THE RESTLESS EVE AND NOT THE INDOLENT ADAM IS THE PARENT OF CIVILIZATION THE WOMEN'S UPRISING JENK1N LLOYD JONES The Women's Uprising A SERMON CF THE Women's Congress held in Chicago May 15=21, 1893 BY Jenkin Lloyd Jones }Vhat is civilization? I answer, the power of good woman. Emerson. Unity Publishing Company Chicago, 1893 COPYRIGHT, 1893 BY THE AUTHOR Metcalf Stationery Co., Printers Chicago Co JBertba Ibonore'jpalmer "BO bo rranslatec> Social ^forces into flDoral Progress THE KING'S DAUGHTER. She wears no jewel upon hand or brow; No badge by whiqh she may be known of men . But though she walk in plain attire now, She is a daughter of the King; and when Her father calls her at his throne to wait, She will be clothed as doth befit her state. Her Father sent her in his land to dwell, Giving to her a work that must be done. And since the King loves all his people well, Therefore, she, too, cares for them every one. Thus when she stoops to lift from want or sin, The brighter shines her royalty therein. She walks erect through dangers manifold, While many sink and fail on either hand. She dreads not summer's heat nor winter's cold, For both are subject to the King's command. She need not be afraid of anything, Because she is a daughter of the King. Even when the angel comes that men call Death, And name with terror, it appalls not her. She turns to look at him, with quickened breath, Thinking, "It is the royal messenger." Her heart rejoices that her Father calls Her back to live within the palace walls. For though the land she dwells in is most fair, Set round with streams, like pictures in its frame, Yet often in her heart deep longings are For "that imperial palace whence she came." Not perfect quite seems any earthly thing, Because she is a daughter of the King. Rebecca Utler. The Women's Uprising. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her. and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened. Genesis III: 6, 7. History has proved a better comment upon my text than theology. Facts have changed the reproach into a compliment. The church has been unkind to Mother Eve as she is described in this idyl of Hebrew poetry, this poem of creation, born out of a heart untutored by science but instructed by reverence. As philosophy these Genesis stories are weak and childish, but as material for the philosopher, they are suggestive and valuable. Instead of blaming poor Eve, the inexperienced, unguided, and uncompanioned primitive mother, for laying hold of the fruit of that tree of knowledge which was ' 'good for food and a delight to the eyes," we should rather profoundly thank her, for in 'that violation was 6 The Women' s Uprising growth. The restless Eve and not the indolent Adam, is the parent of civilization, and should become the symbol of human triumph, the em- blem of the human soul. I said ' ' uncompanioned' ' Eve; for the writer of this story reflects the error of the generations as regards woman. Man needed a companion, and the Lord God builded out of his rib a woman that he might not be solitary. But it does not appear that it ever occured either to the creative mind or the created man that this woman herself might occasionally be a little lonely; that this companion must needs be companioned, if not by man, for whose side she was created, then by any serpent that might have a word to say or a thought to give. In this respect, too, the poem has reflected history. In the earlier stages of human society woman was booty to be captured, a commodity to be bought and sold, a trophy of war. Jacob had to work fourteen years in order to purchase the woman he prized. The Roman law gave absolute power to the husband over the woman he married, even the right in some cases, according to Lecky, of putting her to death ; while Mahafly tells us how Greek writers upheld "the complete seclusion and insignificance of woman." Thucydides wrote, "She was best who* was least spoken of among men whether for good or evil." The Women' s Uprising 7 It is not my purpose to trace the gradual change of sentiment concerning woman, or to indicate her slow escape from bondage toward freedom, dependence toward independence, from subordination toward something like aggressive assumption and persuasive tyranny in many directions. I would rather start with the recent demonstration of this change in woman's estate and gather a few lessons therefrom. It is the time for superlatives in Chicago. Not local pride or western inflation, but the sober facts scientifically studied, necessitate the use of the superlative degree in many directions in these days. It is true that some things have happened that never happened before. Some things have been accomplished in Chicago that never have been accomplished elsewhere, and to fail to rec- ognize these facts is to lose a certain opportunity, is to court stupidity and not modesty. The Columbian Exposition has been unparalled on many lines. In regard to the magnificence of its buildings and their gracious groupings, the triumph of modern invention, the extent of its accomplishment and in many more respects, it