect of society. It is a well known fact, 
 
 that public writers of excellence conform even their ideal 
 characters to the standard of opinion, most authoritatively 
 maintained at the periodjn which they flourished, and we 
 may be therefore not unwarranted m receiving the poetic 
 but tr,uly admirable picture of the " virtuous woman," 
 whose price was above rubies, given in the thirty-first 
 chapter f Proverbs, as a portraiture of the highest order 
 o,f female excellence, most esteemed and loved in the &a 
 at which it was written,. There is no hyperbolic or adu- 
 latory language employed in describing the various traits 
 of excellence, no intimation given that the heroine was a 
 super-human being, or one whose example was not imi- 
 table: we behold on the contrary, 
 
 " With eye serene, . ^ 
 The very pulse of -the machine; 
 A being, breathing thoughtful breath, 
 A traveller betwixt life and .death; 
 The reason firm, thejtemperate will, 
 Endurance, foresight, strength and skill, 
 A perfect woman,, nobly planned, 
 To v/arn, to comfort and command; 
 And yet a spirit still arid bright 
 With something of an angel light.'' WOTOSWORTH.
 
 84 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 The general outline of female excellence is first sketch- 
 ed, then the minute points of duty arc: specified, so that 
 we feel after perusing it, almost as if we had been intro- 
 duced into th( v society of exemplary Hebrew women, and 
 had been permitted to ascertain their excellencies by per- 
 sonal observation. The virtuous unknown we are called 
 on to contemplate is no automaton, or passive and unre- 
 refiecling subject of the volitions of another mind; her 
 character is conspicuous for mental energy and moral 
 principle; " the heart of her husband safely trusts in her," 
 instinctively persuaded that she will " do him good and 
 not evil, all the- days of his life." She is economical and 
 industrious, not from constraint or because she can find no 
 other resource?; "she worketh willingly with her hands;" 
 she had discretion, ability and judgment, to transact busi- 
 ness of a kind essential to her family; "she bringeth her 
 food from afar;" she provides for the comforts as well as 
 the necessities of her household; she is not luxurious, but 
 practices wholesome self-denial, as a conservative principle 
 of character; she is watchful over the comfort of others; 
 notable and even tasteful, and thinks it no wise derogatory 
 to her dignity to seek to make her home attractive as well 
 as comfortable to all its inmates; her judicious attention 
 to the minutiae of her husband's arrangements, is made 
 conspicuous in the neatness and well ordered state of his 
 wardrobe, while his confidence in her prudence and do- 
 mestic ability assists him in maintaining lhat well balanced 
 state of mind and principle so essential to a man in the 
 public discharge of duty. Nor are these all her excellen- 
 ces; her mind is so much enlightened, that her conversa- 
 tion is edifying and instructive, while as the crowning and 
 ennobling grace of her character, she adds " the ornament 
 of a meek and quiet spirit;" she infuses into all her duties
 
 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 85 
 
 the leaven of her renewed nature; her influence thus he- 
 coming improved and sanctified, "the blessed results de- 
 signed by God in woman's creation are realized;" her 
 " children arise up and call her blessed ; her husband also, 
 and he praiseth her; 1 ' exclaiming, " Many daughters have 
 done virtuously, but thou cxcellest them all!" 
 
 The summing up of this beautiful sketch deservedly 
 merits our attention, and is a striking attestation of the 
 truth of the opinion I am seeking to illustrate viz., that 
 the Hebrew women, and those of Christianized countries, 
 can alone manifest in perfection, those graces which their 
 sex was commissioned to develope, since they only are in 
 possession of the talismanic principle of action, which can 
 ensure success in the formation of female character. The 
 sacred writer, whoever he be, exclaims with emphatic 
 solemnity, " Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a 
 woman thatfeareth the Lord, she shall be praised." 
 
 In commemoration of the Almighty's reconciliation with 
 his offending parents, the son of David and Bathseeba, 
 born after their marriage, had received the name of Solo- 
 mon, or the peaceable; and to this was affixed that of Jedi- 
 diah, or beloved of 'the Lord, in token of God's especial fa- 
 vor towards him. Before he had reached his twentieth 
 year, this distinguished son of David, was elevated to the 
 throne of Israel, and received with his father's blessing, his 
 dying counsel and directions for the administration of pub- 
 lic affairs; as David had ever been ready to maintain alle- 
 giance to the God of Israel, and had been permitted avow- 
 edly to accojnplish great things for his people, because he 
 rightly maintained the theocratical principles of govern- 
 ment, so did he zealously exhort " the beloved of the 
 Lord," saying, " keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to 
 
 walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his command- 
 
 8
 
 86 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 ments,and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is writ- 
 ten in the law of Moses, that thou maycst prosper in all 
 that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself." 
 Never could a youthful monarch have entered with 
 brighter worldly prospects upon the discharge of his high 
 functions; the power of the Hebrews was at that time 
 feared by the surrounding nations; the Canaanites, for- 
 merly so troublesome, had not been indeed expelled or 
 destroyed, but they were held completely in check to the 
 dominion of the Israelites; the warlike Philistines and 
 Edomites no longer dared ravage their territories, but paid 
 a yearly tribute to them; his own subjects were in peace 
 and great prosperity, so that silver came to be considered 
 " in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the 
 Sycamore trees that are in the vale for abundance.'' The 
 arts and sciences flourished exceedingly under his fostering 
 care, " since he not only " exceeded all the kings of the 
 earth for riches and for wisdom," but also in learning and 
 acquirements. He, however, possessed greater privileges 
 than all these worldly advantages; he had received 
 blessings from the lips of a wise and pious earthly father; 
 and more than this, the Lord had appeared to him in a 
 dream by night, and had offered to bestow on him what 
 gift soever he desired; and when Solomon had besought 
 him to enlarge and strengthen his intellectual faculties, 
 and to give him peculiar aptitude to discharge his high 
 and responsible functions with integrity fidelity and wis- 
 dom, his request had been granted, and his earnest desires 
 even exceeded. 
 
 But in the midst of all this apparent prosperity and 
 splendor, Solomon was to give the world a solemn lesson, 
 on the vanity of earthly expectations; the once favored of 
 the Lord, who in early life is declared to have "loved
 
 "WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 87 
 
 the Lord," the intellectual, learned, magnificent king of 
 Israel fell from his high estate, and yielded to the pervert- 
 ed influence of female minds, and suffered his idolatrous 
 wives to turn "away his heart after other gods; and his 
 heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the 
 heart of David his father/' Nay, the evil did not stop 
 here, for so great an ascendancy did these " strange wo- 
 men" obtain over the once renotvned potentate of the earth, 
 that they persuaded him in gross violation of his duty to 
 his God and his subjects, to sanction their idolatrous prac- 
 tices in his very capital; to build temples to their gods; 
 and finally, in the climax of their power, it is feared they 
 influenced him to commit the last tragic act, by joining 
 with them in idolatrous worship. 
 
 After the example of his father, he had commenced his 
 departure from the law of God, by taking many wives; but 
 he greatly aggravated his parent's sin both in kind and de- 
 gree, for he swelled the list of the females of his harem till it 
 numbered a thousand; and selected them, unlike David, 
 from the royal houses of idolatrous nations; an additional 
 act of express disobedience to the divine commands. But 
 Solomon, while presenting a melancholy proof of the power 
 of misdirected female influence over the noblest and stron- 
 gest minded men, impeached not the moral power of the 
 Hebrew women; not one of whom is named in the sad 
 catalogue of his ensnarers to ruin. On the contrary, in 
 various parts of his writings, he seems constrained to render 
 respectful homage to their worth, and acknowledgments 
 to their power as faithful exerters of wholesome moral in- 
 fluence. " A virtuous woman," he exclaims, " is a crown 
 to her husband," and is so great a treasure, that we may 
 declare, " A prudent wife is from the Lord." Her influ- 
 ence he pronounced deeply influential on the fate of her
 
 88 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 iamily, asserting that " a wise woman buildeth her house;'' 
 that is, ensures, humanly speaking, the attaining of her 
 children to honor and affectionate consideration in the eyes 
 of God and man. 
 
 Female influence, as exerted within the precincts of the 
 palaces of Jerusalem and Samaria, during the days of the 
 monarchy, from the era of Solomon until the Babylonish 
 captivity, appears to have been modified among the He- 
 brew princesses as it too generally has been since among 
 nominally Christian nations. The virtues and mental 
 qualities which the sex were appointed to manifest, either 
 found less frequent entrance there, or were not called out 
 into public exercise, the chronicles of the kings of the na- 
 tion presenting frequently only a summary of civil dissen- 
 tions or regal enormities. Across the dark and troublous 
 picture, two royal female forms may indeed be seen dis- 
 tinctly passing, and casting a stfll more lugubrious shade 
 over the sin-stained courts of Israel and Judah; Jezebel 
 and her daughter, the ambitious and murderous Athahah, 
 by marriage created queen of Judah. Jezebel's history, 
 eventful as it was to her family and to the nation of Israel, 
 should not properly be included in our present subject, 
 since this dauntless, unprincipled, but most fatally influen- 
 tial woman, was an alien from Israel by birth, being a 
 Zidonian princess. Her daughter Athaliah inherited her 
 talents, her ambition and her sins, while she labored with 
 equal assiduity to emulate her pernicious example, and 
 finally, after having involved the land of her fathers in the 
 same misery that Jezebel inflicted on the country of her 
 adoption, she met a fate scarcely less tragical than that of 
 her guilty mother. 
 
 But let us not suppose the royal females of the Hebrews 
 were prototypes of their coHntry women generally. We
 
 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 89 
 
 have found that an unknown royal pen could eloquently par- 
 ticularize their vi rtues, while Solomon attested their worth. 
 The sacred historians have presented other memorials of in- 
 dividualsof their number, taken from widely differing sta- 
 tions of society, which incontestably prove the standard of 
 excellence among the Hebrew women of the middle ages of 
 the commonwealth, was infinitely superior to that of their 
 sex in Greece or Rome at their proudest days. In the lady 
 of Shunem, whose character is beautifully brought out in 
 full relief, we have a specimen of Hebrew women of rank 
 in the age in which she lived. Her intelligence, extraor- 
 dinary piety, liberality and courtesy, feminine feeling are 
 exhibited with exceeding vividness and freshness by the sa- 
 cred penman, who without any effort to force his heroine 
 upon our respect and admiration, constrains us by his per- 
 suasive eloquence, to award her involuntarily a high place 
 in our esteem, and a ready sympathy in her sorrows and en- 
 joyments. In the deference manifested towards her, by her 
 husband and dependants, we find substantial proofs of the 
 influence exerted, and the position occupied by the vir- 
 tuous females of her nation in the domestic and social re- 
 lations, while from the respectful and affectionate deport- 
 ment of Elisha, the leader of the prophetic band, and the 
 vicegerent of the Lord, we may gather the opinion enter- 
 tained of them as members of the church of God. It was 
 in her breast, under the unction of the spirit, that origina- 
 ted the generous anxiety to minister to the comforts of the 
 holy man of God ; it was her mind that suggested the most 
 appropriate mode of relief to be extended towards him; 
 to her were the thanks of the prophet returned, and the 
 blessing of God vouchsafed; she alone in the exercise of 
 intelligent and lively faith discerned and embraced the 
 appointed way ol relief in the appalling hour of bereave- 
 
 8*
 
 90 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 ment; and to her tender and pious bosom, was the miracu- 
 lously resuscitated child confided by Elislia, as if her joys 
 and sorrows were the subject uppermost in the bosom of 
 him who was the prophetic head of the church militant 
 on earth. 
 
 Again we are introduced to another class of pious He- 
 brew females, in the person of a distressed widow of one 
 of the sons of the prophets; a numerous and influential 
 body, in station ^and circumstance essentially unlike the 
 great woman of Shunem, whose noble mind, freed from 
 the covetous desires so often the accompaniment of wealth, 
 desired no increase of honor or augmentation of fortune, 
 when the prophet voluntarily offered her an opportunity 
 of so doing. The afflicted widows on the contrary, like 
 many of her sister mourners among the family of God's 
 ministers at the present day, was in the extremest exigen- 
 cy. She had nought in her humble dwelling, " save a pot 
 of oil." Yet was her faith made instrumental in the de- 
 liverance of her children from slavery and death; and most 
 probably in communicating to their hearts, and to these of 
 their companions in affliction, the precious blessings of 
 spiritual instruction. But the inspired historian was de- 
 sirous of showing us. that not only matured woman, degra- 
 ded and despised as she was, in-thc opinion of Gentile na- 
 tions around, under the instructions of the God of Israel, 
 could prove herself capable of becoming an influential 
 moral agent; he also designed to show us that female 
 children, the weakest and most worthless of humanity in 
 the eyes of heathen, who at their' birth arc treated with 
 contumely, and whose lives are spared only by sufferance, 
 that even such as these could be influential moral agents 
 under the divine guidance, in leading' the mighty and no- 
 ble of this world's votaries to the knowledge of truth, and
 
 WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 91 
 
 to Ihc abandonment of idolatry. Thus we are informed 
 of a little Israelitish m;ud, who having been " brought away 
 captive out of the land" of her fathers, waited on the wife 
 of Naaman, who was " the captain of the host of (ha king 
 of Syria; a great man with Jiis master and honorable;" -- 
 k ' but he was a leper" This young, friendless and helpless 
 being,' having been probably treated kindly by her mis- 
 tress, had learned to sympathise in her evident affliction, 
 and ventured, in the midst of an idolatrous court, to come 
 forward and suggest the hope of deliverance to her suffer- 
 ing master, through the instrumentality of the prophet of 
 her God. The words of the little maid, thus. acting as 
 the only representative of Jehohah in a luxurious and de- 
 spotic court, were mightily influential, they were repeat- 
 ed to the Syrian monarch, and promptly responded to, and 
 ISiamaan was soon at/the court of Israel; yet a little while 
 after a suppliant at the humble dwelling of Elisha. At 
 first we behold him a haughty, self-sufficient infidel, then 
 an humbled, converted child of God. He returned to 
 proclaihi the knowledge of Jehovah in his master's domin- 
 ions. Thus even "out of the mouth of babes and suck- 
 lings" has God " ordained strength," that he might " still 
 the enemy and the avenger! 1 '
 
 CHAPTER V . 
 
 WOMEN UNDER THE DECLINE AND TO THE SUSPENSION Of 
 THE HEBREW COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 The sundering of the kingdom of the Hebrews had been 
 a. consequence of (he erroneous principles and idolatrous 
 practices introduced at the court of Solomon. But had 
 the monarch of the -divided state, after that decisive 
 event, sought to conform the principles of their respec- 
 tive governments, to the requirements of the divine 
 mind, their subjects and themselves might have continued 
 to enjoy peace and prosperity. The majority of these 
 princes, however, grossly violated the fundamental law of 
 their civil polity, by openly sanctioning and patronizing 
 the practice of idolatry. The Almighty sent them one 
 prophetic messenger after another, to warn them of the 
 ruinous consequences that must inevitably ensue to the 
 commonwealth, unless a reformation in public morals look 
 place; he visited them with national calamities in a con- 
 secutive chain, or at lengthened intervals, to compel their 
 stubborn, wayward and rebellious spirits to submit to his 
 will, and forsake their own sinful and degrading propensi- 
 ties. But in vain did a merciful God, at one moment woo 
 them by the voice of love, at another threaten them with 
 his righteous judgments; the two kingdoms, in despite 
 of all such attempts, progressed gradually but surely in 
 the descent to decay and ruin.' 
 
 The kingdom of Israel had, however, from the period
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 93 
 
 of the severance of the state, been the most daring in its 
 disregard to the divine Jaws, and as a consequence of such 
 precosity in evi , it first experienced the retributive justice 
 of the Almighty; its destruction preceded that of Judah 
 by one hundred and thirty-four years. 
 
 Among the Jewish kings, few were more distinguished 
 for consistent and fervent piely than the youthful Josiah. 
 While yet in his boyhood, and when he had scarcely num- 
 bered eighteen years, he attempted a public reformation 
 of religion throughout his dominions. He sought to re- 
 store the Jewish ritual in its purity and to repair and 
 beautify the temple. In the progress of this work, a com- 
 plete copy of the book of " the law of the Lord by Moses,"* 
 was found by Hilkiah, the high priest, said by the Jewish 
 rabbins to have been concealed under a paving stone in 
 the temple. It was carried to king Josiah and read in his 
 presence. The pious monarch rent his clothes while lis- 
 tening to the solemn denunciations of God's anger against 
 his nation, and in the depth of his emotion besought the 
 priests to this purpose: ' ; Go ye, inquire of the Lord for 
 me, and for the people, and lor all Judah; for great is the 
 wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our 
 fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, 
 to do according to all that is written concerning us." 
 
 To whom in this emergency, do we suppose the agitated 
 Josiah and his priestly advizers applied for counsel and 
 spiritual direction ? Jeremiah and Zepha were prophets 
 of the Lord at that time, and they were undoubtedly pos- 
 sessed of natural sagacity and spiritual discernment; for 
 the former was expressly addressed in these words by Je- 
 hovah, "I sanctified thee; and I ordained thee a prophet 
 
 * 2. Chronicles xxxiv: 14.
 
 94 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE F THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 unto the nations;"' and "the word of the Lord" or the 
 prophetic commission, " came unto Zephaniah," with its 
 authoritative mandate likewise. But the messengers of 
 Josiah went not on their important errand to either of these 
 individuals. " Helkiah,"' says a learned commentator,! 
 " was a high priest; and the priest's lips should retain 
 knowledge. Shaphan was a scribe, and must have been 
 conversant in sacred affairs, to have been at all fit for the 
 office: and yet Huldah, a prophetess of whom we know 
 nothing but by this circumstance, is consulted on the 
 meaning of the book of the law ! for the secret of the Lord 
 was neither with Hilkiah the high priest, nor Shaphan the 
 scribe, nor any other servants of the king, or ministers of 
 the temple!'' This distinguished female was doubtless 
 noted for eminent piety, and there is a sublimity, a deci- 
 sive energy and dignity manifest in her message to her 
 sovereign, which indicates a cemarkable elevation of intel- 
 lectual character; while the language and sentiments are 
 instinct with feminine tenderness, as if from the constitu- 
 tional temperament of her sex, she yearned with deep 
 feeling over her youthful king. The sacred historian 
 makes no comment on this singular circumstance in his 
 national history; he expresses no surprise that woman 
 should be a deputed moral agent of his God ; it was a fact 
 by no means uncommon in the annals of his people in 
 former ages, though the occasion of Huldah's employment 
 was certainly remarkable, and indicates strongly the re- 
 spectful regard manifested towards sanctified female in- 
 tclligence among the Hebrews. Ezekiel the prophet wate 
 of a character (if we may consider his style as in any de- 
 gree its index) marked by vehemence, energy and a seve- 
 
 t Dr. Adam Clarke.
 
 "WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 95 
 
 rity of reproof; but even he whom Rapin styled le terrible 
 among the prophets, regarded his beloved wife as the de- 
 sire of his et/es, the object of his tenderest affection, his 
 solace, comforter and most endeared companion, under the 
 manifold, and accumulated, and severe trials incident to 
 his prophetic mission. 
 
 Happy had it been for the Hebrew Commonwealth, had 
 females such as Huldah and her sister spirits abounded; 
 they formed, alas! "but a minority in the declining days 
 of the monarchy. The prophets especially directed their 
 reproofs against the proud and ostentatious spirit, which 
 characterized the majority of the Hebrew 'women in the 
 days preceding the Babylonish captivity; intimating that 
 their worldliness, combined with the oppression and idola- 
 try of their prinoes, had proved the natural and obvious 
 causes of the severe refributive judgments which had 
 already visited, and were still farther to be executed on 
 their nation. 
 
 It was about six hundred years before Christ, that Ne- 
 buchadnezzar king of Babylon, conquered Jerusalem, and 
 carried Jehoiakim, the unworthy son'of the pious Josiah, 
 a fettered captive to his capital. The royal treasure, 
 the sacred utensils of the temple, and the whole court, 
 with 7000 soldiers, 1000 artificers, and 2000 nobles or men 
 of wealth, with their wives, children and servants; proba- 
 bly in the whole amounting to 40,000 souls, were also car- 
 ried away by the conqueror to the river Chebar, in Meso- 
 potamia;* and thus commenced the Babylonish captivity, 
 which, according to- the prediction of Jeremiah, was to 
 continue 70 years, as a judgment for the national sins of 
 the Hebrews. Babylon, the capitol of the Jewish con- 
 
 * Jahn's History of the Hebrew Commonwealth. Chapter V,
 
 96 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 queror, in its time experienced live effects of the retribu- 
 tive justice of the Almighty, and in the sixty-seventh year 
 of the Hebrew captivity, was itself subjected by the vic- 
 torious arms of Cyrus, the divinely commissioned servant 
 of the Most High, acting as the general of his uncle and 
 father-in-law, Darius the Mede, the Cyaraxes II. of pro- 
 fane historians. Cyrus in two years succeeded to the 
 throne of the united empires of Media and Persia, and one. 
 of the early acts of his reign, was to issue a proclamation 
 throughout his vast dominions, giving permission to "all 
 the people of the God of heaven," to return to Judea and 
 rebuild Jerusalem. He generously delivered to the re- 
 turning exiles the consecrated vessels of gold and silver, 
 which Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylon, and more- 
 over, gave permission to the Jews to draw from his royal 
 treasury whatever might be needed to defray the expense 
 of erecting the temple of the true God at Jerusalem. 
 
 Many of the Jews, as might readily have been imagined, 
 gladly avai'ed themselves of the permission given them, 
 and a caravan was formed speedily, numbering in its train 
 near fifty thousand individuals, inclusive of domestics, and 
 headed by Zerubbaal, grandson of king Jehoiachin, and 
 Jeshua, a grandson of the high priest Jozadak. Many, 
 however, remained behind; some of these are supposed 
 to have returned in small detachments or in families, while 
 a second grand assemblage was collected in the reign of 
 Xerxes, according to some authors,* and of Artaxerxes, on 
 the authority of others.! 
 
 We have no correct data by which to form a satisfac- 
 tory opinion of the condition of the Hebrew women during 
 
 Josephus' Jewish Antiquities. Book XI. Chap. V. 
 
 t Prideaux' Connected History of the Old and New Testaments. 
 Volume I. Book IV.
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 97 
 
 the regular period of the- Babylonish captivity, or of the 
 general standard of excellence that was maintained among 
 those who from various causes lingered in the land of their 
 exile. Incidental remarks, however, are made, and hints 
 dropped by the sacred penmen, from which we may Anther 
 that they sympathised deeply in the affliction of their peo- 
 pje and rejoiced in the prospect of returning deliverance. 
 Jeremiah, while pathetically bewailing in his Lamenta- 
 tions, the sorrows of Zion, which he personifies under the 
 figure of a disconsolate and weeping female, seated on the 
 ground with none to comfort her, with her cheeks bedew- 
 ed by tears which flowed unceasingly through the sleep- 
 less watches of the night; suddenly changes the panora? 
 mic yiew, and, as it were, presents a fresh 'vision to the 
 spectator, to whom he unfolds a picture en pnzsont. of the 
 interior of the city; the gates are desolate; a cornpanv of 
 sighing priests pass before us; then a procession of her 
 virgin daughters follow in their steps, weeping in. peniten- 
 tial sorrow, not for their departed luxuries, their past 
 enjoyments, or even for their domestic afflictions, but like 
 the children of the Most High God, mourning " because 
 none came to the solemn feasts" of their Lord. There are 
 also two facts deserving of especial notice as indicative of 
 the spirit that obtained among the Hebrew womer* of the 
 captivity: First. That such especial stress was laid both 
 by Ezra and Nehemjah, on the danger of forming connec- 
 tions with the women of the land in which they sojourned: 
 implying that a conservative influence wa-s exerted by the 
 Jewish women in the domestic relations; and, secondly. 
 That in the solemn religious exercises observed by the 
 assembled Hebrew nation, after their return from captivity, 
 the women bore a decided and apparently an equal part 
 with the men. 
 
 9
 
 98 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 But while f am constrained to acknowledge the insuffi- 
 ciency of evidence, on which to predicate confidently, in 
 rcspecf rothc state of the Hebrew females of the captivity, 
 I must not omit the notice of one. who was instrumental in 
 the hand of Providence of effecting one of the most re- 
 markable deliverances ever recorded, ns having been ob- 
 tained for a whole people by an individual of so tender fin 
 
 a"o 
 "a 1 " 
 
 According to the testimony of Josephus, and other his- 
 torians, the successors of Cyrus on the throne of Persia, 
 continued for a considerable time, to manifest favorable 
 dispositions to the Hebrew nation. Within a little more 
 than a century after the promulgation of the edict of this 
 monarch in their favor, Artaxexerxes Longimariu?, the 
 Ahasuerusof Scripture* swayed the Persian sceptre, whose 
 sympathy was especially engaged towards the Jewish peo- 
 ple by peculiar circumstances. The oriental despot was 
 persuaded to depose his beloved and beautiful queen 
 Vashti, in a fit of princely pique, because she manifested 
 an unwillingness, perfectly comprehensible to females of 
 delicacy and refinement, to exhibit her dazzling charms to 
 the rude gaze of the sharers in the imperial revels. 
 Vashti, though repudiated was not forgotten, and so deeply 
 did her lord feel her absence, that his counsellors suggest- 
 ed to him the propriety, or expediency, not of seeking to 
 woo her back, but of endeavoring to find a substitute, whose 
 beauty and attractions might console him for his divorced 
 queen. At that time there lived in Shushan, the royal 
 residence of the monarchs of Persia, a certain Jew of the 
 
 * In support of this opinion, the author would adduce the authority 
 of the learned Dr. Prideaux, who has employed much time and critical 
 research in the elucidation of this point. Prideaux' Connected History 
 of the Jews and Neighboring Nations. Volumes 1. and II. Books IV. 
 and V.
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 99 
 
 tribe of Benjamin, named Mordecai, a descendant of one. 
 of the Hebrews who had been carried captive to Babylon 
 by the victorious Nebuchadnezzar. He had no children 
 of his own, but had brought up with .exceeding tenderness 
 and care, a beautiful orphan cousin, the daughter of his 
 deceased uncle. The name of this pretogce of Mordecai 
 Svas originally Hadassah} which signifies myrtle, afterwards 
 changed to Esther, a star, probably in commemoration of 
 her exceeding loveliness. The officers of king Ahasuerus, 
 under the authority with which tliei,r arbitrary lord invest- 
 ed them, searched all the provinces of the kingdom for the 
 fair and beautiful, whom they brought in' numbers to the 
 palace of Shu&han; but among them, all, .not one could 
 be found to vie with the lovely Hadassah, who had been 
 forcibly severed* from her second parent, and carried to 
 (he royal residence. Her behaviour won so much, upon 
 the Persian officer entrusted with ttre care of the virgins, 
 that he assigned her the best apartment in the house ap- 
 pointed for their residence, .and in every respect gave her 
 the precedence in attention. Nor did she commend her- 
 self alone to his favor. Her extraordinary personal charms, 
 heightened by the modest reserve habitual to her country- 
 women, captivated Ahasuerus, who speedily encircled her 
 brow with the diadem which had once graced the head of 
 Vashti. The nuptials of the Persian monarch and the 
 Hebrew maiden were celebrated with great magnificence; 
 be was not, however, apprized of the faith of his bride, 
 whorrTMordeeai had charged not to divulge the fact; and 
 Esther's mind had been so well disciplined, .and was so full 
 of gratitude and virtuous reverence towards her kinsman, 
 
 * The word we translate . " was brougltf." may be rendered " was ta- 
 ken," and that by force, as the word sometimes signifies, and as the 
 former Targurn here expresses it, " she was brought by violence." 
 BISHOP PATRICK.
 
 100 AVOWED DU3ING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 that she ceased not as the queen f Persia to do "the 
 commandment of Mordecai," observes the sacred historian 
 with great simplicity, " like as when she was brought up 
 with him." A beautiful tribute this to the moral excel- 
 lence of Esther, and a striking proof that she possessed a 
 sound and well balanced mind. A character of ordinary 
 worth might have been so far dazzled by the sudden 
 change in external circumstances, as to forget under the 
 insignia of royalty, to recognize the claims of reverence 
 and submission due to a kinsman who was but a porter^ it 
 is supposed, in the king's 'palace. The chief favorite of 
 AhaMierus at the time of ^iis marriage, was Hanuin, an 
 Amalekite, a descendant of Agag, the cotemporary of Saul. 
 The power and pretensions of Haman became exorbitant, 
 and the Persian monarch exacted from all his subjects net 
 only unqualified marks of respect to the man whom he 
 "delighted to honor," but likewise "some kind of divine 
 honors, such as were paid customarily to the Persian 
 kings themselves."' The conscientious Mordecai, feeling 
 himself probably unjustifiable in tendering these marks of 
 obeisance to any fellow-creature,- more especially to an 
 idolatrous heathen, refused to conform to tre requirements 
 of Ahasuerus ; but by so doing he provoked the implacable 
 animosity of Haman; who scorning to revenge himself on 
 one man alone, resolved to make the whole nation to which 
 Mordecai belonged, a sacrifice to his resentment. He 
 craftily managed the affair with his master, with whom 
 his authority and influence was unbounded, and without 
 mentioning the Jewish name, and under pretence of zeal 
 for his sovereign, obtained a decree from him, command- 
 ing the extirpation throughout the extensive provinces of 
 the empire of " a certain people, diverse from all people,
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 101 
 
 who did not keep the king's laws, but followed laws of 
 their own." 
 
 Ahasuerus affixed the royal seal that the document 
 might remain unaltered. Haman with industrious ma- 
 lignity collected the Persian scribes, and had innumerable 
 copies multiplied, and despatched with amazing prompti- 
 tude throughout the vast domains of his sovereign. The 
 Jews were thrown into extreme consternation, and Mor- 
 decai sympathised in his country's affliction. He clothed 
 himself in sackcloth, and seated himself without the king's 
 gate. Esther .had been at this time several years the wife 
 of Ahasuerus, yet had not (he secret of her faith been 
 divulged, so that her lord knew not that he had given 
 validity to a' document which involved the happiness and 
 even the life of his beloved queen. She first became ap- 
 prized of the dark cloud which hung so ominiously over 
 her country, by making inquiries -of Mordecai through her 
 chamberlain, as to the nature of his affliction; the mourn- 
 ful garb he had assumed having been told her by her 
 attendants. Her cousin, in reply, acquainted her with the 
 whole state of the case, afid sent her a copy of the fatal 
 decree; and authoritatively charged her to go forthwith 
 " to the king, to make supplication unto him, and to. make 
 request before him for her people," Esther demurred, 
 and excused herself on the plea, that she would certainly 
 be destroyed were she to do so, since Ahasuerus had not 
 summoned her to.his presence, and whoever went uncall- 
 ed before him, was subject to the penalty of death, un- 
 less the king, should be moved to clemency, and signify it 
 by extending his golden sceptre. Mordecai in reply, told 
 her that she must recollect that her own safety was involv- 
 ed with that of her country, and that if she neglected the 
 
 opportunity, God would certainly interfere for the protec- 
 
 9* "
 
 102 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMON WEALTH. 
 
 tion of his chosen people, but that she should not share it, 
 if she were not willing to venture her life for their preser- 
 vation. " And who knoweth," he added, " whether thou 
 art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?'' 
 
 It is not unlikely that the circumstances under which 
 Esther had bpen living for some years previous, had ener- 
 vated her character and weakened her religious princi- 
 ples. The pleasures and luxurious indulgences -by which 
 she was surrounded had indisposed her for self-denying 
 duties, while the suppression of the external acts of her 
 faith, and her seclusion from intercourse with her people, 
 had very naturally diminished her attachments to them, 
 and detracted considerably from the strength of her na- 
 tional sympathies. Mordecai's concluding arguments had, 
 however, roused her from this state of supineness, and 
 quickened into exercise all her feelings as a Hebrew, a 
 daughter of God's captive, but peculiar people. She 
 hesitated no longer, but consented to undertake the peril- 
 ous mission. Feelingly alive to the consciousness of her 
 danger, and the urgency of the occasion, aware, proba- 
 bly, of her sex's weakness, and the sinful propensities of 
 her nature, she demanded the united prayers of her peo- 
 ple to be poured forth to God for her, in prospect of the 
 danger she was about to encounter. She then, with such 
 of her maidens as would join with her in the duty, pre- 
 pared her mind by a solemn season of fasting, and most 
 probably of special prayer and humiliation, for the scene 
 which awaited her. Having thus clothed herself in the 
 panoply of faith, the beautiful Esther expressed her heroic 
 determination to venture her life for her people, exclaim- 
 ing, " If 1 perish, I perish!" 
 
