THE ROBERT E. COWflN COLLECTION 
 
 I'KKSKNTKD TO Till'. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 BY 
 
 C. P. HUNTINGTON 
 
 cJUNE, 1897. 
 /\y y 
 
 Accessiori No, 
 

 WOMAN'S 
 
 MANIFEST DESTINY 
 
 DIVINE MISSION. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WOMAN'S MANIFEST DESTINY 
 
 AND 
 
 DIVINE MISSION 
 
 IN FOUR PARTS. 
 
 PART I. WOMAN BEFORE CHRIST. 
 
 PART II. WOMAN AFTER CHRIST. 
 
 PART III WOMAN IN THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD. 
 
 PART IV. THE NEW DISPENSATION. 
 
 ELIZABETH HUGHES. 
 
 OF THB 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 *2Lc>JLIFdttH\L 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 RICHARDSON BROTHERS, 215 DUPONT STREET. 
 1884- 
 
Copyright 1884, 
 BY ELIZABETH HUGHES. 
 
 74-6 
 
WOMAN'S MANIFEST DESTINY 
 
 -AND- 
 
 DIVINE MISSION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WOMAN BEFORE CHRIST. 
 
 This is so wide a subject, that what I can say upon it will 
 be hardly more than suggestive. 
 
 Let us go back to those times of which faint traditions are 
 preserved in so many nations. They are the traditions of the 
 Eden Age, the Golden Age.. 
 
 Genesis shows us man Jiving on fruits amid the garden- 
 ized earth. Woman, free and happy, is by his side. In 
 their perfect love there was no fear. Fear and subjection 
 came afterwards. Eve is nude and smiling, without sin and 
 without shame. Adam, joyous as a child, tends and prunes 
 the trees that are good for food, which in alternate seasons 
 offer a rich repast. Fragrance and bloom encircle their 
 days and nights, there is no chill and no frost. The 
 exquisite harmony of the human frame vibrated in sweet 
 accord to all stellar and terrestrial influences. No disease 
 or discomfort had entered the physical system, the pure 
 blood flushed the cheeks, the rosy limb was perfect 
 in grace and suppleness of motion. The gentle animals 
 responded to man's gentleness; the dark pleading eye of the 
 deer had never been startled by savage pursuit; the birds 
 did not fly away, but welcomed the Eden race with songs 
 and even caresses to their inmost coverts. The souls of this 
 race were as exquisitely attuned to spiritual laws as their 
 bodies were to the sweet harmonies and natural joyous life 
 
[4] 
 
 of earth. They were obedient children of the Father, 
 souls which perchance before their appearance in mortality 
 had known and kept the Father's laws. 
 
 Some of the wise men of the west say that man is the 
 culmination of and latest development of an ape. There 
 may be races, or even individuals of all races, of whom this 
 may be said, or at least suspected. The Eden race does not 
 answer to this type. 
 
 In whatever way plastic matter was molded, it fitted the 
 needs of pure spirits. The Elohim said : Let us make man 
 in our own image (plural), male and female created he them. 
 Eve is said to emerge from her husband's side, symbolic of 
 their deep interior union, bone of his bone, flesh of his 
 flesh, twain in form as made visible in mortality, but one 
 in spirit. It was the union of the Infinite with flesh, for a 
 specific and determined purpose. They were one in divine 
 essence, even as those who are sanctified are one with our 
 Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; heaven was around them, 
 they came fresh from immortality. 
 
 Woman then walked side by side with man, without sub- 
 jection and without fear. They had simple love and confi- 
 dence in the powers above, whose they were. There was no 
 need of rite or ritual. Angelic beings walked and talked 
 with man, and there has remained in the hearts of all 
 peoples a longing for and dim remembrance of that far-off 
 time. 
 
 I find no cause for my infinite desires and prophetic aspir- 
 ations, within the breast of particled matter. I am belittled 
 and confounded and indignant, when I hear ape-hood claimed 
 as my origin. Can the fountain rise higher than the source? 
 Let those who claim an apish origin content themselves 
 with their ancestry, and make the best of it. I do not admit 
 it for myself. As a child of Seth, I am a descendant of the 
 Eden race, and preserve their traditions. My little fountain 
 does not rise so high as its source, but it aspires towards it. 
 I am of noble birth, and of the highest ancestry. I claim 
 my title, arid will wear it, because the cry has been put into 
 my soul, Abba, Father. 
 
[5] 
 
 After the terrible destruction of Jerusalem, under Titus, 
 a Jew, named Simeon ben Jochai, compiled a book of the 
 most ancient sacred traditions of his people. It was called 
 the Kabbala, from this is derived our English word Cabal- 
 istic, which signifies occult or hidden. He lived a very 
 recluse life, and had many devoted disciples. His sepulchre 
 is in Meiron, in Palestine, even to this day. Not more than 
 two years ago a curious traveler visited it, and found two 
 Jews living in the adjoining chambers. They had lived 
 there for many years, and it was thought that a peculiar 
 sanctity was attached to the place. By means of this com- 
 pilation many things were preserved that would otherwise 
 have been lost in the dispersion. This work has been greatly 
 prized by many in all ages, and has had thousands of devoted 
 students. 
 
 The Kabbala says that the world was formed from the 
 union of the crowned king and queen, emanations from En 
 Soph, "The Boundless One." 
 
 Another ancient Jewish book, the Sohar, says: "The agi- 
 tation and upheaving which is life and motion, is the mani- 
 festation of God. Many worlds perished before they came 
 into existence. They were only like sparks, because the 
 sacred aged, or the ancient of days, had not yet assumed his 
 form of opposite sexes, and the master was not at his work; 
 but since then nothing can be annihilated." 
 
 It is also stated that souls are pre-existent, and exist in 
 what is called the World of Emanations, before being 
 clothed in flesh. Our Lord, in one place, speaks of the 
 glory which He had with the Father before the worlds were 
 made ; and I humbly acknowledge that on this point also I 
 strive to cleave to him, albeit dazzled by excess of light. 
 
 It is stated, also, that in this world of emanations, souls 
 are androgenous, that is, male and female in one, imply- 
 ing the closeness of the union. They are almost always 
 separated in mortality, and going through the vicissitudes, 
 trials and experiences attendant upon mortal life, are some- 
 times unmated, sometimes wrongly mated. Our Lord says 
 in the 17th of John, "Thine they were, and Thou gavest 
 
[ 6 ] 
 
 them to me, and they have kept Thy word." These souls, 
 however, disjoined on earth, tremble to the infinite source 
 of life, the treasure house of the Father, where they are 
 wrapped in the luminous garment, find all that belongs 
 to them, and rise to the perfection of perfect manhood 
 and womanhood, neither male nor female, but a new 
 creature. 
 
 The idea of the blending of two souls in one being is 
 illustrated by Balzac, in his strange romance of Seraphita. 
 I prefer, however, to think of them as separate beings with a 
 perfect oneness. 
 
 The idea of the restoration of the fitting elements to each 
 other is the dominant note of all romance and poetry. Every- 
 where, in novels and in song, it is the wail of kindred souls 
 being separated from each other, the incidents of their ex- 
 periences or the joy of their re-union. The ancient tradition 
 only records a prophecy of the heart, which must somewhere 
 have its fulfilment. 
 
 The Kabbala says: Adam and Eve were wrapped in that 
 ethereal substance which is not subject to want, nor to sen- 
 sual desires. It also says: He (that is man and woman) 
 is the presence of God upon the earth. Transgression has 
 shorn us of our splendor, but infinite love can still radiate 
 through us, if we open our doors to its rays. It makes even 
 our ruins beautiful, and we become the presence of God on 
 earth in a living temple. This radiance is not from us, but 
 through us. This, in its complete state, will ultimate in the 
 restoration of all things, even of our ruins. This will be Par- 
 adise regained. 
 
 It is very important in these last days to consider the 
 manifestation of the feminine in Deity, and in Humanity, 
 for as a man's God is, or as his idea of God is, so is he, and 
 as a woman's God is so is she. 
 
 The feminine is being more and more revealed. Isis is 
 raising her veil. As women, we ought to feel deeply pene- 
 trated with the importance, beauty, wonder and mystery of 
 womanhood. I do not believe, as the poor Chinese woman 
 has been taught to believe, that if she is good in the state to 
 which she has been called, she will after a succession of lives 
 
[ 7 1 
 
 in different forms, be changed into a man. I believe and 
 glory in my womanhood, my distinctive, divine womanhood, 
 in which I represent that part of the Elohim in whose like- 
 ness I was made. It is true that an eclipse has come, a 
 deep, dark shadow has fallen, and woman has been in the 
 deepest depths of that shadow. She has been a mystery to 
 herself, and to man, often a very troublesome, perplexing 
 mystery, and never more so than now, when she is begin- 
 ning to recognize in herself powers that not many years ago 
 would have seemed fabulous. We are feeling our way through 
 a labyrinth, in which we can only be guided by a divine 
 thread. Oh, do not let us lose it, for if we do sad disaster 
 may await us. 
 
 We will now consider what the tree of life was, and how 
 we lost Eden. 
 
 The tree of life in the old Norse traditions was called 
 Ygdrasil ; it budded forth in countless generations. 
 
 In the Kabbala, the tree of life is pictured in the human 
 form, and the creative organs are pictured as the foundation 
 of life. The full recipiency of life in every portion of the 
 frame into the Eden race sanctified it for celestial uses and 
 inflowed in it the health and happiness of immortality. 
 Man was Wholeness or Holiness, woman was Wholeness or 
 Holiness in every department of being. 
 
 The traditions of the Eden race commanded purity. The 
 pure in heart shall see God. It forbade intercourse with 
 another race which already inhabited the earth, with all the 
 stringency with which the Jews were forbidden to associate 
 with the inhabitants of Palestine. When Cain, who was of 
 that wicked one, fled to the land of Nod, he fled to the 
 habitations of a people living on the earth at that time, but 
 totally distinct from the inhabitants of Eden. He be- 
 longed to them, he was of them, by the father's side. 
 
 The vanity, weakness, and wilfulness of Edenic woman 
 was tempted, and she fell. She in her turn became the 
 tempter, and the ruin was complete. The race which was 
 to be representative of the presence of God on earth failed; 
 they transgressed; the wilful desires of the flesh prevailed 
 against the spirit, and the fruit was death. 
 
 ^ V-' 
 
 Of 
 
[8 1 
 
 From this the sad story of our human experience, the evil 
 and the good, the sweet and the bitter, that fill every mor- 
 tal life. Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. The 
 access to the tree of life that grew in Paradise was closed; 
 there could be no more access to that tree till Paradise was 
 regained by the work of Christ through sanctification. 
 
 What was the first consequence of the Eden failure ? The 
 subjection of woman the natural consequence of such a 
 course. Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall 
 rule over thee emphasized sometimes by another perver- 
 sion thy desire shall be to thy wife, and she shall reign 
 over thee, both conditions consequent on a fall from the 
 Eden state, with all its love and purity. War and blood- 
 shed followed in the train. Everywhere I saw, as Tennyson 
 says, 
 
 ' ' Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand 
 The downward slope to death." 
 
 The animal race has never perverted the creative instinct 
 as the human race has. A diabolic force has evidently 
 assailed the fountain of life, the Tree of Life in the midst 
 of the Paradise of God, witness the monstrous sin of 
 Sodom, the terrible hospitals that show the ravages of 
 deadly, incurable sexual disease; the pitiful form of the 
 leper in his enforced isolation; the poison that in one shape 
 or other taints the life current of humanity, and then ask the 
 mocking tempter where is the fulfilment of his promise 
 thou shalt not surely die. 
 
 Much has been said lately with regard to the laws of he- 
 redity, the supreme importance to be attached to good 
 parentage. O, how vital it is! How tenderly to be guarded 
 are the remains of that good, and truth, and purity that the 
 Eden race once enjoyed in their plentitude. Woman was 
 not subject to man then. She was free as the breeze that 
 played around the slopes of Eden. 
 
 What is our outlook to-day? We who are descendants of 
 the Eden race in a direct line from Seth. Is it not the old 
 story of the flesh lusting against the spirit ? Is not the earth 
 filled with violence as it was in Noah time ? And from the same 
 
[9 I 
 
 causes : unmitigated selfishness, riotous living and unblessed 
 and discordant unions? fs there any issue for us but in dire 
 defeat and catastrophe with the survival of the fittest, and 
 may it not be time that we thought about building some ark 
 that will ride the incoming angry waves ? 
 
 Let us look into the times before the flood, when earth 
 was younger and stronger than she is to-day, and nourished 
 a giant brood. 
 
 The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were 
 fair, and took them wives of all whom they chose in the passion 
 of supreme wilfulness. God made and blessed the nuptials 
 of the Eden race, and all the sons of the morning sang for 
 joy; but from these unblessed unions Titans sprung, 
 mighty men, men of renown, warriors, wonderful inventors. 
 Tubal Cain and his tribe molded brass and iron. They had 
 the strange and wonderful secrets of lost arts. Jubal and 
 his tuneful tribe poured out entrancing music; there was a 
 gay time of feasting and carousing; beautiful women wore 
 their scarlet letter bravely, and gloried in it. " Was there 
 ever such an age as ours," they said, "such inventions, such 
 progress?" But the earth was filled with lust and violence, 
 till the very elemental forces could no longer bear the dis- 
 orders, for the conditions of man to a greater extent than is 
 generally supposed, affect the planet on which he lives. 
 
 So the fountains of the great deep were broken up and 
 Atlantis was overwhelmed, leaving a remembrance only in 
 dim tradition and in the gigantic records of the eternal 
 hills. The destruction of an influential portion of the earth's 
 race was achieved, and from the survival of the children of 
 Seth came our Europe to-day our dominant, English-speak- 
 ing race, the children of Japheth the religious culture of 
 Shem, and the enduring streitgth of Ham. 
 
 Woman, during the time before Christ, was sometimes a 
 drudge, sometimes an article of sale and barter, some- 
 times a priestess or prophetess, sometimes the syren of an 
 orgie. 
 
 An oasis sometimes intervenes where a descent of brighter 
 influences seem to fleck the cloud with splendor, the hon- 
 ored maids and matrons of Rome's earlier day, when life 
 
t 10 I 
 
 was so noble, so sweet and simple, the beauty and culture 
 of Greece, the grand spiritualty of the Hebrew race. 
 Always where light begins to break, to some extent, 
 woman stands side by side with man, as she did in Eden. 
 
