Page:Woman and the Bible.pdf/31

27 judgment when you strike them on religion. The true Christian woman believes in the infallibility of her preacher. He defines her sphere and duty and she proceeds to walk therein. Her sphere is silence and subjection, and her duty is to devise catch penny devices to bring in the shekels and lay them on the altar of the Lord. Woman never knows what an exalted creature she is until the appeal is made for the collection, then her spiritual advisor gets off something after this fashion:

O, woman! woman, dearly beloved and tenderly esteemed woman, how much of our comfortable comfort do we owe to thy unselfish serving in the kitchen at home, and in the basement and scullery of the church. How many theological students rise up and call you blessed for your willingness to educate them to be your preachers. How well you have filled your womanly sphere as teachers to Indians where your scalps were in danger, or Feejees who relish quartered missionary as much as we do saddle rocks with liquid trimmings. Yes, dear sisters, you have done well building up congregations to which we men of God can preach. O, woman! pure, noble, holy, superlatively fine, and exquisitely superior woman, your bounden duty is to give generously of your labor and lucre, that we men of God may carry on our work amidst the heathen at home, and the pagans abroad. Set to work dear sisters as we men direct. If by squeezing the pennies out of your own pockets, or cajoling or managing your husband into giving (as if it were really their own spontaneous masculine idea to pay the preacher) is not sufficient to deluge poor lost sinners with Amazing Grace, get up a festival with plenty of oysters in the soup, and a free ticket for your preacher, or a pound party, or a bazaar or a dairy maid's fair, with a fish-pond and grabbag, or a conundrum tea, or a necktie party, or a broom-drill, or a skirt-dance and fill up the Lord's