is proper to use the superlative degree. Hamilton Mabie, the assistant editor of the Christian Union, in his editorial correspondence in that paper, comparing the Chicago Exposition 8 The Women s Uprising with that held in Paris in 1889, says: "The one in Paris represented a great past; the one in Chicago seems like a vision of the future. The one was a visible summing up of what has been done; the other a prediction of things yet to be accomplished. The first was a realization ; the second is a prophecy. It is less ripe and far more beautiful than the Paris Fair. ' ' The accomplished editor is speaking of the exhibits at Jackson Park. But more prophetic than the Electricity building itself, which was the most tangible bit of the the twentieth century found in the World's Fair, were the exhibitions of mind which for six months were presented down town in the Art Palace on the lake front. Perhaps it will yet appear that the most marvelous thing in all these marvelous months was the fact that right along- side of all the brilliant attractions and tinseled distractions of Jackson Park and the Plaisance, it was possible to carry on great systems of con- gresses attended by great multitudes, addressed by representative minds from all quarters of the globe. Let the world take note that in this city, new child of a new age, the attractions of mind successfully competed with the attractions of things.. Ideas stood side by side with inven- tions in Chicago and neld their own. There were plenty of people who preferred to see a live man The Women s Uprising 9 or a live woman rather than the best pictures that the art galleries at Jackson Park could boast. Not until years have elapsed will the full signi- ficance of the great congresses which 1893 wit- nessed in Chicago be appreciated. It will take years before the real contribution to human thought, to social and to intellectual progress made by these assemblies can be estimated. After the great triumph of the Parliament of Religions, the most significant thing in the story of these congresses is the fact that they were inaugurated by women; that for the week begin- ning May 15, the great building on the lake front, with its two halls seating three thousand people each, and its twenty-eight or thirty smaller halls and committee-rooms, was thronged by women day and evening for seven days. Clarence Young, the Secretary of the Auxiliary Congresses, estimated that there were ten thousand people, most of whom were women, in the building at one time. These women were literally gathered from all parts of the globe. England, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and Aus- tralia, Spain and Greece, and many other countries were represented by the spoken voice of their own daughters. Sixty-three 1 different national organizations of women we're represented. The newspapers estimated that one hundred and fifty io The Women's Uprising different meetings were held. Thirty-seven dif- ferent topics, the papers said, were arranged for the central congress itself, which held its meet- ings in the main hall. The capacity of our great dailies was wholly inadequate to report the meetings. As I said, it may be years before the history of this Woman's Congress can be approxi- mately written; much of it never will be written. Many of the best things said and done have passed into that safe treasury of the human soul where forgotten things are preserved in lives made better; preserved in minds quickened and hearts softened. But enough is known to show that the women of the world in this last decade of the nineteenth century came promptly to the front, and, in the main, trippingly and confidently spoke their thoughts upon all the great questions that have ever engaged human thought. Life, death and immortality were included in their themes; anything from metaphysics to cooking; every- thing from the philosophy of languages to foot- wear; everything from the salvation of souls to the training of flowers, was discussed. All the interests, social, moral arrd physical, of men, \vornen, children and animals were touched. The women now flocked severally, each kind by them- selves, the Catholic women here, the Mormon women there, and the Unitarian yonder, with all The Women 's Uprising 1 1 shades of orthodoxy and heresy fitted in between. And then they flocked promiscuously, all creeds and nationalities, women who dared and those who did not dare so much, mingling like the members of Barnum's happy family in a peace that was rather strained and uncertain. The first thought of all this is the one which I hope will be the permanent one, how splendid it all was ! What a manifestation of power, unexpected, unanticipated. These women arose in their uncounted might like a great volunteer army. They came out of their seclusion; shop, school-room and kitchen sent forth their repre- sentatives. Ladj- Aberdeen, speaking for Eng- land, intimated that all this organic life is a matter of the last five years among her country- women. That many-armed and many-voiced congress itself was the work of less than a year's