 Slowly along the ages walks the silent foot of woman, 
 with downcast eyes, as if ashamed of herself; only some- 
 times looking upward with a prophetic gaze of far-off 
 hopes: burden bearers, carriers of water, palace lilies, 
 drudges of the drudge, slaves of the peasant, and last of all, 
 the women of to-day, refusing to be mothers in a dying- out 
 era, in which little faith is left on the earth. 
 
 It may help us to understand the position of woman dur- 
 ing this period, to take some individual cases, land-marks 
 of the past, women who have so attracted the thoughts and 
 hopes of the world, that their names are ever more remem- 
 bered either for good or evil. 
 
 The first woman of whom we have any record after 
 the flood was Sarah, the daughter of Zerah, in a direct 
 line from Shem, dwelling with her kindred in Chaldea. 
 Zerah started to go to Canaan at an early date in his 
 history, but did not get more than part of the way. 
 He made a settlement where he found wood, water and pas- 
 ture, and called the place Haran, after his dead son. From 
 this place Abram and Sarah started on their final journey to 
 Canaan. Much is said of the great and extraordinary beauty 
 of Sarah. This was her inheritance from the Eden race. 
 She was a fair woman, tenderly reared in all the simple 
 luxury of a patriarch's tent, a free child of the plains. 
 When they were about to go down into Egypt, Abram did 
 not say to her, Thou shalt not go forth, and I will set guards 
 about thee, as the Turk to-day does with his women. But 
 he says, ' ' I pray thee say that thou art my sister, that my soul 
 may live because of thee." 
 
 Sarah was not hidden, nor was she veiled, and the 
 Egyptians saw her, and she was taken into the king's 
 household. Abram had brought this about by the very 
 means he had taken to prevent it. Twice did this happen, 
 once in Egypt, and once in Gerar, but she was delivered. 
 After the victory of Abram over the five kings a wonderful 
 
[ II ] 
 
 vision is given to him. In the horror of great darkness, 
 emblematic of Egyptian slavery, he sees the lamp and the fur- 
 nace, the light of divine strength and truth, pass between 
 the slaughtered sacrifices. And the promises given in the 
 tent at Mam re are reiterated to him, of the child to be 
 borD to Sarah, of the numerous posterity, and the land in 
 everlasting possession. But Sarah is growing old, all natu- 
 ral possibility of motherhood is at end and there is no 
 child in the tent. Abram, discouraged, pleads with the 
 heavenly powers, who have manifested themselves by visible 
 messengers, and he says, "Lo one born in my house is mine 
 heir, even this Eleazar of Damascus." And Sarah, wholly 
 doubting of her delayed maternity, gives her maid Hagar 
 to Abram. At the prospect of motherhood, exultation fills 
 the heart of the Egyptian, for she, too, knows of the prom- 
 ises; the sickness of hope deferred fills the soul of Sarah, 
 and manifests itself in such bitterness that the Egyptian 
 flees. But the Lord sends her back with kind and beautiful 
 promises. She, too, is to be a mother of nations, but she 
 must return to her mistress, Sarah, and tame her proud 
 heart to fill a subordinate place in the household. And she 
 returns, and Ishmael is born beneath the tents of Abram. 
 The old man loves his son 'his only son and he earnestly 
 prays, and says, Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee. 
 The vision again appears, the promises are again repeated; 
 his name is changed from Abram to Abraham signifying 
 father of a great multitude; and for the first time a covenant 
 is spoken of, which shall bind him and all his generations 
 to the living God forever. That covenant is the sign of cir- 
 cumcision, and it is declared that who so doth not observe 
 this covenant shall be cut off from his people. This rite 
 represents the cleansing that must be undergone previous 
 to the entrance into the heavenly kingdom, the putting off 
 the old man, the subjection of the flesh to the spirit. This 
 covenant, four thousand years old, is in force to the present 
 day. By it the hills and valleys of Palestine are still 
 pledged to the race of Abraham. If he has kept his cove- 
 nant, God will keep his. Jerusalem is still the Jewish heart 
 home from England's great statesman to the smallest 
 
f 1 
 
 trader in any land. The scattered people are known every- 
 where you cannot mistake them. They are rich, prosper- 
 ous, and waiting still. The vision is for an appointd time, 
 though it tarry, it will come. In the meantime Babylon is 
 a heap, and oppressed and denationalized fellaheen are all 
 that remain of the once proud Egyptian race. 
 
 After the solemn day of the circumcision, Sodom was de- 
 stroyed, and fifteen years later Isaac is born. For thirteen 
 years has Sarah had to watch the growth of Ishmael, ere her 
 arms are clasped around Isaac, and she nurses him at her 
 bosom; but, oh, the long weary waiting time ! I seem to see her 
 with sad brows and half-veiled lids, watching the beauty and 
 strength of Ishmael, and the stately step of Hagar, in whom 
 slavery cannot veil the pride of maternity. She sees her 
 slave's eyes seeking the lithe form of Ishmael in his games 
 of mimic war Abraham's child, born at her own request. 
 Perhaps she regrets the doubting heart that prompted a 
 wish for the child. I wonder if the deep longing for children 
 on the part of Jewish womanhood is not an inheritance from 
 their beautiful ancestress. But she holds him at last, the 
 promised child, and in her exultation she says : who would 
 have said to Abraham that Sarah should have given children 
 suck. Did she not remember the promise in the tent at 
 Mamre, and her laughing response? Years pass and now 
 she hears " the flow of the wondrous stream that rolls by the 
 border land of souls." Dear eyes watch her as she recedes 
 in space. 
 
 I have often wondered at the great space Sarah occupies 
 in Bible Historj'. A whole chapter, the twenty-eighth 
 Genesis, is devoted to the account of her death and burial. 
 She was royally entombed. The very choice of the sepulchres 
 of the people of the land where she sojourned were offered 
 to Abraham to bury his dead, but no other place could be 
 found except the cave near the oaks of Mamre, perchance 
 within view of the very spot where, sitting at the tent-door 
 in the heat of the day, Abraham and Sarah received and 
 hospitably entertained the messenger who brought the 
 promise of the birth of Isaac. 
 
 Isaac grows, a child of fruition, a child of peace; as a 
 
[ 13] 
 
 young man meditative and quiet. He goes forth into the 
 field to meditate at eventide. The Lord brings him a young 
 and beautiful bride, and he is comforted after his mother 
 Sarah's death; and brings his wife into his mother's tent. 
 Life flowed for Isaac in a smooth, bright current. Isaac and 
 Rebecca.lived in Mamre, that was afterwards called Hebron. 
 They were not wanderers, but possessors and inheritors. 
 The peace of patriarchal times flowed round Rebecca be- 
 loved by Isaac, as Sarah was beloved by Abraham. There 
 seems to have been a great love element in patriarchal na- 
 tures, which harmonizes and solemnizes their domestic rela- 
 tions. Abraham sought no other ties in Sarah's lifetime. 
 He accepted Hagar at her request. Isaac sought none. 
 Jacob had polygamy thrust upon him by a trick; he did not 
 seek it; then he took the maids at the request of his wives. 
 Abundance, beauty, the rearing and bearing of children be- 
 longed to the patriarchal age. The source of the genera- 
 tions of Israel was in the eternal hills, nor could it begin to 
 flow until smitten by the hand of God, and the dry rod of 
 Sarah blossomed with the bud of Isaac. 
 
 The horror of a great darkness has fallen on Israel, as 
 foretold to Abraham, four hundred years of Egyptian slavery. 
 The next woman that comes upon the scene is the heroine 
 of a successful revolt, an ambitious, impulsive, and inspired 
 woman; Miriam, the sister of Moses. Tried and disciplined 
 by the hardships of her slave life in Egypt, she has yet some 
 taint of the old slave leaven in her blood the inability to 
 submit to the easy yoke of the rule of God through the ap- 
 pointed leader. She aspired to rule, and in this way drew 
 upon herself condign punishment. The gleams of Eden, up 
 to this date, linger longest on the head of man, and on the 
 head of that noble leader who was so slow of speech, and 
 yet so mighty in deed and in power most of all. 
 
 We will now follow the course of time from the wilderness 
 to the settled possession of Canaan, until we come to the 
 woman who judged Israel under her palm tree- -Deborah, 
 the wife of Lapidoth. Caleb, the scout and spy of Joshua's 
 time, had asked for Hebron, the Mamre of Abraham's time, 
 and it had been given to him. After his death, the people 
 
i: 14 ] 
 
 intermarried with the heathen, and served their gods; 
 thence Israel's defeat and bondage, redeemed at times by 
 different leaders, till, at last, they fell very low, and the 
 Philistines held them in total subjection, and even dis- 
 armed them. The spirit of the Lord comes upon Deborah, 
 and she is told to send for Barak. He comes, am? she tells 
 him that he must draw toward Mount Tabor, and engage in 
 an apparently most unequal conflict with the formidable 
 army of Sisera, which was supplied with chariots and mu- 
 nitions of war. Knowing that the Israelites were almost 
 unarmed and, besides, discouraged, he refuses to go unless 
 she will go with him. She consents. Notwithstanding, she 
 says, "What thou undertake th shall not be for thy glory, for 
 the Lord shall deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman." 
 They met the foe with all their resources at their command, 
 and the word comes to her, ' ' This day hath the Lord deliv- 
 ered Sisera into thine hand, is not the Lord gone down 
 before thee!" 
 
 Together they go down into the battle; together they sing 
 the song of deliverance. "The stars," she says, "fought 
 against the oppressors in their courses. The river Kishon 
 swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishou." 
 Then raising those wonderful Jewish eyes to heaven, I think I 
 can hear her exclaim, " Oh, my soul! thou hast trodden down 
 strength ! " It reminds one of another inspired song of an- 
 other Jewish woman, Mary of Galillee, who ages after said, 
 " He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath 
 exalted the humble and the meek." Fitting song of rejoic- 
 ing for redeemed. woman. Not the exulation of strength and 
 power, as in conquering Eoman legions, or Macedonian 
 phalanx, or storm of Sea Kings. All that was the power 
 of force, to exalt the might} 7 . All this marvelous power, 
 and strength of man's energy puts the mighty in their seat, 
 and keeps them there. But this mystic and mighty power, 
 so closely allied with the divine, exalts the humble and' the 
 meek woman, and the toiler, the little children and all who 
 are oppressed, and cry out to God, everywhere. 
 
 This woman, mighty only in the strength of the Lord, sees 
 the enemy go down before her. Though there may be con- 
 
[ '5 ] 
 
 fused shouting, and garments rolled in blood, she lifts no 
 hand to destroy, any more than did Joan of Arc, ages after, 
 when she rode her white horse, and bore the consecrated 
 banner into the thickest of the fight. He hath put down the 
 mighty from their seat. Where, but in the line of inspira- 
 tion and obedience, can we hope for the restitution of woman 
 to her Eden place, by man's side, together conquering all 
 the power of the enemy? Israel had been bewitched by the 
 Baalim and the Venus Ashtoreth of the Zidonians; their 
 manhood was lost. The inhabitants of the villages had 
 ceased, the highways been unoccupied, because, through 
 fear, the travelers had taken by-ways. Now the women 
 were delivered from the noise of archers in the places of 
 drawing water, and the land was at rest. The spirit of re- 
 volt against oppression had come to woman with the 
 spirit of prophecy, and it had succeeded. I linger peace- 
 fully and restfully in the shade of the palm trees of De- 
 borah. I think that she found home and rest there, after 
 toil and struggle, and Israel, rescued, blest and at peace, 
 came up to her for judgment. 
 
 That mighty vision passes. What do we next see ? The 
 beauty of a soft Zidonian valley, Delilah, the Philistine. 
 The soft, frail, laughing thing, takes captive the heart and 
 senses of the chosen captain of Israel, strong Samson. She 
 has him at her beck. He loses even his intelligence and 
 common sense in her caresses. With what a mocking smile 
 she says, " The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." Does she 
 love him? She loves the shining gold pieces much better. 
 She exists in sense, lives all over in her beautiful body. 
 She is of that order of the daughters of men who have always 
 obstructed the path of the sons of light. 
 
 He keeps on confiding in her, as if to challenge any hidden 
 tenderness she may have for him. He is betrayed. Then 
 muttering, "Oh, fool!" like Vivien, she leaves the strong 
 man to his fate. This is another type of the way of putting 
 down strength, but it is the Devil's way, not the Lord's way. 
 
 After that, no doubt, Delilah was one of the chiefest 
 women in all Philistia. Ashtoreth Venus had triumphed. 
 She might have been at the festival where her blind lover 
 
f 16 1 
 
 made sport. She was only moved to laughter by that sol- 
 emn agony, and might have been entombed with him in the 
 temple ; nay, perhaps the very sound of her mocking voice 
 might have urged him on to the attempt. 
 
 Let me close the record of the daughters of Israel with 
 the tender sweetness of Ruth, entering, though an alien 
 by birth, into the very house of David, by love and obedi- 
 ence. Love brought her to Bethlehem, and obedience finished 
 the work. 
 
 Pass we now to another land bathed by the waters of the 
 Egean Sea. Greece, the land of art and song. Once it was 
 ruled by a man called Pericles, and by his side was a 
 woman named Aspasia. Under their influence Athens 
 rose to its highest splendor. The Greek women of her time 
 and her class ruled the intellect and the senses. Art at- 
 tained its highest culmination under their influence. To- 
 day every statue or stone unearthed from those ruins is of 
 priceless value. The human form was developed among 
 these people to its utmost beauty and strength. The glori- 
 ous marbles that they have left us are eternally young. 
 Beauty was their religion, and the senses were deified. But 
 compassion and aspiration seldom looked out of Grecian 
 eyes. When a spiritual man appeared, who had grown be- 
 yond their traditions and their superficial culture, and 
 dared to speak as he was inspired, they poisoned him. His 
 name was Socrates. What comes down to us of Aspasia is 
 the glitter and beauty of her person and intellect, and her 
 friendship for the ruler Pericles. She was bright, while she 
 shone with a cold splendor, in the heavens of Greece; but 
 when she disappeared, she left no long line of warmth and 
 radiance after, as did Mary of Galilee. 4 
 
 Let us now pass to the old historic land of Egypt. Its 
 glories are drawing to a close, and a woman rules it. She 
 appears in the declining splendor of Egypt's power, in the 
 full-blown ripeness that precedes decay, Possessing the 
 magical charm of Egypt, unbounded in will and luxury 
 the serpent of old Nile she conquered the Eoman con- 
 queror, not with munitions of war, but with silken sails, 
 music, perfumes and revels, as she passed down the Cydnus 
 
in all her glory. Her name was Cleopatra. The poisonous 
 fascination of that name ^endures to-day. That gorgeous 
 passion flower still scents the air. The heavy, sleepy per- 
 fume of the forbidden tree, overcoming sense and even 
 reason, drawing mankind to death and the grave through 
 avenues hung with blossoms and its fruit, which whoso 
 scents becomes mad. She leaves him at Actium; the in- 
 fatuated man follows her, and dies by his own hand. She, 
 too, when the desperate game of life is played, and she 
 sees that all is lost, takes the fatal asp from the basket of figs, 
 invites his deadly bite, and drowses off into forgetfulness. 
 