 Having entered on her task, she proceeded to the pre- 
 sence of Ahasuerus, uncalled unsummoned. The heart
 
 WOBIEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 103 
 
 of Esther and of her people had been poured forth in 
 prayer, tha't God would dispose the king to receive her fa- 
 vorably, when she went on her important embassy; he 
 " heard thei.r voice and their supplication," " she obtain- 
 ed favor in the sight of Ahasuerus; and the king held out 
 to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Es- 
 ther drew near and touched the top of the sceptre. Then 
 said the king, what wilt thou queen Esther? and what is 
 thy request? it shall be given thee even to the half of the 
 kingdom," The queen probably considered it prudent to 
 make some trial of her lord's feelings, before she ventured 
 on the presentation of her petition; or her courage may 
 have wavered when the moment of trial actually ap- 
 proached; at all events, she delayed from time to time 
 having an open explanation, until a most favorable oppor- 
 tunity presented itself, when Ahasuerus and Hamari were 
 seated at a banquet prepared for them by her. The for- 
 mer having again urged her to notify to him what her re- 
 quest was, and afresh renewed his assurances of readily 
 acceding to her wishes, Esther proceeded in a few but 
 most eloquent words, to beseech him to spare her life and 
 that of her people. " Who," exclaimed the king indig- 
 nantly, " is he and where is he, that durst presume in his 
 heart to do so?" And Esther said, "the adversary and 
 enemy is this wicked Haman." 
 
 Haman's disgrace and death ensued, M ordecai's advance- 
 ment to honor and office followed, but stiH the edict was 
 not revoked against the Hebrews, and the fatal day was 
 rapidly approaching, when their enemies throughout the 
 empire might be empowered to execute vengeance on 
 them. Again Esther ventured uncalled into the presence 
 of Ahasuerus, and prostrating herself at his feet," besought 
 him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the
 
 104 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Ajjnsrife, nnd his device that he had devised against (he 
 Jews." Once more- the golden sceptre was extended in 
 
 token of favor to Esther; and encouraged by this assur- 
 ance she proceeded eloquently to plead for her people; 
 she- concluded by sying, ." How can I eiidure to see the 
 evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure 
 to see the destruction of my kindred?" 
 
 The heart of Ahasuerus-was moved hy woman thus faith- 
 fuHfexeicising her privileges as a moral agent, \\c could 
 not indeed hv the law of his kingdom, annul au edict already 
 valid!} promulgated, hut hf could counteract its operation 
 by a second; he gave therefore permission to his queen 
 and her kinsman to " rule the Jews" as it pleased them in 
 his narnf, and to seal it -with his signet. u Then the ci() 
 of S'm-hnn rejoiced and was glad. The jews had light, 
 nnd gladnes, and jov,and honor. And in. every province, 
 and in every cilv, whithersoever the knig's commandment 
 and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a 
 feast and a ^ood day. And many 'of the people of the land 
 became Jews, for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.'"' 
 Esther so'iirhi to improve thi? deliverance to the spiritual 
 good of her people; she and Mordecai "wrote with all 
 .authority.' 1 commanding that an annual feast -should be 
 observed as a season of rejoicing for the deliverance vouch- 
 safed to them bv God. "They-call these days Purim." 
 The feast thus instituted has been kept by the Jews from 
 that d;iy to t'.ie present time, though it has been in late 
 ages sadly perverted, and often made the occasion of riot. 
 During its continuance the book of Esther is publicly 
 read, in commcmoraiion of the 'signal services conferred 
 on the Hebrews, through her agency; " For," says Jose- 
 phus, " it was she who saved our nation;' 1 that is, she was 
 the instrumental cause in the hands of him, who while
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINJ-; OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 105 
 
 ordering each event after his own wise pleasure, is yet 
 generally pleased to employ an intermediate power in. its 
 accomplishment. 
 
 Esther was prepared for the exercise of her important 
 office by a virtuous and pious training; the grace of God 
 apparently blessed the instructions she received, and ena- 
 bled her to preserve her pious principles amidst the en- 
 snaring temptations of a court proverbial for its voluptu- 
 ousness; she sanctified her influence by prayer; and 
 she designed doubtless to perpetuate it by observances 
 which she hoped would promote the improvement of her 
 people; so that in every sce.ne she may be deservedly re- 
 garded as an illustrious example of woman's moral agency 
 in a widely extended sphere of exertion. 
 
 After the Babylonish- captivity, tlie Hebrews appear 
 flot to have again provoked the displeasure of God, by a 
 relapse into those idolatrous practices which had in former 
 ages left such a stigma on their national- character. Yet 
 were they essentially a declining people, for during their 
 long captivities and dispersion among. various different idol- 
 atrous and effeminate nations, their morals had become de- 
 based, and their frequent intermarriages with the women of 
 a false faith had induced a great deterioration in their habits 
 and manners. Prophecy was sealed to them; and although 
 the law was still ostensibly preserved, and their ritual 
 continued, yet did the majority of the Hebrews violate 
 the lawln their conduct, and made their religion 'to con- 
 sist exclusively in a mere nominal observance of rites and 
 ceremonies, a form of religion without its life giving 
 power. The speculations of learned rabbins, and the tra- 
 ditions of the elders concerning certain usages and rules 
 of practice averred to have been given originally verbally 
 by Moses, tame to be received as of equal, nay, almost
 
 100 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 of paramount importance with the written law. JVIalachi 
 was commanded by the direction of God sternly to reprove 
 them for this national defection ; "Ye are departed out 
 of the wayf' said this .last of the prophets before closing 
 liis commissioned work, "ye have caused many to stumble 
 at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of the Lord; 
 s-ailh the Lord of Hosts, Therefore have r alto made you 
 contemptible and base before all the people, according as 
 ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the 
 law." 
 
 "On the destruction of the Persian monarchy by thcric- 
 torious am;? of Alexander of Macedon, the Hebrew com- 
 rnonwealih transferred its allegiance to liirn likewise: and 
 on the partition of . tiler-Macedonian empire, which follow- 
 ed his decease. Judea became alternately the tributary of 
 two of his successors; fu>t. of Ptolemy kiirg of Egypt, 
 then of Antiochus, king of Syria. .Notwithstanding the 
 declension in their national morals, the Hebrews had still 
 maintained so much the superiority in this respect, over 
 the dissolute heathen nations which surrounded them, as to 
 Imve comn-.anded rcspei.t both, for their character and their 
 faith;: mail Antiochus Kpiphanes, king of Syria, less than 
 two centuries before liie Christian era attempted to compel 
 them to submit to the reception of Heathen rites. Jason, 
 a corrupt and most unworthy successor to the high priest- 
 hood, -had wrested the office bv violence from his brother, 
 the pious and beloved Onias, and bribed Antiochus in his 
 favor by the gift of 300 talents, but was in his turn deposed 
 by another brother, Mcnelaus, who practiced the same 
 unrighleous- arts, that he had formerly made use of 
 towards Onias. On a certain occasion, hearing a false 
 rumor of the death of Antiochus, he determined to take 
 advantage of the opportunity, and with the aid of 1000 re-
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 107 
 
 tainers, succeedc.d in getting possession of Jerusalem, 
 where he-was guilty of enormous cruelties, and' forced 
 Menelaus to flee before him, Anliochus receiving intelli- 
 gence of this revolt in -Egypt, and supposing it to have 
 originated in a general conspiracy of the Jewish nation, 
 marched down upon Jerusalem, and taking the oity'by 
 force, slew 40,000 persons, and took as many more captive, 
 whom lire sold into slavery. Not content with this cruel 
 revenge, tie impiously profaned the holy temple at Jeru- 
 salem, -by the most abominable practices, and subsequently 
 commenced and carried on, a bloody persecution against 
 the unhappy Jews, in which his sanguinary temper was 
 exhibited in a most remarkable manner. The spirit of 
 the Hebrews was roused from its dormant state; and the 
 Maccabees, a race of heroes, emulating in character their 
 countrymen of olden times,/arose for the defence of the 
 waning glories of Israel. Mattathias, the father and head 
 of this gallant family, was a Jevyish priest, highly esteem- 
 ed for his character and piety. When urged to aposta- 
 tize by the officers of Antiochus, who promised to promote 
 him to honor and riches if he would renounce his faith, 
 Mattathias strong in moral courage, resolutely refused the 
 enticing offers, and 1 in the excess of his indignation at the 
 sight of an apostate countryman sacrificing upon the hea- 
 then altar, fell upon him and slew him for so daring an 
 outrage on the majesty of God. He. then collected his 
 family and followers, retired to the fastnesses 4 ofJudea, 
 where the Hebrew females and children cheerfully endur- 
 ed the same hardships arrd sufferings as did their husbands 
 and fathers, in defence of their faith. Antiochus, enraged 
 at the stern determination thus manifested by all classes 
 of the nation, to "obey God rather than man," went in 
 person to Judea, to enforce the observance of his orders;
 
 108 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 and committed the most shocking cruellies, in the vain ex- 
 pectation of terrifying the Hebrews into conformity to his 
 profane determination. Then phoenix-like, the spirit of 
 the nation rose and burned with a temporary but briHian-t 
 lustre. Women and children courageously suffered mar- 
 tyrdom; and on one occasion, as we ar.e informed in the 
 book of Maccabees, Solornona, a Hebrew mother, beheld 
 her seven sons expire in her presence, by varied but equally 
 cruel and heart-rending deaths, and yet was enabled to 
 make the faith of the believer, so far triumph over the 
 feelings of the mother, as to continue to exhort her chil- 
 dren to the latest moment, to perseverance and -constancy 
 in their religious profession. 
 
 Mattathias was a descendant of the royal family cf Ju- 
 dea, and the founder of the Asmonian dynasty, which- for 
 a century preceding the birtlrof Christ, presented in its 
 tragic rolls, many female names, whose intellectual vigor 
 and strong affections, enabled them to become most, influ- 
 ential actors in the history of their country; although the 
 manifestations of character exhibited by them, were not in 
 accordance with the class of virtues which woman, was 
 specially appointed to manifest, and which had been so 
 beautifully exhibited by many of their countrywomen un- 
 der the early and middle ages of the commonwealth. 
 
 The Alexandras (a name which in the Amonean family, 
 became nearly synonymous with that of princess) were far 
 superior in power and influence, to any other females of 
 the era in which they flourished; some of them may com- 
 pete, and that not disadvantageous!)', for wisdom and vir- 
 tue, with sovereigns who in subsequent ages have been 
 nominally ranked in the list of Christian princes. Uniting 
 in their persons, the dignities of high priest and prince, 
 some of them descendants of the gallant Maccabees, had
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 109 
 
 enlarged the dominions of the Hebrew commonwealth to 
 an extent greater than had been known since the days of 
 David and Solomon; and with the increase of territory 
 and power, they subsequently united that of title. Aris- 
 tobulus, the son and successor of John Hyrcanus, was the 
 first who assumed the title of king. The wife of this fero- 
 
 w 
 
 cious prince, Alexandia the first, evinced prudence and 
 moderation, in the administration of public affairs, as well 
 as laudable magnanimity, since she voluntarily exerted all 
 the powerful influence she possessed, in releasing from 
 confinement, and in placing on the throne, Alexander 
 Janneuss, the brother of her deceased husband, who in the 
 sequel indeed sadly disappointed her hopes and those of the 
 nation. 
 
 The talents aiul virtues of his queen, the second Alexan- 
 dra, have been eulogized" by morn than one historian. 
 " A woman she was," observes the great chronicler of her 
 nation,* " who showed no signs of the weakness of her sex; 
 for she was sagacious to the greatest degree, in her ambi- 
 tion of governing, and demonstrated by her doings, that her 
 mind was fit for action." By her the Hebrew nation was 
 preserved in peace, and she expired at an anvanced age, 
 and greatly beloved by her people and respected by her 
 allies. She reluctantly conceded power to the turbulent 
 and despotic sect of the Pharisees, which they were not 
 slow to abuse, but a wise a.nd sagacious writer remarks in 
 her justification,! that she did so from a dread of involving 
 her subjects in a civil war, the miseries of which she had 
 seen abundantly realized during the life of her husband. 
 
 * Josephus Jewish Antiquities. Book XIII. Chapter XVI. ' 
 
 t Prideau*' Connected History of the Jews and Neighboring Nations. 
 Book VI. 
 
 10
 
 110 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF TIIE COMMONWEALTH, 
 
 The eventful history and tragical fate of the third and 
 last Alexandra, the mother of the lovely JMariamme, and 
 of her scarcely less beautiful or unfortunate brother Aris- 
 tobulus, the last lineal male heir of the Asmonean dynasty, 
 lias been perpetuated by the writings of more than one 
 historian of the period in which she flourished; but by no 
 individual has her life and character been so graphically 
 and feelingly sketched, her virtues so brought out into 
 relief, or the ambitious and turbulent impulses of her na- 
 ture accounted for, and apologized more ingeniously, than 
 by a popular female writer of the present day.* But not- 
 withstanding all the eloquence of her defenders, Alexan- 
 dra's memory will remain rather as a beacon to warn her 
 sex of the dangers attendant upon the exercise of pervert- 
 ed and misguided influence, than as an incitement to the 
 exercise of female virtue. 
 
 We turn our eyes with far more delight upon her fair 
 and unfortunate daughter, " The virtuous and excellent 
 Mariamme," observes Prideaux, " who in the beauty and 
 other charms and graces of her person, excelled all the 
 women of her time, and would have been a lady without 
 exception^ could she have carried herself with some better 
 temper and complaisance towards her husband. But con- 
 sidering that he built his fortunes upon the ruin of her 
 family; that he usurped from them the crown which he 
 wore; that he had caused, or procured, her father, her 
 grandfather, her brother, and her uncle, to be put to death 
 for the serving of his designs, and had twice ordered her 
 to be put to death in case of his own, it would put difficul- 
 ties upon the most patient and best tempered woman in 
 the world, how to bear such a husband with affection or 
 complaisance." 
 
 * Woman and Her Master by Lady Morgan.
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. HI 
 
 The Asmonean dynasty was waning rapidly away and 
 none remained to maintain its falling fortunes but the im- 
 becile and aged sovereign 'pontiff, his ambitious and high 
 spirited daughter, the princess Alexandra, and her youth- 
 ful children, when Herod, the son of Antipater, procu- 
 rator of Judea, made himself distinguished by his military 
 achievements?, succeeded in ensuring the favor of the 
 Jewish people, and the patronage of Antony and Cassius. 
 Emboldened by success, Herod elarged his ambitious de- 
 sires, and aspired to succeed to the throne of the Asmo- 
 nean princes. By well-timed golden offerings, he purchas- 
 ed the concurrence of the unprincipled Antony; and by 
 rekindling feelings of generosity and gratitude in Cesar's 
 bosom, he secured his favor, who remembered him only as 
 the son of his former comrade in arms, and once hospitable 
 host. 
 
 Other passions, however, contended with ambition, for 
 supremacy in the death of Herod ; he beheld the young 
 and beautiful Mariamme, the fair scion of the Asmonean 
 family, and from that moment he never ceased to be 
 ardently desirous to secure her for himself. The connec- 
 tion was considered a matter of state policy by both par- 
 ties. Alexandra and her father thought the only means 
 which remained for securing the tottering fortunes of their 
 house, was to place Mariamme as its representative on the 
 throne which her family had occupied for more than a cen- 
 tury; while* Herod, aware of the zealous affection 
 of the Jews for their hereditary princes, hoped to conserve 
 his own interests as well as to gratify his passions, by 
 blending them with theirs. Mariamme's wishes were not, 
 however, consulted, and when she entered the palace ot" 
 Jerusalem as the wife of Herod, she sealed her own tin- 
 happiness, and furnished the first act of a tragedy which
 
 1 12 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE @F THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 has rarely been equalled in pathos or in horror by any that 
 have been exhibited on the stage of our fallen world. 
 Her exceeding personal charm?, and the halo with which 
 her mild and gentle virtues encircled her, enabled her to 
 maintain a most powerful and almost fascinating ii -fluence 
 over the passions of Herod; while his character and 
 crimes, his injustice and cruelty towards the members 
 of her house, and his uncontrollable jealousy towards her- 
 self, served to augment and strengthen a repugnance on 
 her part towards him, which could never be overcome, or 
 even moderated. Her inflexible coldness of manner irri- 
 tated her husband almost to madness, but when on the 
 point of wreaking vengeance on her (or her indifference, 
 his murderous hand would be stayed by his own selfish 
 passions; for so idolatrous was his attachment to her, that 
 he felt he must be miserable without her. Thus- alter- 
 nately was the heart and the court of Herod rent by these 
 two opposing passions of his nature, the result of female 
 influence, while his talented but artful and unprincipled 
 sister, Salome, and his mother, Cyprus, full of envy and 
 cruel jealousy of the beloved Mariamme; and the active, 
 politic and incensed Alexandra, each in their turn added 
 additional weight to the miseries which surrounded the 
 guilty usurper to the throne of Judca; and hastened the 
 consummation of the awful tragedy, the closing scene of 
 which exhibited Mariamme led to an ignominious death, 
 and Herod the victim of sorrow, regret, nnd tormenting 
 remorse, which haunted him incessantly at the banquet, 
 and in the battle field, as well as in the silent watches of 
 the night. His victim happier in death than her tyran 
 in the pride of life, passed to the place of execution in 
 silent dignity, which was only ruffled by her unhappy mo- 
 thers unnatural behaviour; her spirit quailed not, nor did
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 113 
 
 her cheek become blanched at the apprehension of death; 
 supported as we trust by faith in the promises of her God, 
 and sustained by his almighty arm, "she died as she lived, 
 great, firm, and fearless to the last," presenting in her 
 eventful life and early death, a striking attestation to the 
 power of the Hebrew women in the closing scenes of the 
 commonwealth. She died a victim to the passion of mar, 
 inflamed and maddened by artful and unprincipled females. 
 But her memory brought retributive punishment to her 
 murderer. In the seasonsof mental aberration consequent 
 upon his anguish and remorse for his wife's murder, the 
 name of Mariamme would incessantly escape his lips; and 
 he would vehemently importune his servants to bring her 
 to him, if she were yet alive. A grievous pestilence suc- 
 ceeded the death of the Jewish queen, and in its ravage?, 
 swept off numbers both of the nobility and the lower ranks 
 of the Hebrew nation; and so great was the reverence 
 and affection in which this last descendant of the Asmo- 
 nean princes was held, that the fatal epidemic was con- 
 sidered generally as a judgment- sent from God in conse- 
 quence of her death.* 
 
 The reign of Herod the Great was one of the darkest 
 seasons which had yet occurred in Jewish history; indeed 
 there was scarce ever a period in the annals of the world, 
 when wickedness and error more abounded. Then too 
 was witnessed the fulfilment of that prophecy recorded by 
 Moses: " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a 
 lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come;" for 
 Herod, the usurper of the throne of Judea, was the first 
 foreigner that had ever reigned over the Hebrews; Jose- 
 phus informs us that his paternal ancestors were Idumean, 
 
 Josephua. Bosk XV. Chapter VII. 
 10*
 
 114 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 and those on the paternal side Arabian. The government 
 having devolved on one not descended from the princely 
 lineage of Jiidah, the expectations of the nation were 
 awakened; the most important of the Hebrew prophecies 
 was about to be completed, and the types and shadows of 
 the Mosaic ritual were to give place to glorious realities 
 and unclouded vision. The fulness of time had come, 
 and the old covenant was about to be susperceded for a new 
 and glorious one. 
 
 The angel Gabriel that stood in the presence of God, 
 was deputed to a glorious embassy; he was to notify to 
 the fallen children of Aadm, the immediate coming of the 
 long promised and anxiously expected Messiah. But 
 whither did he direct his course ? He entered not the 
 palace of a monarchy-addressed not his message "to the 
 highly esteemed among men; 'he went rather on his 
 divine commission to an humble residence in Galilee; and 
 to a gentle, pious, but humble Hebrew maiden, was first 
 communicated an explicit and full development of the 
 purposes of the divine mind. When the anpelic messen- 
 ger appeared in her presence, and probably accompanied 
 by some manifestation o( special glory, he addressed her in 
 language never before employed to one of our fallen race 
 "Hail, thou that art highly favored; the Lord is with 
 thee!" Mary's humble spirit was troubled at the style of 
 the address, and the nature of the communication made 
 to her; she realized vividly the shame, contumely, and 
 ignominy she would have to endure, the keenness of which 
 can probably alone be fully appreciated by a delicate and 
 modest young female, whose spirit shrinks from an asper- 
 sion on her fair name, far more sensitively than from the 
 thoughts of personal suffering or hardship; but strong in 
 faith, her gentle spirit bowed meekly and adoringly to her
 
 WOMEN DURING TIIE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 1 15 
 
 God, and unfler circumstances of a far more trying nature, 
 she evinced a piety more unwavering and docile than that 
 of the -aged and experienced Zechariah, " Behold," she 
 exclaimed, " the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me ac- 
 cording to thy word!" 
 
 JSo greater honor or more precious privilege could have 
 been conferred on a human being, than was granted to 
 M^ry of Galilee, when she was permitted to receive into 
 her arms, and cherish in her heart, under the endearing 
 ties of the maternal relation, in his human nature, u the 
 man Christ Jesus," "the Alpha and Omega; who was, 
 and is, and is to come, the Almighty ." Others were bless- 
 ed 1 who did but touch the hem of his garment, or receiv- 
 ed a passing benediction from him; she was privileged 
 to fold him continually in her arms, and to nourish his hu- 
 man nature, with the genial current that flowed from her 
 own bosom. She waked the earliest smile on his lips, and 
 hers was probably the first ,name w-hich his infant lips 
 articulated; while the promotion of her comfort was 
 one of the last thoughts that lingered in the bosom, and 
 her name one of the latest soujids which issued from the 
 lips of the dying Redeemer. Her extraordinary faith and 
 reverential submission to the divine will under peculiarly 
 trying circumstances, must ever continue to exert.a power- 
 ful moral influence over the minds of pious and enlighten- 
 ed students of the sacred volume. Indeed, on account of 
 her intimate connection with the Saviour, and her pre- 
 eminjent Christian graces, the judgment of multitudes have 
 been so far blinded to her true position in the church of 
 God, that they have ventured to approach in idolatrous 
 worship, one, the record of whom was designed to furnish 
 only a beautiful example of personal piety, and a stimulant 
 to duty.
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 1 16 
 
 Nor was Mary of Galilee the only representative of her 
 nation at the period when its glories were about to be'sus- 
 pendecl, in n most remarkable manner. Mary, the sister 
 of Lazarus, became after her conversion a most devoted, 
 fervent and unwavering disciple of the Redeemer, who 
 seems to have included as an article of his new and better 
 covenant, the salvation of the daughters of his people, from 
 the partial depression under which they had so long la- 
 bored, and the restoration of women to immunities and 
 privileges even more precious than those they had forfeited. 
 Mary Magdalene too, was in no wise inferior in faith and 
 glowing love to any of the followers of our Lord ; in com- 
 pany with the apostles she followed her beloved Master 
 from city to city; she accompanied him in his last journey 
 from Galilee to Jerusalem ; she continued her affectionate 
 vigils on the Mount of Calvary, fixed immovably near the 
 cross of her beloved Lord. When his body was removed 
 to the tomb, she beheld Ihe sad spectacle, and seems only 
 to have relinquished her post to discharge the holy duties 
 of the Sabbath 5n the temple. Her ardent and tender 
 heart waited not the approach of dawn to return to the 
 sepulchre of her Redeemer; but very early in the morning 
 of" the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene while 
 it was yet dark unto the sepulchre, 1 ' accompanied by Mary 
 the mother of James and Salome, to perform the last offi- 
 ces of affection to her Master. 
 
 She, too, was the chosen witness of our blessed Lord's 
 first appearance after his resurrection. A mysterious 
 solemnity insensibly attache? itself in our mind, to the idea, 
 of the first exercise of its functions by the recuscitated 
 body of the saint; how naturally might philosophers, as 
 well as the apostles of the Saviour, have desired to behold, 
 in the person of the risen Jesus, such a sight in its complete
 
 J17 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMON WEALTH. 
 
 perfection. They were, however, passed bv, and one 
 selected, adorned by " the ornament of a meek and quiet 
 spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price;' 1 one 
 who 
 
 " When apostles shrank, could dangers brave, 
 Last at his cross and earliest at his grave." 
 
 To console her under sorrow, those blessed lips so lately 
 sealed in the silence of death were first unloosed, as if to 
 assure her that thenceforlh her sex was to be invested with 
 new and important sp ritual privileges, and that among 
 them thenceforward, the Redeemer would find them dear 
 to him as his mother and sisters. 
 
 Mary was honored also as the recipient of the first com- 
 mission delivered by the risen head of the church, who 
 made her an appointed medium of intercourse between 
 himself and his apostles. " Go ye," said he, " to my 
 brethren,, and say to them, I ascend to my Father and 
 your Father, and to my. God and your God." Time would 
 fail me were I to attempt to designate the pious Hebrew 
 females who, at the close of the first dispensation, came 
 forward with ready zeal and affectionate alacrity, to wel- 
 come the rising glories of the new and better one, to which 
 the types and figures of their ritual had long pointed, and 
 which 'prophets and kings had predicted, and desired to 
 see, but had only beheld by faith in ihe dim vista of futu- 
 rity. Mary the mother of Jesus, and Elizabeth, were the 
 sole representatives of the ancient prophetic band, whose 
 inspired poetic songs, welcomed the advent of the Messiah; 
 and the emphatic language employed by them intimates 
 that their pious souls were filled with the unction of the 
 spirit, and wrapped in adoring views of the divine perfec- 
 tion and glory. The aged Anna, whose holy life and long
 
 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 118 
 
 and profound experience in divine things, is especially no- 
 ted by the evangelist, welcomed the infant Saviour on his 
 presentation in the temple, and spake of the nature and 
 design of his mission, not only to all the worshippers in the 
 temple, but as the marginal reading of our version of the 
 Bible renders it " to all them that looked (or redemption 
 in Israel.''' " So that," observes a learned commentator,* 
 "the expression would intimate that this excellent woman 
 travelled over the land of Israel,' proclaiming the advent of 
 Christ. At all events, it appears that tin widow was one 
 of the first publishers of the Gospel of Christ, and it is 
 likely that she travelled with it from house to house. 
 through the city of Jerusalem, where she knew the}' dwelt 
 who were expecting the salvation of God.'' 
 
 When the Redeemer of the world, through toil and in 
 poverty, was proceedingon his divine mission 4i throughout 
 every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad 
 tidings of the kingdom of God," accompanied by his twelve 
 apostles, then did Mary Magdalen, " and Joannn, the wife 
 of Chuza, Herod's .steward, and Susanna, and many others, 
 minister unto himcf their substance/' Female hearts 
 were the fountain, female hands the instruments selected 
 by God for this holy agency, so essential in the furtherance 
 of the Gospel economy; for our blessed Lord scrupulously 
 abstained from miraculously relieving his own bodily ne- 
 cessities. 
 
 The voices of the female disciples, are especially rioted 
 as having been blended in those fervent effectual religious 
 exercises of the infant church of Jerusalem, in the retired 
 upper chamber, where it was wont to assemble, to which 
 it appears to have been referrable, as far as human agency 
 
 * Dr. Adam Clarke.
 
 119 WOMEN DURING THE DECLINE OF THE COMMONWEALTH, 
 
 was concerned, the glorious effusion of the spirit on the 
 day of Pentecost. 
 
 It was Mary, the mother of Mark, who fearlessly open- 
 ed her doors to receive the hand of Christian disciples who 
 desired to unite in supplication for the release of the 
 imprisoned Peter. Eunice and Lois, in later years, in the 
 land of tjieir exile, preserved the spirit which characteriz- 
 ed the pious females of their nation, and to the blessing of 
 God on their sanctified exertion, St. Paul seems to ascribe 
 much of the excellence which characterized their beloved 
 offspring, the first Bishop of Ephesus. 
 
 I have now attempted to sketch woman's position 
 under the various stages of the Hebrew commonwealth, 
 and ha-ve entered more into detail from the desire to 
 illustrate the intimate connection which existed between 
 the Hebrew females, and the moral character which their 
 country sustained, compared with cotemporary nations. 
 The subject will be made clearer by glancing at the con- 
 dition of their sex in other countries, where the systems 
 of morals were framed by human policy, and adapted to the 
 taste of man's fallen nature. The truth will thus I trust be 
 made more fully manifest, that no other sure basis can be 
 found on which to erect the superstructure of elevated fe- 
 male character, than sound, enlightened religious princi- 
 ples. The attentive perusal of the records of other nations, 
 and accompanied with judicious reflection, may thus ena- 
 ble the women of this country to realize the responsibility 
 resting upon them; that of having "a nation's moral 
 wealth in their keeping."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 
 
 To a pious, intelligent and reflecting mind, there is an 
 exceeding sublimity perceptible in the condensed but cha- 
 racteristic sketches of 1 he leading consecutive events in the 
 history of this world, which are occasionally presented to 
 us in Scripture, when the Almighty, in the development 
 of his far-reaching providential designs towards his fallen 
 creatures, has seen fit from time to time, to reveal the 
 secret counsels of his omniscient mind, and to make known 
 to the sons of men by the spirit of prophesy, the secrets of 
 future ages, which to the unassisted discernment of the 
 most exalted finite intellect, are shrouded in obscurity, and 
 at best only shadowed forth in dim perspective through 
 the vista of coming time. 
 
 Among the most striking of these prophetic epitomes 
 are those recorded in the second and seventh chapters of 
 Daniel. That contained in the former describes the mani- 
 festation made to Nebuchadnezzar, to whom the God of 
 heaven for some wise purposes, saw fit, in the visions of 
 his head upon his bed, " by which his spirit was troubled, 
 and his sleep brake from him," to spiead out a tableau of 
 the history of future generations, "from the era of the 
 Babylonish captivity to that of the millenium."* That em- 
 bodied in the latter, unfolded to the. prophet Daniel sub- 
 
 * Faber on Prophecy.
 
 NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 121 
 
 stantially the same great truths, though the representation 
 was essentially different. To the ambitious mind of Ne- 
 buchadnezzar, who was disposed to seek his happiness in 
 external things, and who was therefore prone to receive 
 impressions through the medium of the senses, the secret 
 transactions of subsequent ages, were exhibited under the 
 form of a magnificent pageant, " whose brightness was ex- 
 cellent, and the form thereof terrible;" while to the vision 
 of him whose eyes had been spiritually enlightened to dis- 
 cern the realities of truth, similar information was convey-^ 
 ed under another very characteristic manifestation; the 
 earth with its various generations of active, turbulent and 
 sinful creatures, intent chiefly on self aggrandizement, and 
 desirous of vain glory, was fitly represented by a great 
 sea, moved to commotion by the contending elements, on 
 whose restless and troubled waters, the four great monar- 
 chies that were to convulse mankind in their progressive 
 histories, were typically shadowed forth, under the images 
 of fierce and devouring beasts in panoramic review. 
 These empires were, 
 
 I. The Chaldean, called the Assyrian in its commence* 
 ment, the Chaldean from the land in which the govern- 
 ment was subsequently located, and the Babylonian from 
 the name of the great metropolis. 
 
 II. The Medo-Persian, commenced under Cyarases II., 
 (or Darius, the Mede,) and his nephew and son-in-law Cy- 
 rus, and ended under Darius Codomanus, whom Alexander 
 of Macedon overthrew at Arbela, and thus terminated the 
 Persian monarchy. 
 
 III. The Macedonian or Greek empire, which was 
 founded by Alexander the Great, and extended by him 
 over the ruins of the Persian and Babylonian, so that it lite- 
 rally " had rule over all the earth." Subsequently this 
 
 11
 
 122 NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 
 
 mighty power was subdivided under the our favorite 
 generals of the Macedonian .prince, and from their ruins 
 fragments were gathered, which served as materials on 
 which was reared the last of the vast empires, viz: 
 
 1Y. The Roman Empire, which by its extensive con- 
 quests amalgamated into one great mass, the various na- 
 tion? which antecedent to its commencement had agitated 
 the troubled surface of human society. 
 