activity. These meetings were a stupendous illustration of nature's tendency to variation. I doubt if ever before was presented at one time and one place such a concentration of radical force, of defiance to old standards, independence of conventional limitation. Eve at last demanded a recognition. Nay, she came to Chicago and commanded recognition. She no longer remained silent under the humilating insinuations of her lordly Adam. Paul's injunction to keep silent 12 The Women's Uprising was set aside. Even Jesus's "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" received the belated rejoinder, "You have much to do with me. I, woman and mother, hold the destinies of the future in my hand, and I propose to be loyal to my obligations, and, God helping, to make myself more worthy of the task. ' ' How these women lawyers, women doctors, women bankers, women authorities on the turf, women experts in farming, fishing and preaching, would have startled the good mothers of even fifty 3'ears ago. How they disprove the "dependent creature" and "clinging vine" theory of their fathers of less than fifty years ago. We who believe that there is no sex in crime, that men and women should be held equally responsible for their deeds, who believe that there ought to be no sex in the intellect, that brain of man and woman should be trained to its maximum, that power is to be sought by one as by the other, and is within reach of the one as of the other; we who believe in the ministrations of reason, must take courage and rejoice over this great, surprising and successful uprising of women from all parts of the world, if for no other reason than because we think that good bread, like Opie' s paints, must needs be ' 'mixed with brains. ' ' It takes intellect to make conscience, and a strong mind is necessary to a strong will. The heart is The Women' s Uprising 13 kept pure by knowledge and not by ignorance. Love is safe where judgment is active ; and even the deep affections of the heart are legitimate and safe subjects of study. And so I rejoice in these congresses. I glory in these women triumphs. As I saw sitting on the platform the brave vet- erans in this woman's movement towards the full stature of womanhood, women whose faces were seamed w T ith the reforming toil of a genera- tion, in whose eyes still lingered some of those flashes of light kindled in the old days of cruel opposition and coarse resentment, the tears came unbidden. As I thought how Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and others would join with Julia Ward Howe in singing: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, His truth goes marching on," and listened to the many well-balanced senten- ces, the poised tones, the kindly accents and ripe thoughts, I saw with the woman of the Genesis story " that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, ' ' and I was glad "she took the fruit thereof and did eat." But we render poor homage to these workers when we speak only words of praise and approval. These sisters deserve more than compliment at the 14 The Worn en 's Uprising hands of their fellow- workers. It is well for them and us to remember that "one swallow does not make a summer;" no more does one week of ova- tion and an uncritical and uncriticised triumph bring the millenium. These good sisters revealed some things they had vowed never to tell. The keen observer could read between the lines some things the> T would have given worlds to con- ceal. Even their love-pleading words were some- times spoken by lips that showed the hardened lines of ambition and self-seeking. Faces some- times neutralized the high utterances, and conceit put a false bottom into what otherwise might have been profound. There was too much fluent speaking unaccompanied by deep thinking and high living. Everything said without breaking down was not necessarily worth saying. The leaders in this first great international triumph suffered from a too easy standard of excellence. They had no adequate background against which their performance could be measured. The ex- periences of the women's congress week made thoughtful and solicitous the best friends of this magnificent uprising. Self-consciousness and self-seeking are as bad in women as in men, and no worse. And the mingling of outward ''style" with sense, prudence and prophecy, to be seen at the women's congress was pathetic. It was sad The Women's Uprising 15 to listen to brave* challenges from enslaved spirits, bound by tradition and fashion to an extent they did not dream of. The newspaper reports of these congresses would have been humorous had they not been so sad. The speakers' dresses and their words were jumbled together in a curious way. It was often hard to tell whether the speaker had studied her speech or her costume more carefully. It was sometimes even doubtful which was receiv- ing the most attention at the moment of delivering the address. The costly receptions, costly in money, but far more costly in time, in strength and in sense, cheapened the intellectual and moral life of woman's week. They showed