 Antony's conqueror, olive-crowned Caesar Augustus, 
 rules the world. He issues his famous decree for the taxing 
 of the world, and from a little town in the conquered prov- 
 ince of Judea a carpenter and his wife come up to Bethle- 
 hem to be taxed. 
 
 In a very short space we have tried to illustrate some of 
 the experiences of woman up to this date. Her weal and 
 her woe, her bane and her blessings, in the generations be- 
 fore Christ. We have traced some of the manipulations of 
 the feminine element from the earliest traditions to the time 
 immediately preceding the advent of our Lord and Savior, 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 We see from these experiences the immense need of all 
 the purity, consecration, courage and devotedness of woman 
 to enable her to find her way back to her first estate, being 
 made perfect through suffering. We see that power comes 
 whenever woman has walked with God, side by side with 
 man, even in these remote ages. It is but a short space 
 that she has been able to hold her own in the flowing cur- 
 rent of events up to this time, but that even one such man- 
 ifestation should have occurred is itself a prophecy. We 
 have also seen the conditions under which some such mani- 
 festations have been made. We also see that the Eden tra- 
 ditions were respected through the long line of Jewish his- 
 tory, and that consequently the fate and lot of woman was 
 easier, brighter and clearer among them than among any 
 other race. 
 
 Motherhood was respected; family ties were strong. They 
 have kept the ancient symbolic covenant. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 WOMAN AFTER CHRIST. 
 
 In the complete subjection of Israel, almost in the eclipse 
 of faith, a maid appears, like a new, beautiful, bright star 
 rising over the hilltops of the land of Sarah, the land of 
 Deborah. This time the warfare is to be spiritual, not tem- 
 poral. A thorough reform is to be inaugurated; spiritual 
 wickedness in high places is to be warred against. The 
 citadel of the Prince of the power of the air, garrisoned 
 with ail his legions, is to be assailed. A sword must pierce 
 through the soul of this maiden who holds the morning star. 
 The strife for the possession of the earth is about to begin. 
 It was to be a duel in the spirit, only partly visible as to its 
 immense results on earth . 
 
 In former days, the angel Gabriel appeared to Daniel in 
 Babylon by the river Ulai. Then there was hope for the 
 Jewish tree, that it should yet sprout again. Now was come 
 utter subjection and ruin; the long dark vista of the dena- 
 tionalization of Israel, not for hundreds, but for thousands 
 of years. The Eoman eagles, dreadful, terrible and strong 
 exceedingly, flew over Palestine. Yet never forgetting, the 
 same yesterday, to-day and forever, Gabriel comes to the 
 maid of Nazareth with brighter cheer than he came to the 
 Jewish statesman in Babylon. Daniel trembled and fell 
 on his face, and retained no strength before that bright and 
 awful Presence. He appears before the maid with a saluta- 
 tion, Hail thou that art highly favored, blessed art thou 
 among women. Mary does not tremble, neither does she 
 fall on her face. With an earnest, enquiring look, she casts 
 about in her mind what manner of salutation this might be. 
 Then was unfolded to her the message of her mysterious 
 conception, and promised maternity. The maid listens with 
 rapt attention, a holy inspiration that casts out fear, for the 
 divine strength and power is within her, and around her. 
 
** * IVERSITY 
 
 She simply replies, but oh how grandly, how sublimely, 
 "Behold the handmaid of the Lord ! be it unto me according 
 to thy word. " Yea, though a sword should pierce her heart, 
 she accepted it all. The angel spoke of her wonderful child 
 as one who should reign over the house of Jacob for ever 
 and ever; and that of his kingdom there should be no end; 
 an earthly sovereignty; a temporal dominion, sure to be ful- 
 filled, though not yet come; delayed for thousands of years, 
 while the spiritual fight with the powers in high places which 
 we understand better than Mary could, is still in victorious 
 progress. She understood that she was to be the mother of 
 the temporal Saviour of her people, and the vision is yet for 
 an appointed time; though it tarry, it will come. Thy cousin 
 Elizabeth, he said, is about to bear a child, and this is the 
 sixth month with her who was called barren. The beautiful 
 and wondrous Presence passes from her; and with great 
 haste she goes into the hill country of Bethlehem, to the 
 house of cousin Elizabeth, and salutes her in grave, sweet 
 Oriental fashion; but Elizabeth exclaims: "As soon as the 
 voice of thy salutation sounded on mine ears, the babe 
 leaped in my womb for joy;" and then she reverently and 
 humbly salutes her as the mother of her Lord, and blessed 
 is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of the 
 things which were spoken. Then Mary replies in that won- 
 derful, glorious outburst of inspiration called the Magnifi- 
 cent, everywhere sung and chanted throughout the world to- 
 day: " My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath 
 rejoiced in God my Saviour." Luke i, xlvi, Iv. Three 
 months these loving, inspired women dwelt together, Mary 
 probably remaining till after the birth of John, when she 
 returned to her own city, pondering these things in her heart. 
 Much has been said with regard to the conception of Jesus. 
 Scientists cannot fully explain the mystery of any mortal 
 birth; how the wonderful possibilities of a human being 
 arise from the unknown, and depart unto the unknown. If 
 we cannot fully unveil the strangeness and mystery of our 
 own exits and entrances, how can we unveil the laws of the 
 birth of the bright conqueror of the powers of darkness, our 
 Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? The joy of Mary in her pros- 
 
[*>] 
 
 pective maternity did not probably go as far as this. She 
 might think perhaps of a little hand that might one day 
 grasp the sword of Gideon, or of Judas Maccabeus, as the 
 disciples did at a later date, when they asked him: "Lord, 
 wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?'' 
 
 Mary, you did not know that the whole earth was hushed 
 in peace, and waiting for thy divine motherhood, which had 
 been foreshadowed to many nations : that in the forests of 
 Gaul, Druids were raising altars to the Virgin who was to 
 bring forth; that in Syria, Magi were scanning the skies, ob- 
 serving thy star; that even in victorious Home, the Sybilline 
 books told of the Virgin and Divine child, of the serpent 
 vanquished, and of the restoration of the golden age. 
 - Whence all this peace and hushed expectation, and the 
 Herald angel's song? Woman had turned her face towards 
 Paradise. Paradise in Hebrew means a place of delights; 
 in Arabic it means a place for the feeding of flocks. How 
 often are we told of the one fold, and one shepherd; "Feed 
 my sheep;" "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold." 
 In these sweet and gentle similitudes are imaged the Para- 
 dise of the good shepherd; the green pastures; the still 
 water. "Thou restorest my soul!" 
 
 Mary holds her babe in her arms; the diabolic powers in- 
 censed because wise men from far Chaldea have recognized 
 him, and brought costly gifts, hailing him as King of the 
 Jews, stir up the .jealousy of Herod to destroy him. So 
 Joseph, Mary and the babe flee into Egypt, a journey of 
 about eight hundred miles. They reach Heliopolis, the city 
 of the sun, and take up their abode near the sycamores 
 and sweet waters of Metaireh. They remain there seven 
 years, but on Herod's death return to Judea. About two 
 years after his return from that long Egyptian sojourn came 
 the first recorded gleam of his divine mission at Jerusalem, 
 at the feast of the Passover. Tlje boy, separated from his 
 parents, was talking with the doctors in the temple. It is 
 related that they exclaimed, " this is either Daniel, or an 
 angel;" but Mary coming up, seeking her son, said, " It is 
 Jesus;" and then tenderly and anxiously, ' ' My son, why hast 
 thou done this? thy father and I sought thee, sorrowing." 
 
Then the light shone forth, the light that never was seen 
 before on sea or land, the light of Him who was with His 
 Father before all worlds, and he said, "How is it that ye 
 sought me; wist ye not that I must be about my Father's 
 business ? " But he returned with them to Nazareth, and re- 
 mained subject unto them. For eighteen years, their home 
 life flowed on in that pleasant town, situated on a mountain 
 slope, looking on to a delightful plain. Joseph made ploughs, 
 yokes, and carts, and sometimes built houses. Mary went to 
 the village fountain for water, and washed the clothing in 
 the sweet running streams. Their principal fare probably 
 consisted of loaves of barley and doura, dates, butter, 
 cheese, and dried and fresh fruits and herbs. Sweet soul- 
 fraught years of peaceful preparation. Then the impulse of 
 his mission came upon him, and Jesus and Mary separated. 
 She heard of his baptism, of his fasting in the wilderness. 
 The power of the spirit is upon Him; he is going forth to con- 
 quer, but not to conquer the Eoman power; a mightier king- 
 dom is to be overcome; the diabolic power which holds the 
 world in possession, with all its legions of disease and death. 
 The captain of our salvation rights palsy, blindness, leprosy, 
 devils, and all manner of disease. He is the Life Bringer, 
 not the Death Bringer, like your Caesars or Napoleons; yet 
 the world knew him not. His days were filled with inces- 
 sant work, incessant conflict; devils shrink back; the dead 
 are raised ; to the poor the gospel is preached. Everywhere 
 he brought Wholeness, Holiness. Crowds of people gath- 
 ering in His way, begged of Him life and health. The 
 fierce enmity of the Jewish leaders was aroused. The ten- 
 der heart of Mary was rent with anxiety for her son. She 
 and His brethren, perhaps near relatives, or even townsfolk, 
 came to Capernaum, where He was, hoping to induce Him 
 to return home with them. While earnestly engaged in His 
 work, some one said, "Thy mother and brethren are with- 
 out, desiring to speak with Thee," but He replies, "My 
 mother and brethren are they who do the will of God and 
 keep it." But he returned, and the still more ferocious 
 enmity of His own townspeople is roused against Him by 
 His declaration of His divine mission, so that they attempt 
 
[Va] 
 
 His life. We hear afterwards that Mary Mother and the 
 other Marys followed Him, and ministered to Him, even to 
 the foot of the terrible cross. Very early were they at the 
 sepulchre, and tradition relates that Mary Mother first met 
 and spoke with her son, who appeared as a working gar- 
 dener, while the others were looking into the sepulchre. 
 
 Mary Mother continued with the church in Jerusalem for 
 ten years; shared in the wonder and mystery of the forty 
 days after the resurrection, and the joy and blessedness of 
 the Ascension. At the end of ten years, John took her to 
 Ephesus, whither Mary of Magdala followed her. In that 
 beautiful Greek city, Mary of Galilee is said to have dwelt 
 for many years. At last, feeling that the time drew near 
 that she should enter to be where He was, she desired 
 to return to Jerusalem, the beloved but rebellious city, so 
 soon to be destroyed utterly. Not long after she arrived, 
 feeling that her hour was almost come, she desired to see 
 the Apostles and Elders of the Church, and in their pres- 
 ence, and in that of the beloved John, she peacefully de- 
 parted, Mary Mother, blessed for ever more. Tradition 
 says that a soft light filled the chamber of death. 
 
 Christ never treated woman in any manner that would 
 imply inferiority. His talk with the woman of Samaria 
 was as deep and profound as that with His disciples, if not 
 more so. Deep and profound love, and the joy of service 
 built and cemented the early church with the perfect liberty 
 of love, and the fullness and power of sanctification. Every- 
 where Christ treated woman without the slightest regard 
 to conventional respectability. She was to Him woman 
 equal and eternal with man, destined in a brighter future 
 to be absolute in harmony and equality, with a divine dif- 
 ference. The subjection of woman had no place under the 
 Restorer of Paradise. 
 
 One day He sat at meat in a house of the better class, 
 where, though He and His Disciples had been invited to 
 eat, the customary attention paid to an honored guest had 
 not been shown to Him. A woman enters among the 
 attendants, and gliding to the couch of the Master, for 
 some of the Jews had adopted the Roman habit of reclining 
 
1 23 1 
 
 at meals, she perfumes his hair with precious ointment. 
 He silently accepted the graceful and customary attention, 
 till roused by the whispered remarks of His Disciples and 
 the disrespectful comments of His host, He quietly and 
 sadly says: "Trouble her not; against the day of my 
 burial hath she done this." It was the consecration of that 
 body so perfect in its glorious manhood, to death, not to 
 pleasure, adding with a profound feeling which showed how 
 deeply the woman's act had touched Him: "Wheresoever 
 this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall 
 also this that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial 
 of her," for the day of his burial! for few were the days 
 between that social hall and the terrible hall of Pilate. 
 And gliding unchecked to His feet, she anointed them with 
 the same precious ointment and her flowing tears, and 
 wiped them with her long and loosened hair. Profound 
 homage of woman's heart to her best and truest friend. 
 How many women since then have wept at his feet, and He 
 has comforted them, for as He was on earth, so He is in 
 Heaven. 
 
 For three hundred years men and women possessed of 
 His Spirit, and, believing in His name, lived as He lived, 
 and died as He died. Long processions of victors, wear- 
 ing the martyr's crown, stepped inside the heavenly gates. 
 Woman stood side by side with man in the arena, in the 
 flames, in the torture. They were afflicted, tormented, and 
 rejoicing. Marvelous were the gifts and glories of that 
 early day. But the time came when the spirit was lost, and 
 the church leaders sold out to the Emperor. After a while 
 they made the image of the Divine Man a figurehead to 
 back up earthly sovereignty and ecclesiastical tyrannies. 
 The Son of Man, whose life was eminently free, social and 
 humanitarian, was made into a divine idol to countenance 
 the restraints and constraints of the life in death of the 
 convent and cloister. It is true, also, that the iron shell of 
 the convent preserved the thought and literature of former 
 time in the terrible pressure of the crushing out of an old 
 society and the forming a new one. In this mixed condi- 
 
tion, scarcely any evil is without its good, nor good without 
 its evil. 
 
