FITNESS.

“Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower

Of Faith, and round the Sufferer’s temples bind

Wreaths that endure affliction’s heaviest shower,

And do not shrink from sorrow’s keenest wind.”

                                                   – Wordsworth

     NATURALLY, woman is, to say the least, equally qualified with men for the ministry of the Gospel.

     A celebrated skeptic bears the following testimony to the character of woman:

     “I tell you women are more prudent than men. I tell you, as a rule, women are more truthful than men. I tell you that women are more faithful than men – ten times as faithful as men. I never saw a man pursue his wife into the very ditch and dust of degradation and take her in his arms. I never saw a man stand at the shore where she had been morally wrecked, waiting for the waves to bring back even her corpse to his arms; but I have seen woman do it. I have seen woman with her white arms lift man from the mire of degradation, and hold him to her bosoms though he were an angel.”

     Dr. Lardner says of the women of Jerusalem in the days of Christ: “The number of women who believed in Jesus as the Christ, and professed faith in Him was not inconsiderable. Many of these there were, who had so good understanding, and so much virtue, as to overcome the common and prevailing prejudice. Without any bias or passion or worldly interests, and contrary to the judgments and menaces of men in power, they judged rightly in a controverted point, of as much importance as was ever debated on earth.”²⁵

     A Greek writer of the second century said: “It is wonderful what women these Christians have.”

     1. Women comprehend and drink in the Spirit of the Gospel more readily than men.

     Christ very plainly told the Twelve that he would rise again the third day. But they did not seem to understand it. But the women appeared to understand it; and, at early dawn, on the third morning “came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.” They were on the lookout, and to them Christ first showed himself after his resurrection. It was a woman that he commissioned to go to his disciples and foretell them of his ascension. Woman entered readily into the spirit of his words. It was in the apostolic church that woman began to teach the teachers of the Christian religion. Fettered as she has been, Christianity owes much to her for the progress it has already made.

     Clovis, King of the Franks, was a great warrior, and a pagan. His people, too, were idolaters. He married Clotilde, a Burgundian princess, a Christian, absorbed in works of piety and charity. Through her influence he became a Christian. To Remi, a godly bishop whom his wife had sent for, in about the year A. D. 496, to baptize him, he said: “I will listen to thee, most holy father, willingly; but there is a difficulty. The people that follow me will not give up their gods.” The King called the people together. They were better disposed than he thought they were. The influence of his wife had been more powerful than he supposed. The great multitude cried out: “We abjure the mortal gods; we are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remi preacheth.” So France became a Christian nation.

     About the year A. D. 568, Ethelbert, King of Kent in England, married Bertha, the only daughter of Caribert, King of Paris, one of the descendants of Clovis. Ethelbert and his Saxons were fierce warriors, and staunch idolaters. But his wife, devout, irreproachable in conduct, exerted her influence to the utmost, for the conversion of her husband, and the Anglo Saxons with their King embraced Christianity.

     If woman has done so much, under the restrictions placed upon her in the days of barbarism, under the reign of force, and which have been perpetuated to our day, what might she not have done had all restrictions on account of sex been removed, and she been free to exert her abilities to the utmost in the cause of Christ?

     Fenelon was one of the most godly, learned and useful ministers that has ever taught in the Roman Catholic church. But he was free to acknowledge that he received spiritual instruction from Madame Guion. His writings on religious experience are read with deep interest by Protestants to this day.

     The work begun by John Wesley was carried on mainly by uneducated preachers. But for his employment of these lay preachers, there is no reason to believe that the work of Wesley would have had any greater permanence than did that of Whitefield. But for the adoption of this powerful agency Wesley was indebted to his mother.

     Mr. Wesley was a strong churchman, and could not tolerate any violation of what he considered the order of the Church. Thomas Maxfield was the first layman among his followers who attempted to preach.