 In respect to the condition of the nations composing the 
 irst of these mighty empires, which flourished and passed 
 away into obscnrity, and over whose proudest architectu- 
 ral monuments great obscurity rests, the few scattered 
 fragments of their history which have survived lo the pre- 
 sent age, are of too vague and unsatisfactory a kind, to 
 permit us to determine as to their domestic and social in- 
 stitutions. Among the earliest records of oriental nations, 
 which have reached us, we find the memorials of the fa- 
 mous Semiramis, queen of Assyria; but so much that is 
 evidently fabulous is associated with the traditions re- 
 specting her, and the circumstances in which she is repre- 
 sented as having been placed, are so unique in their na- 
 ture, that I apprehend her true history, ii it could be sub- 
 stantiated, would afford no just criteria by which to 
 estimate woman's position under the most ancient mon- 
 archy in the world. 
 
 The Persian females of antiquity, as far as information 
 can be gleaned respecting them from the annals of ancient 
 classic writers, appear to have occupied very nearly the 
 same relative position in society, as the sex maintain among 
 oriental nations of the present day. Polygamy reigned 
 unrestrained among them; and wherever that has been 
 established, without any such moral and political correc- 
 tives as was secured under the theocracy of the Hebrews,
 
 NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 123 
 
 an incubus of a most appalling kind has ever rested on 
 the social and political institutions of all the countries in 
 which the practice has obtained. 
 
 It has formed, as it were, a strong line of demarcation, 
 a wall of division between the nations of the east and west; 
 and as at the present moment no country in which this 
 demoralizing and deterioratingstateof things is observable, 
 enjoys a free, constitution of government; or permits un- 
 restrained exercise to the moral and intellectual powers of 
 its inhabitants; or ennobling social privileges to the female 
 sex; so is it rational to suppose that under similarity of 
 circumstances in the oriental nations of -antiquity, like 
 causes would necessarily produce like effects. The most 
 intelligent modern traveller through the different countries 
 of the east, represents many of the customs, habits, and 
 manners which prevail among these nations in the 19th 
 eentury, as almost synonymous with those which sacred 
 and profane historians described as existing among them 
 2000 years since. Humanity in the east in judgment for 
 a violation of a precept of the mctfal law, imprinted on the 
 tablet of conscience, has been, Prometheus-like, chained 
 to a rock, as adamantine as that of Caucasus, while society 
 has been secretly corroded and its healthful vitality con- 
 tinually undermined by the consuming fire of a retribu- 
 tive avenger. 
 
 To the reasons now specified I shall not detain my 
 readers, by speculations on the position or influence of 
 females under the first two great empires of antiquity, as 
 all the inferences necessary to our purpose which might 
 be drawn from the scanty materials remaining of their 
 early history will be necessarily included in the brief no- 
 tice which I propose to give of the oriental modern nations, 
 whose manners and habits in respect to females, as I before
 
 124 NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 
 
 remarked, are substantially the same at the present mo- 
 ment, as they were 2000 years since. 
 
 While the east and west were separated by a line of 
 demarcation, artificially drawn by the hand of maivs cor- 
 rupt nature, the nations of the northern and southern sec- 
 tions of the west, were disjoined in interests, and materially 
 affected in their social and political relations by a natural 
 barrier, as immovably fixed in the natural strata of the 
 earth, as was polygamy in the evil passions of man. I now 
 allude to the unaltered Alpine range, which extends 
 through Europe principally from east to west. While the 
 Celtic races on the northern side of the snow-clad Alps, 
 were living in primitive simplicity,* the free denizens of 
 the forests, unlettered and uncivilized, and with no canopy 
 above them save the cove ring of their rude tents, or the azure 
 
 O * 
 
 arch of heaven : the southern declivities were crowned with 
 cities and villages, whose inhabitants were in their physi- 
 cal, political and moral condition, on a footing entirely and 
 essentially different from their northern neighbors. At 
 the time when the history of Rome was far advanced, and 
 she numbered in her extended dominions the fairest por- 
 tions of the earth and the most civilized nations; when 
 her subjects were living in wealth and luxury; while her 
 laws and manners had advanced her to a station of such 
 eminence among the cotemporary nations, that the greatest 
 monarchs of the east were ambitious of obtaining her 
 friendship, while those less eminent were grateful for be- 
 ing admitted as her tributaries; then were the countries 
 of Germany and others peopled by races of kindred origin 
 north of the Alps, in a condition parallel with that of the 
 aboriginal inhabitants of our western forests, while their 
 
 * Niebuhr's Rome. Vol. II On the Gauls and their immigration 
 into Italy."
 
 NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 125 
 
 wild and uncultivated lands, scarce repaid the victorious 
 Roman generals for the toils of conquest.* 
 
 Upon the history of races so barbarous, it would then, be 
 needless for me to linger, since the position they occupied 
 in the scale of nations was but a counterpart to that of the 
 semi-civilized tribes of our own era, respecting whom I 
 propose making, en passant, a few brief remarks. 
 
 For a correct investigation of the condition of the women 
 of antique nations, it will then be merely necessary to exam- 
 ine the records of the Grecian and Roman empires in those 
 lands where civilization was so far in advance of other coun- 
 tries of Europe, where many of the traits which were de- 
 veloped of private and national character, were of a kind to 
 excite feelings of admiration and esteem, which no other 
 unchristianized races in the records of history are able to 
 elicit from us. 
 
 * Information as to the condition of the northern nations of that era 
 will be more satisfactorily obtained by the perusal " of considerations 
 on the habits and manners of the German nation," by Gacilus. The 
 similarity in many of their customs and manners to those of the North 
 American Indians, is very striking, and indicates strongly their rude and 
 uncivilised state.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 Obscurity rests upon the primitive times of ancient 
 Greece, though in the providential designs of God, the 
 empire subsequently founded on her classic shores, was 
 destined to have " rule over all the earth." While her 
 early rise and progress is impenetrable to the researches 
 of the learned, and tradition has ventured to ascribe her 
 gigantic ruins to an ancient race, whose extraordinary 
 deeds are memorialized by legends evidently associated 
 with much thai is superhuman and fabulous, her first ap- 
 pearance on "the great sea'' of this troubled ^orld was 
 carefully marked and registered by the Ruler of the na- 
 tions. 
 
 At a very remote period, little subsequent to the exodus 
 of the children of Israel, the country of Greece, small in 
 extent, but highly gifted by natural advantages of climate 
 and position, was peopled by tribes manifesting a degree 
 of civilization and refinement, far exceeding that of the 
 surrounding nations; from whom sprang the gifted heroic 
 race whose achievements have furnished abundant materi- 
 als for the exercise of the imaginative powers of poets, and 
 painters, and sculptors, in subsequent age?. 
 
 There were several distinct tribes or branches of the 
 Greek nation. Prior to the Trojan war, the Achaean race 
 was so supreme in its power, that its name has been ap- 
 plied as the appellation of the heroic age. The Doric
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 127 
 
 Ionic, and Eolian races subsequently divided classicGreece; 
 each distinguished by characteristic traits of dialect, hab- 
 its and manners. Thus the Doric was remarkable for the 
 tone of severity and primitive simplicity, imprinted on its 
 dialect, style of living, songs arid architecture; while the 
 Ionic was characterized by vivacity, excitability, and fond- 
 ness for novelty; the latter race, was easily induced by the 
 prospect of physical enjoyment to make important changes 
 in social and political institution?, while the former retain- 
 ed a strong attachment to ancient usages. Of the Ionic 
 race, Athena was the head and representative, while the 
 Dorians, which for ages maintined the supremacy of the 
 Peloponesus, was accustomed to recognize for a long pe- 
 riod, its most powerful political body, in Laconia, of which 
 Sparta was the capital. 
 
 The peculiarities in the idiosyncracies of these two im- 
 portant branches of the Greek nation, were perpetually 
 developed in the progress of the contending powers of 
 Athens and Sparta; and indeed the whole history of Greece 
 for centuries, was colored by their mutual animosities and 
 fierce rivalries. Notwithstanding these essential diversi- 
 ties continued to characterize the Doric and Ionian races, 
 they retained certain indissoluble bonds of union. Though 
 divided at home, and dispersed widely in other countries, 
 yet during the most prosperous ages of their national ex- 
 istence, as well as in the dark hour of adversity, when me- 
 naced by invasion from a foreign foe, did the different 
 Greek races continue tenaciously to regard themselves 
 as constituting collectively, the sole civilized portion of 
 humanity; the inhabitants of all other- lands being pro- 
 miscuously amalgamated by them under one generic ap- 
 pellation of barbarians. 
 
 The bond of national union was provided bj a com-
 
 128 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 mon harmonious language, modified under different 
 dialects, by their religion, and by certain peculiar social 
 institutions which were universal among all the races of 
 Hellenic origin. " Unlike the religion of the East, that 
 of the Hellenes was supported by no sacred books, was 
 connected with no peculiar doctrines; it could not, there- 
 fore, serve like the former, to unite a nation by means of 
 a common creed; but it was fitted, for gaining that end, in 
 so far as the external rites of religion afforded opportuni- 
 ties."* 
 
 The Greeks never recognized a distinct sacerdotal order; 
 the princes and fathers of families were the priests of the 
 nation. Unlike the oriental races, they discarded sym- 
 bolic representations, and their theory included only such 
 divinities as were represented as being the possessors of a 
 moral nature similar to that of man; manifesting the same 
 defects of moral constitution and scarcely his superiors in 
 virtue. " The Gods were believed by them to be gratifi- 
 ed with the same pleasures as mortals; their delights were 
 the same; the gifts which were offered to them were the 
 same which please men ; there was a common, a corres- 
 pondent enjoyment." 
 
 The shrines of Delphi, Olympia, and Delos, were na- 
 tional temples, and were highly influential in maintaining 
 the bonds of sympathy among the Hellenic tribes; they 
 formed a connecting link between the religion and politics 
 of the nation. The Greeks were accustomed to celebrate 
 various public festivals in honor of their deities, in the 
 vicinity of the fanes consecrated to their respective wor- 
 ship. In the Olympic, Pythian, Delphic, and other games 
 exhibited on such occasions, contests of different kinds 
 
 * Heeren'a Politics of Ancient Greece. Chap. VII.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 129 
 
 were permitted and adopted. Running, leaping, wrest- 
 ling, boxing, and other athletic feats were practiced. In 
 addition to the gymnastic exercises, chariot and horse ra- 
 ces were introduced, and competitors in music, poetry, 
 rhetoric and other intellectual pursuits, contended with 
 equal ardor for the prizes awarded to tliose most distin- 
 guished in these respective branches of scientHic exertion. 
 
 No higher honor could be conceived by the Grecians, 
 than that which accrued to the conquerors in these games, 
 who were not only received with eclat in Olympia, where 
 statutes were erected to them in the sacred wood of Jupi- 
 ter, but their victories were respectively considered as 
 those of their native towns, to which they returned in the 
 guise of conquerors, drawn in chariots by four horses, and 
 were every where received with the greatest acclamations. 
 The importance attached to the intellectual contests, ap- 
 peared to be considered generally less than that arising 
 from the gymnastic exercises. To a considerable degree 
 the standard of excellence according to which public opin- 
 ion determines authoritatively on the character of indi- 
 viduals, was graduated in conformity to their ideas of 
 merit or demerit, derived from the associations connected 
 with these national games; so that the qualities necessary 
 to insure success, came to be considered most deserving 
 of honor, and those entailing discomfiture, came to be re- 
 garded as ignominious and contemptible. 
 
 In a country where such defective conceptions obtained 
 as to the true religion, and where institutions sanctioned 
 by popular polytheism, were instrumental in establishing 
 a system of morals entirely diverse in its features from that 
 divine institution, and where the graces of character highly 
 esteemed by the Almighty were viewed as contemptible, 
 and as proofs of effeminacy and mental inferiority, it could
 
 130 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 scarcely be expected that the two sexes could stand in the 
 same relation to each other, even among the polished and 
 civilized Greeks, (who proudly boasted their supremacy 
 over other heathen nations of antiquity,) as the Almighty 
 especially designed them to occupy; which they sustain 
 in Christianized countries of the present day. 
 
 Polygamy indeed was not directly -sanctioned, for tradi- 
 tion informs us that Cccrops. among his other attempts to 
 soften and polish the rude and uncultivated aboriginal in- 
 habi'ants of Atlira v had established regular marriages; 
 yet were (he sanctities of that institution very imperfectly 
 observed in the brightest period of Grecian morality, while 
 in ordinary times they were often most grossly violated. 
 Although the Spartans or Athenians did not imprison mul- 
 titudes of female victims in harems, like their Asiatic co- 
 temporaries even among the Israelites, yet did they never 
 award to any individuals of the sex, that reverence and 
 respectful homage as beings of a higher order of virtue; 
 which Deborah, Hannah and Huldah, the Maries or Anna 
 received among the Hebrews. 
 
 The Achsean, or heroic age, is the earliest period of 
 Grecian history of which we are able to glean any satis- 
 factory information as to habits and manners; and on these 
 points Homer, by concurrent public opinion, is our most 
 authentic guide. During the Achaean domination, from 
 about the thirteenth to the eleventh B. C., Greece num- 
 bered many cities, and its verdant landscapes were adorn- 
 ed and enriched by the labors of the agriculturalist. In 
 the glowing account given in the eighteenth Book of Iliad 
 of the chefcCcEU-cre of Vulcan the noble shield of Achilles 
 we have in the ornamental devices with which " the 
 fathers of the fires emblazed the field," a graphic symbolic 
 representation of the various labors of rural life, as known
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 131 
 
 among the Grecians oflhat period; so in the elaborate de- 
 scriptions of the several palaces of Menelaus, Ulysses and 
 Alcinous, we have striking and correct illustrations of the 
 style of architecture then most esteemed in Greece. If on 
 such points the Homeric account is unhesitatingly receiv- 
 ed as a fair criterion of manners, and of the state of the 
 arts, we may without hesitation consult the same authority 
 in order to obtain data sufficient to guide us in forming 
 our opinion of the position of the female sex p.mong the 
 different branches of the, Hellenic nation, during a period 
 when, by their own account?, they possessed a far higher 
 degree of civilization than had ever been previously enjoy- 
 ed by them. 
 
 The character of Andromache and Penolepe, may then 
 be assumed as specimens of the highest style of feminine 
 virtue, recognized in the days of Homer, fora writer such 
 as he, who, according to the judgment of a deep and en- 
 lightened thinker,* approached nearer to the grandeur of 
 revelation than all other Heathen poets, would be likely, 
 in his conceptions of truth and beauty, to transcend, rather 
 than descend, below the standard admitted by ordinary 
 minds; if neither the virtuous and famed Penelope, nor 
 the affectionate, devoted, and almost sublime Andromache 
 are represented as capable of exercising any powerful 
 moral agencv over the nations of which they were respec- 
 tively the ornaments. The Trojan princess, on the two 
 occasions in which she is presented in full portraiture be- 
 fore us, excites the tenderest sympathies m our nature, and 
 few hearts can contemplate her, either under the pressure 
 of anticipated bereavement, or while agonized under its 
 actual infliction, without awarding to her sorrow and tri- 
 
 * Rev. R. Cecil
 
 132 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 bute of tears. But even she seems to have been regarded 
 by her lord, notwithstanding, 
 
 " her virtue charmed him, as her beauty fir'd, 
 
 rather as belonging to a superior order of house-wives, 
 than as an influential companion or moral directress. 
 Even while listening to her pathetic, intelligent and most 
 eloquent appeal, and when about, as he anticipated, to 
 part from her forever, with the cheerless and paralyzing 
 expectation of being " wrapped in everlasting sleep," yet 
 even then he closes the lasl interview with an exhortation 
 which in a brief compass conveys a forciclc illustration by 
 the pen of Homer, of the tone of public sentiment among 
 the Greeks towards the most virtuous of the sex: 
 
 " No more but hasten to thy (asks at home, 
 Then guide the spindle, nnd direct the loom; 
 Me glory summons to the martial scene, 
 The field of combat, is the sphere for men." 
 
 The virtuous portion of the Grecian females were 
 through far later times subjected to very strict discipline, 
 and the apartments to which they were closely restricted, 
 were guarded generally with extieme vigilance, detached 
 from those of the men, and in every respect less attractive; 
 one of their wisest historians* remarked, that she was the 
 best woman of whom the least could be said, either in dis- 
 paragement or commendation. 
 
 Immured in their private suite of apartments during the 
 early ages, the lives of the females of rank were spent in 
 the same monotonous tasks of spinning, weaving, and em- 
 broidering, as that of the poor menial by their side; the 
 Jewish women were engaged indeed in the same avoca- 
 
 * Heeren'ftPolitics of Ancient Greece.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 cations, and so may be the favored daughters of the Chris- 
 tian faith, hut both the latter were furnished with a reli- 
 gion of motives which could ennoble anti sanctify the most 
 ignoble employment. 
 
 As luxury increased, the Grecian wives and mothers of 
 the free and heroic Greeks were permitted to vary the 
 routine of daily employments by occupations more exciting 
 and ensnaring, but far less honorable; the arrangement of 
 their jewels, and the elaborate decoration of their beauti- 
 ful forms, occupied the hours which were once devoted to 
 domestic economy, but a stern proscription was laid on the 
 exercise of their intellectual powers or the extension of 
 their moral influence. 
 
 A poet had " formed the character of the Greek peo- 
 ple,"* and their lives were manifestations of the strongest 
 passions of our nature; characterized by acute constitn- 
 tiopal sensibility, they were addicted far less to des[)o.(i?m 
 or to-a systematic prevalence of rapine and .cruelu, than 
 were the oriental nations of antiquity, or the sterner race 
 of Rome; they had deified the female nature by introdu- 
 cing it into their mythology, arid in Minerva, Psyc'u-, Ceres 
 and other divinities, appear to have rendered a tacit hom- 
 age to the capabilities of woman; the priestesses of the 
 sacred shrines were the oracular organs of prophecy, and 
 yet the philosophers and legislators, the historians and the 
 gifted poets of Greece, generally speaking, appear to have 
 had a superstitious dread of cultivating the intellectual 
 powers of the virtuous portion of their female population, 
 as if knowledge would have proved only an incentive to 
 depart from duty, or a stimulant to encourage an inordi- 
 nate desire for admiration. 
 
 * Thucydides. 
 
 12
 
 134 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT CHEEKS. 
 
 Helen, in her parting address to Hector, declares that 
 it was she, the " guilty dame," that had caused the griev- 
 ous woes incident to the ten tedious years of Ilion's bloody 
 Avar, and in her history we read no solitary example of 
 the power of perverted female influence among the Gre- 
 cian women. 
 
 While the moral and discreet, but uneducated w r ives 
 and mothers of this land of classic refinement, were re- 
 stricted to their own apartments, and seldom visited by 
 their husbands, except as a courtesy; while the hours to 
 them slowly waned away, unenlivened by literary employ- 
 ment, intelligent conversation, or improving reflection; 
 there was another class of women in Greece, who, gifted 
 by nature with extraordinary personal charms, and mental 
 superiority, embellished by the fervid imagination and 
 lively fancy for which their countrymen were characteri- 
 zed by the very circumstances of their social and moral 
 degradation eluded the ban imposed on their sex by legis- 
 lators and philosophers, and laying aside the proprieties 
 and decencies of the female character, were content to 
 sacrifice virtue and unblemished fame, in order to enjoy 
 privileges and immunities denied to the virtuous of their 
 sex. " Chartered libertines,'' observes a late writer, " of 
 their minds as of their actions, they were left free to pur- 
 sue the bent of their natural talents, to sip at the fountain 
 of every science, to cull the flowers of rhetoric, to rifle the 
 whole hive of knowledge, and to possess themselves of the 
 treasures of philosophy.'** 
 
 Solon had enacted that no wife or mother of Athens 
 should leave home with more than three garments, or 
 appear in court without her guardian, or attend the 
 
 * " Women and her Master." By Lady Morgan. Book 111. Chap. VII.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 135 
 
 Olympic games, the great source of enjoyment and incite- 
 ment to intellectual or physical exertion among the 
 Greeks; but the Heterse, who publicly sacrificed their 
 virtue by living in open violation of the purity and modesty 
 of women, these were they who became the influential, 
 though, alas, the fatally influential of their sex, to the des- 
 tinies of their country. Their position in society was 
 fraught with evil to the interests of Greece. Feeling 
 their situation to be most precarious, and seeing themselves 
 dependent for the continuance of their power, not less on 
 the frail tenure of their personal charms and graces, than 
 on the preservation of the powerful attractions of wit and 
 intellectual brilliancy, by which they captivated the pas- 
 sions, and held in silken fetters, statesmen and philoso- 
 phers, as well as warriors and poets; the Heteree applied 
 themselves resolutely and energetically to the study of 
 philosophy and science, poetry and the fine arts. 
 
 Aspasia, whose ascendancy over the mind of Pericles, 
 the classic writers are prompt in acknowledging belonged 
 to the depraved but influential class of Heteras. Her in- 
 tellectual fascination, her commanding eloquence, and her 
 unrivalled graces of manner and conversation were the 
 fruits of an education, the ultimate end and design of which 
 had been to fit one highly gifted by nature to become en- 
 rolled in the privileged ranks of the voluptuaries of Greece, 
 and the most effectual agents of her moral degradation. 
 
 The pernicious politics of Pericles eventually entailed 
 ruin on Athens, whose prosperity it was ostensibly the aim 
 of his administration to promote. By the attractions of 
 his person and manners, the persuasive powers of his elo- 
 quence, combined with, and heightened by, the lustre of 
 his birth, wealth, brilliant talents, and advantages of edu- 
 cation, he succeeded in retaining for fifteen years, the so-
 
 136 WOMEN OF THK ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 vereignfy of his native city. By his enmity and persecu- 
 tion of the patriotic and brave Cimon, Pericles ingratiated 
 himself with the populace, whose favor was the mighty 
 lever by which the affairs of Athens v\ere principally di- 
 rected; and by diminishing the power of the Areopagus, 
 he greatly accelerated his ambitious projects. There 
 was, however, another species of political artillery which 
 the able and crafty master of Attica scrupled not to em- 
 ploy lor the furtherance of his selfish views and personal 
 aggrandizement. 
 
 Having learned by his own experience to measure the 
 extent of influence which the guilty but fascinating Aspa- 
 sia was capable of exerting, he determined to employ her 
 as an instrument of slate policy in consummating the pur- 
 poses which his ambitious spirit had framed. In order 
 more efiectually to accomplish his object, he invested with 
 the title of wife, her whose resistless sway over his own 
 passion?, in despite of honor or decency, he had openly 
 demonstrated; and in order to be enabled so to do, he di- 
 vorced a woman whom he had in her days of youth and 
 beauty forcibly wrested from one to whom she was be- 
 trothed.* 
 
 A>pasia, when placed at the head of the princely man- 
 sion of Pericles, continued to maintain the same ascendancy 
 over his character and actions, as she had exhibited in 
 former years, when their connection had been scarcely 
 less openly recognized, or more notorious. To gratify her 
 he undertook a war against Samos, though the inhabitants 
 of that Island had bravely espoused the cause of Greece 
 against Persia, and her fields had been deluged with the 
 blood of her children, when Cimon contended on her shores 
 
 * Plutarch in Life of Pericles.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 137 
 
 against the invaders of his country. Her perverted influ- 
 ence was, alas, yet more banefully exerted: as the wife- of 
 Pericles, she combined all her powers of fascination in 
 breaking down the feeble barriers which, until her era, 
 had yet in Athens served to check the progress of 
 corruption, both public and private, and her levees were 
 crowded with the young, the impressible, and the talented 
 of the Athenean youth, and sanctioned by the presence of 
 sages and philosophers, who flocked to her presence to re- 
 ceive instructions in eloquence and oratory.* Thus did 
 the sagacious and ambitious master spirit of Athens con- 
 tinually yield to the corrupting and deteriorating influence 
 of one whose golden but poisoned shafts were perpetually 
 casting down the young and slaying the strong,! and his 
 policy shaped and fashioned itself in conformity to the 
 principles of his moral directress; he enervated the Athe- 
 nian populace with shows and festivals, and the Athenian 
 mind by luxurious indulgence, by a debasing example, 
 both in principle and practice. By making his country- 
 men the slaves of pleasure and sensual gratification, he 
 paved the way too surely for the victorious and subjuga- 
 ting arms of Philip of Macedon. 
 
 Nor was it on this occasion alone that the moral interests 
 of Greece openly succumbed to the power of perverted 
 female talents. Leontium, the pupil and disciple of th 
 philosopher Epicurus, cast over Athens in later years, by 
 the power of her personal and intellectual charms enlisted 
 in the cause of vice, the same malign influence that Aspa- 
 sia had exerted in the proud era of Pericles; and Lais, 
 magnificent in her tastes, and princely in her disburse- 
 
 * Plutarch in life of Pericles. Plato hesitated not to declare that her 
 instructions formed the greatest and most eloquent orators of the age. 
 
 t Prov. vii: 25-27. 
 
 12*
 
 138 WOMEN OF THE ANCIEXT GREEKS. 
 
 mcnts for her own indulgence and the ornamenting of her 
 adopted city, proved to Corinth and to Tbessaly scarcely 
 a less desolating scourge to domestic happiness or national 
 prosperity, by the moral depravity that marked her career. 
 
 The names of these unhappy women, perpetuated by 
 the very enormity of their vices, have descended to poste- 
 rity, as beacon lights to warn the young, beautiful, but in- 
 experienced of their sex to the latest ages, how dangerous 
 and demoralizing as well as demoralized a being woman 
 may become, when endowed by her Maker with charms 
 of person and intellect, she abuses and perverts these 
 talents entrusted to her % stewardship. Besides these 
 queen-like daughters, among the lost and fallen of their 
 sex. there were in every town and village of Greece, in 
 the days of her boasted civilization and refinement, num- 
 bers of inferior Heterao, who, less conspicuous for beauty 
 and intellectual graces, but in no wise inferior in depravity 
 of principle, were in their relative stations continually 
 accelerating the ruin of their country, and combining to 
 seal her doom among the nations. 
 
 The institutions and customs of Sparta differed in many 
 respects from those which prevailed in Athens, as well as 
 olher Grecian states: so likewise were there important 
 diversities manifested between the national character of 
 the Spartan and Athenian people. The Spartans, like 
 the rest of the Doric race, were characterized by severity, 
 by which essential feature in their idiosyncracy, their 
 regulations both in public and private life, were essentially 
 modified . Lycurgus did not create the Spartan character; 
 he found the rude materials, and sought to shape tbem in 
 such a manner that the moral interests of the state might 
 be most effectually conserved. He did not, as some mo- 
 dern political theorists have attempted to do, tear down
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 139 
 
 old institutions, in order to frame a new and more perfect 
 constitution of his own devizing. Like the lawgiver of 
 Athens, he made use of previous laws and ancient usages 
 as the scaffolding on which of necessity, he sought to plant 
 his feet, while rearing the superstructure he was desirous 
 of erecting, not for his own fame, but for the benefit of his 
 country. Lycurgus, like the most patriotic of the Greeks, 
 considered the state as the first great object of attention; 
 its citizens were comparatively subordinate, in his estima- 
 tion; and accordinly, in studying the laws and regulations 
 enacted by him, we are perpetually reminded that the 
 considerations of individual interests, or private enjoyment, 
 were not deemed by him worthy of attention, if in any de- 
 gree they threatened to interfere with the aggrandizement 
 or glory of the Spartan commonwealth. 
 
 Sparta, the mistress of the rough and mountainous coun- 
 try of Laconia, was built on the banks of the transparent 
 Eurotas; but no massy walls or brazen gates defended her 
 from hostile invasion; she was expected to find her bul- 
 warks and ramparts in the courage and undaunted forti- 
 tude of her sons, who for ages made it their boast, that no 
 Spartan female had beheld the face of a foreign foe. The 
 uncompromising severy of the Doric race, formed fit ma- 
 terials on which to rear a nation of soldiers, which seems 
 to have been the ultimate design of the Lycurgan institu- 
 tions; all the laws and regulations established by the 
 Spartan reformer, were constructed to meet the exigencies 
 of the state, fostering and developing that love of 
 military glory which seemed an instinctive element of the 
 Lacedemonian nature. 
 
 In effecting the purpose which was to him of paramount 
 importance, Lycurgus, with the sagacity which character- 
 ized him, at once perceived that a double advantage might
 
 140 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 be gained by consulting the interests and securing the co- 
 operation of women in his plans of national policy. He 
 saw how essential the physical health and constitutional 
 vigor of the Spartan mothers, were to the prosperity of 
 the body politic, who would be illy represented by a race 
 of feeble organization, or defective muscular development; 
 and to guard against this evil, he established regulations 
 and enacted laws, the direct tendency of which was to de- 
 feat the intentions of the Creator of the universe, by 
 breaking down the barriers which he had designed to 
 hedge up female virtue. lie studiously directed his ener- 
 gies to developing the physical powers of woman, which 
 the Almighty had purposely designed to be the weakest part 
 of her nature: and instead of fostering the class of virtues 
 which the sex was especially appointed to develope as 
 moral agents for the amelioration of the ills incident to our 
 fallen nature, Lycurgus concentrated his energies in the 
 formation of women who should be heroically great; tit 
 companions in the battle-field and in the public arena, 
 but not such as by " the manifestation of the ornament of 
 a meek and quiet spirit." might cheer the hours of domes- 
 tic retirement, or comfort and support in scenes of lan- 
 guishing and bereavement. 
 
 Defective as the Lycurgan female institutes undoubtedly 
 were, in respect to their ultimate end and scope; they 
 were nevertheless calculated to ensure to his countrywo- 
 men a higher order of viitue ar ; d a more extended influ- 
 ence, than was exhibited by the rest of their sex among 
 the Hellenic nations, though their standard of virtue fell 
 far short of what the Gospel exhibits, and accordingly we 
 find the Lacedemonian women were long considered as 
 the most heroic, patriotic, noblest and respected of the 
 Greek nation.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 141 
 
 The Spartan lawgiver resolved the task of the legisla- 
 tors chiefly into the education of youth; " He thought that 
 nothing was so important to the virtue and happiness of a 
 nation, as to have principles interwoven in the character of 
 its people while yet iti childhood; since the impressions made 
 at that tender age, from the mind having not been pre-oc- 
 cupied, would probably be the most immovable; and thus 
 he thought habit and the bias of an early education would 
 answer to each individual more effectually the purpose of 
 a lawgiver.* 
 
 Acting under this conviction, he paid the highest com- 
 pliment to woman, that had yet been offered by the sages 
 or philosophers of classic Greece, for until the children of 
 Lacedemon reached the age of seven years, they were by 
 his enactments, to be consigned to the exclusive care of 
 their mothers; and he who considrred the whole of edu- 
 cation as an exercise of obedience, consulted the dictates 
 of nature and feeling in this one respect, that he left the 
 future heroes of Sparta in the nurture of maternal wisdom 
 and love, at the age when habits of obedience are either 
 more effectually formed, or principles of disobedience 
 most permanently engendered. 
 
 Filial respect and maternal affection were indeed the 
 distinguishing virtues of the Grecian women, and the in- 
 fluence which they exerted in a beneficial manner, appears 
 to have been almost exclusively directed through the 
 channel presented by the maternal relation; while mo- 
 thers elicited in return manifestations of feeling from bo- 
 soms, which considered it weakness, and effeminacy to 
 defer to the others virtuous claimants on the affections. 
 
 The conqueror of Macedon, prodigal as he was of human 
 
 * Plutarch in Lycurgus.
 