 The feeling towards woman was such as it had never been 
 before. The worship of Mary gave rise to chivalry, by 
 which woman by degrees became placed in a false position, 
 the recipient of honors she did not always earn or merit; 
 and soon a spirit of sham religion, of scholastic jargon, of 
 melancholy self-introspection, of acrid and wordy disputes, 
 took the place of the grand triumphal faith of the three 
 first centuries. Still, the wonderful ideal of human love 
 blended with divine had come into the world, and some 
 men, touched by the spirit, recognized and felt it. As 
 Dante did in his wonderful love for Beatrice, whom he saw 
 after her death in vision in Paradise among the trees of life. 
 The tenderness of woman was sustained by the divine Ideal, 
 the word manifested in flesh. The wedded pair were em- 
 blems of Christ and His loved ones. The seed of the 
 woman bruised the fiery head of the serpent, the de- 
 ceiving one, by re-baptising and re-creating the whole 
 sexual nature, so that it became re-invested with the divine. 
 The mystery of the new revelation was only the mystery of 
 laws imperfectly understood. There was hope for woman 
 and the toiler. Woman commenced to free herself from the 
 coils of the old serpent of sense and sensuality. A little 
 leaven began to leaven the whole lump. Ascetism and 
 monasticism sprang from the struggles of human souls to 
 meet the serpentine powers and gain the mastery over them; 
 it was a throe of the agony of the new birth. Abelard was 
 the most advanced thinker of his times; the spirit that was 
 within him rebelled at the scholastic learning which had 
 overlaid the grand religious life and faith of the past. He 
 had mastered all its intricacies, and was acknowledged to 
 be the ablest disputant in Paris, a very Paul in the guise 
 of a Doctor of the Sorbonne. He was of a noble family. 
 In those days only two careers were open to the sons of 
 nobles: the army and the church. Abelard chose the latter. 
 He frequented the house of the Canon Fulbert, near 
 the Church of Notre Dame, and there met his neice, 
 Eloise. She was beautiful, aspiring, thoughtful and mother- 
 
[51 
 
 less. Abelard, much older than herself, became her con- 
 stant companion. They pored over the same books, com- 
 mented on the same themes, they loved; love explains 
 many mysteries, and the mind of Abelard was never clearer 
 than under the inspiration of Eloise, his devoted pupil. 
 Abelard was a man of noble birth, as well as an abbe, and 
 in accordance with the permissive gallantry of the age, spent 
 much of his time in composing love songs to the young 
 beauty who dwelt in almost conventual seclusion. They 
 were secretly married; love blossomed into fruit. She bore 
 a son, but she refused to permit him to acknowledge the 
 marriage, as she feared it would bar his prospects in the 
 church. She had left her uncle's house, and Fulbert, filled 
 with rage against Abelard, had him seized in the night 
 and mutilated. After the mutilation, Eloise, by Abelard's 
 desire, entered a convent. Abelard gathered some devoted 
 disciples around him, and founded the monastery of the 
 Paraclete, which after a while he gave to Eloise, who re- 
 tired to it with her nuns and became its abbess. Abelard 
 had a life of toil and struggle. He was too great and too 
 clear-seeing for the age in which he lived. He died at last 
 in a remote monastery in Brittany, and in accordance with 
 his last wishes, his body was brought from Brittany and 
 laid within the chapel of the Paraclete. Eloise and Abelard 
 never met but once after she took the veil, but years after 
 some letters of Abelard's fell into her hands and revived all 
 the old feelings. She wrote to him those wonderful letters, 
 which still exist. She speaks of his name lying so close 
 to the thought of God in her heart, of the recollections of 
 his sojourn in the Paraclete being entwined with every 
 stone. Here she says his eyes had dwelt and his presence 
 filled the day with glory. She tells him that when she took 
 the veil, at his request, it seemed as if the shrines trem- 
 bled and the lamps grew pale. She says that neither grace 
 nor zeal, but only love was her call, and that she still 
 clings to his love, the divine ideal love which existed wholly 
 apart from the senses, and she begs him to visit her, that 
 his words may direct her to a higher life, which is supreme 
 and eternal. This was a love experience which no woman 
 
before Christ could ever have possessed. It was a revela- 
 tion of the divine matehood. 
 
 I can best illustrate the position of woman after Christ 
 by one or two conspicuous examples, landmarks on the sea 
 of centuries pre-eminently spiritual women, receptive in 
 a great degree of the power which exalteth a people. They 
 all had to stand alone. No Barak was by Joan's side to 
 turn the tide of battle. Eloise was alone in the Paraclete. 
 Years of Madame Guyon's life were spent in solitude and in 
 prison. Woman had to win her way back to Paradise 
 alone, and through suffering. It was for Cleopatra to revel 
 and for Aspasia to triumph; it was for Joan to die and for 
 Eloise to live, which is sometimes the longest martyrdom. 
 Luther's reformation was entirely masculine; it touched only 
 the masculine elements. He was a good husband, and a 
 good father, and a great man, but I do not think ever con- 
 templated the possibility of woman standing side by side 
 with him in any spiritual works. He has impressed that 
 feeling on his followers, whereas the strength of the Catholic 
 Church to-day lies in its recognition of the woman element. 
 The exponent of the reformation in England, Henry VIII, 
 took the abbey lands from the church and gave them to his 
 rapacious followers, under whose exactions England and 
 Ireland are groaning to-day. Luther's reformation was not 
 profoundly social, but the reformation of George Fox, of 
 the Port Koyal nuns, and even of Wesley, was. Woman 
 mothered the idea from which sprang social liberty and 
 advancement. It irradiated the world with the Christ 
 spirit. In Pennsylvania, the Quaker, by whose side woman 
 stood with kindly grace, yet with perfect freedom, protected 
 also the Indian and the negro. In the anti-slavery agitation, 
 woman was the friend and co-worker of the noblest, truest 
 men of the age, and oh, if Northern and Southern mothers 
 could have met side by side with our conscript fathers, 
 would that cruel war have mowed down our best and 
 bravest, and would there have been a chance for the domi- 
 nant party when once fairly seated to grasp the unlimited 
 and almost irresponsible control of the nation's wealth, and 
 
[ 27 ] 
 
 by insane luxury pave the way for the downfall of the Re- 
 public ? 
 
 The ideal of Protestantism in Germany and in England 
 is comfort, largely physical comfort, and of woman as a 
 comforter in that sense, which is, no doubt, good as far 
 as it goes. To have a woman who filled all the demands of 
 his life, without infringing on his kingly prerogative, be- 
 came man's highest aim, and when woman could fill the bill 
 in that respect, it was deemed that she had reached the 
 highest point she ought to hope to attain. Comfort and the 
 idea of woman as supremely connected with comfort, came 
 in with Protestantism, the free towns of Germany and the 
 rise and progress of navigation in England. It was the 
 burgher's ideal. The lady of the middle ages was often the 
 mother of her vassals, sometimes a skilled physician, and 
 even a dauntless warrior. The magic pen of Scott has given 
 life and warmth to these recollections. Fielding and his com- 
 peers show the gross sensuousness into which the comfort- 
 seeking type ran, often crowning a series of not very decent 
 adventures with the purely animal-like bliss of mated squir- 
 rels. 
 
 I will illustrate the possibilities of woman by one of 
 the strangest, most remarkable and saddest lives of the 
 middle ages. There was a time when France was conquered 
 by England, and at her mercy, her King was a fugitive and her 
 people the unwilling vassals of a foreign power. At this 
 time a shepherd girl, with dreamy, meditative eyes, quiet 
 and sedate, is living and laboring at Domreny. Her hard 
 peasant life had strung her nerves and given strength and 
 endurance to her bodily frame. In the field herding her 
 sheep, in the noontide's hush, or in the evening's repose, 
 voices come, and she listens until her love and confidence is 
 won and her heart is inspired. She is loving, obedient and 
 faithful, the Lord's handmaid. This unseen presence fills 
 her soul with peace and rest and gives her power. She was 
 told that she should deliver her country and how she should 
 do it, and the means she should take to accomplish this re- 
 sult. *Her hand, accustomed to rude instruments of labor, 
 must bear the sword of St. Catherine. She should have 
 
horse and armor and discern the King in the midst of his 
 nobles. Her mission is coldly and doubtfully recognized, 
 but she goes forth at last, a warrior maid a consecrated 
 leader. Hiding her white horse find bearing her standard, 
 she turns the tide of battle; victory crowns her in many 
 combats. Her King is crowned and anointed in Reims, and 
 the land is freed from the invader. She now asks to return 
 to her father's fields and her peasant life once more. The 
 nobles and generals despised and envied that strange in- 
 spired girl, but the people and the soldiers loved and revered 
 her, and the enemy dreaded her, supposing her to be a sor- 
 ceress. The King entreated her to remain and she con- 
 sented, much against her will. Alas, for the fatal fight 
 of Compeigne! When leading her soldiers, she was 
 taken prisoner by the fierce Burgundians and sold to the 
 English for sixteen thousand francs. The English war- 
 riors dared not, they could not carry out the terrible fate 
 her enemies reserved for her, for this valiant leader was a 
 prisoner of war. So they shifted the* responsibility on to 
 the church, and Joan was brought before the ecclesiastical 
 tribunal of the Bishop of Beauvais as a sorceress and 
 heretic, fearful and comprehensive word, often a synonym 
 for all that is noblest. After a period of insulting and tor- 
 turing imprisonment, she was brought to trial and con- 
 demned to be burnt at the stake. Her voices were derided, 
 her mission and herself insulted. The noble soul went up 
 in a fiery chariot. Like her Master, she was martyred by 
 the consent of Herod, Pilate, and the Priests, but she 
 bore witness even in the flames to the truth of her mission. 
 Alone with God she delivered her people. She fought the 
 good fight and received her fiery crown. Countless lives of 
 women have there been, loving as Eloise, glorious as Joan's, 
 devoted as Madame Guyon's. It is the difference in the lift 
 and spring of these lives that should be remarked. The 
 new element that was added, the new victories that were 
 achieved, and they bore a joyful yoke, an easy yoke, when 
 it became a burdensome, gloomy, sorrowful yoke, it was 
 no longer Christ's yoke, but man's yoke. 
 
 We now come to the most striking and important illustra- 
 
1 9] 
 
 tion, the one that most intimately concerns us to-day, be- 
 cause it is a practical illustration of a most vital and 
 important doctrine the doctrine of perfect sanctification. It 
 is the life of Francoise Guyon, a suffering, yet a joyful life; 
 a bird singing its sweetest songs behind prison bars. She 
 was beautiful, and of a rich and noble family. In her youth 
 she loved, but that love was disappointed. "I began,' 1 she 
 says, " to seek in the creature what I had found in God.' 
 According to French customs, a marriage was arranged for 
 her by her parents, and she was transferred to her husband's 
 house. But she was no sooner there than she found that it 
 would be for her a house of mourning. The whole family 
 was harsh and cold, blind to her merits and rude to her 
 sympathies. The loving soul, shut out from the natural 
 possibilities of affection, devoted itself to works of mercy. 
 She prepared medicines, visited the sick, loaned to me- 
 chanics, tradesmen and others small sums that enabled 
 them to start in business, and fulfilled her duties to a sickly 
 and irritable husband and the children she bore him. 
 
 Gradually her spiritual sphere became enlarged. She 
 held the door open and the divine guest entered. She saw 
 that the substance of religion is the same in Catholics and 
 Protestants; that it is always allied to angels and God, and 
 always meeting with opposition from what is not angelic 
 and not of God. About this time she experienced sanctifi- 
 cation. She says a sanctified heart is always in union with 
 divine Providence. She became filled with a sense of inward 
 purity, and from this time was in the enjoyment of liberty. 
 ' 'Some." she says, "are like a pump, in which the water is 
 thrown out with effort, but those who are in the enjoyment 
 of sanctification are like a well." The majority of persons 
 are brought into this state as she was, through exceeding 
 afflictions. It was very dangerous at the time in which she 
 lived, a corrupt time, when insane luxury was preparing the 
 way for re volution, even to see these things; it was almost fatal 
 to teach them. 
 
 About this time she met with Father La Combe, a soul 
 like unto hers, purified by affliction and advanced unto con- 
 secration and sanctification, a rare soul, but foredoomed to 
 
I 3 ] 
 
 martyrdom in those days when a corrupt church was nearing 
 its downfall. They had much communion together, sacred 
 hours of interchange, never to be forgotten. She desired 
 that he should become her spiritual director. He at first 
 declined and then accepted that office. More clear-seeing 
 than La Combe and led into a higher experience, she opened 
 to him this hidden way, the divine way of full sanctifica- 
 tion. She was shown that this experience strikes at the 
 root of all earthly desire, as well as of all earthly support; 
 that the outward is subject to the inward; that the union 
 with the will of God becomes natural and fixed. Unsancti- 
 fied passion, she says, loses its power on those who are fully 
 sanctified. The mind assumes a unity of character. The 
 inflowing love of God reduces all principles and motives of 
 action to one. It is revealed to her that she should become 
 the mother of a numerous people, a people simple and child- 
 like (how wonderfully is that fulfilled in these last days!) 
 " My soul," she said, " seemed to pass into God and be lost 
 in Him, as the waters of a river pass into the ocean and are 
 lost in it. This life is an inconceivable innocence." 
 
 But Francoise Guyon could not keep the light that was in 
 her from shining out. It shone itself, and she became the 
 inspiration of La Combe, as in later years she became the 
 inspiration of Fenelon. La Combe afterwards began to 
 preach holiness and full sanctification. They had one 
 thought and one object to lead others into the divine way 
 they had found themselves. 
 
 After her husband's death she retired to a convent in 
 Switzerland, and there met with many persecutions. The} 7 
 could not comprehend her nor fellowship with her. A beau- 
 tiful girl boarding at the convent attracted the attention of 
 a powerful and wealthy priest, but through the influence of 
 Madame Guyon over the girl, his plans came to naught. 
 This added to her difficulties. 
 