that woman is yet but half emancipated and how utterly incom- petent she will be to assume the leadership she affects until she has escaped from the toils of the dress-maker, and risen above that survival of barbarism which revels, in bangles and insults the God-given grace of her matchless body with over-ornamentation. What vulgarity was dis- played in the long columns of the newspapers that reported with technical accuracy the dresses of the ladies who graced this reception or that during congress week. Not to dwell too long upon this ungracious task of criticism, let it be said that this congress of women was itself a transitional event. Taken on 1 6 The Women 's Uprising long historic lines, it is safe to say that this great uprising of ten thousand women from remote parts of the globe represents women mid-way between the harem and the senatorial chamber. On the one hand these women were held down by the conservative hand of conventional propriety, of dependent obligations to artificial standards which were framed when might made right, and w r hen man, exercising his might, used woman to his pleasure and to her degradation. On the other hand she was lured forward by the beckon- ing hand which says, "Come up higher. Let your soul shine through the flesh and make it beautiful beyond the power of gems to decorate. Let the brain fill every nerve with the fire of thought, and the eye will become brighter than any stone the lapidary may cut." The eyes of the women are turned forward, but they are still handicapped in the race. They, as well as the men, have yet to learn the gospel of sim- plicity, outward and inward. Society must cease to be the tyrant that makes such cruel exactions upon the purses and strength of women. I know of but one thing that seems to me more foreign to the true inspirations of this industrial, demo- cratic, rational and religious age than the average gathering of society women, dressed, not as of old to court the smiles of men, but for the less inspir- The Women' 1 s Uprising 17 ing, less excusable, and far more exacting and costly modern purpose of rousing the admiration or the envf of one another. These dresses, elongated at the end where drapery becomes a fetter and abridged at the end where drapery belongs as gracious protection, are incompatible with that normal womanhood that now asks for a place among the toilers of the world, among those who, if they do not by use of hand and brain add to the material wealth of the world and secure their own physical well-being, are in a high and true sense still toilers, because with mind and heart they enlarge the boundaries of thought, widen the horizons of love, ameliorate the miseries of the world. That other one thing alluded to more foreign than this to the highest inspirations of our times, is the gathering of men around the modern banquet board, where, in the name of hospitality, at reckless expenditure of money and strength they begin the feast amid the flowers and end it hours afterwards in clouds of smoke made heavy with wine fumes. This leads me to the most important lesson of the women's congress. Woman at last has dared to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and has found that it is "good for food." Now let her follow the example of Eve, and give it also unto her husband that the eyes of both of 1 8 The Women's Uprising them may be opened, that they may know their nakedness, and together they may clothe them- selves and enter into life's struggle *to win that Eden yet to be, the Kden of mutual equality in the home and in the state. Once Adam awoke to a sense of his loneliness and yearned for a compan- ion; the day has come when woman, w r ho here in America to-day belongs to the more favored class of society and occupies the vantage ground, must awake to the sense that it is not good for her to be alone in the intellectual realms of life, not good to be alone in the struggle for advancement and reform. Nay, let her realize that it is not right for her to be alone. The woman must not let the man lag behind; she must reach down and lift up her brother, reach back and pull forward her husband and speed the halting steps of father. I know that man has set a sorry example. * If it were a tit-for-tat game, woman would be justified in climbing to the box of the coach, seizing the reins and proceeding to drive for the next century, making man open the gates and water the horses while she does the driving; letting man earn the money while she spends it, letting man build the house which she will manage. For this kind of thing woman is developing splendid aptitude; but a finer tissue has been woven into the nature of the woman of the nineteenth century than was The Women" s Uprising 19 put into the masculine fabric of the dark ages. Woman is not going to do so cruel and selfish a thing as to^say, is it "my turn now;" but by the power of thought she is going to ensphere man's life with an atmosphere of love. Man still confronts the inhospitable elements, his strong arms are still battling with want, hunger and cold; and woman is going to