 142 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 life, and reckless in sundering the ties of home and kindred, 
 treated his mother, who was by no means a favorable 
 sample of Grecian matrons, with respect and affection, and 
 when assailed by complaints against her from the pen of a 
 favorite general, exclaimed emphatically, that one tear 
 from Olympia's eyes, could blot out a thousand complaints 
 from Antipater.* 
 
 The noble and magnanimous Epaminondas, the prince 
 of Grecian heroes, declared that the greatest happiness he 
 derived from his Leuctran honors, arose from the fact that 
 his beloved mother lived to be gladdened by the intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 The most detailed accounts of maternal excellence that 
 are recorded in Grecian history, are furnished in the an- 
 nals of Lacedemon. Few passages can be found in classic 
 pages more, instinct with interest, and by which the sym- 
 pathies of our nature are more effectually roused into ex- 
 ercise, than the record piven by Plutarch of the youthful 
 Agis, the virtuous, conscientious, and enlightened reformer 
 of Sparta, who flourished at a period when his country 
 had become sadly corrupted, by the introduction of gold, 
 silver, and other foreign luxuries, interdicted by the tem- 
 perate Lycurgus. In the helplessness of infancy, Agis had 
 been left to the care of his mother, the noble Agesistrata, 
 and his no less princely grandmother, Archidamia. These 
 illustrious females were the most wealthy of the Spartan 
 matrons, and Agis was their sole pride and delight, yet 
 nevertheless such was the wise moderation and judicious 
 tenderness with which they had educated the heir to the 
 crown of Sparta, that when he was seated on the throne, 
 he continued to exhibit the same dignified simplicity and 
 
 * Plutarch in Alexander.
 
 WOMEN OP THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 143 
 
 unostentatious manners, as had characterized his country- 
 men of former ages. He made no alteration in his attire, 
 continuing to wear the simple clonk of Lacedemonj, he 
 relaxed not in his abstemious habits; nor relinquished his 
 athletic and healthful exercises; and constantly affirmed 
 that the sceptre of Sparta would possess no charm in his 
 eyes, did he not hope by the power with which it invested 
 him, to restore to his country the laws and discipline which 
 had ancietitly characterized her, and by means of which 
 she had obtained supremacy in Greece. 
 
 Agesistrata had extensive connections, great wealth, and 
 influence in Sparta, and her son fondly thought that if her 
 view could but be made to harmonize with his, on the 
 subject of public reformation in manners, the prospects of 
 his country's safety would be exceedingly brightened. 
 When she was apprized that the ultimate aim of Agis was 
 to restore not only primitive simplicity of manners, but 
 parity of fortune, she was at first surprised and chagrined, 
 and endeavored to persuade him that his project would 
 prove impracticable and unsalutary. The youthful mon- 
 arch succeeded in overcoming her opposition, and in con- 
 vincing her of the expediency of banishing luxury, and 
 of returning to the simple institution of Lycurgus; and no 
 sooner was her judgment convinced, than with the ardor 
 of woman's nature, she urged Agis onward to the execu- 
 tion of his purpose. Agesistrata and her aged mother 
 both disinterestedly relinquished their princely fortunes 
 for the public good; and then sought to persuade the ma- 
 trons of Sparta to follow their example. None, however, 
 could be found magnanimous enough, like them, to sacri- 
 fice personal considerations for the promotion of the moral 
 health of the state. So far from it, their countrywomen 
 combined their influence to make the house of Agis ob-
 
 144 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 noxious to the public; the Ephori joined with virulent 
 and implacable animosity the opposing faction, and by their 
 authority Agis, Agesistrata, and Archedamia, were con- 
 signed to one common prison, and forced each to submit 
 to an ignominious death. The son and parent of the ex- 
 queen of Sparta was executed first, and she was then led 
 to the spot in which their mangled bodies were lying to 
 receive the same bloody doom. She tenderly embraced 
 the corpse of Agis, exclaiming, "My son! thy too great 
 moderation, lenity and humanity have ruined thec and thy 
 family." Her murderer? interrupted her with brutal ex- 
 clamations, and she was hurried on to execution. The 
 last prayer of the expiring Agcsislrata was, that the tragi- 
 cal fate of her family might eventually be productive of 
 good to her beloved Sparta. 
 
 Cleomencs, the successor of Agis, emulated him in zeal 
 for his country's welfare, and in devizing means for ils re- 
 formation, while his fate was no less tragical. He was 
 blessed, like him, in having female relativesof distinguished 
 honor and virtue. His belovedand devoted wife Agistra was 
 the sharer of his counsel?, the sympathizer in his sorrows, 
 and the companion of his Egyptian exile. The conduct 
 of his mother Cratesiclea has rendered her memory illus- 
 trious. At a period when Clcomcnes was beset with nu- 
 merous vindictive enemies, Ptolemy, king of Egypt, offered 
 to grant him succor, with this proviso, that his mother 
 and children should be sent to his court as hostages. 
 Cleomencs' feelings of filial affection and respect, prevent- 
 ed him from apprizing his parent of the onerous terms of 
 the Egyptian stipulation. Cratesiclea with the quick dis- 
 cernment of maternal love, perceived that something 
 pressed on the mind of Cleomenes, and insisted on the 
 matter being divulged to her by her friends. Nothing
 
 WOMEN 07 THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 145 
 
 daunted by the intelligence, she said to her son, " Is this 
 the secret you feared to communicate? Place me on 
 board a ship, and let this old worn out frame of mine, be 
 sent where it may still be of use to you and Sparta, before 
 it becomes the victim of death." 
 
 When the hour of separation arrived, she repressed her 
 own emotions, and sought to assuage those which agitated 
 the breast of Cleomenes. Folding him in a last tender 
 embrace, she exclaimed, " King of Sparta, let us take 
 heed that we do nothing unworthy of our country. This 
 alone is in our power. The event belongs to the gods." 
 
 After contemplating the situation of our sex, under a 
 regime in which female tenderness was repressed, and 
 female delicacy systematically checked, by regulations of 
 Lycurgus, the enumeration of which would be sufficient to 
 call a flush on the cheek of a modest Christian female; 
 instead of feeling any longer, surprise at hearing from a 
 Greek historian that the Lacedemonian women, in " their 
 whole behaviour, weje bold and masculine, particularly to 
 their husbands, considering themselves as absolute mis- 
 tresses of their own houses, and wanting even a share in 
 affairs of state;" we are rather compelled to marvel, 
 that under such a system, " every thing lovely and of 
 good report" which still lingered in their fallen nature, 
 was not entirely eradicated by the destroyer. 
 
 But the examples I have cited, and more which might 
 he adduced, prove to us, that even under a system of 
 comparative social degradation, while excluded from the 
 refining effects of improving society; debarred when vir- 
 tuous almost exclusively from any access either to the 
 temple of truth, or to that of knowledge ; above all, while 
 unfurnished with religious motives, unenlightened by 
 revelation, and exposed to the demoralizing influence of 
 13
 
 146 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
 
 Pagan superstition even under all these adverse circum- 
 stances, there were not a few of the women of Greece, who 
 could present faint, but nevertheless beautiful adumbrations 
 of those peculiar graces which their sex was originally de- 
 signed to develope in the loveliness and power of religious 
 vitality. 
 
 In later days, we find a rich gleam of mellow light pass- 
 ing over Greece, gilding with its rays the countenances of 
 the females of this classic land, and causing them to shine 
 with more beauty tlrm did Agesistrata, or Cratesiclea. 
 The Sun of righteousness arose in Judea, and his bright 
 beams crossed the intervening waters, and rested on those 
 shores, which, notwithstanding they had been trodden by 
 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and a host of sages and philoso- 
 phers, were still in the sight of God, dark and benighted. 
 St. Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, in his mission 
 of love visited Greece, and the historian of the New Tes- 
 tament informs us, that when he visited Thessalonica, for 
 "three days he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures;" 
 " some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas; 
 and of the devout Greeks, a great multitude, and of the 
 chief women not a few;" and again among the noble Be- 
 reans, who " received the word with all readiness of mind, 
 and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things 
 were so;" and in doing so believed, "there were of hon- 
 orable women which were Greeks, not a few" At Athens, 
 too, when the apostle was mocked and derided, as the 
 setter forth of strange doctrines, Damaris dared to believe 
 on Jesus, and confess him before her incensed countrymen. 
 In Philippi also were many female saints, especially dear 
 to St. Paul, who were honorably designated as having been 
 co-workers with him; Christianity having broken their fet-
 
 WOMEN OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 147 
 
 ters, and introduced them to the glorious liberty of the chil- 
 dren of God. 
 
 At this moment, the eyes of the Christian church, are 
 turned with intense anxiety towards one dwelling of mo- 
 dern Greece, where under the patronage, and crowned 
 with the blessings of a nation, a female missionary from 
 the land of the free, is laboring with apostolic zeal, en- 
 lightened intellect, and feminine humility, to train the 
 daughters of Greece to duty and to win them to their 
 God. Intellectual exertion is no longer proscibed, 
 but is associated as the handmaid of. piety. By precept, 
 and by the light of her own consistent and beautiful ex- 
 ample, the female head of the Episcopal Missionary family 
 at Athens, is seeking to train for Greece, a band of pious, 
 intelligent women, who, by the blessing of God, will prove 
 the richest treasure to the land of their birth, and to their 
 beloved and self-devoted preceptress, her joy and crown 
 of rejoicing in the day of Jesus Christ.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN" COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 While the Greek or Macedonian empire, symbolized in 
 David's vision, under the form of a winged leopard, was 
 extending its conquests from Illyricum to the Ganges, 
 underthe victorious banners of her master-chief Alexander, 
 with a rapidity probably unparalleled in the annals of 
 mankind, there had already arisen in the Italian peninsula, 
 ' ; a fourth kingdom, diverse from all kingdoms." In her 
 republican form of government, her duration, : her 
 extent of dominion, and the peculiar fortitude, indom- 
 itable courage, and stern integrity, which for centuries 
 characterized her subjects, Rome rendered herself truly 
 remarkable among the nations of the earth, and justified 
 the prophetic delineations of her idiosyncrasy, typically 
 represented in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, by the lower 
 limbs of the " great image," which were of iron, the par- 
 ticular metalic structure by which the fourth kingdom 
 was symbolized. 
 
 During the earlier and most prosperous period of her 
 national existence, when her constitution continued in its 
 most perfect state, while her laws and customs were main- 
 tained with astonishing steadiness of purpose and self-sac- 
 rificing principle, her sons were characterized for frugality, 
 poverty, and valor, and by the force of these qualities of 
 mind and body, as with "great iron teeth, they devoured^ 
 and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue" of the na-
 
 WOMEN OF THE HOMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 149 
 
 tions of the earth under their victorious feet, and drew 
 the spoils of conquered lands to enrich their capital, 
 while the great and mighty among the captives were made 
 to swell the boasted triumphs of their heroes. 
 
 Upon the early history of this remarkable people, a veil 
 of obscurity rests, and the authenticy of the accounts of the 
 origin of tt the eternal city," framed we know not how, and 
 adopted by poets and credulous historians to flatter the pride 
 of the Romans, is at this period generally considered by 
 the learned, as no longer tenable, and in reality as being 
 little better than legendary traditions.* 
 
 But even allowing the accounts of the primitive ages of 
 Roman history to be legendary; and Rom-ulus deputed in 
 infancy to have been the nursling of Acca Lawrerilia, as 
 in later years he was represented the deified son of Mars; 
 and Numa. the heaven-instructed legislator, "to have been 
 fabulous personages; we may yet, in the tradition which 
 for so long a period supplied to the Roman people the 
 place of national history, and were undoubtingly recogniz- 
 ed as such, not only by their own writers, but by Plutarch 
 and other foreign historians of that era, find materials for 
 interesting reflection; from which we may elicit to a cer- 
 tain degree, the opinions prevalent among the classical 
 writers of Roman antiquity, and their cotemporaries of 
 the nation generally, as to the religious, political and social 
 condition of the state during the early ages of its existence. 
 
 An interesting writer on Roman history remark;, in the 
 commencement of his work, " il ne faut pas prendre 
 de la ville de Rome dans see commencements Fidee que 
 
 * For full consideration of this subject, the reader is referred to the 
 history of Rome by the learned Niebuhr, who bestowed much time and 
 critical research, in the investigation of the fabulous periods of Roman 
 antiquity. 
 
 13*
 
 150 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 nous donnent les villes que nous voyans aujourd'hui a 
 moins. que re ne soient celles de Crimee faites pour ren- 
 fermerle batin,lesbestiaux et les fruits dc la campagne."* 
 Equally vague and unsatisfactory must be the notions which 
 we form of the institutions and manners of the ancient Ro- 
 mans, unless in investigating these we likewise endeavor 
 to detach our minds from our habitual associations. 
 
 In the primitive times of this great nation, austere fru- 
 gality, stern integrity, industry and simplicity of manners 
 and habits, characterized the people. A strict regard to 
 law was considered an indispensable duty of the citizen?, 
 in the maintenance of which it was pre-supposed that pri- 
 vate interests and personal feelings must be made rigidly 
 subordinate. War was the native element of Rome, and 
 the institutions and laws of the republic were framed 
 with a special design to enable the vessel of the state most 
 successfully to ride out the tempests and currents of popu- 
 lar feeling incident to a people belligerent from policy. 
 
 Religion among the Romans was made much more a 
 business of the state, than in any of the Grecian communi- 
 tiei. Numa was regarded by them as the founder of their 
 religious worship, and the institutions and sacred rites 
 which tradition ascribed to him, were perpetuated for 
 many ages, so that according to livy, the Roman " people 
 Continued to practice the duties of religion more scrupu- 
 lously than any other people." And the amour patrie, which 
 burned so brightly in the bosom of these stern republicans, 
 seemed always more or less colored by the sentiments 
 peculiar to their system of belief, totally defective in its 
 essence, as all systems of heathen theology must ever ne- 
 
 * " Considerations sur les causei de la grandeur dei Roaiains et d 
 leur decadence," par Montesquieu.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 151 
 
 cessarily be. The Grecians, as was previously remarked, 
 had no distinct sacerdotal order, while a college of priests 
 appears to have been one of the institutions earliest estab- 
 lished and longest retained among the Romans; and its 
 members, on many occasions, exercised a most decided^ 
 influence in the civil history of the republic, since it de- 
 volved upon them to determine the probable results not 
 only of those undertakings, which involved private inter- 
 ests, but of such as concerned the national prosperity. 
 The annals of Rome not unfrequently record the fact of 
 the Senate officially consulting the sacred college and the 
 office of the head of the Pontiiices was considered one of > 
 the most honorable in the commonwealth. The institu- 
 tion of the Vestal Virgins, was from time immemorial as- 
 sociated with the -religious history of Rome. So that reli- 
 gion generally ascribed its foundation to Numa. Tke 
 members were limited in number and trained by long 
 practice for the discharge of their sacred .offices; the first 
 ten years were passed in their novitiate as learners of the 
 duties of religion; the succeeding ten were spent in the 
 discharge of the sacerdotal functions; the remaining ten 
 in instructing others; after which peried they were exone- 
 rated from the duties of their office, and at liberty to return 
 to other occupations, although few of the order were ever 
 found disposed to avail themselves of the privilege, since 
 public opinion was opposed to the practice, and the power 
 of that mighty engine was felt by the Vestals of Rome, as 
 keenly, perhaps, as by their sister spirits of the present 
 day. Certain distinctive and honorable prerogatives were 
 enjoyed by the privileged class of Roman females; when 
 they went abroad, the fasces were carried before them;* 
 
 * Plutarch in Numa.
 
 152 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 the highest dignitary of the republic was obliged to give 
 them the precedence in the public path; and did they 
 encounter an unhappy criminal on his way to receive the 
 sentence of the law, they enjoyed the extraordinary privi- 
 lege of releasing him from the officers of justice, provided 
 sufficient evidence could be adduced that their meeting 
 was not premeditated.* - 
 
 There was nothing in the constitution of the Ro- 
 man nature, nor in the civil and political institutions of 
 the nation, calculated to engender more kindly feelings, or 
 more respectful regard towards their women, than was 
 evinced by the warriors of Greece. The public good was 
 the one absorbing subject of consideration, and to it the 
 dictates of animal feeling, the impulsive emolions of the 
 heart, and the ties of kindred were required to be subor- 
 dinated. The Roman father or husband was expected 
 to stifle the sympathies of the parental or conjugal relation, 
 and to sacrifice his life, or the interests of daughter or wife, 
 unhesitatingly to the furtherance of the national weal, 
 nay, the senate went so far as to legislate purposely for 
 the specific object of checking the outbreakings of female 
 tenderness when they presumed to allow the gush of natu- 
 ral feeling, in opposition to the stern enactments of rigid 
 patriotism. 
 
 Nor were the civil and political privileges of the Roman 
 women less restricted than their social rights. In the 
 early ages of the republic, females were permitted to in- 
 herit property, but at a subsequent period, the law sternly 
 required the fathers of the nation to leave their helpless 
 daughters portionless and destitute, while their estates 
 were transferred from necessity to distant male relatives, 
 
 * Plutarch in Numa.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 153 
 
 This unnatural interference with the rights of women was 
 manifested in the halls of legislation in an extraordinary 
 manner in the year of Rome 584. Paternal tenderness was 
 ascertained to have frequently attempted to elude the vigi- 
 lance of the laws, in respect to the descent of property; to 
 meet this difficulty the Vocoman law was passed, which abo- 
 lished the right of female inheritance; but the influence of 
 the virtuous Roman matronsof that day, proved sufficient to 
 elicit from the affection of their male relatives, a compen- 
 satory peace offering for the abridgment of their legitimate 
 privileges. The younger Scipio at the time of the pas- 
 sage of the law so onerous upon the prospects of the Ro- 
 man females, had just entered his 17th year, and his affec- 
 tionate nature seized an opportunity for exercising its 
 generous impulses towards his mother and sisters, who 
 ranked among the brightest ornaments of their sex in that 
 era. Subsequently various devices were employed to 
 elude the famous statute, such as naming a "qualified 
 citizen in the testament, with a prayer or injunction that 
 he would restore the inheritance to the person or persons 
 for whom it was intended. Various was the conduct of 
 the trustees in this painful situation; they had sworn to 
 observe the laws of their country, but honor prompted 
 them to violate their oath; and if they preferred their in- 
 terest under the mask of patriotism, they forfeited the 
 esteem of every virtuous mind. The declarations of Au- 
 gustus relieved their doubts and gave a legal sanction to 
 confidential documents and codicils, and gently unravelled 
 the forms and restraints of republican jurisprudence."* 
 
 One of the first efforts of Roman legislation appears to 
 have been to determine definitely as to the exclusive and 
 
 k Gibbon'* Rome. Chapter XLIV.
 
 154 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 unrestricted maintenance of parental rights. In the do- 
 mestic circle, Christianity teaches its disciples beautifully 
 to attemper the exercise of a father's authority by the 
 sanctioned manifestations of a fathers tenderness; but in 
 Rome the children of the citizens were legally considered 
 under the parental roof, as mere things, while abroad, in 
 the forum and camp, they were entitled to the privilege of 
 persons.* Moved by the suggestions of avarice, the heads 
 of families were empowered to dispose of their offspring 
 and slave?, with as much facility as they could bargain for 
 the transfer of their cattle or moveables; and the law also 
 entrusted them with discretionary punitive power, so that 
 parental despotism, uncognizable to any earthly tribunal, 
 was permitted free scope, and unnatural fathers were 
 allowed to punish the real or imaginary faults of their chil- 
 dren by personal chastisement of the most severe kind, by 
 exile, condemnation to servitude, and even to death; and 
 this arbitrary investiture of power continued to clothe the 
 masters of families beyond the times of Pompey and Au- 
 gustus, though the manifestation of it in its extreme limits, 
 was happily not of frequent occurrence. Even in the 
 proudest era of Roman civilization, an unhappy child was 
 whipped to death by its barbarous parent, and Augustus 
 himself scrupled not to abuse his prerogatives of office by 
 shielding the domestic tyrant from the fury of the populace; 
 public opinion having been insensibly adected by the pro- 
 gressive civilization of the people. 
 
 Neither was it alone by the vigorous exercise of undue 
 parental authority, that the social and civil privileges of 
 the women were abstractly restricted. Man in the conju- 
 gal relation proved himself no less the supreme master and 
 
 Gibbon's Rome. Chapter XLIV.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 155 
 
 legislator of the females of his family. In the early times 
 of the republic, the husband was invested with no less de- 
 spotic power than was conferred on the father; he bought 
 his bride of her parents, and though this ceremony, entitled 
 the coemptiO)\vas mutual, the equality of privileges, if that 
 were really intended to be intimated by it, was merely 
 nominal, for the practical results of the marriage contract 
 were to the women of the republic unequal and vigorous 
 in comparison to those which flowed to the dominant party . 
 The husband was invested with an almost unrestricted au- 
 thority over the person, as he was with absolute and un- 
 limited control over the fortune, of his wife. In the 
 plenitude of his conjugal prerogatives, even under the 
 impulse of mere caprice or of mistaken judgment, he was 
 empowered to censure or approve, to condemn and chas- 
 tise, and even subject to capital punishment in certain 
 specified cases, the wife whom he had purchased, while 
 the slavery was irremediable and permanent. In subse- 
 quent ages,- under the excitement of triumphs after the 
 Punic wars, the matrons of Rome aspired to, and obtained 
 a mitigation of the unequal terms of the marriage contract, 
 and a repeal of other statutes which they contended had 
 been passed under the exigency of circumstances, for the 
 promotion of the public weal. While the necessity exist- 
 ed for their exercise they cheerfully submitted to the legal 
 restrictions, but when the pressure occasioned by war was 
 removed, the matrons in a body demanded a repeal of 
 the obnoxious laws. Cato the Censor, from his natural 
 temperament inclined to press the austerities of legal 
 enactments to their utmost rigor, more especially when 
 weak woman was the subject of them, eloquently haran- 
 gued the senate, in the hope of inciting or stimulating this 
 august body in its official capacity, to silence at once the
 
 156 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 aspiring hopes of the Roman females; in spite of his ex- 
 ertions, however, the matrons gained their point, arid the 
 Oppian law was repealed. 
 
 Five centuries subsequent to the Christian era, the 
 emperor Justinian commenced and completed a reforma- 
 tion of the Roman jurisprudence, a task, the arduous na- 
 ture of which, may in a degree be understood from a 
 knowledge of the fact that the laws and legal opinions 
 which ten centuries had prepared for his revision, were 
 so numerous as to fill many thousand volumes. By the 
 matrimonial laws, and the laws of succession to inheritan- 
 ces in the code of Justianian, the Roman women were 
 confirmed in the enjoyment of increased privileges, which 
 had been gradually enlarging to them in the period <vluch 
 intervened between the repeal of the oppian law, arrti the 
 era of Justinian; for from the time that the matons of the 
 republic "became the equal and voluntary companions of 
 their lords, a new jurisprudence was introduced, and mar- 
 riage, like other partnerships, was permitted to be dissolv- 
 ed, by the abdication of either of the associates." 
 
 Had women been deputed in the providence of God, to 
 any other agency than a moral one, how could they, fet- 
 tered as they were in Rome, by arbitrary legislative 
 restrictions, and excluded with exceeding jealousy from 
 social and civil privileges, have exerted any salutary 
 influence on the destinies of their country? To what ex- 
 tent they were thus influenced we will now briefly attempt 
 to show; and in doing so, it will be found that they 
 who by law were ranked as mere things, could yet vindicate 
 their claims to a more honorable title, and receive a virtual 
 acknowledgment, wrung from the stern natures of their 
 countrymen, contravening the terms of their jurisprudence, 
 and showing that in their inmost hearts, under the heathen
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 157 
 
 economy, by a corrupt nature, they felt woman to be in 
 reality even in the measure of moral excellence attainable in 
 
 A spirit stilt and bright, 
 
 With something like an angel light. 
 
 On- the other hand, we mast remark, that it is in accord- 
 ance vvith the dictates of reason to suppose;, that if the 
 female sex were deputed by God to act as the handmaids 
 of religion, the vestal virgins by whose ministrations the 
 sacred elements which slumber in our fallen world were 
 especially to be guarded, their moral influence as exert- 
 ed in their legitimate sphere of action, would be recogni- 
 ze^ more decidedly by that one, among .the heathen slates, 
 who gave the most public attestation to the necessity of 
 religion, and whose system of belief, radically corrupt and 
 erroneous, lik.e all other false creeds, was yet neverthe- 
 less^ g realty superior in morality to that of other Pagan 
 nations of antiquity; the cme fact, 'ef the recognition of the 
 fear of Hell, by the Romans, evinces them -to have been 
 considerably -in advance of th.e Greeks, in the influential 
 character qf .their religious opinions.* 
 
 Accordingly" the traditions for many ccTrturies currently 
 recognized as authentic by this great people, represented 
 the eternal city as having been- on more than one occasion 
 preserved from destruction by the . instrumentality of 
 females. When it ^as said, the .Sabines -had approached 
 in warlike array to make a fierce priset^n the forces of the 
 infant state, in revenge for their plundered women, Which 
 would in all probability have been. "fatally decisive ui its 
 consequences, then ilid Hersilia, the wife of Romulus, fol- 
 lowed by" her countrywomen, rush in between the hostile 
 armies, and by the eloquence of nature's oratory, allay the 
 
 * The great historian Pel.ybius asserts the Cicl, and shows the benign 
 effects which must have resulted fo the people by whom the belief wa 
 entertained. 
 
 14
 
 158 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COfiMON WEALTH A!\'D 
 
 animosities which raged in the bosoms of the opposing 
 armies, and by their persuasive appeals opened the way 
 for a peace so important in its consequences, that woman 
 as the agent by whose instrumentality it was chiefly effect- 
 ed, was publicly recognized as the deliverer of her coun- 
 try, ;md a feast tvas instituted to Jier honor commemora- 
 tive of the occasion, called Matronaha. Roman fc-males. 
 were thenceforward declared exempt from all drudgery, 
 save that of spinning. 
 
 Again in the third century after the building of the city, 
 the tiery, hardy, and war-like Romans, were delivered 
 from the galling yoke of regal tyranny, and the consular 
 government was established on the ruins of the monarchy, 
 through the powerful impulse of long smothered feeling*, 
 kindled to a flame in the breast of Brutus, Collatinus, and 
 other relatives of the unhappy Lucretia. When they be- 
 held the death-bed of the virtupus matron, and heard her 
 bewail her wrongs with pathetic lamentations, roused 
 almost to phrenzy by the tragical fate of orre k> beloved 
 and lovely and so injured, the stern warriors standing 
 around her couch, pledged themselves solemnly never to 
 rest, until their country should be free from tyranny and 
 brutal oppression, and'the seal which gave validity to the 
 mutual compact, was the blood ofthe injured but virtuous 
 Lucretia. 
 
 When Rome was menaced by the fierce armies of Gaul, 
 then again did she find a buckler in the self-denying 
 patriotism of her dfiughter?, and for this second public 
 deliverance from a foreign foe, the women ofthe republic 
 were allowed the "privilege of general rations. 
 
 Coriolanus under the impulse of wounded pride, forsook 
 his country, and enrolled his name in the Volscian army; 
 and subsequently to gratify his pique, led the fierce Vols-
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMOMON WEALTH AND EMPIRE. 159 
 
 cians, in character of their general, (o destroy the lane 
 which gave him-birfh. 'When the Romans beheld' the 
 glittering ranks of the enemy, and'remembered the well- 
 tried courage of Coriolanus, their spirits quailed, And 
 consternation- 1 publicly prevailed. In^vain, embassies of 
 the most imposing kind charged with terms of conciliation, 
 were dispatched to mollify the ,arigry. chief; he was 
 inexorable. At length Rome .deputed woman as her 
 agent, ajvd to her consigned , the destinies of -the nation. 
 Volumnia, the mother, Veturia, the wife, of Coriolanus, 
 accompanied by his children, and the, chief matrons of 
 Rome, moved in mournful procession towards tlie ranks of 
 the Volscii. The mighty passions which burned in the 
 bosom of the fierce warrior was checked by the sight, and 
 softer feelings strove to usurp their place -, for a time Co- 
 riolanus wavered, for his pride was indomitable; -but when 
 Volumriia with the quickness of maternal-perception^' saw 
 the advantage she had gained, she threw herself at his feet, 
 imitated in the silent eloquence of this appeal by her 
 daughter-in-law and grand children, then were the better 
 feelings of his nature made to triumph, under the mani- 
 festation of woman's specific virtues, and raising his vene- 
 rable parent from the ground, he exclaimed, U O mother! 
 what have you not done! You have gained a victory glo- 
 rious for your country but ruinous to me! I go conquered 
 by you alone." After some private conversation with his 
 family, he withdrew from the Volscian army, and the p/o-. 
 cession returned with chastened joy to the city ^Rbme was 
 saved, but Volumnia was to all effects childless and Ve- 
 turia a widow. 
 
 Throughout the republic joy resounded, and the tem- 
 ples were filled with worshippers, while the senate and 
 people, simultaneously declared that to women their be-
 
 160 WOMEN OF THE "ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 loved country was indebted for its preservation. And in 
 corroboration of tht'ir assertion, a- public decree was pass- 
 ed, permitting .the Roman females to exact any mark of 
 their country's gratitude agreeable to their own inclina- 
 tions. A temple reared four miles from" the city on the 
 spot wlxere Volumnia overcame the resolution of. Coriola- 
 iius, remained for centuries a standing attestation of the 
 national sense of obligation' to female virtue, and of the 
 moderation \y.ith which* its victory was accompanied. 
 . But it is not to legendary traditions alone that we have 
 recource. for the notices of female virtue, or of the public 
 institutions commemorative of it, among the Romans. 
 The genuine history of the nation as embodied in the 
 writing's of many of her most illustrious authors after the 
 era of literature commenced, exhibit the moral agency of 
 woman not unfrequently in a striking manner, and the 
 correspondence of Pliny, Cicero^ and others of her great 
 men, show that the virtuous among the sex, had acquired a 
 weight in public estimation never awarded to the same class 
 in the communities of refined and intellectual Greece. 
 
 The causes which led to the decline and fall of the Ro- 
 man empire, have been ably and fully detailed by many 
 modern historians, and it would be irrelevant to my pre- 
 sent purpose, and trespassing on the limits assigned to 
 this chapter, to attempt to enter on the consideration 
 of them at this time, even if the task were not a pre- 
 sumptuous one for me to undertake. With the onward 
 progress of moral corruption in the state, the advancement 
 in luxury, and the extension of a philosophic sect, whose 
 pernicious maxims permitted the desire for gratification 
 of the senses to be substituted as a motive power, instead 
 of virtuous principle, the glories of Rome began to wane, 
 sojhat one of .her sons, was led Vehemently to exclaim.
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 16 1 
 
 u would that all the enemies of Rome might adopt the 
 principles of Epicurus!" 
 
 The females of the nation sympathised to a degree in 
 the general degeneracy of manners, but their influence 
 was not unknown or unfelt even during the sanguinary 
 civil wars which rent the state convulsively, and the still 
 darker scenes of the proscription, when Roman blood 
 streamed in torrents, and the cries of the slaughtered sons 
 of the republic, were at times sufficiently piercing to drown 
 the deliberations of the senate-chamber. Sylla, who ex- 
 ercised his unbounded power, with such ruthless atrocity, 
 and made certain apartments of his palace avast charnel 
 house, the sight, of which chilled the blood of the stern 
 warriors of Rome, even Ihis ambitious tyrant, and reck- 
 less expender of human life, felt deeply the powerful in- 
 fluence of the beautiful and intellectual Cecilia Metella, 
 and had he known her earlier, or her life been preserved 
 to a later period, even with her defective views of moral 
 duty, Infinite suffering might have been averted from the 
 Roman people. 
 
 There was not a few virtuous Roman matrons who ex- 
 erted an influence of a far more salutary and conservative 
 kind than did the fascinating Metella over the mind of 
 Sylla. It was customary for women of the highest rank 
 in the republic to preside over the education of their sons, 
 and even to assume the office of governesses to the young 
 members of the patrician order. Among the virtuous mo- 
 thers of Rome, Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus, 
 and the wife of Sempronius Gracchus, was one of the mast 
 distinguished. 
 
 The monarch of Egypt had desired to 1 share his throne 
 with Cornelia, but unmoved by the suggestions of ambition, 
 she rejected his suit and became the wife of a Roman citi- 
 
 14*
 
 ! (.:'.' WOMEN OF THE ROMAIf COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 /en. She. was the mother of the celebrated Gracchi, 
 who were indebted according to the testimony of Cicero 
 and Quintilian for their intellectual attainments and ora- 
 torical skill, as well as for their moral excellence, to the 
 mother who had watched over their infancy, and subse- 
 quently devoted herself unweariedly to the culture of 
 their intellectual and moral nature, in accordance with 
 the purest svstem of ethics known in Ihe days of the re- 
 public? Memorials of her maternal faithfulness were 
 erected fiot only in a marble statue with this inscription, 
 CORNELIA MATEK GRACCHORUM, but in still more imper- 
 ishable forms in the writings of the celebrated historians 
 of her country, who have borne the strongest testimony to 
 her virtues as well her extraordinary intellectual qualiti- 
 cations. 
 