 She left the convent and went to live in a small cottage 
 with her faithful maid, La Gautiere, and her little daughter. 
 Her household was assailed, her cottage injured, and her 
 garden destroyed. She was very much drawn to the young 
 Swiss working girls. There were some, she says, who worked 
 
[ 3' ] 
 
 all day long, and sanctified their work by silent prayer. 
 They would select one of their number to read to them as 
 they worked. After a while she returned to Paris, and 
 while there became much sought after by many distinguished 
 people and ladies of the court. Her influence was widely 
 felt. The sweet, subtle perfume of the spirit was wafted 
 round wherever she appeared. The name of Quietists was 
 attached to those who received these doctrines, and they 
 were declared false, rash and impious, and similar to those 
 of the Puritans of England. Puritanism was agitating 
 England at that time and about to find its outlet in America; 
 but Puritanism was essentially masculine in many of its 
 characteristics. It persecuted Quakers, and hung, on the 
 great oak of Boston Common, Mary Hutchinson, a woman 
 whose soul could not be bound in fetters of their devising, 
 but who preferred freedom and death to the bondage of the 
 spirit. Mme. Guyon says: "He does well who fasts on bread 
 and water, but he does better who fasts from his own desires 
 and his own will. The sanctified soul has power with God 
 and with man." 
 
 The sweet, exalted spirit of Archbishop Fenelon recog- 
 nized her influence. His friendship and profound tender- 
 ness and respect for her never ceased till the end of his pure 
 and holy life, but it involved him in a controversy with the 
 narrow soul of Bossuet, and finally drove him into exile, 
 where he quietly and blessedly fulfilled the duties of his 
 episcopate a true shepherd of the sheep. It was no priva- 
 tion to him to leave Paris; the country delighted him. "In 
 the midst of my duties," he said, "I find God's holy peace." 
 Madame Guyon says: "I presented Fenelon before God in 
 special prayer." 
 
 The Port Koyal nuns were touched by the divine flame, 
 and brooded under the wings of the Holy Ghost. To them 
 this also brought spoliation and destruction. An armed 
 band despoiled the convent and dispersed the Sisters. An 
 aged nun, the last to leave the ruined building, raising her 
 hand in the presence of the leader of the band and his sol- 
 diers, said : "To-day, sirs, is the hour of man, but b,e assured 
 that another day the day of God's righteous retribution 
 
1 3* 1 
 
 will soon come!" And it came, with the tocsin of revolu- 
 tion, the barricades of Paris, the reign of terror, and the 
 summons of kings and nobles to judgment. 
 
 But Madame Guyon's teachings could not go on; these 
 dangerous voices must be silenced. La Combe wrote to 
 her: "The times look heavy; the storm gathers in the sky. 
 I feel resigned to reproaches and ignominies, I am about to 
 suffer. It is my wish that you should sacrifice me to God, 
 as I have sacrificed myself.'' His presentiments were ful- 
 filled. He was imprisoned shortly afterwards; a life-long 
 imprisonment of twenty-seven years, from which he emerged 
 only to be taken to the hospital at Charenton, where he 
 died. Madame Gnyon did all she could for him; sent him 
 money and books, and wrote him comforting and affection- 
 ate letters as long as she was able. He wrote her: "All my 
 desires are summed up in one that God may be glorified 
 in me." 
 
 Three months after La Combe's imprisonment Mme. Guyon 
 was imprisoned. She says in her diary: "O Holy Spirit of 
 Love, let me be subject to thy will!" and then, August 20, 
 1688: "I am now forty years of age, in prison, a place I 
 love and cherish, as I find it sanctified by the Lord." 
 
 After eight months she was liberated, then imprisoned 
 again, and at last consigned to the Bastille that gloomy 
 and terrible fortress of old Paris. This time the imprison- 
 ment was designed to crush her, and it did, physically. Her 
 faithful maid, La Gautiere, who had shared her other pris- 
 ons, was not permitted to be with her. La Gautiere was 
 more than a servant; she was a sister beloved in the Lord. 
 Together had they sung and prayed and given thanks. Some 
 of the sweetest songs of that dear, inspired poet of the New 
 Dispensation came from behind her prison bars. Mme. 
 Guyon looked up in her gloomy cell in the Bastille and saw 
 no sun ; that dove of tenderness, who would fain have gone 
 forth, bearing a message of love to every human soul; she, 
 who had lived softly in her sunny gardens, could see no 
 green fields or woods only iron-bound windows, in the 
 immense thickness of the walls and more than this, they 
 
[ 33] 
 
 made her suffer the keenest mental and spiritual torture 
 with diabolic ingenuity. 
 
 La Gautiere died in prison. She wrote before her death, 
 "I am in this prison, and Mme. Guy on is in an other cell, but 
 we are united in spirit. The walls of a prison cannot hinder 
 the union of souls/' 
 
 After years of imprisonment, her sentence was commuted 
 into exile. She emerged from this den of torture, sick, and 
 ever after incapable of any active work; a dove with broken 
 wings. But she says, with all her old sweetness, " My life is 
 consecrated to God, to suffer for Him, as well as to enjoy him.'' 
 And then looking back to the years of her active life, she 
 says: " My mission has been, and is, to lead those who are 
 already beginners to perfect conversion." She was a sweet 
 songstress, a sweet lyrical poet. She left behind her many 
 published works. 
 
 It is a relief to think that she saw green fields and the sun 
 once more. The time of her departure came in the beauti- 
 ful month of June, 1717. She went home in peace. 
 
 Such was woman after Christ one in his love and in the 
 fellowship of his sufferings. 
 
 The undaunted heart which beat under Joan's armor was 
 no stronger and no steadier than the loving resignation of 
 Mme. Guyon in the Bastile, or of Eloise in the Paraclete. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 WOMAN IN THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD. 
 
 The Transitional Period now opens, violent and stormy, 
 with the terrible retributions of French revolutions and 
 Napoleonic wars; also, the development in the western 
 world of the great and powerful English-speaking nations 
 of America, and many other signs and tokens. In this period 
 we live to-day, and as time wears on, confusion becomes 
 worse confounded and the babble of voices increases, so 
 that those who in any department give out a clear, audible 
 voice, give out a distinct answer to any question, whether as 
 touching labor, finance, sociology, temperance, or any other 
 vital question ought to be carefully regarded, and what they 
 have to say wisely considered. In England it is becoming 
 a very important question how large masses of human 
 beings are to be housed. Even here it is becoming a ques- 
 tion how large masses of people are to be fed, in spite of 
 the immensely increasing average wealth of the nation, but 
 it all goes into a few hands, and the tendency that way is 
 increasing. The English are rebelling against their heredi- 
 tary house of law makers, of which the late immense 
 meeting of a hundred thousand people in Hyde Park, sing- 
 ing the Marseillaise and crying, "Down with the Peers," 
 is a very significant token. 
 
 The frugal, patient Germans are asking why they should 
 feed, pay and clothe thousands of their best producers, who 
 are kept in uniformed idleness and used as a force to tighten 
 the bonds on the people who are supporting them. 
 
 Conditions of inharmony in families are becoming more 
 and more trying, two-thirds, or even more of households 
 are places of purgatory, where suffering souls antagonize. 
 The air is charged with unspent forces, "ancestral voices 
 prophesying war." Oh, how precious is every soul that 
 knows how to make its own harmony, and radiates an at- 
 mosphere of peace. 
 
I 35 ] 
 
 Law is no longer respectable; justice is too often a thing 
 of barter and sale; the church is fast losing its power, 
 unless as some heaven-endowed men and women make a 
 spot of radiance and a home of sympathy. Then people 
 come round to warm themselves by the fire of the spirit, 
 and are blessed. One feature of our modern society is the 
 unveiling of shams, and as they are unveiled, it is seen how 
 defective the underpining of present society is. 
 
 We are living under the shadow of the impending wall 
 which in the interior of the pyramid, is represented 
 as closing the great gallery of the Christian dispensation. 
 Woman is awakened by the tocsins of approaching conflict, 
 which are sounding everywhere. She perceives that she 
 must eat her bread by the sweat of her brow, and that the 
 conditions under which she can do so are becoming day by 
 day more onerous. She is invading, where she can, the wider 
 and easier spheres of action. Unregenerated woman makes 
 a common cause with the serpentine head, and receives its 
 honors and rewards, but as the daughters of light are not 
 willing to do this, the conflict goes on. 
 
 Woman is claiming suffrage. It is a question in many 
 minds whether any form of representation as at present 
 existing amounts to much, or whether it is not after all only 
 a cleverly managed and ingeniously arranged sleight of hand 
 performance for the benefit of the wire pullers. Your Leg- 
 islatures do not represent one-eighth of the men who vote. 
 The United States Senate does not represent one-twentieth 
 of the men who vote. Can you wonder that the extraordi- 
 nary machine you call government, from which one-half of 
 the average intelligence and fully one-third of the property 
 of the country is entirely excluded should be so very con- 
 summate a failure ? It is known that some of the best and 
 ablest men in America have withdrawn themselves from 
 politics. If the suffrage is granted to woman under existing 
 conditions, the women who minister to the serpentine head 
 will continue to do so, and receive its honors and rewards; 
 but if the daughters of light come to the front, the daughters 
 of light, who can neither be bought, sold or terrified, then 
 a different and stranger thing will be made manifest; then 
 
[36] 
 
 will be understood the saying of the Master : If new wine 
 be poured into old bottles, then will the bottles burst and 
 the wine be spilled. So when the woman element, which 
 belongs to the new dispensation, and the new government, 
 and can only come into its place when it is subjected to its 
 laws, attempts to force its way into old conditions, the 
 consequence will be that old conditions, or the old bottles 
 of old governments will burst to pieces. 
 
 Then the last desperate effort to unite the scattered and 
 falling serpentine power will be made under the man of sin, 
 who will honor the God of forces, the distinctively mascu- 
 line God, and despise the desire of woman for freedom and 
 representation. 
 
 The German poet, Goethe, in his wonderful poem of 
 Faust, has portrayed the unsatisfied longings and desires of 
 the Transitional Period. 
 
 Faust has mastered all the sciences; he has arrived at the 
 understanding of the natural forces and their application, 
 and being hungry for the spiritual, and not knowing how to 
 reach it divinely, has given himself over to Magic. This is 
 a very distinctive feature of the Transitional Period; the 
 consulting of spirits for earthly aims and to gratify earthly 
 desires. Reinforcing selfishness, greed and sensuality, by 
 the aid of the demoniac powers. Is any light attained in 
 this manner ? Not so, but rather darkness. 
 
 Look at the wonderful inventions of to-day; look at that 
 most common fact, the cars. I never see the bright eye of 
 the locomotive of the express train in the distance, and then 
 hear its tremendous whirr and lightning rush but I repeat to 
 myself the prophetic description of the strange object given 
 by Isaiah more than two thousand years ago "they shall 
 seem like torches; they shall run like lightning." 
 
 Boundless Ophirs have been opened Californias, Aus- 
 tralias. They travel to and fro throughout the earth, and 
 knowledge is increased. The English word "globe trotter" 
 expresses quite a large class of these runners to and fro; but 
 for all this, the spirit of the age is weary, so weary that sui- 
 cide and insanity are constantly increasing and in the poem 
 Faust is about to drink the poison that shall end his exist- 
 
[37] 
 
 ence. All at once he hears the sound of those sweet Easter 
 hymns that recall his childhood's old belief. He stays his 
 purpose, but the effect is only transitory. After a while the 
 tempter comes to him in a visible form, and whispers of the 
 joys of sense. He breathes into him the materialistic spirit, 
 which is as indifferent as nature is to the sufferings of the 
 beings whom her storms and tempests hurl to destruction. 
 He speaks of Margaret, plans their meetings under infernal 
 auspices, and draws the gentle girl into the fiery vortex. Borne 
 away in a torrent of delirious feeling, an unresisting victim 
 of the serpentine power, she sees but Faust everywhere, his 
 form, the laughing glance of his eye, and ach sein kuss. He 
 drinks with her the charmed cup, and leaves her the poison- 
 ous dregs, the pangs, the torment; later, the prison and the 
 scaffold. Here is the whole of the transitional period in a 
 nutshell. It has abandoned the old landmarks and given 
 itself over to magic. The heart hungers for love, but the 
 woman who loves becomes the prey of man's selfishness. 
 Woman, too, makes selfish calculations on her power of 
 magnetic attraction, using it as a means of living, as a 
 means of success in the world, a mighty and cunning engine 
 of power over the hearts of others. Men and women insanely 
 trifle with each other, and lay profane and frivolous hands 
 on the divine ark. Every newspaper, the field of observa- 
 tion of every thoughtful man or woman, is filled with inci- 
 dents that recall the strange power of the evil eye of the 
 Orientals. A danc.ing girl not long ago had the power to 
 send two men to a suicide's grave, and one of them ended 
 his existence over the grave of the other. A young Italian 
 girl was smitten by the same influence in this city, and she, 
 too, ended her days by poison in the presence of her un- 
 worthy lover. Alas for mortality, when the strongest of the 
 powers has us in its grasp, the force which must either be sub- 
 jected to the divine and made the savor of life unto life, or 
 being seized upon by the powers of evil, is made the savor 
 of death unto death. The charm of the snake can only be 
 broken by a divine counter-charm, and this must be done 
 before woman can rise to her divinest position, and man and 
 woman enter a paradaisical condition.^^iiii nnkfifcod's anger, 
 
 OFTM 
 
[38] 
 
 but his love, that is going to be the destructive agent to all 
 that is opposed to eternal law. Is it anger that makes the 
 sword of the patriot a destroying force? No; it is the pas- 
 sion of his love for honor, truth and liberty. The fever 
 excitement of the transitional period is one effect of the 
 incoming tidal wave of divine love. Who shall dwell with 
 everlasting burnings ? He that hath clean hands and a pure 
 heart. 
 
 Divine love is the cause of the tribulation of the last 
 time, because it burns up, urges and drives to madness 
 all but those who can walk through the furnace seven times 
 heated because the Son of Man is by their side. Woman 
 in the transitional period must pass through the furnace of 
 passion changed by the presence of the Son of Man into the 
 warmth and radiance of divine love. She walks there un- 
 harmed and smiling, because He is by her side, and there 
 is not even the smell of fire upon her garments. The pres- 
 ence of the Lord in the light and glory of full sanctification 
 is the only refuge of the sons and daughters of light in the 
 day that is coming and is even now here. A strong rock is 
 our God. The fire of divine love guards the access to the 
 tree of life, watched over by the cherubim; hence the short- 
 ening of the days and the years of the life of those who go 
 down into the chambers of death, the house of the strange 
 woman; hence the ability to walk in the fire of those three 
 who had faith and feared not, realizing the promise that 
 " Where two or three are gathered in My. name, there am I 
 in the midst of them." 
 