strengthen those arms with a finer love than ever before. Her heart will be truer than ever because it is in league with a clearer head. I am glad of these women's clubs, conventions and congresses so far as they are training schools to the intellect, so far as they discipline lives and put the tools in order. I deplore them w T hen they are allowed to widen the chasm between man and woman; to give her a contempt for either his faults or his virtues; rather it is for her to pity the one and emulate the other, for in both she shares. Woe to her if she grows indifferent to either. The fine point in the life of a woman to-day is to know how to enjoy her intellectual independence and to release her moral and social nature with men, and not without them. It is a sense of her weak- ness, a confession of poverty that has led her to seek these means of improvement by co-operation with her own sex alone. As strength and wisdom . let her give to eat to Adam also. In so 20 The Women's Uprising far as the triumphs of the next century are to be more mental than physical, more spiritual than material, in so far must woman become more and more a contributor to the wealth of the generation. Here in the West, at least, we have but one leisure class, and that class consists of women; it is a large and increasing class. Many a woman whose husband is left at the hard material grind of necessity ten hours out of the twenty-four has her one or two afternoons a week for the club, the matinee or society. What is she doing with her time? Repelled by a single "no," does she give up her attempt to interest her husband in intellectual work? Then a heart- ache begins because "he is not interested in the things she is interested in," and the poor soul bends herself to the high task of reforming the world, of purifying politics and setting the munici- pal household in order all by herself. If she had half the patience with her husband which she has with the world, he too might learn to love Goethe, Dante, or Browning; he too would be- come interested in questions of education and reform ; and together they might help the world along. Victor Hugo's much quoted saying, "The nineteenth century is woman's century" will prove sadly and disastrously true unless through woman it becomes more than ever before human- The Women's Uprising 21 ity's century. Eve the plaything of man, Eve the decoration of society, has had her day, Eve the leader, the tempter, as the bible story teaches, Eve the partaker of the precious though forbidden fruit, is in many quarters having her day now. Eve the companion of man, the co-laborer with him, the sharer of his toils, and on that account more fully the sharer of his joys, is to have her day. Her time is yet to come. It is the glad to-morrow already reddening the horizon. And it is to come through the exercise by woman of all her powers in the same unstinted fashion in which man is permitted to exercise his. The subtle sympathy ordained of nature, which should and must exist between man and woman, can be trusted only when they meet as equal partners in the business of life ; equally responsible in the home, in society and in the state. There are no faculties in her nature or in man's to be feared, but all are to be trusted and used. A most searching and spiritual study of the love relations of men and women under the changed and changing circumstances of this age of democ- racy and general education, is George Meredith's poem entitled "Modern Love," the most modern of all modern poems. In this he thus pleads for women: ''More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win." 22 The Women " s Uprising The two hearts in the poem suffer the deep tragedy of the inner soul because "They fed not on the advancing hours : Their hearts held cravings for the buried days." It is only by this common look forward, this shoulder-to-shoulder facing the coming day, that love grows more and more abundantly. Man, braving the dark, wrestling with foes carnal and forces elemental, a spiritual gladiator in this storm-tossed world, is a magnificent picture. What artist can mold for us in one figure Hercu- les and Apollo? Such an one is the giant of modern civilization. Woman, self-reliant, truth- seeking, open-e3 r ed, who broods on the problems of the state while she rocks the cradle, ponders upon the deep lines of the master poets while she nurses the man-child at her breast, is a figure as magnificent. Who will paint for us a Madonna and a Minerva in one picture, mingling the sweet- ness of the one with the intelligence and the sagacity of the other? Such an one is the mistress of this age. Who will trach these two to walk together hand in hand the heavenly road that runs through earthly places, fringed with meadows and grain fields? These will be the home-makers of the future. These can learn to walk together only as they mingle their ideals, craving no longer the "buried day" of The Women' 's Uprising 23 the past, but "feeding on the advancing hours." A man cannot be worthy of such a woman until his office is as clean of stenches and foul words as