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Woman's SDebt to tlje Ctmrel).
# §>mtton
PREACHED IN
<0rac*e Cljurci), HBalttmorr,
BY
fflfce ffieto. «C(mimcep '5B. ¦^cew^ter,
Staor, ¦ -
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 28th, 1886.
PRINTED BY REQUEST
OF THE
a©omen of tfte C<m0re£jati<m.

Roman's Debt to the Church.

3. Sermon
FREACHED IN
45race Church, Baltimore,
BV
fflbc IfM. Cfwuncep %. <2Bretti0tct,
Bector, ' "
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 28th, 1886.

PRINTED DY REQUEST
OF THE
U0omen of tbe Congregation.

¦""¦phis sermon was preached as a preliminary to the first meeting
of the parochial branch of the Woman's Auxiliary. Conscious
of its imperfections, the preacher with some reluctance yields
to the kind request that it be printed. In this more permanent
form, he esteems it a privilege to dedicate it
(€a tbe 'SMEiWeb .JUiiniiorp
of one who, in the simplicity, serenity and dignity of a noble nature,
and in the beauty of a character rounded to a fair completeness,
realized to him a high ideal of womanly grace and excellency,
and to whom, as wife and best friend, he owes
far more than he may hope to express.

These all continued, with one accord, in prayer and supplication with the women,
and Mary the mother of Jesus. — Acts of the Apostles I: 14.

After the Lord's Ascension the Apostles returned to Jerusalem.
And there we find them continuing in common prayer and supplica
tion "with the women." The presence of. women at these services
of intercession is recorded as a fact worthy of note. It must have
then and there had an aspect of novelty. In the Temple there was a
separate court for the women. They were also kept apart in the
synagogues, where, indeed, until recently, they have been accustomed
to sit behind a curtain or screen. This admission of women to full
participation in the services of the Apostles presents a marked.
contrast to Hebrew usage. It is a sign of the difference the neAv
faith had made at the outset in the position of women. It is an
instance, slight perhaps, yet indicative of results that since that
day have been effected on a large scale.
Let me call your attention to AY Oman's Debt to the Christian
Church. I might say her debt to our Blessed Lord Himself. But
Christ and His Church are one ; and my reference, furthermore, is
to the gradual elevation of womanhood, effected through the Institu
tion founded by Christ. It may be well for you to be reminded
how largely the position whicli woman enjoys to-day she owes to
Christianity. Gro back and look at her position amidst the most highly
developed civilizations of classic antiquity. Among the G-reeks the
epic and dramatic portrayals of a ruder age had immortalized such
types of noble womanhood as Andromache, Penelope, Alcestis and

Antigone. But in the culminating period, the age of Pericles,
woman had slight share in the glories of that illustrious time.
Her fate was disposed of with as little regard to her wishes as
if she had been a chattel. Her normal condition was one of
almost entire seclusion and utter obscurity. The great historian
makes Pericles himself pronounce it a woman's chief glory, that of
her "there may as little as possible be said among men either for good
or for evil."* If women won respect for intellectual attainments, or
associated at all as equals with men, it was at the expense of
their modesty and honor. Aspasia, Diotima and others might be
recalled from the pages of literary men of that day.
The Romans, who were of sturdier virtue until they were corrupted
by the Greeks and Orientals, paid far more honor to matron and to
maiden. In the Roman law, however, woman's status was hardly that
of a person. She was under the absolute authority of father
or husband. It is true there is to be traced a gradual emanci
pation of the sex, but this in turn led to arbitrary and unjust
measures of restriction, f In the best times of the Romans, whether
under Republic or Empire, the insignificance of the position of
woman, as recognized, may be understood from the fact that women
had no first names. They bore only the family name. The many
Julias, for example, of whom we read, were ladies of different
generations belonging to the Julian gens. This absence of distinctive
names would seem to indicate that not many daughters in a family
were reared, and thence is cast a lurid light upon the prevalence of
the practice of exposing female infants.
Among the Teutonic tribes, the sex had a much higher position.
The Roman historian, Tacitus, describes the veneration of those