 The historian 'Tacitus, in his interesting biographical 
 sketch of his father-in-law Agricola, the ex-governor of 
 Britain, has left a tribute of a nation's gratitude to a faith- 
 ful mother. ' Julia Procilla, the mother of Agricola, was,'' 
 he observes, ' respected for the purity of her manners. 
 Under her care, and as it were in her bosom, the tender 
 mind of her son was trained to science and every liberal 
 accomplishment." 
 
 It is pleasing to female hearts, to find a man like Pliny 
 the younger, celebrated for his philanthropy, and reputed 
 as sharing with his friend Tacitus, the palm of oratorical 
 excellence in the age in which he flourished, giving in 
 his letters repeated and unequivocal evidence, that he re- 
 cognized and appreciated the claims to moral excellence 
 presented by many of his cotemporaries among our sex. 
 He was not reluctant to expatiate to a confidential friend 
 on the excellence of his friend Fannia, a niece of one of 
 tb^ vestal virgins; nor did he consider it derogatory to his
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 163 
 
 understanding, or discreditable to his heart, to be " deeply 
 afflicted when this excellent woman was going to be re- 
 moved from the eyes of the world, which might never per- 
 haps again behold her equal." " How consummate,'' he 
 continues, " is her virtue, her piety, her wisdom, her cour- 
 age. She twice followed her husband into exile, and once 
 was banished upon his account." After continuing to en- 
 large feelingly on her excellence, he makes this beautiful 
 compliment to female virtue in the person of Fannla: "-for 
 myself, I confess I can not but tremble for this illustrious 
 house, which seems shaken to its very foundations, and 
 ready to fall into ruins with her; for though she will leave 
 descendants behind her r yet what a height of virtue must 
 they attain, what glorious action must they perform, ere 
 the world will be persuaded that this excellent woman 
 was not the last of her family I" 
 
 Nor was it to the excellence of this one favored female 
 friend alone, that Pliny was found furnishing confirmatory 
 evidence. Of his mother he speaks in terms of the most 
 reverential affection. To his wife Calphurnia, eminent 
 for her feminine graces, he makes acknowledgements of 
 the most tender but respectful kind, " I fear every thing," 
 he says to her, " that can befal you, and as is usual with all 
 under the same terrifying apprehensions, I suspect most, 
 what I most dread. Let me conjure you then, to prevent 
 my solicitude by writing to me every day, and even twice 
 a day." On another occasion we find him occupying 
 almost the whole of one of his letters in the consideration of 
 the virtues of the celebrated Avria, whose reply to her 
 husband Paetus, so memorable in history, was not, he con- 
 sidered, more deserving of preservation, than many other 
 parts of her interesting history. 
 
 Numerous other cases illustrative of the influence
 
 164 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 of women in the most flourishing times of Roman history 
 might be adduced, but I must uot permit free scope to my 
 pen in this pleasing exercise, or I should extend the limits 
 of the present chapter to an undue length. 
 
 Let it suffice to observe, that in the rapid declension in 
 the morality of the nation, which is observable to the 
 attentive student of Roman history, from the times of 
 Caesar to the destruction of the empire, while women con- 
 tinued more and more to lay aside the proprieties and de- 
 corum of manners which had characterized the sex in 
 former ages, and by their decreasing virtue experienced a 
 diminution of their wholesome moral influence, yet were 
 they generally in advance of the virtue of the times, 
 while the names of Placina, Messalina, Agrippina, Fausti- 
 na, and many others of a kindred spirit, will forever embla- 
 zon, on the page of history, the unhappy and fatal conse- 
 quences that must ensue to a country, where profligacy 
 o manners and intellectual vigor characterize the influen- 
 tial females, unchecked by counteractive virtuous agency 
 among the sex. 
 
 In the blood-stained and polluted pages of later Roman 
 history, we occasionally rest on a spot which by its com- 
 parative purity shines like a moral oasis in the dreary de- 
 sert of sin which surrounds it. Such was the brief reign 
 of Alexander Severus, and with the same avidity that the 
 parched traveller of Zahara, attempts to slake his thirst, 
 when a cooling spring rises before him unexpectedly, so 
 does the reader of the reign of the voluptuous and imfa- 
 mous Elagabolus, turn instinctively to the records of his 
 amiable and accomplished cousin and successor, Alexander 
 Severus. 
 
 This youthful monarch had, however, been trained by 
 his sagacious mother Marniaea, and her wise counsellors,
 
 WOMEN OF THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 165 
 
 and to the latest period of his short but eventful life, he 
 continued to cherish an unalterable' regard for her, and a 
 rigid adhcrance to her precepts. 
 
 In the v civil administration of Alexander, wisdom ten> 
 pered his power, and under his paternal, fostering care T 
 tlie nation gave promise of rising to somewhat of its pris- 
 tine vigor; but the wise plans suggested by female 
 sagacity and ntaternal love, and carried into opj#tion.by 
 Alexander, were at length defeated signally and fatally. 
 The administratiotxpf the emperor was an unavailing,5trug- 
 gle against the moral degeneracy of the age, and his life 
 was finally sarrificed to the seditious and factious military, 
 who could illy brook the restrictions which were attempt- 
 ed to be imposed on their passions, after the unbridled 
 license which had been enjoyed under his predecessor?. 
 
 Over the long and varied details which cover the ex- 
 tended pages of Roman history, we'might linger for an 
 indefinite^ period, but the results would be substantially 
 the same, in reference to our present position. F.very 
 where we find evidence of woman's agency, either in hu- 
 manizing society, or in throwing a darker shade over its 
 interests, temporal and spiritual, by her perverted or abu- 
 sed privileges. 
 
 As Rome had the precedence in morality among the 
 heathen nations of antiquity, when she walked by the dim 
 light of reason, so when the pure doctrines of the Gospel 
 were made known to her children, was their " faith spoken 
 of throughout the whole world," and their obediencelo 
 its precepts became universally remarkable. St. Paul 
 notes certain eminent believers among the Roman women, 
 whom he especially commends to the affection of the 
 church j one of whom had been heroic enough to peril her 
 life for the preservation of his, while another, to whose
 
 1GC) WOMEN OF THE ROMAN 'COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE. 
 
 name he prefixes the epithet of " beloved," had labored 
 much in the cause'of her master. 
 
 Ecclesiastical history also/ records numerous examples 
 in the early ages of the church, and especially in the sea- 
 sons of persecution, in wh'ich the daughters of the eternal 
 city, gifted with the same rare-natural endowment? that 
 had rendered Cornelia,' Fannia Avria, and others of hea- 
 theji ages, illustrious, but baptized with the spirit of God. 
 had been enabled to transcend them immeasurably in mo- 
 ral excellence; so that while the former were chronicled 
 by the pen of the historian, or memorialized by the chisel 
 of the sculptor, the latter have been written down in the 
 book of God's remembrance, and will forever be ex- 
 hibited as among his most peculiar treasures.
 
 C H A P T E R I X . 
 
 "WOMEN IN A, SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE OF SOCIETY. 
 
 Individuals self-complacent in the possession of personal 
 charms, and accustomed to attach undue importance to 
 extrinsic circumstances, may not unfrequently be found 
 chagrined and chafed from having a mirror presented for 
 their use, the irregularities in the plain surface of which, 
 have prevented the perfect equality between the angles 
 of incidence and reflection observable in a well construct- 
 
 % ** 
 
 ed reflector. 
 
 Perscnal vanity in such cases is wounded, when, they 
 observe the distorted images which they can scarcery bear 
 to recognize as the reflection of their own finely-formed fea- 
 tures, and the unpleasant spectacle is banished from sight 
 and recollection as quickly as possible. 
 
 Somewhat of a similar spirit^ is occasionally perceptible 
 in those who are nominally Christians; bat averse to the 
 recognition of some of the leading truths of our holy reli- 
 gion, when an exhibition of human nature is brought be- 
 fore them, reflected on the surface, of Pagan society, and 
 which is represented to them as being a specimen of fallen 
 humanity, distorted in its development only by peculiari- 
 ties of local circumstance and the absence of those advan- 
 tages of mental and moral culture enjoyed in Christianized 
 countries. 
 
 Painful and humiliating such spectacles must ever prove 
 to pious minds possessed of sensibility and refinement, but
 
 168 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 though revolting and distasteful, they may nevertheless 
 Tje rendered very salutary. Under this conviction,, while 
 humbly ser'king to urge the claims of o'ur country upon 
 American females at this eventful crisis, I can not but 
 deem it very desirable to impress upon our minds a lively 
 sense of the degradation- and manifold miseries, insepara- 
 ble from the condition of women in a savage* and a semi- 
 civilized state of sccieh ; since by this means we may 
 become convinced of the wretchedness which would 
 have been our inalienable portion unless the sun of 
 righteousness had arisen, and cast his enlivening beams 
 on our own land, a,nd on that of our forefathers. 
 
 The doctrine of human depravity and of the necessity 
 of a renewal of .the heart by the sanctifying influences of 
 the Holy Spirit, lie I conceive, at the base of all practi- 
 cal godliness, and until they arc recognized by the under- 
 
 ** / 
 
 standing, and cordially assented to by the heart, it will be 
 in vain that we attempt to discharge faithfully and effi- 
 ciently, our responsibilities to God, or our'countrv. The 
 harbiiiii' f of our blessed Redeemer, in the exercise of his 
 commissioned task, used these .effective weapons in levelling 
 the stu1>1)'orn ar.d obstructing elements which opposed the 
 entrance of tho Saviour of Sinners, into those hearts which 
 he came to redeem from iniquity. So in like manner 
 
 * " Tl.e interior movements of society have been so little attended to, 
 that the vocabulary is somewhat scanty for discriminating the shades 
 of its changes; savage harbiiiian, agricultural and civilized, are the only 
 four- terms we have to denominate the ran::e and variety of social exis- 
 tence.' lOveti these denominations are ol lax application; the savage 
 though denoting the simplest slate, is obliged to stand for a variety of 
 : the solitary anin:al who in the Indian islands IB hunted 
 like tho I- jisls of chase, and takes refuge in the branches of trees; the 
 miserable wretches that scarce exist upon the Andaman islands, and the 
 brutal lam.lips of New South Wales, ate included under the same de- 
 signation, with the bravest and most eloquent tribes of the North 
 American Indians." DOUGLASS ON THS ADVASCEMEKT or SOCIETY.
 
 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 169 
 
 when our divine Redeemer was applied to for instruction, 
 by the trembling and half persuaded ruler of the Jew?, 
 who under the covert of night sought information from 
 him, whom he dared not approach in the light of day, the 
 great truth first pressed home to his conscience, and sub- 
 sequently, in the course of the same conversation, impressed 
 as it were by divine energy on his memory, was this, 
 t; Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born 
 again, he can not see the kingdom of God." If American 
 females aspire to the high and honorable task of being 
 efficient moral agents of their Lord in the social circle and 
 in the world which sin has made a desolate wilderness, let 
 them become thoroughly indoctrinated on this vital point, 
 and then there will be every reason to hope, that they may 
 go " to the help oi the Lord against the mighty" hosts, 
 which are perhaps even now mustering their forces and 
 sounding their tcumpets preparatory to an open conflict. 
 While taking a coup d'ceil at the field of Roman and 
 Grecian history, if our visual organs have been preserved 
 free from mental or moral obliquity, we can not have 
 failed to recognize the total inadequacy of mere intellec- 
 tual refinement, philosophy and human sagacity, in secur- 
 ing the moral prosperity and happiness of a nation, more 
 especially of its females. In the cursory glance which our 
 limits permit us to take at the condition of modern 
 heathen nations, we shall be forcibly impressed by the 
 conviction of the depravity and national wretchedness en- 
 tailed on all countries, over which the dense fogs of mental 
 darkness are resting, and through which the light of divine 
 truth has not penetrated. A brief examination of the be- 
 nignant effects which have resulted from the introduction 
 of Christianity into some of these previously moral wastes, 
 and a comparison of their situation with that of ancient 
 
 15
 
 170 WOMEN IN* A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 Greece or Rome, may convince us that when nations are 
 exposed to one another, of the two evils, mental ignorance 
 or spiritual darkness, how infinitely superior is the lot of 
 those whose measure of mental advantages is limited, 
 while the blessed truths of the Gospel have burst the fet- 
 ters which had spiritually enchained them; in comparison 
 to such as, revelling in the blaze of intellectual illumina- 
 tion, have been uncheered by the vivifying light of life. 
 
 At a period very little -subsequent to the discovery of 
 the western continent, the attention of Europeans was first 
 directed to the vast expanse of the Pacific, intervening be- 
 tween Asia and America, which in the present century 
 has received the general appellation of Oceanica; and by 
 the progressive discoveries of modern navigators, has been 
 ascertained to be studded with innumerable groups of 
 smaller islands, interspersed with others of larger dimen- 
 sions, one of which in size approaches more nearly to that 
 of a continent. This mighty Archipelago has been subdi- 
 vided into Malaysia, Australasia, and Polynesia, theaggre- 
 gate land area of which comprises about an eleventh part 
 of the superfices of the terrene surface of our globe. 
 
 The inhabitants of Oceanica differ materially in their 
 religion, and manners, and customs, as well as in the races 
 from which they trace thr.ir origin. In some, Budhism is 
 the prevalent religion, in others the Mahommedan faith 
 is recognized, while in a large majority, Paganism was 
 dominant at the time of their discovery. Our limits admit 
 but a cursory glance at the different nations which people 
 these verdant isles, so rich in natural charms; we shall 
 therefore be forced to confine our observations to a few which 
 may serve as general representations; since substan- 
 tially the c ondition of large classes of them was the same
 
 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 171 
 
 at the time of their discovery, modified only by peculiar 
 circumstances. 
 
 " When Taheite was discovered in our fathers days," 
 observed pne of the leading secular journals of Great 
 Britain at the commencemct of the present century, "it 
 became the admiration and envy of Europe. The philos- 
 ophers who placed happiness in the indulgence of sensual 
 appetite, and freedom from moral restraint, were loud in 
 
 their praises of this New Cythera But now that it is 
 
 better known it appears indisputable that their iniquities 
 exceed those of any other people, ancient or modern, 
 civilized or savage; and that human nature never has 
 been exhibited in such utter depravity as by the inhabi- 
 tants of these terrestrial paradises.''* 
 
 The earliest band of devoted English missionaries arri- 
 ved at Taheite late in the 18th century, and at first were 
 led to imagine that the gloomy anticipations they had form- 
 ed as to the character of the Taheitans, would be agreea- 
 bly disappointed. Longer acquaintance, however, dispell- 
 ed these hopes, and led them to realize in a measure, the 
 conflicts to which in all probability they might be subject- 
 ed. Parental and conjugal duties were alike disregarded. 
 The hoary head instead of being considered a crown of 
 glory, or its possessor a privileged claimant on the sym- 
 pathies and affections of the young, was regarded but as a 
 subject of general contumely and neglect; while unnatu- 
 ral children were not unfrequently found, degraded so far 
 in the scale of humanity, as willing to consign the au- 
 thors of their natural being to premature and violent 
 deaths, in order to obtain a release from the task of minis- 
 tering to their infirmities, and providing for their wants. 
 
 * London Quarterly Review, August, 1839.
 
 172 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 Under a state of society like this, which was nearly 
 identical in its leading features in all the Polynesian groups, 
 when first discovered by Europeans, how, it may natu- 
 rally be inquired, did woman, the moral agent, appear, and 
 to what extent was she empowered, to execute her com- 
 missioned work? We are informed that in the Washington 
 Islands, (discovered by Capt. Ingraham of Boston, 1691,) 
 which at the time of the Rev. Mr. Stuart's visit in 1829. 
 were " still in the original heathenism of tlje whole of 
 Polynesia," that the population was divided into two 
 general classes, the common and the tabu. The former 
 included all the females of every rank, and all men enga- 
 ged in their service as personal attendant's; the latter the 
 rest of the male population. So degraded were the wo- 
 men of these islanders in public estimation, that the food 
 eaten by the favored lords of the tabu, or the dwellings 
 occupied by them, were prohibited them, and did they 
 even presume to touch an article that had passed over the 
 head, without even touching the person of a tabu man, the 
 act was considered so sacriligiou?, that by no atonement 
 less costly than the sacrifice of her life, could the unhappy 
 lemale who might have erred by carelessness, rather than 
 presumption, appease the vengeance of him whose majesty 
 she had infringed. When the females of Nukuhiva, by 
 the special invitation of the American commander, visited 
 the Vincennes at the time the vessel lay anchored in the 
 harbor, none of them presumed to ascend the upper deck, 
 while their lords remained in the cabin beneath. 
 
 Many of these despised daughters of Nukuhivah, Mr. 
 Stewart describes as having been "exceedingly beautiful. 
 Their eyes," he observes, " have a rich brilliancy, softened 
 by long glossy eye-lashes that can scarce be surpassed; 
 which with regularity and whiteness of teeth unriva lied,
 
 WOMEN IN" A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 173 
 
 add greatly to the impression of features of a more Euro- 
 pean mould, than most uncivilized people I have seen. In 
 complexion many of them are very fair, scarce, if any, 
 darker than a clear brunette, admitting in some cases of 
 a distinct mantling of color in the cheek and lips; while 
 in figure they are small and delicately formed, with arms 
 and hands that would bear comparison with any in the 
 drawing room of the most polished noblesse." 
 
 In that vast insular continent of Australia, vegetable and 
 animal life appear under distinct and peculiar develop- 
 ments* Many of the quadrupeds and birds are unique in 
 their kinds, diverse from those of all other countries. 
 The kangaroo and the koala, tenant indigenously no other 
 forests than the sombre and cheerless ones of Australia; 
 the gigantic emu, in its rapid ostrich-like movements, has 
 no where else been encountered by the naturalist. Man too, 
 the ostensible lord of the soil, in his physical conformation 
 and loathsome degrading habits, when discovered by the 
 first Europeans who visited New Holland, represented hu- 
 manity under an idiom, essentially different from that 
 manifested by his brethren of Polynesia. Disgusting to the 
 eye in his misshapen form, he was no less revolting in his 
 sensual nature, which seemed to place him on a par with 
 the brutes that perish, and scarcely advanced above them 
 in the scale of being. Women oppfessed by her degraded 
 master in every possible mode, dragged out her miserable 
 existence by sufferance; at one time stunned by brutal 
 violence, at another loaded and driven as a beast of 
 burden.* 
 
 The native sons of our North American forests, exhibit 
 
 * For a detailed account of New Holland, and its inhabitants, I refer 
 to the valuable work of Malte Brun. 
 
 15*
 
 174 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 traits of character essentially different from those which 
 distinguish the savage tribes of Asia and Africa, to whom 
 in the nobler elements of their nature, fhey are very far 
 superior. Enduring patiently the vicissitudes of climate, 
 and the privations incident to his mode of living, the Indian 
 welcomes the stranger hospitably to his roof, and often 
 ohares with hitij the last morsel. The recollection of 
 kindness received and faith ,pledgcd is preserved by him 
 \vith equal tenacity; and there "have not indeed been 
 Writing among the Indians of North America, those whose 
 'areer has been a demonstration of the nobility of their 
 nature." . 
 
 Characterized by noble traits, the Indian race has, how- 
 ever, been marked also by no less striking deformities in 
 their moral constitutions. Revenge is a master passion of 
 their souls; having no intellectual pursuits, and yet thirst- 
 ing after excitement, they seek food for it, in the chase of 
 the wild beasts of their forest, or in warring with san- 
 guinary cruelty upon their fellows among the aborigenes, 
 or too often in the peaceful settlements of their white 
 neighbors. 
 
 The uncivilized Indian men have no taste for agri- 
 culture, which they consider a degrading occupation; 
 neiher do they take an interest in domestic affairs. In 
 the intervals of stirring occupations, their time is sauntered 
 away in monotonous listlessness, and supreme contempt of 
 the ordinary routine of domestic dirties. To their women 
 are consigned to the laborious occupations of their rude 
 husbandry, and the drudgery of the family. During their 
 long and wearisome marches, they are also compelled to 
 carry both the provisions which are to afford them suste- 
 nance, and the hammocks on which their masters are to 
 repose at night. When stationary, they too are compelled,
 
 
 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 as their inalienable- birth-right, to be the hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water; nay, more, they are to be the very 
 grooms and watchful guardians of the horses and dogs of 
 the tribe, whose value is far greater in the eyes of the 
 savage Indian, than those of wife or daughters; the -tents, 
 too, must be pitched by the drudging females; the pole 
 fences erected; and the stakes and forks driven into the 
 ground -and arranged, on which their houses of bark are 
 to be reared. The corn which they have planted, hoed 
 and gathered, must also be parched, bruised or ground by 
 them for the service of the men ; these lounging meanwhile 
 in self-indulgent listlessness, inhale the smoke of the intoxt- 
 eating weed, and give not one thought or care to the pa- 
 tient, laborious^beings who are toiling and tasking every 
 energy for their enjoyment. " What kindness can we 
 show our daughters," exclaimed an unfortunate Indian 
 woman, when reproached for murdering a female infant, 
 " equal to putting them to, death 1 Would that my mother 
 had put me under the ground at the hour of my birth!" 
 
 Fearful are the convulsive reactings of wounded feeling, 
 and spurned affection sometimes exhibited fay the female 
 Indian. It is not an uncommon practice, we are well as- 
 sured, for them under the impulse of pique or jealousy 
 towards their husbands, to desert their infants at a period 
 when, the tencler affection and fostering care of their natu- 
 ral guardians are especially required. 
 
 The instinctive tenderness of the maternal bosom, .at 
 such 'moments, becomes merged in the jealous desire to 
 revenge their own personal wrongs; the innocent offspring 
 are thenceforward regarded rather as the representatives 
 of the offending fathers, than as parts of their own being. 
 Actuated by this passionate and criminal desire of wreak- 
 ing vengeance on those who have injured them, (he Indian
 
 176 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 females have been known to consign their tender babes to 
 the appalling loneliness of the prairie, there to perish by 
 lingering famine, or to become the prey of wild and fero- 
 cious beasts. 
 
 Such a case occurred in one of our western missionary 
 stations at a period no less recent than 1 832. A tender 
 babe of a few days old, became an object of indifference, 
 and apparently of aversion to its mother, when deserted 
 by her husband. A burning fever had parched her own 
 bosom, and the thirsting babe could not obtain the nour- 
 ishment which the infant pallate instinctively craves. Its 
 mother would not take the trouble to feed it, because its 
 cruel father had spurned her from him, and sought a 
 younger and fairer bride. While she thought he was in- 
 different to it, she was desirous of giving it to the kindness 
 of the female Christian teachers, but when she learned that 
 he wished them to have it, she snatched it from them, to 
 rush into the solitude of their native forests. Finally she 
 did return, she gave it to her whose heart had been 
 touched for its miseries, and whose knee had been bent 
 for it in prayer. The babe, discarded from the sympa- 
 thies of a heathen mother, whose soul was scathed by un- 
 restrained passion, found a second home in the bosom of 
 a Christian female missionary. 
 
 The different tribes of the African race, vary essen- 
 tially in their personal appearance and habits. Though 
 among them all females are universally considered as the 
 slaves, rather than the companions, of man; even the 
 numerous petty kings, are not exempt from servile duties, 
 and a modern traveller, in his journey through the nor- 
 thern part of Upper Guinea, found the numerous band of 
 the king of Dahomey's wives, actually formed into a regi- 
 ment trained to perform the military evolutions practised
 
 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 177 
 
 in the rude state of African warfare, and fully equipped 
 with such weapons as were used by the ordinary soldiers. 
 Captain Glapperton mentions one of the kings who honored 
 him by a visit, asbcingaccompanied by six younggirls, each 
 "carrying three light spears, who ran by the side of his 
 horse, keeping pace with it at full gallop. Their light 
 forms, the vivacity of their eyes, and the ease with which 
 they seemed to fly over the ground, made them appear 
 something more than mortal. On -the king's entrance^ 
 they laid down "their spear?, wrapped themselves in their 
 blue mantles, and waited on his majesty." 
 
 . An intelligent missfqnary, when writing a few years 
 since, on the social condition of the natives of Western 
 Africa, remarks on the condition of polygamy, and the de- 
 graded condition of the females; the number of a man's 
 wives and bullocks, he states as determining his measure- of 
 wealth, and his importance in the civil cotmmunity. 
 
 These unhappy females, whose sex has been sufficient 
 to consign them to a servile condition, arc generally pur- 
 chased in tender years, but not delivered to the care of their 
 husbands, until their physical strength admits of-their per- 
 forming those laborious duties, which are considered indis- 
 pensably necessary in every woman who assumes the con- 
 jugal title. An aged man may not ^infrequently be seen 
 surrounded by a numerous cavalcade of wives, of all ages, 
 from ten and twelve, to thirty or forty, one of whom is ap- 
 pointed by their common lord as governess of the younger 
 and more volatile. 
 
 Mr* Wilson, in describing the interview which, in 1833, 
 took place between the missionaries, and the neighboring 
 kings at Cape Palmas, observes, " Even the royal ladies 
 were not exempt from servile duties; each carried a chair 
 for her noble lord, and after he was seated took any that
 
 178 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 chance provided. They frere young, and in Africa might 
 
 he called beautiful As soon as \vc left the table, each 
 
 of the kings picked up a piece of bread and meat, and 
 passed it into the hand of his lady. Strringc indeed was 
 it and revolting to my feelings, to see woman placed at 
 the foot of man degraded to the lowest acts of servility." 
 
 While a vague belief in (he existence of a God prevails 
 among the various African tribes, the ideas entertained of 
 him are wholly uninfluential in producing morality of con- 
 duct; nay, their darkened vision appears unable to form 
 any perception of the beauty of virtue. While God is in 
 a certain sense acknowledged as the Creator of all things, 
 the devil is regarded as systematically employed in mar- 
 ring and injuring all his works. It is imagined that his 
 anger may be deprecated by free will offerings. They 
 likewise suppose that the Creator of the world entrusts 
 the government of it to various spiritual deputies, the 
 favor of each one of whom is to be conciliated by some 
 magical ceremony. 
 
 The condition of women, unspeakably ameliorated by 
 the prevalence of the Christian religion, has been rendered 
 still more galling and (crrific'in Africa, by some of the very 
 superstitions which to her benighted children supply the 
 place of religion. One of the avenging demons, whose 
 mysteries are celebrated in Africa, rs an object of terror 
 to the native negresses. In the silence of the night, his 
 orgies are kept by the husbands, and a man disguised in 
 a hideous and fantastic manner, raised by an artificial 
 crown to an enormous size, personates the monster, whose 
 approach to the villages is notified by barbarous music, 
 and his will made known by oral communications, and 
 songs more nearly approaching to savage howls. The 
 unfortunate women who may have chanced to offend their
 
 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 179 
 
 lords during the preceding year, are specially designated 
 by the demon, and wo to her who hears her name sound- 
 ed by the terrific Mumbojumbo; since she is at once seiz- 
 ed, and the punishment prescribed is summarily, and most 
 unsparingly executed. The remonstrances and cries of 
 woman prove as fruitless in averting punishment when 
 Mumbojumbo has willed it, as her curiosity has been 
 found fatal to herself, when she has dared to penetrate 
 his mysteries. Th'e wife of one of the kings, having, on a 
 certain occasion, by dint of persuasion, drawn from her 
 husband the mystic secret, was made to forfeit her own 
 life, as well as entail dqath on her companions in the 
 bonds of polygamy, in order to serve as an example of 
 female presumption, and a preventive to the consequences 
 which might ensue to tyrannical husbands from enlighten- 
 ed female sagacity. 
 
 Mungo Park describes in a very touching manner, the 
 sufferings of Nealee,' one of the negro females belonging to 
 the caravan to which he was attached in a part of his Afri- 
 can tour. When the poor creature was attacked by pain- 
 ful indisposition, she was merely pelieved from the heavy 
 barden which it is the task of her sex to bear for man 
 under the boning sun of a tropical clime. Subsequently 
 the caravan was attacked by a swarm of bee?, which dis- 
 persed the company in every direction. When they were 
 again collected, it was ascertained that Nealee was miss- 
 ing, and when, after a search, she was discovered, she was 
 in a recumbent position by the side of a rivulet, towards 
 which she had crept to shield herself from the attacks of 
 the enraged insects. She was, however, terribly stung, 
 and her aggravated sufferings were so severe, that she 
 positively refused to proceed, declaring she would rather 
 at once die and end her misery. Entreaties were employ-
 
 180 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 cd to move her from her purpose, and when these proved 
 ineffectual, threats were made use of, and finally the lash 
 was applied, and by the power of this last stern monitor, 
 she was compelled to drag along in misery, for some four 
 or five hours longer; at length exhausted nature refused 
 any longer to sustain her trembling steps, and she sank 
 exhausted on the ground. The whip was again resorted 
 to, but in vain; and she was fixed on the ass which carried 
 the provisions, but not being able to sit erect, the animal, 
 chafed and restless, refused to bear his load. The sufferer 
 was now arranged in a litter and carried till the caravan 
 stopped for the night. On the morrow, Nealce's limbs, 
 stiffened by disease and brutal chastisement, rendered her 
 unable to walk or even stand. The restive animal refused 
 to bear her heavy, death-like form; her companions pro- 
 voked beyond endurance by the interference frith their 
 selfish plans, extended no sympathy to her, but with a 
 universal shout exclaimed, ' ; Cut her throat, cut her throat." 
 Mr. Parke in horror hurried onward, and when he ventur- 
 ed to inquire the fate of the unhappy Ncalee, as her gar- 
 ments were waved on the bow of one of the chieftain's 
 slaves, he learned that, her throat had not been cut, 
 but she had been left on the road to the mer* of the wild 
 beasts. 
 
 These poor, benighted, oppressed females, notwithstand- 
 ing the depth of their social degradation, are yet found 
 evincing some of the elements of a moral nature; like their 
 own Zahara, they present to the eye of the spectator some 
 verdant cases, which serve as an earnest of what they 
 might become, were the ennobling truths of the Gospel 
 once freely permitted to circulate among them. The tes- 
 timony borne by Parke, Ledyard, and other travellers to 
 the tenderness, sympathetic kindness.and warm hospitality
 
 T7OMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 181 
 
 of the African females, is probably familiar to most of my 
 readers, and I need not cite the touching language in 
 which theip verdict is given. The mothers are described 
 by most impartial travellers as manifesting great tender- 
 ness for their offspring, and though their maternal feelings 
 are generally discoverable in anxiety for the promotion 
 of 'the bodily comforts of their children, this inferior de- 
 velopment of the affections, is justly referable to the state 
 of social and moral degradation, under which they have 
 been so long enchained . The heart of the amiable Mungo 
 Park, instinct as it was with feeling, was readily able to 
 detect and appreciate such manifestations in others; and 
 he never seems more at home on African soil, than when 
 recording facts illustrative of the sensibility of the sable 
 daughters of the degraded and unjustly despised negro 
 race. At Jumbo he beheld an affecting spectacle; an 
 African who had long been a wanderer from hjs native 
 spot, returned to his humble home and relatives. His 
 mother heard of his arrival, and in blindness and helpless- 
 ness, was led forth to greet the object of her affections. 
 She could not indeed, behold the countenance of the child 
 she loved; but she clasped him in a tender embrace, and 
 by the exercise of her senses of touch and hearing, she 
 convinced herselfof the wanderer's identity. She tenderly 
 passed her hands over his limbs and features, and drank in 
 with evident delight the well remembered tones of his 
 voice. 
 