     “It was,” says Dr. Adam Clarke, “in Mr. Wesley’s absence that Mr. Maxfield began to preach. Being informed of this new and extraordinary thing, he hastened back to London to put a stop to it. Before he took any decisive step, he spoke to his mother on the subject, and informed her of his intention. She said, (I have had the account from Mr. Wesley himself):

     “My son, I charge you before God, beware what you do: for Thomas Maxfield is as much called to preach the Gospel as you were.’ This was one of the last things that a person for such high church principles might be expected to accede to.”²⁶

     But in this, as in many other things, Mr. Wesley followed the advice of his mother. The survival of Methodism is largely, and I think wholly, due to this. If the work had been carried on only by the labors of clergymen of the Church of England, it never would have attained to the proportions it did; and it would have been absorbed by the Church.

     If, then, women are quicker than men to comprehend the mystery of godliness, if they have keener spiritual perceptions, and deeper intuitions, they should not be, by arbitrary enactments, excluded on account of their sex, from any position that can make their influence more widely felt. Every one should be placed in the position where she can do most good.

     2. Woman has a special aptitude for teaching.

     This is acknowledged by the general selection of women to teach in our public schools. They succeed as teachers.

     In the work of the ministry, so far as they have been permitted to attempt it, women have acquitted themselves as creditably as men.

     Where they have labored, prejudices have been removed.

     His biographer says that Adam Clarke had “considerable prejudice against this kind of ministry.” But he went to a circuit on which Miss Mary Sewel had preached.

     “Meeting her, he questioned her concerning her call. She modestly answered, by referring him to the places where she had preached, and wished him to inquire whether any good had been done. He did so, and heard of numbers who had been awakened under her ministry, and with several of them he conversed, and found their experience in Divine things Scriptural and solid. He thought, then, This is God’s work, and if he chooses to convert men by employing such means, who am I that I should criticise the ways of God?”

     After hearing her preach he wrote: “I have this morning heard Miss Sewel preach; she has a good talent for exhortation, and her words spring from a heart that evidently feels deep concern for the souls of the people; and consequently her hearers are interested and affected. I have formerly been no friend to female preaching, but my sentiments are a little altered. If God give to a holy woman a gift for exhortation and reproof, I see no reason why it should not be used. This woman’s preaching has done much good; and fruits of it may be found copiously in different places in the circuit. I can therefore adopt the saying of a shrewd man, who, having heard her preach, and being asked his opinion of the lawfulness of it, answered, ‘An ass reproved Balaam, and a cock reproved Peter, and why may not a woman reprove sin?’

     “Such women should be patterns of all piety, of unblamable conversation, correct and useful in their families, and furnished to every good work. This certainly is the character of Miss Sewel, and may she ever maintain it.”

     Hearing another woman preacher, Mrs. Proudfoot, he wrote: “She spoke several pertinent things, which tended both to conviction and consolation; and seems to possess genuine piety. If the Lord choose to work in this way, shall my eye be evil because he is good? God forbid! Rather let me extol the God who, by contemptible instruments and the foolishness of preaching, saves those who believe in Jesus. Thou, Lord, chooses to confound the wisdom of the world by foolishness, and its strength by weakness, that no soul may glory in thy presence, and the excellency of the power may be seen to belong to thee alone. Had not this been the case, surely I had never been raised up to call sinners to repentance.”

     This testimony is the more valuable, coming from a reluctant witness, who confesses that he was prejudiced.

     To the objection that such cases are exceptions, we reply in the words of John Stuart Mill:

     “It is not sufficient to maintain that women on the average are less gifted than men on the average, with certain of the higher mental faculties, or that a smaller number of women than of men are fit for occupations and functions of the highest intellectual character. It is necessary to maintain that no women at all are fit for them, and that the most eminent women are inferior in mental faculties to the most mediocre of the men on whom those functions at present devolve. For if the performance of the function is decided either by competition, or by any mode of choice which secures regard to the public interest, there needs be no apprehension that any important employments will fall into the hands of women inferior to the average men, or to the average of their male competitors. The only result would be that there would be fewer women than men in such employments; a result certain to happen in any case, if only from the preference always likely to be felt by the majority of women for the one vocation in which there is nobody to compete with them. Now, the most determined depreciator of women will not venture to deny, that when we add the experience of recent times to that of ages past, women, and not a few, merely, but many women, have proved themselves capable of everything, perhaps without a single exception, which is done by men, and of doing it successfully and creditably. The utmost that can be said is, that there are many things which none of them have succeeded in doing as well as they have been done by some men – many in which they have not reached the very highest rank. But there are extremely few, dependent on mental faculties, in which they have not attained the rank next the highest. Is not this enough, and much more than enough, to make it a tyranny to them, and a detriment to society, that they should not be allowed to compete with men for the exercise of these functions? Is it not a mere truism to say, that such functions are often filled by men far less fit for them than numbers of women, and who would be beaten by women in any fair field of competition?”