* Thucydides II, 45.
I Jlommsen's " History of Rome, " II, 484,

primitive Germans for their women. \ But it is generally believed
that his picture is purposely overdrawn in order to impress and
rebuke his dissolute fellow-countrymen.
We may not omit to notice one assigned cause to which is often
traced the elevation of woman. Out of the forests of Germany may
have come the feudal system, with the institution of chivalry, that
throws its romantic glamour over those later times of knights and
ladies. Unquestionably that institution set woman upon a kind of
pedestal. In feudal castle, at .tournament" and festival, she had a
position which she had not occupied before. Chivalry was a school,
with lessons of punctilious honor and fine sentiments, wherein men
might learn to be gallant and courteous, and all that we mean by
chivalrous. The medieval knight was the forerunner of the modern
gentleman. When all is said, however, it remains true that chivalry arose
from, and was bound up with, feudalism, which really meant odious
oppression, and the disorder and lawlessness of a state of things
where might made right. Moreover, underlying the professions of
chivalry, generous and noble even to extravagance, there was often
no little essential falsehood. Its romantic devotion to women was
largely the false honor of empty flattery, not seldom of licentious
passion. Its morals were far from pure. And when its influence
was salutary, we have to remember that the Church sanctioned
by religious ceremonies the profession of knighthood, and that
her influence must have greatly elevated and blessed the system
of chivalry. It is in the direction of the Church that women
must look, to ascertain the ground of the genuine deference and the
sterling honor which it is now their privilege to receive.
% Gcrniania, <: s, 18, 19.

In the first place, within the Church of the Incarnate Son,
women are daughters of the household of God. Christianity recog
nizes, in a way unknown under other systems, a certain equality and
community of woman with man, in the privileges of grace, "as being
heirs together of the grace of life," receiving one faith and one bap
tism, and partakers of one Holy Table. "There is neither male nor
female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." And there was neither
male nor female, just as there was neither Jew nor Greek, neither
bond nor free ; because of the deeper principles underlying the
distinctions of race, temporal condition, rank, and sex, viz. : the
true dignity of human nature, and the inherent worth of the
individual soul. In that home at Bethany, Christ cared as truly
for the soul of Mary as for her brother's; and the soul of the
poor out-cast woman was as valuable in His estimation, as that
of the proud Pharisee. It was an entirely new departure. This
profound and distinctively Christian principle, the essential worth
of the individual human being, involved the enfranchisement and
honor of woman.
Again, in its elevation of the moral as superior to the physical,
and even to the merely intellectual, the heart above brain or
brawn, Christianity has directly enhanced the dignity of the sex
whose power lies in the moral sphere. Its influence is seen, further
in the exaltation of those moral qualities in particular, which, under
valued by the ancient world, make the especial glory of womanhood,
such as purity, patience, compassion, kindness, sacrifice. That educa
tion of the world by Christianity has, we see, counted wholly upon
the side of an increased deference to woman. The argument becomes
especially strong, when, moreover, we consider how Christianity has
at the same time exalted woman's character itself, developing in
far higher degree those yery qualities that elicit admiration and

command homage, how it has made women more patient, more
compassionate, more unselfish, more kind, more pure, more self-
reliant, more true, more worthy of the respect and devotion of
Christian men .
Nor may we forget that which has been a mighty factor, both
in this development of womanly character and also in that moral
education of mankind, viz.: the Church's reverence for the mother
of our Lord. In the description in the text of the Apostolic
company, we read of "the women, and Mary the mother of
Jesus." No consideration of the relations of the Christian Church
to women would be complete that ignored her who was blessed
among women. The honor rendered to her has more than balanced
whatever of theological stigma rested upon woman through the
fault of Eve. It was a new consecration of womanhood. And
even although that just reverence eventually grew into the dogmas
and fables, and degenerated into the popular practices, of Mariola-
try, still who may compute the value, to those harsh, rough and
dark ages, of that ideal of virgin purity and motherly tenderness,
and all womanly qualities, presented in her to whom was paid
devotion as "Our Lady." We may lament, and, in loyalty
to God, AVho alone is worthy of worship, we must lament,
the unwarrantable excesses of that devotion, as it has been,
in late medieval and modern times, developed into feeble senti
mentalities, gross superstitions, and too often idolatrous creature-
worship. None the less thankfully, however, ought we to recognize
the blessing there has been for those generations of the past,
for those weak women and those lawless men, in the simple
fact that, as the holy maiden herself, filled with the Spirit,
foretold in the hymn Magnificat, all those generations have called
her blessed.