 It has been the privilege of the writer to be herself con- 
 vinced from personal acquaintance with many of the un- 
 happy daughters of Africa, how strong and enduring are 
 the ties of natural affection in their breasts, even in the 
 the land of their bondage; and with what devotion and 
 gratitude they will frequently return the kindness shown 
 
 16
 
 182 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 them by Ihe families with whom they are connected, when 
 treated by them in a considerate and Christian manner. 
 In my infant days I have again and again listened with 
 tearful eyes, to the artless narrative of an aged domestic 
 in my father's family, who had in her younger days been 
 carried away by a ruthless slave dealer from her home and 
 children on the coast of Guinea. She lived many years 
 with my grandparents, and had been the attendant of most 
 of their children, and after my father's marriage, the 
 nurse of his infancy found an asylum under his roof until 
 the hour of her death, which was at a very great age. 
 When advancing years and infirmities incapacitated her 
 from service, she lived the cheerful and undisputed sove- 
 reign of the kitchen, and was always kindly treated by the 
 other servants, and loved by her master and mistress, and 
 their children, whose affection she returned with equal 
 tenderness. When the hour of death approached, her 
 bed was surrounded by those she loved, and the last offices 
 of kindness were performed by them; her remains were 
 treated with respect and affection, and interred in the vil- 
 lage churchyard, where those she had served and loved, 
 were to find their last narrow home: and when earth was 
 committed to earth, and ashes to ashes, tears and affec- 
 tionate remembrance embalmed the grave of .the poor 
 African exile. 
 
 We have glanced at ti>e situation of the females of many 
 savage nations, and have seen how their social and moral 
 condition is fettered and trammelled. Abject and degra- 
 ded as woman has been rendered in the scale of humanity, 
 among the nations of Africa, Australasia, Polnesia,and the 
 North American Indians, scarcely less melancholy or cheer- 
 less is her state in China, Hindoostan, Burmah and other 
 countries which present a partially developed, but long
 
 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 183 
 
 established civilization. The polytheism so generally 
 prevalent in rude and barbarous nations, has in India 
 among the more enlightened, been displaced at times by 
 pantheism, which has been characterized by a forcible 
 modern writer as " but an intermediate state of the human 
 mind, composed half of light and half of darkness, and 
 destined to disappear before the full day of truth !* The 
 Hindoo* and Burmese are Intelligent and thinking people; 
 and manyjof them, as. well as, of the Chinese, seem to be 
 to a certain degree, aware of the advantages accruing 
 from learning. The readers of the interesting biography 
 of the lamented Mrs. Judson, will be familiar with facts 
 illustrative. of the intelligence and metaphysical cast of 
 mind observable among many of the inhabitants of 
 Burmah. 
 
 The Chinese nre as essentially unique in their physiog- 
 nomy and characteristic traits, as in their social institu- 
 tions. The national mind and habits, and even the archi- 
 tecture and costume of the people, remain rigidly immo- 
 vable. Neither wealth nor rank entitle tiny individual, 
 unless it be their ruler, " the son of heaven," or his im- 
 mediate council, to the privilege of exercising his taste or 
 personal inclination, even in themost minute circumstance 
 of common life. His unimaginative mind needs not to be 
 taxed to vary the form or color of his dress, or to ornament 
 his dwelling internally or externally, law has legislated 
 absolutely on all such point?, and the Chinese dares not, 
 or dreams not that ils rigid prescriptions can admit of de- 
 viation. 
 
 Budhism is the established religion, and learning, limit- 
 ed indeed in its character and adapted to the Chinese no- 
 
 \Douglass on the advancement of society. Part Fourth.
 
 184 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 tions, is made the only avenue to political distinction. 
 But a system of religion such as that of Boodh, "whose 
 radical principle is the absurdity of Atheism , whose highest 
 reward is virtual annihilation, whose mos( exhilirating 
 hope is assimilatiion to a stone or log," can surely never 
 be expected to prove influential in the practice of its vo- 
 taries. Polygamy is an established custom, and the Chi- 
 nese females are subjected to the social >and moral degra- 
 dation which inevitably results from its unrestricted exer- 
 cise. The estimation in which our sex is held by the 
 Chinese nation, may be inferred from the dreadful extent 
 to which the practice of female infanticide prevails, nor 
 does the government attempt by legislative enactments to 
 check its progress. No! the life or destiny of this portion 
 of the population of the celestial empire, is considered as 
 of too trivial importance to elicit any manifestations of 
 sympathy, or to secure any legal protection from the rulers 
 of the land, who think it not beneath their dignity to legis- 
 late on the color or pattern of man ? s costume, or on the 
 architecture of his dwelling. Barrow, in his travels 
 through China, represents it as a part of the duty of the 
 polke of Pekin, to employ certain persons to go round the 
 city at an early hour of the morning with carts, to collect 
 the bodies of the murdered babes who have been thrown 
 into the streets during the preceding hours of the night. 
 While the little ones whose birth-place has been on the 
 waters of China, find their last dwelling place in the 
 depth of the streams. Mr. Gutzlaff more than once alludes 
 to the practice, and mentions the perfect sang froid with 
 which his remonstrances were answered against the inhu- 
 manity of the practice. " It is only a female" was to 
 Chinese consciences a sufficient exculpation of the 
 crime. Among the people of Amoy, he informs us,
 
 WOMEN IX A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 185 
 
 "it was a general custom to drown a large portion of 
 the new-born female children; and the unnatural crime is 
 so common as to~ be perpetrated without any feeling, and 
 even in a laughing mood." 
 
 In Ava some of the Baptist missionaries describe the 
 female mind as being kept in a state of awful degradation. 
 From early infancy they are systematically taught to be- 
 lieve. that their moral nature is more depraved than that 
 of the other sex, and their minds wholly unsusceptible of 
 improvement. So far,indeed, is the latter opinion carried, 
 that -it is even considered discreditable for one of the sex 
 to be able to read. In Burrnah, when a female dares to 
 aspire to such an -advance tibove her country-women in 
 mental a'ttainm'ents, she is uniformly represented as full of 
 personal vanity, and the victim of an unamiable clamorous 
 temper,- The higher ranks being thus arbitrarily restrict- 
 ed from the privileges of moral and intelligent beings, 
 spend their time < in animal gratifications and\ degrading 
 indulgences. 
 
 Nor is the condition of woman Jess gloomy or cheerless 
 among the imaginative Hindoos. In India tire s.ex in very 
 remote ages, were held in considerable estimation; the 
 oriental "poet was not (lien reluctant to .celebrate Jiec 
 praises; the officer of justice to receive her testimony, or 
 the sage to number \\er in his ranks; now, however, her 
 state is entirely reversed. In India the intellect of the 
 nation appears to have been prostrated under the iron 
 rule of Brahma. By its degrading influences, woman, the 
 deputed moral agent of her God , is niade to groan in cheer- 
 less wretchedness;^ for the system of Brahma is wholly un- 
 like the system of belief recognized in revelation. The 
 Hindoo female enters upon her sorrowful career uncheered 
 by the smiles of natural affection; her existence is 
 
 16*
 
 186 \VOMEX IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 sidered a cause of disappointment, if not a subject of mur- 
 muring and chagrin. Sometimes her delicate infant frame 
 is given for nourishment to the rapacious beasts of the 
 ibrests, or to the devouring jaws of the alligator. Marri- 
 age is sought for those whose lives have been spared, as a 
 relief from the burden of their maintenance, and after they 
 have been purchased by their husbands, they are consider- 
 ed by them in the light of menials, and forbidden to address 
 1hem by name under severe penalties. Although the 
 enlightened policy of an English governor abolished the 
 sanguinary rite of the suttee, the practice still continues 
 in part of India; and -myriads of the unhappy widows ol 
 Hindoostan have terminated their lives of wretchedness on 
 the funeral pile of those, by. whom in life they were neg- 
 lected, despised and unloved. 
 
 While gazing on a dark and lurid sky, and beholding thv 
 gloom and desolation resting on the face, of nature, how 
 ''xhilirating is it to observe the bright beams of the sun 
 again appearing irradiating every every object with beauty, 
 gilding with mellow light.alike the hiimble shrubs.and the 
 lofty trees of the forest. Still more rapturous is the spec- 
 tacle presented, when nations who have been clothed with 
 moral darkness, and debased in the scale of being, sud- 
 denly hear the -glad tidings of salvation, and emerge from 
 Iheir benighted condition. Blessed be God! this joyful 
 ."ight has not been of unfrequent occurrence in the last hall 
 century. 
 
 The holy and laborious missionaries, Eliot and Brainerd, 
 devoted themselves with apostolic zeal to the conversion 
 of the Indiaus of New-York, New-England, New-Jersey, 
 ?m<l Pennsylvania, and their labors of love and self-denying 
 exertions were emulated by a host of faithful Moravians in 
 by-gone years; and by others of different denominations
 
 WOMEN IX A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 187 
 
 Curing the present century. Although we read of no such 
 universal relinquishment of idolatry, as was exhibited in 
 Polynesia, yet has there been a glorious band gathered by 
 the instrumentality of these various co-workers for God, 
 which will hereafter tell brightly on the eternal destinies 
 of many, a redeemed soul. The account which the holy 
 Brainerd gives of his people, as he delights to call the In- 
 dians, of Cross weeksung, now corrupted to Crossurcks in 
 New- Jersey, a re replete with interest to pious readers, and 
 prove how much may be done by one .faithful devoted 
 Christian, honored with the presence of the Comforter 'in 
 his labors. When he- preached, therevreas scarce an un- 
 moistened eye to be seen among the children of the forest 
 who crowded around him; and when he left them, they 
 wept in bitterness of spirit, fpr "their father's loss." 
 Catharine Brown's memory would alone serve to convince 
 a dispassionate mind of the blessedness which Christianity 
 eran confer on the Indian females of America; but happily 
 the beauty of holiness has been shown forth in others of 
 her nation in its different tribes; though by none with 
 more purity, consistency, and loveliness, than by this gentle 
 daughter of the intelligent Cherokee^. 
 
 The inhabitants of the San4wich-Isles, it is well known, 
 in an unprecedented manner in the year 1619, cast away 
 their idols, without any suggestions having been offered 
 by Christians, and while " waiting for the law," in fulfil- 
 ment of Isaiah's prophecy, actually received the first visit 
 from the devoted band of American Missionaries who have 
 subsequently labored so faithfully among them, and in their 
 exertions have been so abundantly blessed. Taheite, too, 
 like these sister-isles and many others of the Indian Archi- 
 pelago, have received the visits of God's ministering ser-
 
 180 WOMEN IN- A SAVAGE AND SEMI-ClViLlZED STATE.. 
 
 vants, and her palmy groves now re-echo on the Christian 
 Sabbath, the sound. of the village bell, 
 
 " Sweet emblem of Uie call of God." 
 
 And her sons and daughters, clad in neat and modest appa- 
 rel, may now be seen on that holy day, bending their foot- 
 steps towards the house of prayer; and uniting together 
 in fervent devotion around Hie table of their Lord. Al- 
 most all of .them carry in their hands a copy of such por- 
 tions of Scripture as have been translated into their mother 
 tongue, and a book. of hymns. 
 
 The influence of Christianity in elevating the women of 
 Polynesia iVom (he state of debasement to which heathen- 
 ism had subjected them, is feelingly noticed by the Rev. 
 C. S, Stewart, in his visit to Hido. one of ihc Sandwich 
 Islands. After describing the public solemnities of a Sab- 
 bath a"t Hido, and the aspect of the congregation gene- 
 Willy, which consisted of thousands of individuals, he con- 
 tinues, " Thc.aspcct of one at least 1 can never forget 
 
 It was a diminutive, old woman shrivelled by age, till little 
 more of her figure, .with an appearance of health, was left, 
 than skin and bone. . The *rlyle of her features, however, 
 was of the regular -and pleasing kind found among the 
 islanders, with an amiable and benignant expression, which 
 in connection with an entirely whitened head, exacted 
 from the observer a look of kindness in return. Folded 
 in a large mantle of black tapa, she was leaning, when my 
 eye first fell upon her, against a pillar near the pulpit, be- 
 side which she was sitting wilh her head inclined upwards, 
 
 and h^r eyes fixed on the preacher. there was not only 
 
 a seriousness, but a deep pensivcness, in her whole aspect 
 that riveted my attention; a tear was seen occasionally to 
 start ,in her eye, and more than oi\e made its way down
 
 WOMEN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 189 
 
 her deeply wrinkled cheeks, upon her mantle After 
 
 some time this sentence was uttered: ' We are all sinners 
 but we have a God and Saviour, who will forgive us our 
 sins, if we ask it of him. It is our duty to pray to God 
 for this and He hears the prayers of those who approach 
 him in sincerity.' I happened again to look on this object 
 her attitude and aspect -were the same, except that her 
 lips moved in the evident and almost audible repetition of 
 
 the sentence as she did so, a bright and peaceful smile 
 
 passed over every feature tears gushed rapidly from her 
 eyes, and she hid her face in the folds of her garment.'' 
 
 IS or was this a solitary case. Many of the once heathen 
 daughters of Polynesia and Australasia, have been raised 
 to the glorious liberty of the children of God; theirqueens 
 have literally become " the nursing mothers" of the church 
 of God; and some of the former priestesses of Pele, who 
 liad been accustomed to deceive the ignorant people of the 
 isles by pretensions to supernatural powers, have been 
 transformed by the Holy Spirit' into firm and consistent 
 believers of the Gospel, and the meek, docile, and intelli- 
 gent pupils of the missionary schools. The boudoir 
 of the princesses of the Sandwich Isles may now be seen 
 ornamented with elegant writing tables and books, among 
 which the Gospel in the Hawaiian version shines conspic- 
 uous; nor are these indications of literary and scriptural 
 tastes merely for appearance, the escritoire and books are 
 both regularly used. 
 
 The duties of the conjugal and maternal relations are 
 now recognized and practiced; and woman no longer ex- 
 cluded by tabu, has become the companion, and frequently 
 the instructress and protectress of man. 
 
 Among the first converts of Burmah have been number- 
 ed some of her daughters,, who by the Spirit of GodhaK-.
 
 190 WOMAN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 ing been convicted of sin, no longer need their stern and 
 harsh masters to instruct them in this salutary truth, but 
 have gone in their vilencss and pollution to the fountain 
 opened to believers, and having washed therein, have 
 come forth no more deformed by the leprosy of sin, but 
 with their souls cleansed from its guilt; some of 
 these are now walking as consistent believers on earth, 
 while others have, with their beloved female teacher, join- 
 ed the church triumphant in heaven. 
 
 Many of the women of Hindoostan have also heard of 
 late years the Messed sound of the Gospel, and not a few 
 have embraced the joyful offers of God's ministers; mo- 
 thers and daughters kneeling, side by side, have with tears 
 supplicated, and with thankfulness received the rite of 
 initiation into the Christian church; and have subsequently 
 encircled the table of the Lord; even now the hearts of 
 Christians are cheered by the hope that the females of 
 India may ere long be released from the tyrannical yoke 
 of their false priests and social institutions; the widow 
 may lengthen out her existence uncontcmned by man and 
 the female infants may realize the truth of those beautiful 
 lines of one of their own poets: 
 
 " When born in tears, we saw thee drowned 
 While thine assembled friends around 
 
 With smiles their joy confessed. 
 So live that at thy parting hour 
 They may the tears of sadness pour 
 
 And thou in smiles be dressed." 
 
 Within the last two years the sympathies of the Chris- 
 tian communities of the eastern and western hemisphere 
 have been powerfully excited by the persecutions of the 
 native converts of Madagascar; and to African women has 
 been awarded the honor of having one of their number.
 
 WOMAN IN A SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILIZED STATE. 191 
 
 the heroic " Rasalama, enrolled as the proto-martyr of 
 Madagascar;" and long will that name continue embalm- 
 ed with fragrance in the memory of those who love the 
 Saviour's cause. 
 
 The once degraded, but simple-hearted Hottentot has 
 been baptized with the Spirit of God, and rising from her 
 former state of moral and social degradation, may be seen 
 sitting at the feet of Jesus to learn the path of duty, and 
 to obey his pure and ennobling precepts. May the 
 daughters of this highly favored land imitate their example !
 
 CHAPTER X . 
 
 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 
 
 While attempting to sketch the portraiture of woman, 
 from various points of view, it is reasonable that we should 
 pause for a few moments, to glance at her position in that 
 important division of the moral world, which has heen de- 
 tached in a peculiar manner from the rest of humanity, by 
 the instrumentality of one man, the prophet, prince, and 
 warrior-chief of Arabia. 
 
 The mind of Mahommed was naturally of a strong and 
 imaginative cast. Disposed from his constitutional tempera- 
 ment, to indulge in contemplative pursuits, the circum- 
 stances of his birth and station precluded the indulgence 
 of his favorite tastes, and his ambitious spirit could pro- 
 pose to itself no brighter visions, than might be realized by 
 the leader of a caravan, or in other words, by a travelling 
 merchant. But, in an unexpected moment, and from a 
 quarter towards which his hopes had probably not been 
 directed, Mahommed was destined to find the means of a 
 personal aggrandizement, most wonderful in kind and de- 
 gree, and to acquire an influence over his fellow-creatures, 
 most extraordinary and enduring. Far more so indeed, 
 than had been probably pictured in the brightest visions of 
 ideal enjoyment, that ever floated before the mind's-eye 
 of the youthful son of Abdallah, as he led on his caravan 
 year after year from Mecca to those other cities of the east 
 which were the great marts of his countrymen.
 
 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 193 
 
 Having entered the service of Khadijah, a rich widow 
 of Mecca, as her factor, she had frequent opportunities of 
 noting the graces of his person and manners, as well as of 
 detecting his intellectual vigor and native eloquence; in 
 seeing these, she saw sufficient as she thought, to justify 
 her in elevating Mahommed from his subordinate post, as 
 her mercantile agent, to a station which enabled him to 
 rank as the equal of the most opulent men of his native 
 city; she" made him her husband,* the participator of 
 her fortune, and the master of her destinies. 
 
 Hagar, the despised bond-woman of Egypt, as the pa- 
 rent of Ishmael, was destined by the permission and pre- 
 diction of God, to be the mother of a great nation," the 
 progenitor of princes. Khadijah, the wealthy widow of a 
 merchant of Mecca, became as the wife of Mahommed, the 
 instrumental cause under Providence, of the rise of a reli- 
 gion, which was prophesied -of emblematically in Scrip- 
 ture, under the figure of" a star falling from heaven to the 
 earth." When respect is had to the circumstances under 
 which thecreedof the prophet of Mecca was promulgated; 
 the doctrines aad precepts which it enjoined^ and the 
 hold it was destined to have on the spiritual destinies of 
 millions of immortal beings, the emblem will appear ex- 
 ceedingly appropriate under which it was pourtrayed in 
 the book of Revelations, centuries before its appearance 
 in this world. 
 
 Had not Khadijah by elevating Mahommed to rank and 
 opulence, released him from the cares of business, and 
 thus permitted him to enjoy a part of the privileged im- 
 munities of oriental luxury, leisure for retirement it 
 seems more than probable that his enthusiastic passion 
 for solitary and meditative abstraction, would never have 
 been allowed unlimited scope; and consequently, that 
 
 17
 
 194 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 
 
 from the quiet depths of an Arabian grotto, would never 
 have issued those alleged revelations with which he first 
 fascinated the mind of the admiring Khadijah, and sub- 
 sequently that of his friend AH, and his slave Seid. The 
 judgment of woman, blinded by admiring affection, was 
 then put to a most responsible exercise. Had the religion 
 of Mahommed in its incipient state, been repressed by 
 sound, scriptural, and yet perfectly feminine advice, from 
 the lips of her to whose ear the embodying of his fervent 
 imagination was first submitted; what might not have 
 been the consequences to the destinies of myriads of our 
 race? 
 
 Thus the ill-judged commendations of the first and most 
 beloved of the wives of Mahommed, encouraged him in 
 the indulgence and promulgation of his enthusiastic reve- 
 ries, until what was first communicated in fragmentary 
 portions to the domestic circle, was spread abroad to a 
 larger and still larger auditory, as occasion served; and 
 was finally digested into a single volume, bearing the title 
 of the Koran, or, the reading. that is to say, what is 
 incumbent on all mankind to read for their own improve- 
 ment. 
 
 At the time of Mahommed's union with the widow of 
 Mecca, their common country was a prey to the grossest 
 idolatry; he, however, by some means, had been convinc- 
 ed of the unity of the Godhead, and it is not improbable 
 that an ardent desire to dispel the gross errors in the reli- 
 gious system of his countrymen, may have been associated 
 with the imaginative exercises in which he was wont to 
 indulge for more than ten years, in his favorite cavern near 
 Mecca; the belief in, and worship of a Deity in unity, is 
 undoubtedly a fundamental article in the creed which he 
 propounded to his followers.
 
 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEUAN COUNTRIES. 195 
 
 But if his motives in the first entrance on his work 
 "were not altogether unworthy of a religious reformer;*' 
 when encouraged by success it is no less evident, " that his 
 ambition increased, while his motives degenerated, and 
 the successive circumstances of his mission led him to add 
 to his spurious revelations, much which had never before 
 entered his imagination."* 
 
 It would be irrelevant to my present subject, to attempt 
 a regular sketch of the rise and progress of Mahommedism, 
 since such information can be obtained far more satisfac- 
 torily from other sources. My object is rather, briefly to 
 consider the practical effects produced on the moral con- 
 dition of the female sex, by the extension of the doctrines 
 and precepts of the prophet of Arabia, in those countries 
 subjected to their controlling influence. 
 
 Ft is not uncommon to find the situation of Mahommedan 
 females represented as more wretched and degraded, than 
 that of almost any other portion of their sex in the world; 
 but I apprehend, that in forming this opinion, we do not 
 sufficiently free our minds from the bias of prejudice, to 
 allow us to form an accurate judgment. 
 
 In attempting to investigate this division of our subject 
 we labor under great disadvantage. Philosophy leaches 
 us, that various mental processes are to be brought into 
 operation, when we desire to elicit the truth in any branch 
 of human knowledge; among these, the first is to make a 
 
 * See "A view of the ground-work of Mahommedism," introductory 
 to the highly interesting "Narrative of a tour in Turkey and Peisia" 
 by Rev. H. Southgate. To this valuable work, the author is indebted 
 for information on the present state of Mahommedism, and defers to his 
 judgment on a subject, where our means of information are so limited, 
 rather than to the works of other modern tiavellers, since bis means and 
 opportunities for studying his subject, were unusually favorable, and his 
 intellectual and moral character such, as eminently adapted him for 
 forming just opinions on this and other topics embraced in his journal.
 
 1 96 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 
 
 careful collection of authentic facts, regularly and not in- 
 cidentally connected with the subject, before we can pro- 
 ceed to deduce general principles from them. Now in 
 allMahommedan countries the females are far more rigidly 
 secluded from intercourse with society,, than in any of the 
 modern heathen nations, or than was customary among 
 those of classical antiquity. This circumstance in itself 
 n.akes it very difficult for us to collect facts in sufficient 
 number,, and of the requisite degree of authenticity, from 
 which to form our opinions. 
 
 It is well known that after Mahommed's death, his fol- 
 lowers were divided into two great sects; the schism be- 
 tween which originated, in dissentions which occurred at 
 the time of his death, in selecting a successor to him in the 
 caliphate. He had not thought proper to point out the 
 individual who was to take his place, and his followers 
 fiercely contended whether the right to the titles and 
 honors of the departed .prophet were to be decided by 
 election, or to be hereditary. All agreed in this point, 
 that there must ever continue in the world, a prophet of 
 the true religion a vicar of God to exercise both tem- 
 poral and spiritual jurisdiction. But one party earnestly 
 contended that Abubekr, the father-in-law of Mahommed, 
 was entitled to fill the important post by elective decision, 
 while the other as obstinately avowed that his cousin and 
 son-in-law Ali, was by heriditary right empowered to rank 
 a his successor. One of the most powerful and influen- 
 tial champions of Abubekr was his daughter Ayesha, the 
 }oungest, and it is said the most beautiful of all the wives 
 of the prophet; while on the other hand, Ali strengthened 
 himself by the influence of Patima, his wife, who was the 
 daugiiter of Hadijah, the first and most beloved partner of 
 Muhommed. Thus female influence, nerved by female
 
 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 197 
 
 jealousy greatly widened the schism between the fol- 
 lowers of the prophet ; and at the present moment Ma- 
 hommedan nations in a body follow the standard of one or 
 other of the two original claimants to the honors of the 
 departed head of their faith, under the names of the Shiahs, 
 and Sunnitcs, the two great sects of Islam. The former 
 include the Persians, the Mussulmans of Hindoostan, and 
 some of the Tartar nations, while the latter comprise the 
 different Turkish tribes, and the Arabs of Arabia, Syria, 
 Egypt and northern Africa. 
 
 Independently of these religious animosities, various cir- 
 cumstances have conspired to throw around the Sunnite 
 Mahommedans a far higher tone of practical morality, than 
 is found among those belonging to the sect of the Shiahs. 
 The Turks descended from a hardy and warlike race, ex- 
 hibited very different elementsof moral character on which 
 to engraft religious sentiments, from the effeminate Per- 
 sians, who present the same striking traits in their consti- 
 tutional temperament, which mark the kliocyncraeies ef the 
 rriental nations generally. The brave and simple man- 
 ered Afghans, the wandering and untamable Arabs, who 
 have never bent the knee to any foreign potentate, exhibit 
 like the Turks natural diversities of character, which 
 render them in the recognition of the Mahommedan faith, 
 essentially unlike the neighboring nations, who professing 
 ostensibly to receive the same creed, embody it in practice, 
 in a manner entirely different. 
 
 Since my design is to seek to ascertain the place which 
 woman, the appointed moral agent of God, sustains under 
 the principal religious systems whether true or false, which 
 have divided the generations of the human family. I 
 hall, in order to place the subject in as favorable a light 
 as possible, make my observations on Mahommedan women, 
 
 17*
 
 "198 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDJLN COUNTRIES 
 
 as they appear when viewed on Turkish ground ; since that 
 being the region in which, from various circumstances, the 
 creed of Mahommedhns been rendered most influential in 
 inducing habits of morality among the people at large, it 
 follows as a natural consequence, that woman's situation 
 will be there most favorable for the development of the 
 influences arising from the national religion. 
 
 It is by no means an easy task, to detach one's mind 
 sufficiently from prejudice and from early and long-continu- 
 ed'associations, to be able to form an accurate judgment of 
 the habits, manners and condition of those, whose position 
 in society in all important particulars, is entirely the re- 
 verse of our own. How then shall the freeborn daugh- 
 ters of America be able to comprehend the situation of 
 their Turkish sisters, the inheratives indeed of a common 
 nature, alike guilty and condemned in the sight of God, 
 but in scarce one feature of their social or religious con- 
 dition exhibiting any common or coincident points? Of 
 course, except in a few instances, we are constrained to 
 draw our facts not from personal observation, but to receive 
 them on the testimony of others. In order to give validity 
 to testimony, confidence must be reposed in the veracity, 
 judgment and intelligence of those from whom it is receiv- 
 ed, and where there are equally to be found in two wit- 
 nesses, he certainly whose opportunities of observation 
 have been the most abundant and continued, will be enti- 
 tled to receive the greatest deference. 
 
 Among the travellers who in modern times have favored 
 us with observations on Turkey and its inhabitants, and on 
 their national religion, few appear to have taken as much 
 'pains to inform themselves on these points, or enjoyed such 
 advantages for so doing, as our pious and talented country- 
 men, the Rev. Mr. Southgate. He had studied his sub-
 
 WOMEN OF MAH03IMEDAN COUNTRIES. 199 
 
 ject carefully, and has evidently formed none of his opin- 
 ions without previous and patient investigation. In making 
 himself master of the vernacular tongue of Turkey, he of 
 course vastly increased his facilities for accomplishing the 
 task he had undertaken; nor did he rest satisfied with a 
 mere attempt to do justice to the subject; he labored 
 assiduously and on principle to study the East, not with a 
 Western mind, but with his faculties so far enlightened in 
 the knowledge of the habits and manners of those among 
 whom he was to be temporarily a resident, that he might 
 correct his errors of judgment, and misapprehension of 
 character, by the broad law of Christian charity, which 
 seeks to enter the feelings and circumstances of others, in 
 order that it may judge of them, as it would wish to be 
 judged by them. 
 
 " The student of Islamism," he informs us, " will often 
 find occasion to remark that it holds a middle place be- 
 tween Christianity and Paganism. This is not only true 
 of its doctrines, which in some points approach the eminent 
 spirituality of the Bible, and in others border upon the 
 fantastic follies of heathenish superstition, but its precepts 
 also partake throughout of the same mingled character. 
 Thus it is with the rank and duties which it assigns to wo- 
 man. It neither exhibits the elevating influence of Chris- 
 tianity, nor the degrading tendencies of idolatry. It raises 
 her above the rank which any other system, excepting our 
 own has ever assigned her, but it leaves room for much high- 
 er improvement. The institutions of Mahommed in this 
 particular are worthy only of praise. The remark may 
 create surprise, but I -do not utter it incautiously. We 
 are not to judge of the false prophet of Islamism by our 
 own standard, but by that which he had before his own 
 eyes. He was an Arab, born a Pagan. The religion in
 
 200 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAH COUNTKIXS. 
 
 which he was nurtured was as unfavorable in its influence 
 upon woman, as any form of heathenism that ever existed. 
 It was throughout, debasing and polluting. He undertook 
 its reform. He raised the Arab female from her degrada- 
 tion. He made distinct provision for her relief from many 
 of the wicked prejudices to which she had been subjected. 
 The evils which he could not remove he suffered to re- 
 main*. They re-appear on the pages of the Koran, but 
 they are not original there. They are only copies trans- 
 ferred from the immemorial usages of his people. He 
 tolerated them, but he did not create them. On the con- 
 trary, in most instances he implicitly condemns while he 
 allows them. Thus he gives permission to husbands to 
 chastise their wives if disobedient; but he recommended 
 at the same time, that they avoid all causes of quarrel. 
 Divorce too, though allowed, is strongly disapproved. 
 Reconciliation is pronounced preferable to separation, and 
 meditation is set before chastisement. Even here is im- 
 provement, the design being to abate evils which probably 
 could not be remedied. 
 
 In permitting females to inherit property, and in his 
 regulations for providing them with dowries, Mahommed 
 advanced upon the polished and refined Greeks and Ro- 
 mans; who instead of bestowing settlements upon their 
 wives, were reluctant as we have seen even to permit their 
 female relatives, the privilege of receiving a pecuniary 
 provision from their own fathers by will. The polished 
 but sensual Greek or Roman could with impunity divorce 
 ne innocent wife to make way for her more favored rival, 
 or like Pericles, or some of the renowned sons of Rome, 
 proceed still farther and violently wrest the beautiful and 
 attached partners of others from their domestic sanctuaries 
 to gratify the impulses of impassioned and guilty feeling;
 
 WOMAN CP MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 201 
 
 while the founder of Islamism forbade husbands to have 
 recourse to harsh treatment in order to compel their wives 
 to seek divorces; and on the contrary, enjoined that they 
 should treat them with all tenderness. " If yf hate them," 
 saith the prophet, " it may happen that ye shall hate that 
 in which God has placed much good.' 1 
 
 The Koran offers no sanction to the prevalent opinion, 
 that the Mahommedans exclude from women, the hope of 
 entrance into future blessedness, for its author asserts, 
 that " whoso worketh good, male or female, shall enter 
 paradise;" and he enjoined the pilgrimage to Mecca which 
 is believed to be so instrumental in securing that happiness, 
 both upon males and female?, he likewise enforced equally 
 on the twa sexes, other fundamenlal.obli^ations of his re- 
 ligion. With regard likewise to the exclusion of females 
 from places of public worship; the prohibition is unfter- 
 stood to have arisen, not from a belief that their souls were 
 incapable of religious enjoyment, or of receiving religious 
 instruction, an opinion which I have before remarked 
 ^ has prevailed very generally among heathen nations, 
 but as a preventive to the two sexes meeting in sacred 
 places, which was deemed highly inexpedient. A female 
 may enter the mosques, however, to perform her devotions, 
 u lien the male worshippers have withdrawn. On this 
 ground, the women of Mahommedan countries stand nearly 
 on a par with the daughters of God T s ancient people, and 
 with those of the Greek and other Christian churches of 
 the east, so that the prohibition, when viewed impartially, 
 is not intended to throw a peculiar degradation over Ma- 
 hommedan females, but should be considered rather as 
 one of the distinctive features of oriental manners. 
 
