REQUIRED.

“In God’s own might

We gird us for the coming fight,

And strong in Him, whose cause is ours,

In conflict with unholy powers,

We grasp the weapons He has given,

The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.”

                                                  – Whittier.

     “WHY ordain women as long as the right to preach is quite generally conceded to them? Why should they not be satisfied with the privileges they now enjoy?”

Reader, will you consider candidly our answers to these questions?

     The last, great Command of Christ requires that they who make converts should be invested with authority to administer the sacrament of baptism. “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” – Mat. 28:19, 20.

     Notice the close connection of teach and baptize in this important text: Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them. – R.V. This certainly implies that those who make disciples for Christ, –get sinners converted, should, as a rule, baptize them. The same persons who are commanded to make disciples are commanded to baptize them. Till they have done this, their work is not complete. The one is apart of their mission as well as the other. They who catch the fish may string the fish.

     These revivalists may be “proved first,” (1 Tim.3:10,) but if found worthy and reliable, they should be clothed with authority to administer the sacraments to those whom they get converted.

     If a woman, then, is permitted to hold revivals, –to do the work of an evangelist, – she should, when properly tried, if found duly qualified, be ordained. The churches must either stop her work or allow her to complete her work. Woman must either be permitted to baptize, or she must not be permitted to make converts.

     By the present arrangement, the Churches separate what God has joined together.

     “Must, then, every one who gets a sinner converted, baptize him?”

     We do not affirm this. But if he keeps on getting sinners converted, and is evidently called of God to make this the business of life, then the Church, when it is satisfied of this, should authorize him to administer the sacraments. Whoever makes full proof of a call to the ministry should, in due time, be invested with the full functions of the ministry.

     In oriental countries, where women are kept in great seclusion, it is necessary that women should be authorized to administer baptism to their female converts. That this right is not conceded is one reason why the progress of the Gospel is comparatively so slow in those lands.

     Miss Fannie J. Sparkes, a well-known, able missionary to India, sends us the following incident:

     “I was in camp at Bahere, in the Bareilly district, with Rev. and Mrs. J. H. Gill. We went one evening to the house of a poor, low caste man in a near village where three men and one woman were to be baptized. A number of the neighbors came in; all sat on the ground in the little enclosed yard in front of the house, the men on one side and the women on the other. The baptismal service began, and when the usual questions were asked, simplified so as to be easily understood by the candidates, the men responded readily, but the woman remained silent. Mr. Gill tried to persuade her to respond, but in vain; and finally said to me, ‘You ask her the questions.’ I did so, and immediately received ready, satisfactory replies.

     “The three men were then baptized; the woman was kneeling in the midst of a little group of women near Mrs. Gill and myself. As Mr. Gill was about to place his hand upon her head, with a quick, nervous movement she drew her chaddah over her face, and put her head upon the ground in a position quite out of the reach of his hand, and could not be induced to consent to the baptism that evening. We got her to promise to visit us at our tents the next morning, which she did, and after some persuasion, she again consented to be baptized. The questions were put and answered as before; the little woman was growing painfully nervous and began to give her chaddah little twitches, as the minister was again about to place his hand upon her head. Seeing that she was likely to repeat the action of the previous evening, I placed my hand upon her head. She recognized the touch and remained perfectly quiet until the ceremony was finished.”

     To this woman, as to every one of the millions of women of India, the touch of the hand of any man except that of her husband means pollution. It is the necessary result of the education of centuries. Do you say it is a prejudice? If so, it is one to be admired; and one which the Church of Christ should respect. It is impossible for a nation to become a Christian nation until its women become Christians. The women of India must be reached mainly by women. Then there should be women missionaries, clothed with authority to administer all the ordinances, as well as to offer all the consolations of the Christian religion.

     But Christianity is intended for all lands. It is adapted to all nations. The churches of America should adopt such regulations as will enable them to meet the wants of the people of Asia.

     Again, it is unjust to invite a woman to become a worker in the Church, and then, whatever may be her qualifications, her abilities and her success, forever exclude her by arbitrary enactments from its higher ministries.

     Honorable worldlings do not act so unjustly. Is a woman permitted to teach a primary class in our schools? Then may she, when qualified, teach Latin and Greek and Algebra, become Principal and even school Superintendent. The highest scholastic honors are not withheld from her simply because she is a woman. Dartmouth and Columbia, two of our renowned Colleges, conferred, each of them, the title of LL. D. on Maria Mitchell, one of the greatest astronomers of the age.

     When the captain and owner of a Mississippi river boat suddenly died, his wife assumed command, and when the civil authorities, after a rigid examination, found that she possessed the necessary qualifications, they promptly licensed her as a Captain. Her sex did not debar her from promotion in a calling for which men are specially adapted. Nor was the precedent considered dangerous. The gallant sailors did not fear that they would be superseded by women as commanders of ships.

     Is a woman permitted to conduct a trial in a Justice’s Court? She may also be admitted to practice in the higher courts. There is, in the aggregate, quite a number of women lawyers in the several states. Yet the men of the world do not appear to have any apprehension lest they should be crowded out of the legal profession.

     Woman owes her elevation to Christianity. She shows her appreciation by rallying around the cross of Christ.

     Justice, then, demands that all barriers placed by men in the way of the elevation of woman to any office in the gift of the church be removed.

     “Even if we could do without them,” writes John Stuart Mill, “would it be consistent with justice to refuse to them their fair share of honor and distinction, or to deny to them the equal moral right of all human beings to choose their occupation (short of injury to others) according to their own preferences, at their own risk? Nor is the injustice confined to them; it is shared by those who are in a position to benefit by their services. To ordain that any kind of persons shall not be physicians, or shall not be advocates, or shall not be members of parliament, is to injure not them only, but all who employ physicians or advocates, or elect members of parliament, and who are deprived of the stimulating effect of greater competition on the exertions of the competitors, as well as restricted to a narrower range of individual choice.”