To the Christian Church the world owes the purification and
exaltation of marriage, with all that is therein implied for woman.
In ancient Greece marriage had no moral character, and was
regarded merely in a political aspect, as a means of subserving
the interests of the state. Nor was it otherwise among the
Romans, except as they were at first .of sterner virtue and purer
domestic life than the Greeks. In their palmy Republican days
they knew almost nothing of divorce. * It became, however, only
too frequent amidst the corruption of the Empire, and marriage
was degraded to a transient partnership. All remedies for the
evil failed, until society came under the domination of the Church,
with her doctrine of the sacredness of marriage, as sacramental
in its character, symbolizing the mystical union between Christ
and the Church, and in its nature indissoluble except for the sole
cause allowed by our Lord. The present laxity of the marriage
bond may well alarm women and arouse thoughtful men. It
threatens, not only disaster to the state, but also degradation to
women, so far as it unsettles the foundations of domestic life.
Woman's interests lie wholly on the side of the security of the
institution of home, where she is queen, and in the ennobling
idea of marriage faithfully held up in the Christian Church.
Let me remind you, further, of the conventual institutions
opened by the Church for the shelter of woman's innocence and
weakness, her asylums of refuge, often, from the violent passions
of a lawless time. Queen Matilda testified that she had been
obliged to take the veil of a nun, as the only means of escaping
the Norman nobles. We are, perhaps, in no condition to duly
estimate the service of those early communities in the protection
* According to some authorities it was 230, according- to others it was 520, years before the first
divorce in Home.

and better education of women, and in the distinguished honor
conferred upon those, who, as abbesses, became in a manner
ecclesiastical dignitaries.
Moreover, the Church has provided spheres of activity for
woman's energies. Who shall sing or tell the many sorrows that
have weighed upon the hearts of women yearning, although often
they knew it not, for something worthy to do and to live for ?
This lack of aim and exercise for conscious powers has made the
weary woe of many a life since the world began. This melancholy
want Christianity has done very much to supply. In its early days
women were brought to the front. The history of the Church
witnesses to the very prominent part played by women in the
conversion of the Roman Empire, and in the furtherance of the
Ohurch's beneficent work for the world. The sex furnished, not
only the early teachers of the Basils, Theodorets, Chrysostoms and
Augustines, but also imperial champions of the faith like St.
Helena, St. Pulcheria, Placilla and Placidia ; martyrs like Perpetua
at Carthage and St. Agnes at Rome ; munificent foundresses and
patronesses of great institutions of charity, like Pabiola, who
founded the first public hospital, and other ladies who consecrated
their time and wealth to the service of humanity for Christ's sake.
The Apostolic Church admitted women to the ecclesiastical
office of deaconess. This order fell into abeyance. But the later
Church opened still larger fields for the energies of single
women in the Religious Orders. She led woman up to the very
height of Christly service when she inspired the sweet and glorious
unselfishness which, in the sober garb of the Sister of Charity,
lays a spell upon a scoffing world. That the conventual system
of the medieval Church, capable of such beneficent development,
and needing only wise correction and direction, should have

10
been suppressed at the Reformation, was surely a misfortune.
It is the deliberate verdict of so impartial an historian as Mr.
Lecky, who is not to be suspected of any ecclesiastical bias.
There is, as he conceives, "no fact in modern history more deeply
to be deplored." * Well may we rejoice at the revival of these
Orders, with their blessed agencies of mercy and instruction, for
example, at* Kaiserswerth in Germany, and within our own
Communion, both in England and America.
Time forbids me to do more than allude to the increased
activities of Christian charity on the part of ladies, bound by
the vows of no order, but by their tender and healing minis
trations, blessing the battle-fields of the Crimea, of Yirginia, of
Prance, and to-day in hospitals and tenement-houses alleviating
the suffering and sorrow "  barricadoed evermore

