Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1894 — MODERN MARTYRS. [ARTICLE]

MODERN MARTYRS.

“Stitch, Stitch, Stitch. Till the Eyes Grow Heavy and Dim.” The Bard Lot of Wumen Who Work—Dr. Talmage's Sermon. A dispatch from Brooklyn, June 3, says: The Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, who is now on bis round-the-world journey, has chosen as the subject for today “Martyrs of the Needle,” the-text being Matthew xix, 24, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” Whether this “eye of the needle” be the small gate at the side nf t-hs: -big entrance of the wall of the ancient city, as is generally interpreted, or the eye of a needle such as isnow handled in sewing a garment I do not say. In either case it would be a tight thing for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. But j there are whole caravans of fatigues and hardships going through the. eye of the sewing woman’s needle. There is no happiness in an idle woman. It may be with hand, it may be with brain, it may be with foot, but work she must or be wretched forever. The little girls of our families must be started with ; that idea. The curse 0f.,,0ur Ameri- ! can society is that young women are taught that the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, tenth, fiftieth, thousandth thing in their life is to get somebody to take care of them. Instead of that, the first lesson should be how, under God, they max’ take case of themselves. The simple fact is that a majority of them do have to take care of them- I selves, and that, too, after having, through the false notions of their parents, wasted the years in which they ought to have learned how successfully to ~maintain themselves. We now and here declare the inhumanity, cruelty and outrage of that father and mother who pass their daughters into womanhood, having given them no facility for earning a livelihood. Mme de Staelsaid: “It is not these writings that I am proud of, but the fact that I have facility in ten occupations, in any one of which I could make a livelihood.” As far as I can understand, the line of responsibility lies between that which is useful and that which | is useless. If women do that which is of no value, their wprk is honorable. If they do practical work, it is dishonorable. That .our young women may escape the. censure of doing dishonorable work T shall particularize. You may knit a tidy for the back of an arm-chair, but by no means make the money wherewith to buy the chair. You may, with delicate brush, beautify a mantel ornament, but die rather than earn enough to buy a marble mantel. You may learn artistic music until you can sqaull Italian, but never sing “Ortonville” or “Old Hundred.” Do nothing practical, if you would, in the eyes of refined society, preserve your respectability. I scout these finical notions. I tell you no wbman, has a right to occupy a place in this world unless she pays a rent for it— In the course of a lifetime you consume whole harvests and droves of cattle, and every day you live breathe forty hogsheads of good pure air. You must by some kind of usefulness, pay for all this. Our race was the last thing created —the birds and fishes on the fourth day, the cattle and lizards on the fifth day and man on the sixth day. If geologists are right, the earth was a million of years in the possession of the insects, beasts and birds, before our race came upon it. In one sense we were innovators. The cattle, the lizards and the hawks had pre-emption right. The question is not what we are to do with the lizards and summer insects, but what the lizards and summer insects are to do with us. If we want a place in this world, we must earn it. The partridge makes its own nest before it occupies it. The lark, by its moVning song, earns its breakfast before it eats it. The Bible gives an intima-

tion that the first duty of an idler is to starve when it says if he ‘ will not work neither shall he eat. - ’ Idleness ruins the heelth and very soon nature says: ‘’This man has refused to pay his rent. Out with him!” ; Society is to be reconstructed on the subject of woman's toil. Avast majority of those who would have woman industrious shut her up to a few kinds of work. My judgment in this matter is that a woman has a right to do anything she can do well. There should be no department of merchandise, mechanism, art or science barred against her. If Miss Hosmer has, genius for sculpture, give her a chisel. If Rosa Bonheur has a fondness for delineating animals, let her make “The Horse Fair.” If Miss Mitchell will study astronomy, let her mount the sjarry ladder. If Lydia will be a merchant, let her sell purple. If Lucretia Mott will S reach the gospel, let her thrill with er womanly eloquence the Quaker meeting hduse.