is his chamber; until his thoughts are as white as his wooing linen. And a woman does not merit the confidence and companionship of such a man until she is as persistent in her earnestness as he is; as free from the love of display and passion for dress, as independent of conventionalities, as economic and simple in her tastes as he. To put it grossly, the saloon represents to-day the dangers and temptations as well as the degra- dations and humiliations of American manhood. Take the same word, drop out one of the "o's" and give it a French pronunciation, and you have the snare of American womanhood, the salon, where are aped the etiquettes of an effete aristocra- cy; where ''Society "with a capital "S" undertakes here in democratic America to erect her courtly throne; where the elegance of one's garments more than the singleness of one's mind, is the con- dition of a successful evening; where the control- * ling genius, the charm and the dread of the attend- ants is a something called "Fashion" whose styles are dictated, not by art but by Parisian pattern givers, or some equally vulgar representatives of gold, externality, or extravagant triviality. Looking toward woman's enfranchisement, I 24 The Women's Uprising think no congress in that week of women's con- gresses was freighted with more prophetic promise than that of the dress reformers. Two tyrannies enforce woman's inferior standards of work as compared to those of man to-day, for I think it must be confessed that her work must still be measured as "woman's work" if it seeks highest honors, and not as work,as Mrs. Browning begged. These are the tyrannies of the dress-maker and the tyrannies of the creed. Fashion and ortho- doxy are bulwarked to-day with women. Women forces hold the forts of style and superstition. The creeds of Christendom would stand in their naked hideousness before the world were they not draped with women's devotion and at least outward fidelity. The insincerity of the modern woman is disp^ed nowhere so painfully as in the flat contradiction between her club life and her church life ; in the one, aggressive, inde- pendent, intellectual; in the other, quiescent, con- formant, sentimental. It is the scandal of our churches that they are chiefly sustained by women. In so far as women accept creeds and conform to ceremonies which the intelligence of men has outgrown, she concealing the distrust which the integrity of men has confessed, the reproach belongs to women. In so far as the same is true because women have reached up into The Women' s Uprising 25 nobler heights of altruism than their brothers, into greater love for things eternal, into stronger passion for usefulness, a diviner hunger for things infinite and eternal, the scandal belongs to the men. Some women may support the churches in spite of their creeds, preferring to be misunder- stood as to their intellect than to be misguided in their conduct. When women have partaken of this rarer fruit they will not be turned aside by scoff or taunt, but will work with men and for men until that religion which is simple but profound^ sincere and earnest, loving because loyal, shall abound, and men and women shall find their kindred ties in the fullness of mind and that wealth of honest love which bears the hnman heart upon its bosom towards the infinite love as the river hurries the ship into the sea. "For in the long years liker must they grow; The man be more of woman, she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in child ward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at the last she set herself to man, I,ike perfect music unto noble words; An-l so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit !>ide by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, Self-reverent tach and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities, But like each other ev'n as those who love. Then comes the statelier Eden back to men: Th.n reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm: Then springs the crowning race of humankind. May these things be ! " Other Publications of . . JEN KIN LLOYD JONES: a Cborua of jfattbs As heard in the parliament of Religions. A book of selections showing the harmony underlying the religions of the world, with an introduction bv Jenkin Lloyd Jones. PAPER, so CENTS; CLOTH, $1.50. Seven (Sreat fteacbers of IReliQion, '''The Lovers of the Light are One." A series of sermon-lectures. I. Moses, the Hebrew Law-Giver. II. Zoroaster, the Prophet of Industry. III. Confucius, the Prophet of Politics. IV. Buddha, the Light of Asia. V. Sokrates, the Prophet of Reason. VI. Jesus, the Founder of Christianity. VII. Mohammed, the Prophet of Arabia. 10 CENTS EACH; IN NEAT CASE, 75 CENTS PER SET. Hppliefc IReligion* I. A New Help for the Drunkard. II. Tobacco, the Second Intoxicant. III. No Sex in Crime. IV. Not Instituiious but Homes. 10 CENTS EACH. UNITY. A weekly paper in the interest of Freedom, Fel- lowship, and Character in Religion. Edited by Jenkin Lloyd Jones. PER ANNUM, $1.00. All Published by THE UNITY PUBLISHING COMPANY, 175 DEARBORN ST., CHICAGO. H