Bible -- Commentaries; Bible -- Feminist criticism; Women in the Bible
In reply I would say, that as a matter of fact, the nations which
treat women with the most consideration are all Christian nations; the
countries in which women have open to them all the opportunities for
education which men possess are Christian countries; coeducation
originated in Christian colleges; the professions and the trades are
closed to us in all except Christian lands; and woman's ballot is
unknown except where the Gospel of Christ has mellowed the hearts of
men until they became willing to do women justice. Wherever we find an
institution for the care and the comfort of the defective or the
dependent classes, that institution was founded by men and women who
were Christians by heredity and by training.
No such woman as Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with her heart aflame
against all forms of injustice and of cruelty, with her intellect
illumed and her tongue quickened into eloquence, has ever been produced
in a country where the Bible was not incorporated into the thoughts and
the affections of the people and had not been so during many
generations.
I think that men have read their own selfish theories into the Book,
that theologians have not in the past sufficiently recognized the
progressive quality of its revelation, nor adequately discriminated
between its records as history and its principles of ethics and of
religion, nor have they until recently perceived that it is not in any
sense a scientific treatise; but I believe that the Bible comes to us
from God, and that it is a sufficient rule of faith and of practice. I
believe that it is no accident which has placed this Book at the
parting of the ways between a good life and a bad one, and enshrined
it at the centre of the holiest scenes which the heart can know,
placing it in the pastor's hand at the wedding and at the grave, on the
father's knee at family prayer, in the trembling fingers of the sick,
and at the pillow of the dying, making it the hope of the penitent and
the power of God unto salvation of those who sin.
To me the Bible is the dear and sacred home book which makes a
hallowed motherhood possible because it raises woman up, and with her
lifts toward heaven the world. This is the faith taught to me by those
whom I have most revered and cherished; it has produced the finest
characters which I have ever known; by it I propose to live; and
holding to the truth which it brings to us, I expect to pass from this
world to one even more full of beauty and of hope.
Believe me, honored co-worker for the enfranchisement of women,
Yours with sisterly regard,
Frances E. Willard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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