But it is said that her nature is so delicate that she is unfitted for exhausting toil. I ask in the name of all past history what toil on earth is more severe, exhausting and tremendous than that toil of the needle, to which for ages she has been subjected? The batterinfir ram. the sword, the carbine, the battleax, have made no such havoc as the needle. I would that these living sepulchers in which women have for ages been buried imight be opened, and that some resurrection trumpet might bring up

these living corpses to the fresh air and sunlight. Go with me, and I will show you a woman who, by hardest toil, supports her children ; her drunken husband, her old father and mother, pays her rent, always has wholesome food on the table, and when she can ■ get some neighbor on the Sabbath to come in and take care of her family appears in church with hat and cloak that are far from indicating the toil to which she is subjected. Such a woman as that has body, and soul enough to fit her for any position. She could stand beside the majority of your salesmen and dispose of more goods. She could go in to your wheelwright shops and beat half your workmen at making carriages. We talk about woman as though we had resigned to her all the light work and ourselves had shouldered the heavier. But the day of judgment, which will reveal the sufferings of the stake and inquisition, will marshal before the throne of God and the hierarchs of heaven the martyrs of washtub and needle. To thousands of young women in our cities to-day there is only this altemative-“Starvation or dishonor. Many of the largest mercantile establishments of our cities are accessory to the abominations, and from their large establishments there are scores of souls being pitched off into death and their employers know it. Is there a God? Will there be a judgment? I tell you, if God rises up to redress woman’s wrongs,many of our large establishmentswill be swallowed up quicker than a South American earthquake ever took down a city. God will catch these oppressors between the two millstones of his wrath and grind them to powder! How are these evils to be eradicated? What have you to answer, you who sell coats and have shoes made and contract for the southern and western markets? What help is there, what panacea, what redemption? Some say, “Give women the ballot.” What effect such ballot might have on other questions I am not here to discuss,; but what would be the effect of female suffrage upon woman’s wages? I do not believe that woman will ever get justice by woman’s ballot. Indeed, women oppress women as much as men do. Do not women, as much as men, beat down to the lowest figure the woman who sews for them? Are not women as sharp as men on washerwomen and milliners and mantua makers? If a woman asks a dollar for her work, does not her female employer ask her if she will not take 90 cents? You say, “Only ten cents’ difference,” but that is sometimes the difference between heaven and hell. Women have often less commiseration for women than men. If a woman steps aside from the path of virtue, man may never. Woman will never get justice done her from woman’s ballot. Never will she get it from, man’s ballot. How, then? God will rise up for her. Poets are fond of talking about man as an oak, and woman the vine that climbs it, but I have seen many a tree fall that not only went down itself, but took all the vines with it. I can tell vou of something stronger than an oak for an ivy to climb on, and that is the throne of the great Jehovah. Single or affianced, that woman is strong who leans on God and does her best. The needle may break, the factory band may slip, the wages may fall, but over every good woman’s head there are spread the two great gentle, stupendous wings of the Almighty. Many of you will go single handed through life, and you will have to choose between two characters. Young woman, I am sure you will turn your back upon the useless,giggling, painted nonentity which society ignominiously acknowledges to be a woman and ask God to make you an humble, active, and earnest

Christian. The dying actress, whose life had been vicious, said: “The scene closes. Draw the curtain.” Generally the tragedv comes first and the farce afterward, but in her life it was first the farce of a useless life and then the tragedy of a wretched eternity. Compare the life and death of such a one with that of some Christian aunt that was once a blessing to your household. Ido not know that she was offered a hand in marriage. She lived single, that untremmeled she might be everybody’s blessing. Whenever the sick were to be visited or the poor to be provided with bread, she went with a blessing. She could pray, or sing “Rock of Ages” for any sick pauper who asked her. As she got older there were days when she was a little sharp but for the most part auntie was a sunbeam —just the one for Christmas eve. She knew better than any one else how to fix things. Her every prayer, as God heard it, was, full of everybody who had trouble. The brightest things in all the house drboped from her fingers. She had peculiar notions, but the grandest notion she ever had was to make you happy. She dressed wellauntie always dressed well-“-but her highest adornment was that of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in rhe sight of God, is of great price. When she died you all gathered lovingly about her, and as you carried her out to rest the Sunday-school class almost covered the coffin with japonicas, and the poor people stood at the end of the alley, with their aprons to their eyes, sobbing bitterly, and the man of the world said, with Solomon, “Her price was above rubies," and Jesus, as unto the maiden in Judaea, commanded, “I say unto thee, arise.’’