The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 12, August, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 12, August, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
It is fable alone which tells us of whole nations of Amazons. There is
no well authenticated history of any people where the women have taken
the lead, and governed the men by their superior intellectual
endowments. Of course, as already remarked, individual exceptions
prove nothing. We are here concerned with masses of individuals; and
from the foundation of the world to the present time, we find that man
has been uniformly the commander in the field; he has formed the
material of the armies; he has led them to battle, won the victories
and achieved the conquest. He has directed at the council board; his
eloquence has been most powerfully felt in the senate and the popular
assembly; he has established and pulled down dynasties--built up and
overthrown empires, and achieved the mighty and convulsive revolutions
of the nations of the earth. All the great, and learned, and lucrative
occupations of life are filled by him. 'Tis he who studies the
wondrous mechanism of our frame, the nature and character of our
diseases and physical infirmities, and applies the healing balm to the
suffering individual stretched on the couch of pain and sickness. 'Tis
he who made the law--who studies its complicate details, its massive
literature and profound reasoning, and traces out the chain of system
and order, which like the delicate thread of the labyrinth, runs
through the whole range of its subtleties and sinuosities. 'Tis he who
has studied most profoundly and elaborately the record of man's fall
and redemption. 'Twas he who conducted the children of Israel, under
the guidance of heaven, out of Egypt, through the wilderness, into the
promised land of Canaan. 'Twas a man who first preached the new gospel
of Christ at Jerusalem, before the assembled nation, on the great day
of Pentecost. It is man upon whom devolves the sacred functions of
preaching and spreading the gospel through the world. It is
"He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy."
It is he whose sublime and warning eloquence is heard from the pulpit,
arousing and awakening the apathy of the listless, and stimulating the
ardor of the pious. 'Tis man who carries forward, by his restless
energies, all the complicate business of that great commerce, which
binds together by the indissoluble ties of interest, all the nations
of the earth. 'Tis he who creates the stocks, charters companies of
enterprise, and works by his skill the mighty machinery of capital and
trade. And if we look to the rich and varied fields of literature and
science, we shall find his footstep every where, and see that his
labors have reared the choicest fruit, and produced the most stately
and enduring trees. We cannot then for a moment question his past and
present intellectual superiority in society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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