Within the walls of cities."
Nor does time allow me to argue that the further elevation
of woman is dependent upon Christianity ; that for the securing
of her rights, the adjusting of unfair discriminations in occupa
tions and halls of learning, and the redress of grievous wrongs,
woman may safely trust for the future to that influence to which
she owes so much in the past.
Of that debt I have thus imperfectly spoken. In the discharge
of that debt, there rests, I think, a peculiar obligation upon
women, as women, over and above their indebtedness for their
redemption as human beings. How shall that debt be paid I
By the revival, in these days, of the office of deaconess, and
the orders of sisterhood, and by the employment of women

* History of European Morals, Vol. II, 370.

ii
as medical missionaries, are offered fields of consecrated work
for many women, who have indicated to them, by the Providential
ordering of their lives, a vocation to such especial consecra
tion. The vast majority, however, of women are bound by
domestic ties, as wives and daughters. It is to women with
their life ordered for them, in the home and in society, that
I am speaking. How may they show their gratitude for all
that Christianity has wrought for them and for their sisters
in the world? They can give their influence, loyally, unreservedly,
unmistakably, to the right. No woman truly understands the
power she may wield, by her words, her look, her very presence,
to rebuke falsehood, awe vice, and shame disloyalty to the
Master. They can offer their prayers, as did those women in
the Apostolic Church. But the faith that prays will desire also
to work. What can women, bound by domestic ties, do for
Christ and His Church I They are doing much to-day in many
ways. I would speak this afternoon of one agency of woman's
work for the Church, the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of
Missions. The General Convention of 1871, held in this city, was memora
ble for an impetus there given to the missionary zeal of the women
of the Church. In the month succeeding its session, there was
organized, in a parish of which your preacher was afterward
rector, * a woman's missionary association, which was thus the
first parochial society formed in the American Church as a result
of the memorable Baltimore Convention. Its quarterly contributions
alternately to the home and foreign fields increased until, in its
fourth year, the annual amount, from the systematic collection of
small sums, was a thousand dollars. Meanwhile the offerings in

* Christ Church, Rye, N. Y.

12
church for diocesan and general missions had not fallen off, but
on the contrary increased.
Elsewhere the seed had grown into a goodly tree, that
stretched her branches through the land. The Woman's Auxiliary
was able to report growth from year to year, increase in the
amount of contributions, and a constant development of interests
and good works. It was sending clothing to the families and
flocks of missionaries, aiding their widows and orphans, paying
the salaries of women helpers, supporting schools and scholarships,
building churches, rectories and hospitals. For the ten years
up to 1881, the amount of its contributions was $789,195.
It is now organized in forty-four dioceses and missionary
jurisdictions. As a summary of the past year's work accomplished
by these diocesan and many parochial branches and individual
members, it reports 2,629 missionary boxes, valued at $150,813,
and contributions in money of $82,913, making a total, for the
year, of $233,726.
But who shall compute results in the renewed courage and zeal
inspired in the hearts of distant and lonely laborers by this practical
sympathy on the part of the Church, whose work they are doing,
and in the general awakening throughout the Church of a more
real interest in its most important work ? I shall not soon forget a
meeting of the Connecticut branch which it was my privilege to
attend a few years ago. There were present delegates from, I
think, as many as one hundred parochial societies. I know women
enough were there to fill a very large church, and they
were there from all parts of the state. At a meeting this month
of the same diocesan branch, in New Haven, at which seven mis
sionary Bishops made addresses, I learn that two thousand persons
were in attendance from elsewhere. Who may estimate the benefit

