Page:Woman Triumphant.djvu/188



Perhaps in no other field of human activity has the disinclination of Christian men to make any concessions to women been so strong as in all matters regarding the church. While women were permitted to sit on thrones and rule vast empires, theological prejudice would not allow them to officiate at the altar or to occupy the pulpit. This vehement opposition was due to mediæval traditions and customs. The saying of the Apostle Paul: "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence," had been an inviolable law to all Catholic and Protestant dignitaries of the church. And so during the whole Middle Ages the idea was prevalent that a masculine priesthood alone was acceptable to God.

The first attempt to overthrow these views was made in 1634 by Anne Hutchinson, who came from Lincolnshire to Boston. Joining a church there she found that the male members used to meet every week to discuss the sermon they had heard the preceding Sunday. Believing that the power of the Holy Ghost dwells in every believer, and that the inward revelations of the spirit, the conscious judgment of the mind, are a paramount authority. Mrs. Hutchinson established similar meetings for the women. Soon she had large audiences, in which she set forth sentiments of her own. But disputes arose among her followers and their opponents, which grew so hot, that the continued existence of the two opposing parties was considered inconsistent with public peace. A convention of ministers, the first synod in America, was called in 1637, which condemned the opinions of Mrs. Hutchinson, and caused her to be summoned before the General Court. After a trial of two days, she was convicted of censuring the ministers and advancing errors, and sentenced to banishment from Massachusetts. She found refuge in Rhode Island, but moved later on to the Dutch settlements, where she as well as her children were killed by Indians.

In 1774 another English woman, Anne Lee, immigrated to New York. Professing to have received a special persuasion, she organized at Watervliet, N. Y., the first community of Shakers, to which she promulgated a doctrine of celibacy. Their previous training had led members of this sect to expect that the second coming of Christ would be in the form of a woman; as Eve was the mother of all living, so in their new leader the Shakers recognized "the first mother or spiritual parent in the line of the female." These Shakers gave their women an equal share with men in the service and government of their society.

With the history of the "Salvation Army" likewise the