 It is a peculiar feature of the present period that 
 many men and women find themselves alone, separated. 
 Families are being broken up as they never were 
 before. Unsuitable relations between men and women are 
 becoming intolerable to both parties. The most ancient 
 Indian book says that woman is stronger than man; that she 
 is an incarnate force, because man can subdue the elephant 
 and the tiger and the natural world, but is himself tamed 
 and subdued by woman. This is one side of a great truth. 
 It is the revelation of the feminine force of the divine in 
 woman that is agitating the world to-day as it was never agi- 
 
[39] 
 
 tated before. Man has always dreaded this, and it has been 
 wisely held in check. The disciplines of thousands of years 
 have been required to do for woman what the slavery of four 
 hundred years had to teach the Hebrews. Woman is now 
 about to receive a new, God-given law, while she passes 
 through the transitional desert, ere she reaches the promised 
 land. It will be no easy pilgrimage. Pilgrim sisters, fear 
 not; look not back to the succulent meats of Egypt; cry not 
 out for dainty meats; say not, at your peril, that your soul 
 loathes the light bread of the wilderness, else, verily, ye 
 shall die and not see the promised land. 
 
 The most ancient East is stirred. European Theosophists 
 in Bombay are affiliating themselves with Asiatic rites and 
 Indian magic. 
 
 How much more hopeful than this is the great native Hin- 
 doo movement of the Brahma Somaj, which, being inter- 
 preted, means Church of God. This, under God, is awa- 
 kening the Hindoo heart, so long crushed under the domi- 
 nation of stronger, or rather, coarser peoples. It is remar- 
 rying widows, bringing Indian womanhood from the seclu- 
 sion of the Zenanas to gladsome light and liberty. The 
 Light of Asia, her awakened womanhood, now steps forth 
 tenderly, gracefully, sweetly into the sunlight, and blends 
 her oriental insight and loving devotion with the eagerness 
 and fervor of her western sisters. 
 
 Mrs. Booth, one of the marked women of the period, is 
 claiming the streets of London for the Lord, and in con- 
 junction with her noble husband and children, is sending 
 forth battalions of the sons and daughters of light all through 
 the world. They are inviting to the supper, going into the 
 highways and byways and compelling them to come in. 
 
 In the hill country of Bassim, India, a woman, often 
 alone with her bands of orphans and young girls, calmly 
 fronts the hoary immemorial religions and ancient temples and 
 goes forth singing and preaching through the bazaars, bearing 
 everywhere the banner of her Master. The profoundest 
 minds of England are stirred with a love of India and the 
 Indian people they have held by the sword so long. And 
 it is time. Mohammedanism is gaining ground in India. 
 
[40 1 
 
 Village after village is being converted to that pitiless re- 
 ligion. The polygamous Mormon is in our midst to-day 
 with all the craft, cunning and sensuality of the polygamous 
 Mohammedan. The Mormons have known how to tame 
 woman, subdue and utilize her, and Americans gaze upon 
 the spectacle, some with disgust, others with considerable 
 inward satisfaction. The toiling classes of England and 
 Scandinavia, simple, eager, honest and impulsive, have fur- 
 nished them with splendid material for their peculiar system. 
 The Morrisites made the first break for liberty in the Terri- 
 tory, led by an inspired and remarkable man. The con- 
 vincing Mormon arguments of cannon ball and rifle shot 
 poured for three days into a camp of men, women and chil- 
 dren, dispersed them and killed their leader. I do not 
 know what were the opinions of the body of that people 
 during their organization, and in the lifetime of their leader, 
 upon the woman question. 
 
 I will now direct your attention to a very remarkable 
 society, which lives, labors and flourishes at the present 
 day. God does not work as man works. He puts down the 
 mighty from their seat and exalts the humble and the meek. 
 An obscure English woman, Ann Lee, appeared about the 
 end of the eighteenth century. She was the wife of a 
 blacksmith and could neither read nor write, yet she was 
 one of the Pivotal women of the Transitional Period. To 
 her was unfolded the Fatherhood and Motherhood of God, 
 a doctrine that had been but dimly apparent, and is not 
 yet fully manifested. This doctrine man, with his intellec- 
 tual strength and physical power, has almost overshadowed. 
 It has become almost like the pale shadow of the moon 
 around the crescent. This knowledge was placed in an 
 earthen vessel that it might be manifest that the excel- 
 lency of the power was of God and not of man. It was 
 shown forth in humble and almost grotesque forms, that the 
 worldly and light-minded might not interfere with it or 
 disturb it. 
 
 Mother Ann, as she was affectionately styled, was herself 
 the symbol of the idea that was given to her, though she 
 did not know it. Ezekiel, the prophet, was made a symbol 
 
[4i I 
 
 unto his people, doing as the Lord commanded him, taking 
 a tile and portraying upon it the image of Jerusalem, taking 
 an iron pot and setting it for a wall between himself and the 
 city, which was portrayed on the tile, laying upon his side 
 and eating defiled bread, as the Lord commanded him. 
 All this must not only have seemed silly, but disgusting to 
 his people, but he obeyed. So did Ann Lee. She came to 
 America with her associates, and in faith and tribulation 
 founded the Order of Shakers. The name was attached to 
 them in derision, but many a true word has been spoken in 
 jest. It is the practical revelation of the divine mother- 
 hood in woman that to-day is the cause of the world's shak- 
 ing and agitation. 
 
 The associates set to work humbly and lovingly as they 
 were shown. They cultivated the ground, raised seeds and 
 plants, and were honest in their dealings. After a while 
 their various products acquired a commercial reputation. 
 But it was not time for the truth to be fully revealed, and 
 so the grotesque dresses, the peculiar dances, and various 
 other parts of their discipline, hid from the eyes of the 
 multitude its immense significance, and preserved the light 
 burning like the sacred light of Koine, tended by vestal 
 hands. 
 
 Ann Lee was a simple, truthful, earnest woman. There 
 have been others in this period brilliant, cultured and 
 inspired, like our own Margaret Fuller, and yet Brook 
 Farm, which assembled some of the most brilliant men and 
 women in America to experiment upon community life, was 
 a failure, and yet it was not a failure to the parties engaged 
 in it. It was probably a very rich experience. It left noth- 
 ing permanent as to the individual material effort, only a 
 radiance and a warmth in literature and in thought, that 
 may yet bear fruit, but the simple obedience of a poor 
 English woman has produced permanent and visible results. 
 Noble Madame Eolands there have been, and brilliant 
 De Staels, but have they left behind them so much as Ann 
 Lee did with her one simple, noble title of mother ? Mother 
 and father are the two noblest names that can appertain to 
 humanity, and ought to be the most consecrated. The 
 
mother in Elizabeth of England, the mother in Josephine 
 of France is what preserves their names in lasting fragrance. 
 The distinctive Shaker tenet, as expressed in the Shaker 
 Roll, is that fleshly lust, fed by indulgence and gratifica- 
 tion, will never suffer souls to enjoy harmony and union 
 farther than the bonds of natural private families extend, 
 and even they come short. It was announced that the time 
 had come when a separation between flesh and spirit must 
 take place. It was also said that all associations that have 
 been formed for temperance in eating and drinking are the 
 operations of Divine Providence in the hearts of men to 
 prepare for mercy and judgment. This church was never 
 established as a popular show to the inhabitants of the 
 earth, to compass sea and land for proselytes, "but her people 
 were required to embody their strength in one united 
 capacity, to conquer and subdue their own evil natures 
 within, and gain a substance of the true oil and light of life 
 eternal. I have never promised salvation or protection to 
 any souls except in the path of my revealed will and order. 
 I will know no man by his words, but by his fruit. Then 
 the cogent question is asked : Have you found the golden 
 cord of purity which binds souls in one, or do the bands of 
 sin and death yet surround you and cause you to be broken 
 in pieces?" 
 
 In 1838, the manifestations of spirits in various Shaker 
 communities became frequent, and a vision of the war 
 of the rebellion was given. April 24, 1862, it was told 
 to a member of the order that fires, pestilences, earth- 
 quakes and famines should prevail, and towns should sink; 
 also, that droughts, earthquakes, wind and rain should de- 
 stroy rich-loaded fields of vegetation. It was declared that 
 the Day of Judgment has commenced, and that the late 
 universal outpouring of God's Spirit among His chosen 
 people is here. It was declared that troubles still heavier 
 than those of the rebellion await the rulers and people of 
 this country. The seer said: " I was commanded to turn 
 my eyes to the north, and I saw the inhabitants walking to 
 and fro friendless, destitute and forlorn, gnawing their 
 tongues with anguish of soul, while their bodies were fam- 
 
[43 ] 
 
 ishing with huDger. I looked to find the Israel of God, and 
 beheld, as it were, wings gathering them together and hov- 
 ering over them. I observed that all who gathered beneath 
 these holy wings were safely protected, and in a low 
 and pleasant \ale, united as in one body. Your noble 
 dwellings, where men have dwelt in ease and indolence, shall 
 be places where food shall be prepared for the servants of 
 God, and sweet industry shall reign. In many an unfin- 
 ished shed, in barns and cottages of the poorest peasant, 
 shall the power, mercy and justice of God be displayed, and 
 His word loudly echo: To the meanest hovel shall some 
 of the most renowned on earth yet gather, and on their 
 bended knees seek the forgiveness of their God and humbly 
 beg for his mercy, and by those whom they once disdained 
 to comfort with the necessaries of life, shall they be fed 
 with the imperishable bread of Heaven." 
 
 Such are some of the Shaker prophecies of events to occur 
 in the Transitional Period. Some of them have been ful- 
 filled; others are yet in the future. 
 
 This is a period of strange and eventful lives, of wonder- 
 ful illuminations, of singular splendors, like our crim- 
 son sunsets with their glows and after glows of changeful 
 colors. 
 
 The Communion of Saints, which we are privileged to 
 enjoy, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, which comes to 
 those who open their hearts to invite it, the bliss and peace 
 of sanctification, is our preparation for these trial times. 
 These times of struggle and sorrow will bind women more 
 strongly to each other; they will be more helpful to each 
 other. The great temperance movement is energized by 
 woman's efforts and her prayers, in private and in public 
 works. Oh, what a divine blessing is being poured out on 
 some of our churches; what a blessing is being poured 
 forth outside of our churches. I tremble, yet rejoice ex- 
 ceedingly. It is the Pentecostal blessing before the tribu- 
 lation. What is light and warmth to us is fire and destruc- 
 tion to the elements opposed to us. Our God is Love, but 
 He is a consuming fire, and yet a place of light, warmth 
 and blessedness. Hence, the anger and persecution a Pen- 
 
[ 44 ] 
 
 tecostal period is apt to bring on the part of those opposed 
 to it. 
 
 Women are pressing forward in many departments of in- 
 dustry, showing the way in which we may work and provide 
 for the imminent future in silk culture, horticulture, and 
 even agriculture. 
 
 Thrice blessed are they who are seeking to rekindle the 
 light of home in all the various departments of woman's 
 work. A true woman does not love the heartless crowding 
 of the factory. She is willing to work, if she can only have 
 a home, and homes are the price of industry. 
 
 The two great women writers of France and England, who, 
 strangely enough, in their published works appear under the 
 names of George Sand and George Eliot, were women of the 
 period, passionate, fervid and suffering. George Sand lived 
 her life and left us Consuelo, the sublime portrait of a woman 
 who overcame through love, who gave grace to poverty, and 
 joyfully accepted renunciation. George Eliot left us Eomola, 
 a heroine of the cross, yoked together unequally with the 
 fickle, false and sensuous Tito, but triumphing through love 
 and patience even in apparent defeat. The difficulty is in 
 selecting the marked women of the transitional period, so rap- 
 idly and strongly is it calling forth the feminine in every 
 department the heroines of anti-slavery, the heroines of 
 temperance, the valiant soldiers and officers of the Salvation 
 Army, the heroines of revolt against oppression throughout 
 the world. 
 
 The surging tide of the feminine is everywhere rising in 
 obedience to the attraction of the heavenly powers, as the 
 tides of the sea rise to the attraction of the moon. 
 
 Eomola and Consuelo represent woman in the epoch of 
 transition, sustained by the divine ideal. Consuelo smooths 
 the road for her beloved Albert, who struggles with the 
 blindness of his age and its want of comprehension of the 
 divine truth that fills his soul. She stands by his side, and 
 their work and love is equal and happy. Kornola walks 
 alone, sweet and silent, and tames her proud heart to fulfill 
 her lowly mission. 
 
 In a mild day of March, passing a warm, sunny nook, the 
 
[45] 
 
 sense is smitten with a sudden fragrance, and looking down, 
 a thicket of rich blue blossoms appears near an old tree 
 stump; so comes the fragrance of the lives of some of the 
 women of the transitional epoch, often very humble ones, 
 violets hidden beneath the leaves, but they say that summer 
 is coming. 
 
 Modern Spiritualism has called forth a majority of women 
 into its ranks as its exponents. All classes and conditions 
 of spirits have returned, eager to demonstrate their pres- 
 ence. It has been a living protest against the materialism 
 of the eighteenth century, which almost denied the existence 
 of spirit or of life beyond the tomb. 
 
 Many years ago a woman appeared in Dodworth's Hall, 
 New York, for a short time. She was very beautiful a pure 
 Greek face and wealth of golden hair. She spoke ably, 
 logically and most eloquently, before a large audience of 
 some of the most cultured and thoughtful people of that city. 
 After the lecture she answered many questions that were 
 put to her, most satisfactorily to the questionersf Yet |hat 
 woman had but a few weeks before graduated, not from col- 
 lege, but from the housemaid's broom and dust-pan. I have 
 never heard of her since. Cora Richmond has been for forty 
 years a channel of communication with the unseen world, 
 and has faithfully and gracefully fulfilled her mission. 
 
 Some years ago a woman flashed like a meteor through 
 the land. She had known the depths of poverty. She had 
 known the insult and degradation of a neglected and for- 
 saken wife. She inherited an intense and passionate tem- 
 perament. She identified herself with modern Spiritualism 
 and became its president; not only so, but she laid hands 
 on Wall street, and she and her sister opened a stock broker's 
 office there. She also published a paper which at that time 
 attracted great attention. Then she stirred the people in 
 the lecture field, and astonished even the reporters by her 
 beauty and her boldness. Individuality and the power of 
 the will of unsanctified womari never had a more fitting or 
 splendid representative; but the rocket sent up its swift 
 flame, and came down in splendid stars, and that was all; 
 so much apparent achievement, so fine a light, and yet no 
 
1 46 ] 
 
 line of radiance left after it so it was with Victoria Wood- 
 hull. 
 