13
to remotest portions of the diocese from the quickening power of
such a gathering !
There is here in Maryland an active and successful Diocesan
Auxiliary. The real vigor and success of any diocesan associa
tion must, in my opinion, largely depend upon the efficiency of
its branches in the several parishes and congregations. It is of
the Woman's Auxiliary here in the congregation of Grace Church
that I wish to speak. On its behalf I would solicit the interest
and co-operation of a greater number of women. I am aware
many are not able to contribute largely. Where they have little
money to give, they may give their intelligent interest and tlieir
earnest prayers. I trust I am understood in my conviction that-
in all these things the money is really a subordinate matter. We
want the dissemination of information and the quickening of
interest and sympathy. There is the great need. When people
tell me they do not believe in missions, I take it that means
they know nothing about missions. That one of you, who last
week so frankly avowed to me such disbelief, does not realize
that in the Zenana missions of India, and in many a household
in China, there is going on to-day the same beneficent process of
amelioration and elevation which has already done so much for
her sex nearer home. I would that this Auxiliary might increase
the circulation among the congregation of the publications of the
Board. I would like to see here hearty missionary meetings,
with papers prepared by some of yourselves, telling the story
of particular fields, or addresses by missionaries themselves. I
would like to see all the women of this congregation thus aroused
to a living interest in, and sympathy with, the heroic cause of
these times, the cause of Christian missions, and to an appreciation
of the much they might do to further its triumph, particularly

14
in the sending of women as physicians and missionaries to their
benighted and suffering sisters in heathen lands. The money may
then be left to come of itself. Where the heart is, there will
the treasure be also.
As to the money, there is hardly a woman in this congrega
tion who could not manage to spare at least something, however
small, for this object, and many might give out of their abundance.
The result of such systematic offerings from many would be a
sum not to be despised. Let it be understood, I am speaking
not of the offerings of women as baptized members of the Church.
With those offerings in the church the Auxiliary should not
. interfere. I am speaking of the contributions, the intelligent,
active interest and the loving prayers, of women as women, thus
bound by special obligation. That obligation, and the reasons that
enforce its recognition, I have endeavored to place upon a broad
and deep foundation. By no means have I risen to the height of
the great argument for Christian Missions. Mine has been the
task of showing you the foundation of your special obligation and
duty in woman's debt to the Church.
To the activity and efficiency of Christian women, every clergyman
might bear testimony. Indeed, in many good works women are tak
ing the lead. Whenever man abrogates his function of striving
manfully for great causes, there arises always some woman, a Joan
of Arc, a Deborah, and the glory passes to women. In every
parish women are doing much. But only a few are doing it.
Many are of necessity hindered. Many, however, it is to be feared,
are not enlisted in this or other Church activities for the simple
reason of indifference. If my voice might reach any such, I would
say : 0 ye careless daughters, ye that are at ease in Zion, and
without interest in her welfare, consider woman's debt to the

15
Church of Christ. And remember also, with his Church lo! He is
alway. His Risen Life first uttered itself in the words, "Woman !
why weepest thoui" Woman's trials and wrongs have ever found
in Him, and find in Him to-day, consolation and alleviation. 0
women, enjoying that fair inheritance of womanhood in this day
and land, it were unworthy of you to ever forget what woman
hood owes to Him. Each of you women, as you think of your
position, so different from the degradation wherein your sisters
once were, and are, many of them, to-day ; as you think of your
own home, so different from an Eastern harem ; as you think of your
share and privilege in all the large life of to-day ; as you think
of all the freedom, all the enlightenment, all the honor, all the
love and joy that are yours, oh ! let me ask you to go on and
think, in your heart of heart, "how much owest thou unto my Lord!"
Still may women emulate her, who, in the payment of her
debt, literally did what she could, counting nothing too precious for
that Blessed Master. Still may women follow Him, as of old, and
minister to Him. What a ministry might this Auxiliary be, if in
its ranks each woman, in every parish of every diocese, would
minister "as of the ability which God giveth." * You will recall
that language of Holy Scripture. It is suggestive language. The
word there used for "giveth" is a striking word, meaning literally
to furnish the means for a chorus. It may suggest to us the
Divine provision for the various parts of the concordant, many-
voiced chorus of humanity. It is surely a great thought, this, of
all the womanhood of the Church joining in unison, in true
and expressed harmony with the living oblation of consecrated
Deaconesses and Sisters ; and all taken up into the majestic rhythm
of the full-toned, manifold yet completely harmonious service of
* 1 St. Peter IV, 11.

16
the whole Church, the Communion of saints on earth, and saints in
Paradise, and angels unceasing in ministrations, one sublime chorale
and symphony of praise to the glory of God, through Jesus Christ,
our Lord.

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