     3. The practical turn of woman’s mind specially fits her for the work of the Gospel ministry.

     Women generally are not given to abstractions. They make the most of the realities about them. Cases occur where the father of a family, overwhelmed with misfortune, dies in despair; the mother, though unused to the management of affairs, gathers up the fragments, gradually retrieves their fortunes, and raises her family in respectability and honor.

     In the year 1348 a fearful plague, which started in China, visited Europe. In London, one hundred thousand people died. Italy lost half its inhabitants. It is estimated that in Europe twenty five million people perished. The survivors were panic-stricken. Men tried to stop the plague by murdering the Jews. In Mayence alone, twelve thousand of this persecuted race were sacrificed in the vain hope of stopping the ravages of this terrible plague.

     Then they tried a painful, humiliating penance. They formed companies, called Flagellants, and marched from town to town in procession, robed in sombre garments, with red crosses on their breasts, their faces bent down, and bearing in their hands triple scourges having points of iron, with which, at stated times, they lacerated their bodies till the blood ran down to the ground.

     The women, more sensible, formed bands to nurse and tend the sick. The miseries they could not prevent they sought to alleviate.

     This disposition of woman to look at the present, and make the best of existing circumstances, would be of great benefit to the cause of Christianity if all restrictions on account of sex were removed, and she were left free to do good according to her inclination and ability.

     4. Women are not wanting in the courage and fortitude essential to the minister of the Gospel. The bold Peter denied Christ, but the New Testament gives us no account of any woman who opened her mouth against him in the face of danger. The annals of the church, in the days of persecution, tell us of many a noble, tender, gentle woman who met death in its most terrific form rather than deny Christ.

     At Port Royal, in the days of Louis XIV., were assembled some women of noble birth and great talents, who had consecrated themselves wholly to God, and who made it their one business to serve and please Him in all things. Though devout Catholics, the doctrine of holiness which they taught rendered them obnoxious to worldly ecclesiastics and a corrupt court. The Archbishop of Paris made them a visit to persuade them to renounce their faith. Not succeeding, he said angrily as he left:

     “They are pure as angels and proud as demons.”

     Persecution was kindled against them. To a friend who came to see her, Mother Angelica said:

     “Madame, when there is no God I shall lose courage; but so long as God is God, I shall hope in Him.”

     Jacqueline Pascal wrote: “What have we to fear? Banishment and dispersion for the nuns, seizure of temporalities, imprisonment and death, if you will; but is not that our glory, and should it not be our joy? Let us renounce the Gospel or follow the maxims of the Gospel, and deem ourselves happy to suffer somewhat for righteousness’ sake. I know that it is not for daughters to defend the truth, though one might say, unfortunately, that since the bishops have the courage of daughters, the daughters must have the courage of bishops: but, if it is not for us to defend the truth, it is for us to die for the truth, and suffer everything rather than abandon it.”

     Of woman’s mental ability to meet all the requirements of the Christian ministry, but little more need be said. It is not long, since colleges were closed against women, because they were not thought capable of acquiring a complete and thorough education. But experience has demonstrated that there are women capable of standing side by side with men in the highest departments of scholarship.

     The higher mathematics are generally considered the severest test of intellectual strength. Yet several women have excelled as mathematicians. Caroline Herschel, who died in 1848, aged 98 years, was one of the great astronomers of the world. She was elected a member of the Royal Society, which conferred on her their gold medal for completing the catalogue of nebulae and stars observed by her brother. One of her astronomical works was published at the expense of the Royal Society.

     In the colleges to which young women are admitted, they at least come up to the average standing of young men.

     If, then, woman has the spiritual discernment, the aptitude for teaching, the prudence and courage necessary to qualify her for the work of the ministry in all its departments, why not ordain her? Why deprive the church and the world, in any degree, of the services they need, and which she is able and willing to render?