 The media of the spirit would come with no direct mes- 
 sage like the prophets of old. They are liable to be some- 
 what contradictory in their assertions. They are Eolian 
 harps, played upon by breathings from the unseen. They 
 speak of lives, conditions and surroundings, sometimes 
 those of near and dear ones, in a land far off and yet so 
 near. If the creatures that sing and fly could communicate 
 with the finny inhabitants of the deep, it would be difficult 
 to convey to the fishes the way in which birds exist. So we 
 must wait for our own translation fully to realize it. We 
 know that what makes our joy here will make our joy or 
 sorrow there. There is a dual force in that world as in this. 
 There are voices that come to us unsought, sweet, and calm, 
 and fragrant with the gales of Heaven, but when driven by 
 the winds of earthly desires, to seek wilder gales of spirit 
 force to waft us to our desired haven, we risk loss and ship- 
 wreck. I will say, with sorrow, that some utterances I have 
 heard from mediumistic persons remind me more of inspi- 
 rations from angels who have lost their first estate from 
 willfulness and disobedience than of anything divine. There 
 is a proud boast of human will and of what is called individu- 
 ality, such as Lucifer might have displayed. The unbridled 
 human will is the fittest channel for demoniac possession. 
 
 Spiritualistic literature does not thrill me like the burdens 
 of the Bible old. Emerson says: 
 
 The litanies of nations came 
 Like the volcano's tongue of flame 
 Out from the burning core below, 
 The canticles of love and woe. 
 
 A French writer says: " Thought and passion is the de- 
 structive social element. It is only by moderating the 
 social activity of a people that we can insure its longevity. '' 
 To-day all the forces are at work to stir up thought and 
 passion in every class of society, even among those who have 
 remained most solidly entrenched by ages of inertia, like 
 the peasants of Eussia. Devoted spirits, educated and 
 
[ 47 1 
 
 wealthy men and women, and others are active in the revo- 
 lutionary propaganda, even among this seemingly impene- 
 trable class. It is the period of struggle from the old to 
 the new, and we are all more or less feeling its unrest. 
 
 The various reforms in which the upheaving world spirit 
 is trying to assert itself, give woman freedom. 
 
 Nihilism emancipated woman, and in return it owes much 
 to the fervor and devotion of woman. All forms of labor 
 agitation and social reform bring woman to the front, and 
 so do the advanced inspirations of religious thought and 
 religious work. 
 
 Men and women of the world held up surprised hands, 
 because a band of Hallelujah Lasses were selling War Crys 
 in the streets of Paris, and yet they could very complacently 
 see bands of young girls trained to the service of the flesh 
 nightly in every theatre in Paris. 
 
 Let woman come to the front for God and humanity. 
 Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ? To his 
 own master he standeth or falleth ! 
 
CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 THE NEW DISPENSATION. 
 
 There is a Restoration which is the theme of all prophetic 
 song a time of peace and harmony when no galley with 
 oars, or gallant war-ship shall pass up the place of broad 
 rivers and streams, where the children of the kingdom 
 dwell under the full manifestation of its glories. The way- 
 faring man that passes by, however simple he may be, can- 
 not miss his way. There will be no tramps or vagabonds in 
 the ordered kingdom of love. A period of very severe trial 
 is said to precede this manifestation of the day of the Lord, 
 and also the appearance of an Individual who is called the 
 Man of Sin, who in his estate honors the god of forces, the 
 power and strength of armies, and despises the desire of 
 woman for freedom and representation, which desire holds 
 the germ of the coming kingdom, which shall supersede his 
 violence and brutality. 
 
 A few isolated lives of men and women have given us a 
 foretaste of the sweetness and grandeur of these times. 
 They have been like hot-house blooms in winter, but in the 
 springtide of the New Dispensation, meadow and hillside 
 shall be one carpet of blossoms. 
 
 Dr. James Hughes says: "The time is come when man 
 on this planet is required by the eternal law of progression 
 to receive new light and wisdom and new loves, through the 
 agency of new conditions. Man has plucked almost all the 
 fruits of the tree of knowledge, and partaken so freely of 
 that which gratifies his egotism, that he is contemplating 
 enthroning himself as God the cause and end of all things." 
 There is a spiritual law to which all things, whether in 
 heaven or on earth, must yield obedience. The changes and 
 new conditions which are approaching are the effects of this 
 divine law. Man to receive knowledge must slay innocence, 
 therefore innocence is represented as a lamb slain from the 
 
I 49 1 
 
 foundation of the world. Experience is a progressive step 
 to learn to know. In advancing in the dark, the feelings of 
 innocence had to be suppressed, therefore was she slain; 
 but innocence must revive again. The lion knowledge, and 
 the lamb innocence, will lie down together and unite in har- 
 mony. This point is reached whenever man has trulv 
 learned himself, his relations to God and his fellow man and 
 universal nature. Then will he from his dear-bought expe- 
 rience receive purity, which is sanctification, for knowledge 
 will teach its necessity for individual happiness. Purity is 
 innocence clothed upon with all the virtues, made manifest 
 to the world in the practical life of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 Changes in all human affairs are being rapidly effected under 
 the controlling power delegated to Him. These changes 
 commence with gigantic wars, and all who seek not the 
 honor of God by manifesting peace on earth and good will 
 to men, will be drawn within their terrible effects. When 
 earthly governments are overthrown, anarchy will reign 
 supreme. Then will God, through human agencies, bring 
 order out of disorder, light out of darkness, and establish 
 His government under Jesus, which will reach forth to all 
 things in earth or heaven. Then will the Dragon, which is 
 disorderly spiritualism, be chained, and the world thereby 
 reduced to its right mind. Happy those who are prepared 
 with the armor of God while this day of trial is passing 
 through the world! 
 
 The jusb province or prerogative of government is, first, 
 to educate the people in knowledge, both physical, intellec- 
 tual, and spiritual. Secondly, to guard against all impro- 
 prieties and infractions of these laws; and thirdly, to sus- 
 tain, stimulate, and gratify the numerous faculties and noble 
 aspirations of the soul or mind, thereby contributing to in- 
 dividual and universal happiness. 
 
 The first requisite in those who exercise government is 
 wisdom and love, the next is power, and the third is system 
 or order. The science of true government is perfect and 
 sublime. The knowledge of the true principles on which 
 a righteous government is to be established has not even 
 reached man's comprehension in all its beauty and harmony. 
 
[ 5 1 
 
 For had it been understood, it would have manifested itself. 
 It is man's most perfect attainment, and must therefore be 
 victorious, and subdue all other governments. This condi- 
 tion not existing, it is evident that the science of govern- 
 ment is not solved. 
 
 The*true elements of government are contained within the 
 constitution of man's own nature, slumbering until devel- 
 oped by the practice of his most noble energies, placing him in 
 communion with the wisdom of the Highest. "The kingdom 
 of God is within you." The divine mystery of government will 
 be revealed and its power acknowledged in all the earth. 
 For the wise and true must, by inherent law, subdue the 
 unwise and untrue. Having emanated from the Highest, 
 and being received into the most perfect faculties of man, 
 it is loving, therefore powerful; it is wise, therefore just; it 
 is true, therefore enduring. 
 
 The government of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is 
 placed on an immovable basis, and will meet the aspirations 
 of all the wise and good of mankind. 
 
 This power will destroy the soul of evil. 
 
 When man receives and assimilates the divine female aura 
 of beauty and order, and when woman receives and assimi- 
 lates the masculine inspiration of wisdom, then do they come 
 into one equal and harmonious platform, and enter into a 
 paradisiacal condition. 
 
 The crowning element of wisdom by which the feminine 
 development is matured, is resident in and belonging to the 
 male department of humanity. Woman eliminates a spirit- 
 ual aura or pabulum for the sustenance of man's actions, 
 energies, and perfections. She is more accessible to the 
 angelic influences from whence is derived this pabulum or 
 food of maa. By partaking of this he is made capable of 
 receiving a superior inspiration above that of woman, which 
 is divine wisdom. Woman is accessible to this through 
 man. Thus the circle is divinely formed. Woman is man's 
 helpmate. She is the mother and source of man's most no- 
 ble acts, as if she had directly performed them herself. In 
 this way man's noblest thoughts and feelings have their ori- 
 gin in woman. Nature and God have constituted her to 
 
1 51 ] 
 
 supply the pabulum for man's nourishment, both physically 
 and mentally. Man receives his mental and physical growth 
 from woman. He is the ripened fruit bearing seed, giving 
 the finish to art, philosophy, government, and religion. 
 Man's love is of a different nature from that of woman. It 
 is alimentative, acquisitive, and appropriative. Tl?e true 
 position of man and woman is ordained and unalterably 
 fixed by God and Nature. The work of the new government 
 will be perfectly finished by man under divine leadership, 
 through and by woman's inspiring influence, proceeding 
 quietly and powerfully from her formative soul. It is the 
 man child born of the woman the world is thrilled with 
 the hope of this birth. 
 
 The intuitive faculties of woman have felt and realized the 
 fact of great wrongs existing in all governments. They re- 
 alize a restlestness and apprehension of some strange revo- 
 lution about to be inaugurated. 
 
 Liberty dawned in America and France, and lit within 
 the heart of man a lively hope stimulating him to heroic acts 
 and deeds of glory, establishing political freedom through 
 most of this western continent. Next came the star of 
 science distilling its fructifying influence, evolving new and 
 astounding powers in machinery, and explorations of natu- 
 ral phenomena. The superior faculties have caught the 
 glow sufficient to receive from the higher spheres a proph- 
 ecy of something new and radical to be accomplished in 
 governments. 
 
 Look at the insect world see the unvarying perfection of 
 the habitations of the bees, their cells and systematic gov- 
 ernment. Those perfect octagons are formed without line 
 or compass. If we attribute this to their own intelligence, 
 we must admit that it equals if it does not exceed that of the 
 most accomplished human workman. These perfect cells 
 are formed without experience or instruction, and never vary. 
 It is instinctive automatic action but man's intelligence is 
 amplified with an individual sense of power and growth. 
 His perfection is gradual. 
 
 Man's vast horizon is not spanned even by himself. He 
 does not know his own possibilities. His intelligence has 
 
[ 52 1 
 
 its source outside of particled matter, for all combinations 
 of particled matter are decomposable, therefore mortal; but 
 man's intelligence, from its power of control over matter in 
 all its varied forms, and from its aspirations totally distinct 
 from the automatic instincts of animal life, proves itself to 
 be immortal. 
 
 Were it possible for man by any analytical means to ascer- 
 tain the quality of life and motion, it would be found to 
 consist of the most real substance within the regions of 
 unbounded existence. From its virtue all things exist, in 
 primitive, qualitative, relative order. 
 
 Love consolidates worlds. Intellect, unassisted by wis- 
 dom and the feminine power of love, cannot grasp the prob- 
 lem of a just and righteous government, or be prepared to 
 realize it. Intellect does not always prepare the mind for 
 the reception of wisdom. When intellect is wisely and 
 divinely cultivated it bows before wisdom, and receives her 
 as the cultivated field receives the rain. 
 
 Until man can realize the blending and co-operation of 
 Wisdom, Knowledge, Power and Love in a harmonious 
 union of its masculine and feminine expressions and earthly 
 embodiments, the world will never be blessed with a true and 
 righteous government. 
 
 When the masculine and feminine elements become sub- 
 ject to the guidance of Wisdom and Love under divine lead- 
 ership, they will constitute the foundation elements on which 
 to base a righteous government. 
 
 Under such an administration men and women would be- 
 come new beings, manifesting the glory and beauty of their 
 exalted nature, establishing peace, joy and happiness, and 
 acknowledging the honor, dominion and power of those who 
 in heavenly places have replaced the dominion of the evil 
 powers who have held sway so long. 
 
 Uncomprehended faculties exist within us, which, when 
 developed, will place us in happy contact with superior na- 
 tures and superior wisdom. No one will be required to do 
 more than they can accomplish with perfect satisfaction to 
 mind and body. Eeason, knowledge, wisdom and love will 
 fraternize and preside over all the relations of life. A gov- 
 
ernment to effect harmony and give universal satisfaction 
 has, up to this time, not been possible. The same restless, 
 ambitious character of mind that crept into one government 
 and upset it, creeps into another. Whatever political party 
 may arise from the turbid sea of present conditions will pro- 
 duce the same results, and therefore fail to meet human 
 needs. 
 
 The aspirations and intuitive feelings, rightly directed, 
 are the only base on which a permanent and righteous gov- 
 ernment can be predicated. These attributes require care- 
 ful education and instruction from potent principles of pow- 
 er, love, wisdom and order under whose teachings the 
 wild, erratic ideas of power and dominion at present pre- 
 vailing, will be reduced to a system of order, re-arranging 
 and completely inverting their present mode of action. 
 
 Inrjividualization will be changed into nationalization. 
 Instead of government being as now, an institution organ- 
 ized for the protection of individual property, it will become 
 the custodian of national possessions. 
 
 We have had power without wisdom. We have had wisdom 
 and love manifested without power. The world has not yet 
 been blessed by a leader exercising both power and love. 
 Jesus was possessed of wisdom and love, but suffered the ex- 
 ercise of power to lie dormant. His most glorious victory 
 was an apparent defeat; and his followers walk now by faith 
 not by sight. In his coming kingdom he will manifest him- 
 self with power as well as love. Men will then understand 
 how to exercise thoso leading qualities, the love of honor 
 and the love of power. The places in that kingdom are 
 prepared in accordance with eternal law, and are yielded 
 neither to favoritism nor to earthly affection. 
 
 Woman can never take her place in old and fast-decaying 
 existing institutions. She is a revolutionary force to de- 
 stroy them. They cannot be mended. Years ago I had to 
 say this to friends who were deeply interested in the suffrage 
 movement. All my life, from my earliest recollection, I 
 have had to say what seemed to me to be true, and it has 
 almost always brought me in opposition to the ideas of those 
 I most loved and valued. This has been a very great trial. 
 