 Some of our most intelligent and highly esteemed modern 
 travellers, represent the Turkish women, with the excep-
 
 202 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 
 
 tion of those belonging to the harems of the Sultan, and 
 the chief dignitaries of the empire, as enjoying no trifling 
 degree of freedom and consideration. Their apartments 
 are indeed detached from the other parts of the house ; and 
 they are denied liberty of access to those belonginging to 
 their male relatives. With their faces nearly covered 
 with the ashmak, and their figures concealed by their loose 
 mantles, the females of Turkey, however, are continually 
 met by travellers in the streets and bazaars of Constanti- 
 nople, or when partaking in their favorite recreation and 
 excursion on the waters of the beautiful Bosphorus, and 
 though an attempt to converse with them would be proba- 
 bly highly resented in the public roads throughout the 
 empire. Whefi thus encountered, their gleeful laughter 
 and girlish light-heartedness is constantly noted, from 
 which circumstances taken in conjunction with the pre- 
 scripts of the prophet as their treatment, we are warrant- 
 ed in believing, that their social condition, as it had expo- 
 sed them to much less onerous burdens, so has it also 
 ensured them far more ofroorldly happiness, than is experi- 
 enced by the degraded females of pagan lands. 
 
 The Mahommedan law indeed permits a man to become 
 the husband of four wives, but the privilege is we are 
 assured, not frequently taken advantage of, and polygamy 
 as a general custom is by no means common in Turkey. 
 And that the Mahommedan wife is not the enslaved and 
 uninfluential being which by many she is supposed to be, 
 seems more than probable, or how would this apothegem 
 have become proverbial in Turkey, as we are assured it is, 
 "A woman causes the ruin or prosperity of a house." 
 
 In the maternal relation also, the Turkish female is 
 greatly elevated in her social privileges above those of her 
 sex of heathen countries. The tender affection which the
 
 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 203 
 
 Mussulman bears for his mother, has been frequently re- 
 marked by travellers, and is indeed one of the brightest 
 points in his character. The strongest expressions of feel- 
 ing elicited from him are exhibited in his intercourse with 
 her who gave him birth; he ministers to her happiness in 
 the day of prosperity, seeks to succor her with as much 
 assiduity as his constitutional indolence, will permit, in the 
 hour of adversity; and when she is consigned to the silent 
 tomb, though by his creed forbidden to assume the solemn 
 symbols of wo, he is yet found not ashamed to manifest that 
 a mother's death has been the occasion to him of the most 
 deep and poignant sorrow. The mother too, is devoted 
 to her children; she nourishes them at her own bosom; 
 soothes them in their childish sorrows; enters with lively 
 joy into their sportive amusements, and when she goes on 
 her excursions in the light caique up the Bosphorous, her 
 children accompany her as if their presence was a neces- 
 sary ingredient to her enjoyment. While her, tearful eyes 
 and assiduous visits to the cypress groves which conceal 
 their departed forms from sight, attests the sincerity with 
 which she mourns over her little ones when death snatches 
 them from her embrace. 
 
 Until the youth of Turkey reach the age of seven or 
 eight years, they are left almost exclusively to the care of 
 their mothers, and the Koran enjoins their children to treat 
 them with dutiful affection ; and this privilege of maternal 
 love is not denied even to her whose offspring is destined 
 to mount the throne of Constantinople. The day on which 
 the heir apparent of the Turkish empire, is transformed 
 from the tutelage of maternal love, to that of his male 
 instructors, is made the occasion of a fete in the capital of 
 his future kingdom; and it is not long since a traveller 
 from a Christian land, was present on one of these ocoa-
 
 204 WOMEN OF MAHOMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 
 
 sions. and gave a description to the public of the accom- 
 panying ceremonies; the young prince and the assembled 
 thousands of his juvenile cotemporaries, formed by no 
 means the least interesting part of the spectacle. 
 
 ft may be asked, why we thus assidnously endeavor to 
 place the Turkish Mahommedan female upon a higher level, 
 than those of her sex in heathen lands? We reply, that 
 it is important to our subject to do so. This land of oriental 
 luxury, enjoys no intellectual advantages-, the days of lite- 
 rary glory have long since passed even from the capital of 
 the Turkish empire: and if woman does there enjoy any 
 superiority over her pagan sisters, it must be simply be- 
 cause the religious system of her country is superior in its 
 doctrines and precepts to those of paganism. This will 
 be abundantly evident to all such as are disposed, calmly 
 and impartially, to study the symbols of faith of the Sunneh 
 Mahommedans, at set forth by Mr, Southgate. 
 
 Far, very far indeed, was the dim and uncertain light 
 emitted from this " falling star," from vicing with the deep, 
 full and life-giving radiance of the Sun of Righteousness; 
 and consequently immeasurably superior are the advan- 
 tages enjoyed by the humblest Christian female, over the 
 noblest and fairest of her sex under the reign of Islam; 
 but although the beams of the solar luminary can alone 
 communicate vitality, yet can the planet which has receiv- 
 ed illumination from him, cast forth a moderate but still a 
 perceptible light in the absence of the sun; and so we be- 
 lieve does the creed of Mahommed diffuse a higher mea- 
 sure of morality around it, than do the false systems of 
 paganism, because it does approach much nearer the 
 truths of Revelation, than any of them have ever done.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Daniel in the exercise of his prophetic office, was on one 
 occasion summoned to the magnificent presence-chamber 
 of the Babylonish monarch, to unfold the mysteries of those 
 visions which had so appalled the imagination of the latter 
 as to drive sleep far from his luxurious couch. In the 
 execution of the duty required from him, the man of God, 
 after exhibiting graphic sketches, in which the prophetic 
 histories of the Grecian and Roman empires, were sum- 
 med up in striking epitomes, proceeded to inform his 
 royal auditor, 4 ' that in the waning days of those empires, 
 the King of Heaven would set up a kingdom, which should 
 never be destroyed;" and, moreover that this new domin- 
 ion was not to be left to other people, but was to consume 
 and break them all to pieces and was u tostand forever."' 
 
 This prediction has been fulfilled in a remarkable man- 
 ner during a long lapse of centuries; and with our own 
 eyes we may now behold (his kingdom standing forth to 
 view, with its colossal feet, the one of which is planted 
 firmly on the shores of Europe, which are laved by the 
 billows of the broad Atlantic, as its crested waves rush 
 eastward; while the other is no less, resolutely fixed on 
 the coast of the American continent to (he Babylonish 
 monarch, a terra incognita, on whose strand the same 
 ocean is dashed on its returning tide. 
 
 The principal conquests of Rome had been achieved 
 
 18
 
 206 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 during the period of her republican existence; and when 
 Augustus Cesar presided over her destinies, he had the 
 wisdom to perceive, that it was his best policy, to endeavor 
 to preserve the glories of his country by peace, instead of 
 seeking to extend her power by the uncertain chances of 
 war. The rigid manners, stern integrity and comparative 
 purity of the ancient Romans, had been superseded by 
 habits of efleminacy and corruption of morals, both public 
 and private. And when freed from the dread of the in- 
 cursion of foreign foes, the ungrateful Romans, partially 
 instructed as they were by the voice of conscience, and the 
 dim light of reason, in the knowledge of the existence and 
 perfections of one Supreme God, " yet glorified him not as 
 God," in their moral conduct, neither were they thankful 
 for the great national blessings which had been granted to 
 them; " (hey became vain in their imagination, and their 
 foolish hearts were darkened: professing themselves wise 
 they became fool?." And while the polished and intellec- 
 tual Greeks and Romans were involved in such deep spi- 
 ritual darkness, of the remaining portion of the globe at 
 the same era unvisited by divine revelation, it might em- 
 phatically be said, that darkness covered them and gross 
 darkness their inhabitants. 
 
 At that eventful crisis in the history of our world, " the 
 desire of all nations," the Redeemer of our fallen and 
 guilty race, came down from the glories of heaven, to visit 
 us in great humility; and after dying for our sins, and 
 rising again for our justification, ascended to his throne in 
 his Father's kingdom, and entrusted to his commissioned 
 apostles and their successors the work of evangelizing the 
 world. 
 
 During the preceding periods of this world's history, 
 various attempts had been made to civilize, refine and
 
 WOMEN 6F PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 20? 
 
 remodel the face of society. Learning and human phi- 
 losophy had been tasked to the utmost, and as yet, scarce 
 any thing effectual had been accomplished. But when 
 the Gospel of Jesus was promulgated, the most remarka- 
 ble changes were soon made manifest. The commission 
 which our Lord delivered to his disciples was diverse in its 
 form and tenor from that of the most enlightened heathen 
 philosophers. " This is my commandment," it declared, 
 ** that ye love one another, as I have loved you" and 
 again it reiterated with impressive earnestness, "these 
 things I command you, that ye love one another." If the 
 passions of mankind were subdued, their enmities over- 
 come, their habits transformed by the preaching of the 
 Gospel, this was the secret of the change; it held up to 
 view a Saviour in all the fulness and wonders of his love, 
 and in the extent of his power to ransom and to bless. 
 Those who heard these tidings had natures constituted in 
 such a manner that the intelligence received by them of a 
 Saviour from the guilt and power of sin, generated within 
 their souls desires to love and serve him, who had done 
 so much for them. No sooner did man understand that 
 he was a being ransomed by the love of another, and that 
 one infinitely his superior, than immediately more was 
 effected for his moral interests, than the wisest and most 
 learned human teacher had ever been able to accomplish. 
 Principles entirely new were brought to operate upon the 
 heart, and withal new powers were infused into them; a 
 divine instructor was sent, a Holy Comforter and regene- 
 rator of the depraved nature was promised to all who 
 should earnestly and sincerely desire it. Nor were these 
 privileges and these blessing to be restricted to one natiou; 
 the Gospel of salvation was based on principles common 
 and intelligible to the whole human family; woman waa
 
 208 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 invited as freely as her lord; nay her Saviour had even 
 condescended to woo the sex as it were with urn-emitted 
 assiduity; he had declared that among its numbers he 
 would find his " mother and his* Mbteis." 
 
 Soon the doctrines of our Lord and Saviour, like the 
 rays of the rising sun. irradiated the moral universe. His 
 faithful servants, in obedience to the commands of their 
 divine Redeemer, went forth joyfully to the task, to every 
 part of the then known world, bearing the glad tidings of 
 salvation. Idolatrous heathens who had been previously 
 groaning under the cruel bondage of superstition, fell their 
 fetters loosened, and themselves made free. The know- 
 ledge of I he one true God and of his Son Jesus Christ, was 
 publicly preached, and openly professed in the Grecian 
 groves, and Peter the great aposlie of his Master, ' who 
 by his courage took the lead of all the rest, was coaduct- 
 ed to Rome;"' and there, " like a noble commander of God, 
 fortified by divine armor, bore the precious merchandize 
 of the revealed light from the east to those in the west, 
 announcing the light itself and the salutary doctrine 
 of the soul;"* to the inhabitants of that great capital j 
 and so great was the number of those who gave cre- 
 dence to their words, and submitted themselves as 
 disciples of the crucified Jesus, that the haughty and 
 tierce emperors of Rome became alarmed, dreading a 
 serious defection from their ranks, and one after another, 
 were not ashamed in assuming the purple robes of oflice, 
 to associate with the insignia of royalty, the titles of enemy 
 of God, and persecutor of his church. 
 
 In Alexandria, Smyrnia and Antioch, as well as of other 
 places of note both in Africa and Asia, were the doctrines 
 
 Chapter. XIV.
 
 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 260 
 
 of the Gospel publicly announced, and gladly received. 
 Gaul, likewise, was soon irradiated with the same heavenly 
 light, and the Rhone, as she rolled towards the Meditera- 
 nean, to mingle her silvery waters with the blue waves of 
 the sea, soon saw them reddened svith the blood of the 
 Gaulish converts. 
 
 Widely as these different 'nalions had been estranged 
 from each other, white -Subjects of idolatry, and essentially 
 as they had differed in language, manners and habits, they 
 no sooner enrolled themselves as liege servants of the king 
 of Heaven, ^as disciples of Jesus, than they became one 
 in soul and spirit; petty dissensions were forgotten; na- 
 tional and long cherished animosities were overcome; the 
 Gaul and Roman united in the bond of brotherly love, and 
 by a common faith became one in Christ. The same 
 divine standar'dof faith and duty was received ; the same 
 code of morals adopted; love was made every where the 
 test of discipleship both among Jews and barbarians, bond 
 and free. The once lawless Gauls aiid the formerly 
 fierce and simple mannered Germans. as well as the en- 
 lightened Greeks and Romans, received alike the same 
 tenet of faith.- -*' that in Christ Jesus there were neither 
 male nor female"- but all were to be one in him who is 
 the great head of the church. Woman, no longer a de- 
 graded, oppressed and despised being, was now received 
 by each and all of the churches. of her Saviour and De- 
 liverer, as equally with man rendered by faith in him, " a 
 member of his body, of his flesh and of his bones." No 
 longer was she regarded as a mere thing, proscribed from 
 the enjoyment of civil, social, or spiritual privileges; sJie 
 was ranked as one flesh with her parner in the marriage 
 contract, and her lord was reminded that he was to love 
 and cherish her, even as himself, nay, more, with the 
 18*
 
 210 WOMEN OF PRIMIT1TK CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ame species of tender affection, different in degree, but 
 the same in kind, with that with which " Christ also loved 
 the church, and gave himself for it." 
 
 It is interesting to behold the change wrought on the 
 female sex under the vivifying influence of the spirit of 
 love. We see them at once, quickened into new life and 
 energy, coming forward meekly and with feminine grace, 
 but right manfully as the soldiers and servants of their 
 Lord and Saviour, even unto death. Weak and power- 
 less in themselves, the grace of God imparted to them 
 such heroic courage, and the love of Jesus so powerfully 
 constrained them that they were enabled to sustain un- 
 flinchingly the whole weight of persecution directed against 
 them in almost every quarter of the vast Roman empire. 
 Witness for example, the heroic Blandina, who in the 
 second century of the Christian era, manifested to the 
 churches of Lyons and Vienne, and who to the whole 
 church militant on earth will ever continue to show forth 
 the power of divine grace; in whom Christ made manifest 
 that the sex, which in the eyes of the polished and refined, 
 as well as of the savage heathen, had seemed mean and 
 contemptible, " was yet esteemed of great glory with God, 
 on account of love to him, which was really and power- 
 fully displayed in her who gloried not in the mere appear- 
 ance of virtue." 
 
 Behold the contrast between woman as a moral agent, 
 in her appropriate position under that religious system, 
 \*hich, while it appeals to the warm affection of her na- 
 ture, recognizes her spiritual rights and privileges, with 
 that which she had presented under the most refined form 
 of paganism! Where can we find a more appropriate 
 illustration of this truth, than in the case lately adduced. 
 Blandina, a young female disciple of the Gallic churches
 
 WOMEN OP PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 211 
 
 of Vienne and Lyons, enjoying no intellectual advantages, 
 but on the contrary filling the place of a domestic to a 
 Christian mistress in the same church, when enlightened 
 by divine grace, exhibited a dignity and strength of virtue, 
 a degree of fortitude and heroic endurance of eufFerings, 
 that far exceeded all that Seneca, Socrates, or the wisest 
 and most virtuous of the pagan philosophers ever mani- 
 fested in their seasons of trial. 
 
 Her fellow-Christians had been accustomed to regard 
 her but as a public woman, filling a subordinate station in 
 society, and therefore probably had never conjectured that 
 her soul could be the shrine in which the most elevated 
 attributes of our nature might be enthroned. Accordingly 
 when they beheld Blandina led forth to martyrdom, they 
 were filled with consternation, and even her own mistress, 
 herself one of the contending martyrs, who might 
 naturally be supposed to know her best, was fearfully 
 apprehensive, lest the weak and trembling girl might, in 
 prospect of the severe bodily sufferings which were inflict- 
 ed on the Christian professors of those days, faint under 
 the anticipated load and abjure the course of their com- 
 mon Lord. 
 
 But the noblest elements of our nature were dormant 
 in the bosom of Blandina; the grace of God had been 
 quietly maturing them, and a fitting occasion was only 
 needed to develop them in full beauty. The hour of severe 
 trial is not unfrequently the moment when a timid and 
 modest female first reveals even to her most intimate 
 friends, the full excellence and strength of her mind and 
 affections. Blandina was subjected to the most cruel 
 tortures by her savage persecutors; her frail body was 
 lacerated by severe and oft-repeated torments, but she 
 was so sustained by her divine Redeemer, that she was
 
 212 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 enabled to endure patiently, and even cheerfully, the 
 utmost which malice or her enemies could inflict. Her 
 persecutors enraged at her heroic endurance of sufferings, 
 whose severity they could well estimate, determined by 
 perseverance in their nefarious purposes, to accomplish 
 their base design which, was to. compel her to renounce 
 her sacred profession, and abjure allegiance to Christ. 
 Wearied out themselves by inflicting tortures on her, they 
 relievpd each other by day and night, so that each might 
 come refreshed and invigorated, the better io attain the 
 object they had in view. But the meek and exemplary 
 sufferer realized abundantly tire fulfilment of the gracious 
 promises of her Redeemer; he forsook not his dear child 
 in her hour of anguish and deep affliction-; he placed un- 
 derneath her, the" everlasting, arms of his love; so that 
 when her lacerated limbs seemed ready to fall asunder, 
 the blessed saint might still be heard, sweetly but faintly 
 sending forth her glorious confession, ." I am a Christian 
 no wickedness is carried on by us." 
 
 Nor was Blandira a solitary example. in the primitive 
 church, of the powerful efficacy of divine grace in develop- 
 ing the class of virtues which woman was specially appoint- 
 ed to manifest to the world. .The name of many a sister 
 spirit who emulated her example and followed her in the 
 ame rugged ascent to the hill of Zion, will be familiar to 
 most of my readers who are at all conversant with the 
 pages of ecclesiastical history. 
 
 The beautiful and heroic Potamiena, whose executioner 
 was himself converted to Christianity by her instrumen- 
 tality, in the hour of her sorest affliction; Mcrcuria ard 
 Dyonisia, Quinta and Apollonia whose praise it was in 
 the Christian church of Alexandria, to have checked the 
 tortures decreed by the cruel governor, because after
 
 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 213 
 
 they had joyfully endured excruciating sufferings without 
 apostatizing, he declared that he would no longer "be 
 defeated hy woman" and therefore permitted the more 
 merciful sword, to supersede for awhile, the rack, the 
 flame and other more severe modes of torture; these and 
 a host of other sainted names might he adduced, if further 
 proof was needed to convince impartial judges, that wo- 
 man's true position is as a handmaidof her Lord and Sa- 
 viour; that the Word of God is specially adapted to the 
 necessities of her condition, and no less happily fillc-d hy 
 her Creator to exhibit, the perfections of that renewed and 
 sanctified nature, to which the Triune God lias undertaken 
 conjointly to restore every fallen child of Adam, who shall 
 come unto God by faith in Christ Jesus. 
 
 In order to the full development of the female character, 
 we have seen by attentive consideration, that the or.e grand 
 essential point, is that the religious system under \\hich it 
 is trained, shall be one in accordance with the will of God, 
 as revealed in his holy Scriptures. Under the sway 
 of her noblest and honored sons, Rome's national glory 
 was at the highest pitch, and the kings and princes of the 
 earth were proud in being ranked as her allies and tribu- 
 taries, we have seen that woman was ranked low in the 
 scale of being; her noblest matrons and fairest daughters 
 were comparatively, uninfluential agents in conserving or 
 extending the interests of their country. After the death 
 of Diocletian, discord reigned throughout the vast Roman 
 empire, and the east and west were rent by the civil wars 
 and fierce dissensions which ensued when six aspirants 
 contended simultaneously for the purple; yet even then, 
 under the benign influence of true Christianity, a goodly 
 host was mustered, who, as the conservatives of their 
 country, dared to oppose the combined power of Maxentius
 
 4 14 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and Maximinus, who in the extent and vileness of their 
 guilt, were perhaps scarcely ever surpassed by any of the 
 tyrants of Rome. Roman women were then taught to 
 feel, that they were no longer mere automatons, unable or 
 incapable of promoting (he best interests of their country: 
 the chains by which their moral nature had been kept in 
 servile vassalage were loosened, the truths of the Gospel 
 had given them liberty. Many of the Christian females 
 of Rome, as well as those of the Eastern empire, dared to 
 oppose arid defeat the brutal monarchs who swayed the 
 sceptres of the divided empire, and exhibited a dignity and 
 beauty of moral character far transcending that of any of 
 their sex in the proudest era of their national glory. 
 
 The noble Avria had been immortalized in her country's 
 annals for facing death with firmness, in order to nerve her 
 beloved Paetus to meet the fate decreed him by Claudius. 
 Platina, we are informed by historians, continued to be 
 regarded in Rome to her latest years, with the most un- 
 bounded admiration, and the preponderance of the lily 
 over the rose in her complexion, only threw a more lively 
 interest around her beautiful features, because it was a 
 constant memento of her conjugal affection for Seneca, 
 whose death she had intended to share, when the brutal 
 Nero, unwilling to afford this meed of consolation to his 
 victim, ordered the veins in her arms and feet to be clos- 
 ed. These were solitary examples, and one of the noblest 
 of the Romans, hesitated not to expatiate on Avria's con- 
 duct, and declared the action was "truly noble," and he 
 added, " I had almost said the expression, ' Foetus it is not 
 painful,' was divine."* 
 
 When Christianity, however, was promulgated through 
 
 Pliny'i Letteii. No. 31.
 
 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 215 
 
 the Roman empire sach divine life and energy was com- 
 municated to its women who embraced this religion, that 
 multitudes of the youngest, and fairest, and most timid of 
 her daughters, dared to die, not by the speedy death 
 which Avria inflicted on herself, but by the lingering tor- 
 tures which the malice and wickedness of the devil and 
 man in combined fury could bring against them; and the 
 particularizing of which would be (oo harrowing to my 
 feelings to relate. " See!" said the Christian fathers and 
 husbands to the infidel blasphemers who were surrounding 
 with savage cruelty the ampitheatre, which were the 
 favorite scenes for the display of these bloody tragedies, 
 " See! how our women and children can d4e." 
 
 If the influence of Christianity was made manifest in the 
 holy courage with which even its female disciples were 
 enabled to face the horrors of persecution, and to come-off 
 as conquerors in the fierce conflict in which they were so 
 often called to face the last great enemy of man ; no less 
 perceptible was its effects on the morals of those who .sub- 
 mitted themselves to its requirements. 
 
 One of the most determined and insidious enemies of 
 our holy religion hesitated not to acknowledge, " the vir- 
 tues of the early Christians." " The primitive Christian," 
 
 he says, " demonstrated his faith by his virtues The first 
 
 apologists of Christianity who justify the innocence of their 
 brethren, and the writers of a later period who celebrate 
 the sanctity of their ancestors, display in the most lively 
 colors the reformation of manners which was introduced 
 into the world by the preaching of the Gospel."* 
 
 Could this wily opponent of the truth have disproved 
 the fact, we may rest assured that he would have gladly 
 
 * Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Chap. XV.
 
 210 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 done so; hut he dared not make so perilous an attempt. 
 While he was constrained to admit the change introduced 
 by Christianity into domestic and public moral:?, he strove 
 as far as possible to weaken the force of his concessions, by 
 the air of levity with which he uttered them. But the 
 wrath of man has been here as elsewhere, compelled to 
 praise the God whose holiness it abhors. But the conces- 
 sions of the infidel historian to the change wrought by the 
 introduction of the Gospel in the sentiments of mankind, 
 concerning the marriage contract, and other j oints in 
 which the dignity of woman was intimately connect ed, 
 may \\cll be reckoned a striking attestation of the fact, 
 that our sex has been immeasurably blessed and ennobled 
 by the delusion of that glorious light of life. 
 
 Wherever (he banner of the cross was unfurled, in (he 
 early a^csof Christianity, there; were females to be found 
 readx to rally around it, whose devotion to the glorious 
 cause was proof against the most seductive blandishments 
 of the world. When the threat adversary of man assailed 
 the infant churches of God and incited the heathen rulers 
 of the dilTercnt countries of the world to exert all their 
 power i:i overcoming the faith of th.e primitive believers, 
 then did the grace of God frequently make his s!rer;gth 
 perfected in weakness, by calling forth young and timid 
 fem;i!''S from the shades of retirement, and setting them 
 forth ns pillars in his church, to sustain the whole weight 
 of persecution directed against them. When on some 
 occasions honored by suflering for their Lord, and in con- 
 formih to his. death, they " from the cross by their earnest 
 prayers infused much alacrity into the contending martyrs 
 who surrounded," and on others, when released from (he 
 stake .'iiul hurried back to prison, they by gaining the vic- 
 tory in many conflicts, though email, weak and contemptible
 
 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 217 
 
 in themselves, yet being clothed with the glorious panoply 
 of Christ, were able to overcome the host of their vindic- 
 tive enemies, and after mightily encouraging their breth- 
 ren received the crown of immortality, and joined the 
 glorious cloud of witnesses which will continue evermore 
 surrounding the church militant, to encourage its members 
 in their progress heavenwards. 
 
 It is a well known fact that the blood of the martyrs, 
 poured forth in copious streams, through the gar- 
 den of the Lord, became by the blessing of God, one of 
 the most efficient causes of its subsequent fertility ; and since, 
 as we have seen, the crimson flood was swelled abundantly 
 by contributions poured forth from female hearts, then 
 may we on this account alone, be authorized in 
 believing that the women of the primitive churches were 
 most effective moral agents in the dissemination of truth. 
 In addition to this we have abundant testimony, that in 
 the centuries subsequent, their holy examples were emi- 
 nently instrumental in diffusing the light of the Gospel. 
 Bertha, the Christian bride of Egbert, who united in his 
 person the titles of the previous contending princes of the 
 Saxon Heptarchy, is declared on good authority to have 
 exerted her powerful influence, in inducing her pagan 
 husband to listen to the truths of Christianity, and to pa- 
 tronize its ministers. 
 
 Clovis, the founder of the French monarchy is also rep- 
 resented by historians, as having been converted to Chris- 
 tianity and induced to establish its rites in his dominion! 
 by the persuasions of his wife Clotilda, a Burgundian prin- 
 cess. The information already brought forward, though 
 by no means novel in itself, should be considered impor- 
 tant when forming our opinions in respect to to the in- 
 
 19
 
 218 WOMEN OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 fluence exerted by woman as soen as released from the 
 thraldom of paganism, she was allowed to take her part in 
 the arena of life, in the station to which her Maker had 
 especially destined her, as the ministering servant of the 
 'Hod of love.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 
 
 If the truth of God as revealed in Scripture was design- 
 ed to be the polar star, by which woman was to navigate 
 her own little bark safely over the troublesome waves of 
 the world, and by whose light she was to be guided in her 
 most effective ministrations of mercy to others, then it 
 would seem a natural consequence flowing from this, that 
 a departure by any sex or body of people from the funda- 
 mental doctrines and precepts of this charter of our spirit- 
 ual and social privileges, would either entail on those 
 guilty of such an aberration, degradation, in the condition 
 of their females, or occasion a liability to distortion in their 
 moral and social developments. Has this supposition 
 been verilied or disproved by the experience of mankind? 
 
 I think the former may safely be asserted to have been 
 the case. It has uniformly been observed, that wherever 
 the church of any country or people has been found 
 obscured in its brightness through doctrinal error, 
 or defective expositions of practical truth, there has been 
 ever perceptible a want of effective or sound moral 
 agency, among its female members; and when to 
 spiritual darkness has been conjoined intellectual disad- 
 vantages, these evils have been perceived to operate more 
 severely on our sex than on the other. 
 
 It may possibly be asserted in opposition to this opinion, 
 that the age of chivalry was a period in which females
 
 220 WOMEN UNDER DEFECT1YE CREEDS. 
 
 exerted an extraordinary power over the interests of society, 
 and yet notwithstanding, it was an era in which reli- 
 gious truth was very imperfectly developed, and in which 
 fanaticism and bigotry were common to the public mind. 
 Both of these assertions are undoubtedly correct ; but 
 it should be remembered that the spirit of chivalry 
 which displayed itself in fantastic institutions and proved 
 the prolitic parent of capricious and extravagant opinions 
 and practices, was not the result of a retrogade movement 
 in the human mind, but was on the contrary rather an 
 incipient effort to approximate towards the truth, and had, 
 it is well known, a very serious influence in refining the 
 habits and manners of the European nations? It seems to 
 have been one of the evidences that the spirit of improve- 
 ment had been hovering over the dark and troubled wa- 
 ters of human society, which, during the feudal ages, had 
 been kept in perpetual agitation, while anarchy, rapine 
 and war universally abounded. Moreover the position 
 in which some of the female sex were enthroned by the 
 romantic institutions of chivalry, though undoubtedly 
 more gratifying to pride and vanity, than that which had 
 been assigned to it in the preceding and darker ages, was 
 certainly not calculated to meet the original designs of the 
 Almighty in its creation, while undoubtedly he caused it 
 ultimately to subserve his wise purposes. 
 
 The characteristic qualities most highly esteemed dur- 
 ing this remarkable era, were by no means such, as in 
 modern ethics, or by divine philosophy, are ranked among 
 the highest attributes of the human mind. Dexterity in 
 the management of the steed and the lance were consider- 
 ed as equally essential to the fame of the true knight, with 
 the graces of valor and courtesy, while the regulation of the 
 understanding, the will and the affections, by principles
 
 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 221 
 
 drawn from the oracles of revealed truth, was scarce con- 
 sidered a practicable attainment. Religion was made to 
 consist in a scrupulous adherence to a routine of external 
 observances, and that piety, which owes its vitality to a 
 living faith in the Redeemer, and evidences its existence, 
 when working by love it seeks to perfect and discipline the 
 heavenly seed, was 'unknown or unpraqticed, except by a 
 few solitary individuals. 
 
 Accordingly, if we consult the literature of the period, 
 for facts' illustrative of the existing social relations, we 
 sb.all find Indeed a portion of the female community install- 
 ed in certain rights and privileges which constituted them 
 to- a degree arbiters of public opinion; but the influence 
 thus derived will be found to have been indebted for its exis- 
 tence and permanence, chiefly to adventitious circumstan- 
 stances. Personal charms and graces, and, generally 
 speaking, rank and station in.life, were essential requisites 
 to the possession or exercise of female influence. The 
 ornament of a meek and quiet spirit would have little 
 availed its fair possessor, but beautiful features, a graceful 
 form, witty and brilliant manners, and gorgeous apparel, 
 entitled many a female aspirant to distinction, to take her 
 place of honor, to adjudicate on the contending claims of 
 rival champions, and to confer the palm of victory. 
 There were then none of those noiseless but powerful in- 
 fluences at work on the under current of society, by which 
 means woman, through the medium of her hold on the 
 affections was designed under God, to be chiefly instru- 
 mental in advancing the moral regeneration of mankind. 
 
 Let us glance at the women of the church of Rome 
 which by Protestant Christians, is believed to have de- 
 parted grievously in her doctrines and institutions, from 
 the purity of the apostolic church. At a period when 
 
 19*
 
 222 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 
 
 multiplied facilities in acquiring wealth and the dignities 
 of rank and station had exerted a most unfortunate influ- 
 ence over the Romish priesthood, it was deemed judicious 
 for the maintenance of their spiritual and temporal power, 
 to incorporate certain novel customs and practices into their 
 ritual, in the hope they might serve as redeeming helps to 
 waning authority. Many ingenious plans were devised in 
 the hope of substituting ceremonial sanctity for the reli- 
 gion of the heart; one not the least early resorted to, and 
 to which adherence has heen tenaciously preserved, 
 was that of the enforcement of celibacy on the clergy, and 
 subsequently the introduction of the monastic and con- 
 ventual system into the church at large. 
 
 This practice which originated ostensibly from a desire 
 to restore primitive sanctity to a backsliding church, was 
 in fact a mere delusion, whose tendency has ever been to 
 contravene the designs of the Almighty in the creation of 
 our sex, in various particulars. In the first place, it has 
 detached a large body of females, and those frequently the 
 best fitted for duty, from the ties of family and those social 
 influences, by which woman's nature was designed to be 
 specially efficient in the promotion of the temporal and 
 eternal interests of her immediate circle of connections, 
 and through them on society at large. And, secondly, 
 the result has uniformly been to substitute the claims to a 
 mystic and ethereal sublimation of the affections, on the 
 possession of which, an assumption of merit may be based, 
 for the practical and wholesome virtues inculcated by the 
 Gospel of grace, and which we have seen that woman was 
 peculiarly required to manifest, and by the extension of 
 which alone her efficiency as a moral agent can be pro- 
 perly secured. 
 
 In the ages preceding the Reformation, the conventual
 
 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 223 
 
 system was astonishingly popular, and in those countries 
 of the present and past centuries in which popery has been 
 the dominant religion, it has existed to an alarming extent; 
 In Spain alone, we are informed' on good authority, that 
 at the close .of the last century, there were not less than 
 40,000 females immured in nunneries. A modern writer, 
 himself a deep sufferer from the evils which result from 
 the morbid excitement, and severance of the dearest ties 
 of the social relations, incident to those communities where 
 the claims of the cloister are considered as of paramount 
 importance to any that maybe presented to the female 
 heart, has given us some very affecting particulars of his 
 owrf family history, which with other facts furnished us in 
 his works, fully illustrate my position, that a departure 
 from the pure doctrines and institutions of the Gospel, has 
 an evident tendency to undermine sound and healthful 
 female influence and to induce great national evils.* 
 
 What ills have likewise resulted to woman, and how 
 grossly have her liberties been curtailed, by the practice of 
 auricular confession, and other institutions unwarranted 
 by Scripture, which the same church has seen fit to im- 
 pose on her credulous members? The mother, the wife, 
 and the sister, have in innumerable cases, been required 
 and compelled by a crafty priesthood to become the accu- 
 sers and destroyers of those, who were dear to them as 
 their own souls. With what pathos does Blanco White 
 describe the mute anguish depicted on his mother's face, 
 when she first was led to suspect that the child of her 
 tenderest affections was harboring heretical sentiments 
 towards their national faith; she passively, but in agony 
 
 t *./ * ** * 
 
 * See the letters of the Hev. Blanco White, a convert from the Popish 
 church of Spain, written under his own proper name, and also such as- 
 were published under an assumed one, as " Doblado's Letters."
 
 224 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 
 
 of mind severed the sweet tie of companionship, which in- 
 stinctively binds the maternal bosom to that of her off- 
 spring; for she had been taught by those who held her 
 spiritual nature in custody, that there were stronger claims 
 upon her than could be presented by her son. The holy 
 mother church had declared to her and all other females 
 thus situated, that it was a palpable sin committed by 
 them, if they divulged not in the silent recesses of the con- 
 fessional, any heretical sentiment uttered by the nearest 
 and dearest relatives, who might thus have rendered them- 
 selves cognizable to the ecclesiastical authorities and sub- 
 ject to the tyranny of the inquisition. 
 
 The Spanish nation at the present day, but more espe- 
 cially the females of it, are compelled to suffer the 
 severe penalties imposed on them in a great measure 
 through the instrumentality of Isabel the Catholic. With 
 elements of moral and intellectual character of the first 
 order, she lived only for others, and with generous magna- 
 nimity was ever ready to sacrifice personal considerations 
 for the promotion of the good of her subjects, and her 
 achievements for their advancement in civil and political 
 improvement, seem almost miraculous. She had, neverthe- 
 less committed the custody of her conscience to the priest- 
 hood of a corrupt church ; through the persuasions and by 
 the advice of certain of their order whom she venerated 
 as her spiritual counsellors, even she whose moral cha- 
 racter was eminently lovely, was induced in an evil hour 
 for her country, to establish the inquisition in her domin- 
 ions, the pernicious and most deleterious influence of which 
 on the best interests of that naturally noble minded people, 
 it is scarcely possible accurately to measure. 
 
 Nor has papa] policy been restricted in its malign ope- 
 rations upon the interests ofwoman, to one country. We
 
 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 226 
 
 find wherever it is dominant, her agency has been limited 
 and perverted. In polished and intellectual France, her 
 daughters have indeed been actively instrumental in the 
 cause of literature, and as femmes savantes have ranked 
 with the most gifted of the other sex; but as God's moral 
 agents they have effected little for the best interests of 
 humanity. They have dazzled the world by their bril- 
 liant writings, have had their saloons thronged by the 
 sages and the wits of Europe, who have bowed in homage 
 at their glittering shrines, but they have failed to accom- 
 plish the object designed in their creation. Napoleon's 
 acute mind perceived what his country wanted to render 
 her truly great " The fate of a child," said he, " is always 
 the work of its mother." He who had conquered empires 
 to add to the dominions of " la belle France," felt that he 
 needed another agency to secure her best interests, he 
 wanted mothers, and they have never, can never be reared 
 wisely and effectively but under the pure precepts of that 
 religion, which alone furnishes proper materials on which 
 to base the superstructuie of the maternal character, and 
 adequate motives to stimulate to the performance of its 
 legitimate duties. 
 
 If woman with the highest literary advantages has been 
 cramped in the exercise of her specific privileges, by the 
 malign influence of papacy, it is by no means surprising, 
 that among the churches of the East, which have also de- 
 parted from the purity of primitive doctrine and precept, 
 and are at the same time in a state of intellectual darkness, 
 she should have been still more grievously curtailed of her 
 rightful power. The females of the Armenian, Nestorian, 
 and Chaldean churches of Asia, are kept in a state of great 
 depression and ignorance, and to the great mass of 
 them, it is considered wholly unnecessary to impart the
 
 226 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 
 
 the most simple rudiments of instruction. The journals of 
 our different intelligent missionary tourists, who have furn- 
 ished the chief sources of information respecting them, 
 represent the prej udices against the female sex as among the 
 most deeply rooted of those with which they have been 
 called to conflict, and in some sections of the country 
 visited by Messrs. Smith and Dwight, it seemed little short 
 of an insult to the understanding of the men, to make 
 any attempt to enlighten the intellects of the females. In 
 the Greek church of Russia w'lose creed, as given to us by 
 the intelligent and Rev. Dr. Pinkerton is far less radically 
 corrupt than that of the Romish and Eastern churches, it has 
 been found that our sex may be rendered far more 
 useful. Some of the noble matrons of Russia in the 
 highest walks of life have proved that Christianity can 
 clothe their sex with a power over a comparatively rude, 
 and till within little more than a century, an uncivilized 
 nation, which the female members of the Romish church, 
 have never exhibited in polished and intellectual France. 
 The American Episcopal church has made an effort to test 
 what the same church in its own classic land can do by the 
 instrumentality of its youthful daughters, for the best in- 
 terests of society. They, under the sheltering wings of an 
 enlightened and Christian female of our own country, are 
 being prepared to bless and be blessed by Greece, and 
 already has one among the beloved little ones who with 
 her youthful companions have been circling the feet of 
 their excellent preceptress, and drinking in the pure and re- 
 freshing streams which flow from the fountain of living 
 waters, instructed her countrymen, who may be disposed to 
 listen to her voice, how to meet the last great enemy of man 
 more effectual)' than did the sagacious Socrates, the ad-
 
 WOMEN UNDEE DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 227 
 
 miring friends who surrounded his dying couch to reeeive 
 lessons on the same great truth. 
 
 It is a well known fact, that while true Christianity has 
 rendered its female disciples powerfully instrumental in 
 promoting the hest interests of society, the influence ex- 
 erted by those of our sex, whose minds have been sway- 
 ed by false and perverted views of religious truth, has 
 been among the most pernicious ever experienced by our 
 race. For many centuries preceding the reformation, 
 ecclesiastics in the various portions of Christendom, exert- 
 ed all their energies in endeavoring to repress and annihi- 
 late every vestige of opposition to the grievous corrup- 
 tions in doctrine and practice which everywhere abound- 
 ed. Among the various religionists who during that 
 dark period had been taught by the study of inspired truth 
 to detest, abhor and renounce the gross errors of a corrupt 
 faith, the Paulicans were rendered remarkable by their 
 courageous adherence to the word of God in opposition to 
 the traditions of men, by their purity of manners, and 
 by the virulent abuse of their enemies. Numbers of the 
 Greek emperors strove, by severe penal statutes, and the 
 agency of a host of vindictive and servile abettors 
 armed with plenary powers both legal and military, 
 to crush the Paulicians whose primitive simplicity of 
 manners and abhorrence of popular superstitions, were 
 regarded in the light of severe crimes by the royal cham- 
 pions of a self-styled orthodoxy. "Theodora empress of 
 Constantinople, who swayed the sceptre of the East, dur- 
 ing the middle of the ninth century, has however been 
 awarded by friends and enemies, the questionable honor 
 of having exceeded the most ferocious of her royal line in 
 sanguinary devotion to the work of exterminating heresy. 
 Her inquisitors explored alike the crowded cities, obscure
 
 228 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 
 
 recesses and mountain fastnesses of Asia Minor, in prose- 
 cution of their bloody purposes, and " the flatterers of the 
 empress have affirmed that in a short reign, one hundred 
 thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the sword, the 
 gibbet and the flame."* The 24th of August, 1572, so 
 memorable in the history of France, attests in character of 
 blood, the evils that may flow forth to a nation when a 
 female mind placed in a station of commanding authority, 
 yields itself to the pernicious and insidious influence of a 
 false faith. Catharine de Medici, utterly devoid as she 
 was of principle, was a zealous bigot in the cause of papa- 
 cy, and like an evil spirit, exerted her authority during 
 her regency, in embroiling all ranks and parties in her 
 kingdom. But the darling project which lay nearest her 
 heart was the extinction of the Protestant faith. While 
 her external deportment was bland and courteous, in order 
 to disarm suspicion and lull her victims into a false secu- 
 rity; while Bayonne was the theatre of festivities and 
 gaieties, the wily and sanguinary Catharine, having drawn 
 the duke of Alva to the place, ostensibly as an escort to 
 her daughter, the queen of Spain, found time to concert 
 with him a holy league, as it was called, but one whose 
 paramount object was the extirpation of heresy. 
 
 A day was fixed, and orders were secretly despatched 
 through the kingdom for a general and simultaneous massa- 
 cre. Catharine with smiles and caresses allured the leaders 
 of the Protestant party to the capital, and so faithfully were 
 her sanguinary purposes accomplished, that it is computed 
 60,000 human beings fell a sacrifice to the perverted influ- 
 ence of one female mind swayed by a false faith. When 
 the moment of action came, the weak and irresolute Charles 
 
 Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Chap. LI V.
 
 WOMEN UNDER DEFECTIVE CREEDS. 229 
 
 trembled with the fears common to pusillanimous and 
 guilty minds. He would even then, fain have withdrawn 
 from participating in or sanctioning the murderous designs 
 of his more depraved parent. This hesitation arose in- 
 deed, not from any conscientious scruples, but from a dread 
 of the personal consequences which might result to himself. 
 Catharine saw and felt the importance of this crisis. She 
 knew the weakness of her son, and was well aware of the 
 channel through which the most powerful motives might 
 be brought to bear upon his guilty soul. She availed her- 
 self of her advantages, and became a ministering spirit of 
 evil to him, and to his people. She would not leave him 
 for a moment lest another should supplant her in the exer- 
 cise of influence over htm, until the fatal crisis was passed, 
 and to recede became impossible. She then left her son's 
 side, and with her ladies around her, stood at a window of the 
 palace, feasting her eyes on the sights of horror presented 
 in the streets below, where the innocent and unsuspecting 
 Protestants were being slaughtered by thousands. 
 
 20
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 After the glories of the Grecian and Roman empires had 
 passed away, the Saracens and Goths, who had seized 
 upon the fragmentary portions of the latter and divided 
 its spoil, having for a season dazzled and terrified society 
 by their exploits,had withdrawn the former to the regions 
 of the east, in which they had sought to collect the trea- 
 sures of knowledge, and to attract the sons of science ; while 
 the latter had retired again to the shades of their forests, 
 or had seated themselves permanently in their self-acquired 
 possessions. The march of civilization and refinement 
 was then suspended, and for centuries a funeral pall co- 
 vered the nations of Europe. 
 
 Amidst this Cimmerian darkness however, the falsity 
 and imperfection of the standard of duty devised by unas- 
 sisted reason, and the glosses which scholastic theology, in 
 the hands of an ignorant and designing priesthood, had 
 thrown over the scriptural expositions of truth, were 
 gradually revealed by the labors of pious champions of 
 civil and religious liberty, whom God in infinite mercy, 
 from time to time, raised up, and sent forth into a benighted 
 world to protest against error ii) all its forms, and to contend 
 earnestly for truth in its purity. Soon the vitality of vir- 
 tue, originating in faith in the Son of God, based on the 
 precepts of his Word, animated by his Spirit and instinct 
 with his love, was rendered openly manifest, and the
 
 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 231 
 
 fruits and flowers of piety sprang forth, to beautify the 
 lately desolate and waste places of society. In the natu- 
 ral world, vegetation, if deprived of the sun, would become 
 dwarfish and stinted, and the colorless and sickly blossom 
 would be as incapable of perfecting seed, as the earth 
 would be of germinating that committed to her bosom; 
 so in the moral world, has it been found that the fruits and 
 flowers of holiness cannot be developed by our fallen 
 race when excluded from his beams who is the centre of 
 spiritual light, and whose moral perfections have been 
 summed up by the apostle in those few but emphatic 
 words, " God is love." 
 
 Amidst the obscurity and gloom of the middle ages, the 
 two great divisions of the human race those of the East 
 and West gradually severed whatever bond of companion- 
 ship had previously existed between them, and when the 
 curtain rose again from society, it revealed the European 
 mind greatly changed in many important particulars. 
 The Gothic nations, originally rude and barbarous, under 
 the benign influence of the Gospel of love developed a 
 moral nobility of being, essentially different from the cha- 
 racteristics of human nature previously exhibited. The 
 nations on the south of the great Alpine barrier, who had 
 for ages been revelling in luxury, had become effeminate 
 through its excess, while those on the northern side re- 
 tained their primitive simplicity and unlettered rudeness. 
 A time however came, when the hardy sons of the north 
 could evince a decided superiority over their once vaunt- 
 ing neighbors. 
 
 Various circumstances conspired to give the English 
 nation peculiar facilities for commencing the mighty work 
 of reformation of religious abuses, and for throw ing off the 
 shackles of papal servitude. Her insular position in a
 
 232 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 measure detached her from the vigilant supervision of pon- 
 tifical power, and the very fact that only one of the mul- 
 titude, who in successive ages filled the chair of St. Peter, 
 was an Englishman by birth, prevented the exhibition of 
 that reciprocal sympathetic action which was else- 
 where so often observable between different popes and 
 the land of their birth. Several of the sovereigns of 
 England, had questioned the right and rejected the extra- 
 vagant claims of pontifical and ecclesiastical power, not 
 on the ground of Us intrinsic injustice, but because the 
 exercise of it conflicted with their own prerogatives. The 
 decided conduct of William the Norman, Henry II., and 
 Edward I. and III., in maintainingin their kingdom a power 
 which should preside over that of the church, can find no 
 parallel among the continental princes of the same era; 
 and the removal of the papal court to Avignon, which had 
 been acceded to, as a matter of policy by the church of 
 Rome, was evidently greatly instrumental in severing her 
 hold on the hearts of the English nation. 
 
 Among the holy men who during the prevalence of 
 ignorance and superstition, being enlightened by the spirit 
 of God, had detected the errors of the age in which they 
 lived, and boldly and faithfully proclaimed the truth to 
 those around them Bradwardine, Grosstete, Roger Ba- 
 con, and especially Wycliffe, form a brilliant assemblage, 
 and will ever rank among the names of the religious and 
 civil benefactors of society. In their several places and 
 vocations they were eminently useful in promoting the 
 best interests, not only of England, the land of their birth, 
 but of mankind at large. 
 
 Christian females were, however, in that trying era to 
 be found vindicating effectually their right to the title of 
 God's moral agents. And to them it may confidently be
 
 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 233 
 
 affirmed, that under Providence we are at this moment 
 indebted for some of our dearest and most cherished bless- 
 ings. In the commencement of the 13th century, the 
 haughty and bigoted Innocent III. exerted all his influence 
 and arbitrary power in exterminating the pacific Walden- 
 ses, those true disciples of the Saviour, by interesting the 
 princes and people of Europe to join with him in battle 
 array against them. The inquisition was instituted, that 
 most powerful engine of papal power in securing its un- 
 hallowed purposes, and all the horrors of persecution were 
 unloosed against those who attempted to oppose the 
 bloody designs of the pontiff. But in that awful crisis 
 many noble and pious females on the frontiers of Piedmont 
 and Savoy, were found ready, by the grace of God, to 
 peril every thing in shielding the unhappy Waldenses from 
 the fury of Innocent and the brutal threats of the execu- 
 tioners of his vengeance. The portals of their castles 
 were thrown open to afford asylums to, and their gold and 
 silver were expended in support of, the persecuted disci- 
 ples of a pure faith. 
 
 Wycliffe, the father of the English reformation, by the 
 machinations of the pope, and the malice of his other 
 bigoted enemies, was in 1378 summoned before a synod 
 convened in Lambeth, in which all the highest ecclesiasti- 
 cal dignitaries of the kingdom were seated in stern array 
 against him. His former noble and powerful patron, the 
 duke of Lancaster, had deserted him, and apparently alone, 
 exposed to the fierce attacks of his enemies, stood the 
 apostle of the English Church, and the champion of his 
 country's civil liberties. The populace surrounded the 
 place of meeting, zealously manifesting their attachment 
 to his person and belief in his opinions, but wanting cour- 
 age to deliver the venerable man from the perils which 
 
 20*
 
 234 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 were menacing him in that trying hour. To woman was 
 granted the privilege of being the protectress of the op- 
 pressed Wycliffe. Joanna the Queen Dowager, the 
 widow of Edward the Black Prince and mother of the 
 young and feeble minded Richard II., then in his mi- 
 nority, had listened to the preaching of the reformer, 
 and probably had become acquainted and attached 
 to him personally, while he had officiated as chap- 
 lain in the court of her father-in-law, Edward III. She 
 was now not ashamed to acknowledge her belief in his 
 tenets, and her sympathy with his distress. She despatched 
 her messenger, Sir Lewis Clifford, to the synod, and 
 peremptorily forbade them to proceed against the reformer 
 officially. This princess adorned her high station by those 
 feminine and Christian graces which render truly pious 
 females most lovely, and at the same time by her dignity 
 of mien and intellectuality of character, commanded and 
 ensured respect to all her requirements. Her orders were 
 therefore no sooner presented to the haughty conclave, 
 than, says one of their historians indignantly, "their 
 speech became softer than oil;" and the reformer, whom 
 in the morning they had regarded as their certain victim, 
 was allowed in the evening to walk forth unmolested. A 
 Christian female had been the means, under Providence, 
 of defeating all the malicious designs of the enemies of 
 truth, and of sending forth its apostle to bless and enlighten 
 his country. 
 
 Nor was Joanna the sole patroness of this extraordinary 
 man, whose name is so closely identified with the civil and 
 religious interests of England. The amiable queen of 
 Richard II., the daughter, sister and wife of princes, enno- 
 bled her high birth by the conscientious fulfilment of every 
 social and religious duty. She publicly and with modest
 
 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 236 
 
 but decided firmness protected Wycliffe, and after his 
 death, countenanced and sustained his followers. She 
 became, as it were, a beautiful connecting link, uniting the 
 spiritual interests of England, her adopted country, with 
 those of Germany, the land of her birth. For by her 
 faithful instructions and precautions, her attendants were 
 thoroughly indoctrinated in the faith of the Gospel as pro- 
 mulgated by Wycliffe, and after her death, they returned 
 to disseminate it in Germany, destined to be the cradle 
 of the reformation. 
 
 In after times the accession of Elizabeth to the throne 
 of England was hailed with lively joy by her Protestant 
 subjects, and to a certain extent she did not disappoint their 
 sanguine hopes. She not only conducted her administra- 
 tion with such wise policy, by collecting around her person 
 most able and sagacious ministers, as raised the nation to 
 a height of glory and prosperity to which it had never 
 before attained; but she likewise firmly established the 
 pure doctrines of the reformation, and secured the safety 
 of its disciples throughout her dominions. But Elizabeth 
 was not controlled by genuine religious principle, and her 
 regulations in respect to the extension of her own faith, were, 
 it is to be feared, dictated more by motives of state policy, 
 than by those of genuine piety. She was pre-eminently 
 selfish, and therefore while by her exertions for the spread 
 of the Protestant tenets, she was instrumental in entailing 
 certain great blessings on her country, she was herself 
 destined, amidst all the luxury and brilliancy of a crowded 
 court* to feel the bitter pangs of an accusing conscience, 
 and to find her closing days uncheered and unblessed by 
 others. 
 
 During the latter part of the 15th, and the commence- 
 ment of the 16-th century, the cities of northern Italy,
 
 236 WOMEN OP PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 formed a centre of attraction towards which distinguished 
 literary characters were continual! j directing their atten- 
 tion. Among these cities Ferrara, the metropolis of the 
 princes of Este, was not the least noted, and in its court, 
 Tasso and Ariosto, with others of celebrity for genius, 
 found protection and munificent patronage. 
 
 At the commencement of the 16th century, this city was 
 blessed in having as its Duchess, Renee of France, daugh- 
 ter of Charles XII. This princess was no less remarkable 
 for her accomplishment and proficiency in human learning, 
 than for the purity and elevated tone of her Christian 
 character. She made her court an asylum for the votaries 
 of learning, but not less so to the pious disciples of that 
 faith which exposed its followers to the fury of papal per- 
 secution. 
 
 She had been blessed with a pious governess, Madame 
 Soubise, who by the influence she exerted over her be- 
 loved pupil, was, by the blessing God, the means of win- 
 ning her to a firm attachment to the Protestant religion. 
 After a time, the duke of Ferrara, instigated by the Pope, 
 became alarmed at the power which this amiable lady, 
 who had accompanied her beloved pupil to her husband's 
 dominions, was exercising over his duchess, and he ban- 
 ished her from his court. The pious princess sought con- 
 solation in the duties of religion and in a sedulous devotion 
 to the education of her children then quite young. 
 
 Renee furnishes us with an interesting example, illus- 
 trative of the power conferred on woman by Christianity. 
 Though somewhat deformed, her personal defects are 
 stated " to have been so amply compeniated by the beau- 
 ties of her mind and the graces of her heart, that taking all 
 in nil, she had fur more reason to think herself obliged to 
 nature than to complain." She was much distinguished
 
 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 237 
 
 on the one hand for the tender sympathy which she was 
 ever ready to manifest with the poor, the orphan, and those 
 suffering under bodily afflictions, and on the other, for the 
 princely munificence with which she relieved these vari- 
 ous objects of distress. When the Duke of Guise made his 
 memorable expedition into Italy, spreading terror around, 
 and marking his steps with blood and rapine the excel- 
 lent Duchess of Ferrara rescued, it was computed, not 
 less than 10,000 persons of various ranks and descriptions 
 from the destruction which would otherwise have over- 
 taken them. 
 
 At another period she subjected herself to threats of 
 vengeance from France, because she ventured to make one 
 of her castles an asylum for hundreds of suffering Protes- 
 tants, many of whom were persons of distinction. With 
 the firmness and true heroism which Christianity imparts, 
 she hesitated not to assert her rights, and she did this so 
 effectually, as even to awe into silence the proud and 
 bigoted Duke of Guise, who at the time commanded the 
 army of France. 
 
 On various accounts her bitter enemies, the Romanists, 
 were constrained to manifest towards her the highest re- 
 spect,and to tremble at the moral power which she exerted. 
 After her husband's death she left Ferrara and returned 
 to France, on which occasion, the Jesuits are stated to 
 have been the only individuals who did riot bewail her 
 departure as a severe national calamity. So powerful an 
 opponent to the papal power was Renee considered by the 
 head of the church, that he hesitated not to seek her 
 destruction by endeavoring to poison the mind of her noble 
 husband, who had previously regarded her with unbounded 
 esteem and affection. He likewise endeavored to enlist as 
 a persecutor of the pious Renee, Henry II. of France, wha
 
 238 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 was her nephew, and one who she regarded with warm 
 affection, and by whom she had been treated with respect- 
 ful tenderness. 
 
 These near and dear relatives of the duchess first em- 
 ployed more gentle means in seeking to win her back to 
 the Romish faith; and when these proved ineffectual, they 
 hesitated not to have recourse to harsher measures. They 
 threatened to separate her from her beloved and lovely 
 children, and to exclude any one suspected of heretical 
 sentiments from having access to her person; under the 
 anguish of these moments, the illustrious Renee made cer- 
 tain concessions, but could never be compelled to espouse 
 the Romish faith, whose corruptions she felt and abhorred. 
 
 She had collected at her capital some of the most emi- 
 nent literary characters of the age, of whose assistance she 
 desired to avail herself in the education of her beloved 
 children. But she was not content with providing them 
 able instructors in human science, she sought with eager 
 assiduity to cultivate their moral natures to the best pos- 
 ble advantage. The expedient devised by her for this 
 purpose, was as rare as it was efficacious; she sought out 
 crtain young females of rank for their companions, whose 
 influence should be exerted in winning her own beautiful 
 and highly gifted daughters to piety and learning. 
 
 Among the band of youthful females selected by this 
 princess, as the conservatives of her dearest interests, was 
 Olympia Morata, whose biographers doubt, " whetner she 
 was more beautiful in person, or more accomplished in 
 mind; more masculine in understanding or more feminine 
 in manners; more firm or more gentle; more estimable or 
 more lovely ; more beloved on earth, or more ripe for 
 heaven." 
 
 This lovely and gifted creature moved in the brilliant
 
 i 
 
 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY, 239 
 
 court circles of Ferrara, perpetually encircled by a halo 
 of moral beauty. She constrained those around to love 
 piety as she embodied it into practice, while she com- 
 manded no less uniformly, respect and deference to it by 
 the intellectual graces with which it was seen associated in 
 her. The moral power which she exerted in her youth 
 and loveliness among the noble and talented of both 
 sexes in the court of Renee, became at length so formid- 
 able that the court of Rome was made to tremble at it; 
 and her emissaries were empowered by every possible 
 means to endeavor to blight the prospects of Olympia 
 Morata. She was assailed in all quarters. Her enemies 
 exerted themselves to make her tenets the subject of 
 odium to the Duke, while by other expedients they sought 
 to alienate from her by misrepresentation of her conduct, 
 the affections of the Duchess. Olympia was banished from 
 court, and from the land of her birth; but her oppressors 
 could not so readily force her gentle image from the hearts 
 of those who had long known and loved her; neither could 
 they neutralize her influence as they had hoped, in the 
 ducal family. The lovely Anne d'Este, whose beauty, 
 accomplishments and talents, were subsequently instru- 
 mental in making moral worth respected even in the dis- 
 solute capital of France, loved and deferred to Olympia; 
 and by her persuasions was incited when she became 
 Duchess of Guise, to make extraordinary exertions in be- 
 half of the distressed and suffering Hugenots, before she had 
 made a regular religious profession. When in her presence, 
 the ferocious Catharine de Medici called exultingly to her 
 female attendants to enjoy the sight of the slaughtered 
 Protestants, Anne d' Este went nobly forward, and with 
 tears besought her as she loved her son or country, to com- 
 mand a cessation of the carnage. Anne was five years
 
 240 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the junior of Olympia Morata, and regarded her with the 
 warmest affection and most unbounded confidence. In 
 her hours of exile and suffering the lovely and patient 
 victim of persecution, lost not sympathy for her noble 
 friends who were surrounded with the honors and prosper- 
 ity of the world. She was rather incited to redoubled 
 zeal for their spiritual interests, and to a more tender and 
 yearning atlection for them. With fervent zeal and impor- 
 tunity, she appealed to her beloved young friends who 
 were resident in the courts of Italy and France, conjuring 
 them to devote much attention to scriptural studies, and 
 to seek their highest satisfaction in these sacred avocations. 
 To one of these affectionate appeals she consecrated her 
 dying energies and strength, and in conclusion observed, 
 " May God for the sake of Christ grant, that I have not 
 written in vain. I sincerely wish I were able, by my 
 death to be of service to you and others, in the things that 
 pertain to salvation." 
 
 Margaret of Navarre was the cousin, and in some re- 
 spects a kindred spirit of Renee, though far her inferior in 
 piety. She is said to have been the instrumental cause of 
 the conversion of the famous Calvin. This princess had 
 invited to her city of Bourges, as professor of Greek litera- 
 ture, a certain pious Lutheran divine, to whom Calvin was 
 indebted for his knowledge and Adoption of the reformed 
 faith, in the diffusion of which he acted a most conspicu- 
 ous part in subsequent years. 
 
 It would however be presenting but an imperfect esti- 
 mate of the influence exercised by the females of Protes- 
 tant Christianity, were we to limit our observations to those 
 only of their number who have swayed the sceptre of 
 kingdoms, or lived in the halls of nobles. The individuals 
 of high rank whose names have been cited, did undoubt-
 
 WOMEN OP PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 241 
 
 edly exercise a most benign influence in their conspicuous 
 stations ; but it has been by no means to such members of 
 the Protestant faith exclusively that mankind has been in- 
 debted for blessings conferred through their instrumen- 
 tality. On the contrary, I apprehend, that were we able 
 to sum up evidence confirmatory of the moral power 
 which has been exerted by the class of Protestant females 
 who have occupied the chief places in society, and then, if 
 it were possible, draw up an estimate of that which has 
 been, and is at this moment being exercised in our own 
 country and in Great Britain alone, by pious women in 
 their respective fields of exertion in inferior stations, we 
 should find on comparing the two accounts, an immense 
 superiority in favor of the latter. 
 
 In a previous chapter of this work an attempt was made 
 to point out briefly the duties which we supposed were 
 especially allotted by God to woman in the station to which 
 he had appointed her under the divine economy. The 
 opportunities afforded her for eminent usefulness in the 
 discharge of the various duties of the maternal, conjugal, 
 and filfal relations, as well as of those growing out of the 
 position held by her in other departments of domestic life, 
 and the legitimate field of exertion of a more public kind, 
 opened before her in numerous directions, by means of 
 which she was fitted to be eminently useful in extending 
 the borders of her Redeemer's kingdom, and in ameliora- 
 ting the spiritual, intellectual, and physical wants of her 
 fellow members in the vast human family were also 
 sketched in a cursory manner. In all these departments 
 of duty, we hesitate not in asserting that the women of 
 Protestant Christianity have been eminently useful. And 
 indeed among all the various bodies of females who have 
 heretofore filled stations in society, or are now occupying 
 
 21
 
 242 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 them, they only have been enabled pre-eminently in the 
 various walks of life to meet the designs of the Almighty 
 in the creation of their sex. 
 
 On one occasion while receiving a pamphlet of con- 
 siderable interest from the pen of a member of this honor- 
 able body, a writer in the London Christian Observer, of 
 Dec., 1815, makes the following gratifying acknowledg- 
 ment of the worth and efficiency of that class of moral 
 agents, of whom the authoress, Miss Sinclair, was a worthy 
 representative the Protestant female Christians of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 " We are anxious," the writer remarks, " in taking up 
 a pamphlet like the present, to avoid the current language 
 of compliment to the female sex, while we acknowledge 
 with gratitude to God, the great blessings which their 
 piety and virtue so often confer on ours. Blessings which 
 have been never greater than at the present moment, 
 when among the most excellent and useful of our writers 
 the most active and enlightened of our philanthropists 
 the wisest guides of youth the most efficient supporters 
 of our charitable institutions the best friends of the poor, 
 the sick, the outcast, the prisoner we may enumerate 
 females, who without derogating from the retiring delicacy 
 which becomes their character, have contrived simply, 
 piously, actively, unostentatiously, to confer benefits upon 
 their country; for which many a succeeding race will arise 
 to call them blessed." 
 
 To few, perhaps, to no other moral writer of the age 
 is society in all its ranks under such great obligations as 
 to Hannah More, for the variety, the extent, and the sea- 
 sonableness of her literary labors. To her active exer- 
 tions in the cause of philanthropy, and to the light of her 
 consistent and holy Christian example, her country is in- 
 debted also in an eminent degree.
 
 WOMEN OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. 243 
 
 In the mind of Louise Schepler, a respected and at- 
 tached domestic of Oberlin and a devoted disciple of the 
 reformed faith, originated the useful Infant School system. 
 The numerous benevolent and charitable associations of 
 the present day both in Great Britain and America, are 
 mainly and most efficiently conducted by Protestant 
 females. No names among our countrywomen have been 
 more honored in life, or more generally embalmed in the 
 memory and affections of our citizens than those of the 
 venerated Mrs. Isabella Graham of New York, and Mrs. 
 Ralston of Philadelphia; who we believe are universally 
 admitted to have taken the lead of all others, in this 
 country, in rearing asylums for our orphans and widows.
 
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