[ 54] 
 
 Woman is the soul of every revolutionary movement. She 
 is impelled by a divine rage to right the wrongs of ages, not 
 always wisely, for she does not see the whole of the pro- 
 gramme, but with an unshrinking, fiery earnestness to do 
 her part as she sees it in the present stress and direful ne- 
 cessity. Woman must appear more distinctively as mother, 
 in all the grace and sweetness of that character. 
 
 For more than a thousand years Mother Mary has been 
 held up before the eyes of the people. She has responded 
 to the Infinite ideal, and represented the Divine Mother- 
 hood. The sorrowing human soul for centuries has 
 sought refuge in her bosom. This idea, based upon an in- 
 finite truth, has been the strength of the Catholic Church. 
 The stern reformers, the John Knoxes and the Calvins, who 
 trampled upon Mariolatry, did not fully understand what 
 they were doing. Mary was but a symbol of the Divine 
 Motherhood. This has been held up before the people as 
 some far-off, distant thing, but it is not so. It is near to 
 us even at our very door. This idea has to be taken from 
 the traditions of the past, and revealed in the living pres- 
 ent. We are the daughters of God, but it doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be. We must not expect much help 
 in man with his purely masculine traditions. Like Joseph, 
 he will be often minded to put us away privily. Sanctified, 
 redeemed woman can only come up to her position in the 
 New Dispensation. Till then we walk by faith, not by 
 sight. 
 
 The suffrage movement is a call from God, through 
 woman, to revolutionize and re-arrange society and gov- 
 ernments in all essentials. It is a cry that is being heard 
 throughout the world. Its meaning is, "Prepare ye the way 
 of the Lord, and make his paths straight." 
 
 The true order and position of man and woman is unal- 
 terably fixed by God and nature. Man can do nothing for 
 his elevation or degradation without woman. Through her 
 he is degraded to the chambers of death, or raised to life 
 and light. It is her prerogative, power and nature to elim- 
 enate the spirit of all man's actions, as it is to eliminate 
 their material bodies. 
 
[55 1 
 
 Her intuitions are swift, and often true, but her ambition, 
 pride and selfishness has been the cause of unutterable woe 
 to mankind; for this she owes humanity an incalculable 
 debt. 
 
 He is neither a statesman nor an enlightened man who 
 cannot appreciate and be touched by woman's call for lib- 
 erty, truth, justice and temperance. Many suppose that this 
 call arises from a desire for personal advancement, and to 
 obtain liberty and security from oppression. It is true that 
 this is the object of the agitation, and it will be accom- 
 plished, but in a different manner and through different 
 means to what is expected. Let not woman destroy the 
 serenity of her soul in present political conflicts. She does 
 not belong to Caesar, but to God. 
 
 The external in nature, containing the attributes of wis- 
 dom, strength, beauty and order, corresponds to the mas- 
 culine. The sphere ot the feminine corresponds with the 
 internal or interior. 
 
 The beautiful, enviable powers and forces contained in 
 magnetism, electricity, affinity, attraction, and many others, 
 we will call feminine or internal. Man is the external, and 
 like all external nature, he is the complement, or that 
 which proceeds from the internal. Man is born of woman, 
 as the grain is born of the earth. 
 
 If the mother side of the Elohim is not recognized by us 
 to-day, it is not because it is not revealed in every pulse- 
 beat and symbol, but from our incapacity to apprehend it. 
 Man is the ultimate fruit containing the perfection of na- 
 ture. Woman is the cause of all perfection in man, un- 
 derlying by silent, potent forces, all manifestations of his 
 beauty and deformity, his perfection and imperfection. 
 Let her, as the mother of humanity, purify and cultivate 
 love, tenderness, truth, charity, justice, inspiring hope and 
 faith, and a determination to make manifest and develop the 
 truths and principles relating to jutice, order and religion, 
 that have not yet been manifested. 
 
 Eaise thy head, oh, suffering Humanity, for the time will 
 come when these principles will be understood and acted 
 on in the kingdom of peace. Then will terror be driven 
 
[ 56 ] 
 
 away, then will balm be poured into thy wounds, then will 
 end thy pain ; beauty will be given for ashes, and life im- 
 mortal for death. The victory over death will be made man- 
 ifest in an orderly, divine manner. Even as Christ over- 
 came so shall we. 
 
 Dear Humanity, live in hope; raise up thy tearful eyes. 
 Liberty, the fair daughter of wisdom, has baptized the 
 world with a few scintillations of divine glory not yet 
 understood, and known only by few. Many think that they 
 are of her counsels and fighting under her banner, but they 
 know her not. 
 
 Unprecedented prosperity and luxury have frenzied the 
 heart and brain of the rulers of this nation. They are adorn- 
 ing our groves and public places with the marble and bronze 
 statues of the founders of the republic. They are looking 
 on the Constitution they framed as capable of endurance 
 forever. We are exalting the instruments of support lent to 
 us in our weakness into gods to be worshiped. We are at 
 ease in our possessions, while the cries of the poor and mis- 
 guided are entering into the ears of the Lord God of 
 Sabbaoth. One rustling of the starry robes of Liberty is 
 sufficient to alarm the proud, whose eyes are dimmed by the 
 dust of gold, and who are blinded by the lust of official 
 power. There is no fixed point immovable, not even the 
 Constitution and Declaration of Independence. .We are for- 
 ever moving nearer to the fountain of love and wisdom, or 
 sinking away further from it. God was the teacher of our 
 fathers; from the same source we may derive yet higher 
 inspirations on laws and government. 
 
 Hear what Mazzini says: "Humanity is wandering in the 
 void, seeking the new bond destined to link together in reli- 
 gious harmony all the individual beliefs, presentiments and 
 activities now lost in the isolation of doubt. It invokes and 
 foresees the coming of a vaster unity destined to combine in 
 holy harmony the two terms tradition and conscience; a 
 unity which, starting from the foot of the cross, shall gather 
 together all the various religions in one sole people of 
 believers. All the political questions that occupy the 
 nations can only be set at rest by the solution of this prob- 
 
[ 57 ] 
 
 lem." In another place he says : '*Seek in woman not merely 
 a comfort, but a force, the redoubling of your intellectual 
 and moral faculties." 
 
 Without his profoundly religious convictions, Mazzini 
 could never have been sustained in his life of duty and sac- 
 rifice. 
 
 Without a profound idea of duty and simple faith and 
 obedience, woman can never arrive at her sublime place in 
 the New Dispensation. By discipline, by trial and sorrow, 
 many are beginning to see and realize this, aspiring to be- 
 come godlike instead of being dwarfed, and to reach the 
 proportions of true womanhood as well as true manhood in 
 Christ Jesus. Some of us fail sadly in reaching our ideal, 
 but every mistake and error and failure keeps us learning 
 more what we might be. Our ideas of what sanctification 
 demands will enlarge and become more deep and profound 
 as we realize its practical bearing in all the relations of life, 
 particularly in the sanctity of the sexual relation. We are 
 called to ascend into the kingdom of pure love and complete 
 victory. Nothing is colder than sensuality; nothing is 
 warmer than divine love. There is much to combat till 
 children are rightly born. We bear a weight of ancestral 
 traditions and misdirections. Woman has to leave much 
 behind her when she turns her face towards Paradise. 
 
 The Hebrew prophecies are full of grand and cheering 
 visions of the New Dispensation; sad and mournful burdens 
 of sorrow for failure and weakness, alternate with joyful 
 anthems and victorious paeans of final victory. 
 . In the latter part of the prophecy of Ezekiel he records 
 his vision of a magnificent house, which appears to have 
 been connected with a temple, and yet separated from it. 
 This house was spacious, conveniently constructed, of noble 
 proportions, with halls, courts, and galleries; and what ap- 
 pears to have impressed the mind of the seer, was that the 
 triumphal palm was the ornament and distinguishing feature 
 of the decoration of its glorious chambers and stately porti- 
 cos; palm trees everywhere, on windows, arch, and gate, 
 and even on the posts of the doors. It was orderly and 
 beautiful; on the south were the dwellings of tho priests 
 
[58] 
 
 having charge of the house, and on the north the dwellings 
 of the priests having charge of the altar. But in all this the 
 seer saw no sign of present human habitation, for it was the 
 vision of things yet to be. 
 
 After he had seen the house, he was shown the temple, 
 with its stairs ever winding upward in spiral progression, 
 emblematic of the connection of the earth with the interior 
 heavens. 
 
 There was a striking difference between this temple and 
 the house destined for human habitation though not yet in- 
 habited; for the palm trees here alternated with the images 
 of the cherubim, showing that this temple and inmost sanc- 
 tuary was inhabited by angelic beings, while the house, 
 which was apparently destined for human habitation, was 
 not yet inhabited. This inner temple had folding doors, 
 destined to be thrown open to the widest possible extent. 
 It had also galleries, and fair prospects, north, south, east, 
 and west. But except the angel who measured and surveyed 
 the temple, no human form was seen. 
 
 Then the prophet was brought to the gate of the temple 
 that looked eastward, and the appearance of the vision that 
 he had seen by the river Chebar passed before him, the 
 many-eyed cherubim, the wheels instinct with life and fiery 
 flame, emblematic of the eternal deific forces of life and 
 motion, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple, and 
 the earth shined with his glory; and it was said " this is the 
 law of the house upon the top of the mountain, the whole 
 limit round about shall be most holy;" corresponding 
 with what another prophet says "that the Lord's house- 
 shall be established on the top of the mountains, and all 
 nations shall flow unto it." 
 
 The prophet was told that this consecrated eastern gate 
 should be open on the Sabbath day and day of the new 
 moon, but be closed the six working days. Afterwards he 
 was brought agaia to this eastern gate, and saw waters issu- 
 ing from under the threshold eastward, and these waters in- 
 creased rapidly in volume from a stream that would only 
 wet the ankle to one above the knees, and then it became a 
 mighty river that could not be passed over. 
 
[ 59 ] 
 
 The angel then brought him to the brink of this mighty 
 river, which the seer John saw long after in the isle of Pat- 
 mos, and Ezekiel saw as John did, trees on either side of 
 the river very many trees on one side and on the other 
 trees whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall their fruit per- 
 ish; and it was said that the reason why these trees were 
 fadeless was because they were fed by the water of life 
 which issued out of the sanctuary where the heavenly splen- 
 dors had shone. The Shekinah had filled the temple with 
 life and opened the source of the waters of life to gladden 
 the earth. 
 
 This vision has a far wider signification and scope than 
 Ezekiel probably realized. Many of the children of the west 
 have called the Jewish creed narrow; but, like a strong ark 
 made for stormy seas, it has floated where many a proud 
 argosy has gone down. 
 
 The Americas at this time were veiled in darkness the 
 dominant Anglo-Saxon race had yet to be born. Australias 
 aud New Hollands were as unknown as the geography of 
 Jupiter. 
 
 To no glory of the second temple reared upon the ruins 
 of the first is this splendid vision applicable. 
 
 Kising from the ruins of the present social order, that 
 vision will appear in all its august beauty. 
 
 It designates the great social, governmental and religious 
 reconstruction of the future, an order of life that shall com- 
 bine in a remarkable manner, social and material well being, 
 with spiritual advancement. No human form was seen in 
 the great house, so triumphantly decorated with its capitals 
 of palm. It was the vision of the times of the restoration 
 of all things of which God has spoken by the mouth of His 
 holy prophets since the world began. It was also blended 
 with a prophetic view of the restoration of Israel, of the 
 borders of the twelve tribes, and the allotted portion for 
 the Prince, the Shiloh that is to come. 
 
 Nearly the whole of the planet, with the exception of the 
 Polar regions, is now unveiled. The hitherto almost un- 
 known half of the social sphere, which is divine woman- 
 hood, is becoming unveiled. 
 
[ 60 ] 
 
 The hidden west, the woman side of life, with all its un- 
 reached capabilities, has yet to be made manifest ere the 
 scope of this wonderful vision can be clearly understood. 
 A dubious twilight may precede that bright day, but it will 
 rise at last. 
 
 The dominant note of all I have had to say is the true 
 position of woman in God, or rather the shining forth of 
 God through woman. 
 
 Fully sanctified, she enters into a safe place and can re- 
 trace her steps back to lost Paradise, her Heavenly inherit- 
 ance, where she can stand side by side with man without 
 subjection and without fear. 
 
 I have always felt that Christ was, in a special sense, the 
 friend of woman. When she had no other friend on earth, 
 when she was even a sinner and an outcast, he protected 
 and blessed her. It is even so to-day. He is an eternal 
 refuge. 
 
 The woman question is a question of development, not of 
 self-assertion. 
 
 Woman is what she is, and she is developing more and 
 more into the ideal of divine womanhood as the divine 
 womanhood is manifested through her. When that is fully 
 manifested, she will come into her place naturally, with a 
 divine power and grace. 
 
 Until then the coming Kingdom cannot be manifested 
 the brotherhood cannot be fully manifested without the 
 divine harmony of the sexes. 
 
 When that is accomplished, woman will cease to be revo- 
 lutionary, because there will be no need of the revolutionary 
 element, but the revolutionary element will more and 
 more disturb nations and families until this is accomplished. 
 
 From the mother's womb, from her bosom are the ele- 
 ments of the future world created, and when motherhood 
 becomes divine, instead of as it sometimes happens less than 
 human, the angels will rejoice. 
 
 Then the full orbed sphere of humanity, equally balanced 
 in both its hemispheres of opposite sexes, will sail harmoni- 
 ously through the heavenly blue. The wail that comes from 
 our wretched planet and disturbs the elemental harmony 
 
will cease, and she will sing with the morning stars, and all 
 the sons and daughters of God will chant the new bridal 
 song. 
 
 It may be said that Christ did not fully declare this while 
 on earth. He said: " I have many things to say unto you, 
 but ye cannot bear them yet. " Perhaps some things were 
 left for the bride to declare. 
 
 I feel more and more persuaded that the germ of the New 
 Dispensation is a humble people, known, as violets are 
 known, by their hidden fragrance. These will all know the 
 Lord from the least even unto the greatest. 
 
 This is the real substance of all former ceremonies and 
 church rituals, of whatever nature, even as the Gospel ful- 
 filled the Jewish law and made it honorable while it replaced 
 it. It is a natural outgrowth, without conflict and without 
 schism. The true Ecclesia, the church or assembly of the 
 faithful. Without woman as mother, this cannot be. Now 
 as never before she is wakening to her duties, her responsi- 
 bilities, and her privileges. 
 
 SAN FEANCISCO, November, 1884.