THE
DIVINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD.

A SERMON

PREACHED BliFORE I HE

YOUNG WOMEN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY
OF THE
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Oxford, Q., April 12, 1903
BY
Rev. John H. Thomas, D. D.
AND PRINTED AT THE REQUEST OP THE SOCIETY.

Psalm 68: i i . The Lord giveth the word; the women that pub-
lish the tidings are a great host,
Kiwi/ IS

THE DIVINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

The Divine Ideal of Womanhood

(A sermon preached before the Young Women's Missionary Society of
the United Presbyterian Church, Oxford, Ohio, by Rev. John H. Thomas, D.
D. , and printed at their request.)

Text, Ps. LXVIII: ii The Lord
giveth the word: the women that pub
lish the tidings are a great host.
Mrs. Potter Palmer at the dedica
tion oi the Women's Building at the
Colombian Exposition said that as
Columbus discovered a New World,
so this generation had discovered a
new womanhood. The truest woman
hood if it be new, is developed from a
very old type.
What is the highest type of woman
hood? The inquiry, always pertinent
and important, is doubly so in this
college town. Does not our text help to
frame an answer? The will of God
revealed in His word and in its fullest
measure in His Son, who is called
the Word of God, this only has made
possible the womanhood of day. Put
this statement to the test. You will
search the world's history in vain to
find such a type except where God's
will has influenced society.
A type is the outcome of many
generations, it affects many genera
tions and is modified only in the lapse
of years. Let us study this morning
the evolution of the divine ideal of
womanhood throughout many cen
turies. To enthrone Jesus in the
heart, to reflect the beauty of the
Lord in the life, and to win others to
the same service and privilege, is not
this necessary to such an ideal today?
In the olden time also there were

noble women. Call to mind the
matrons and maids of the Hebrews;
Sarah serving angels as her husband's
guest and called Princess by the Lord;
the mother of Moses, Strong in faith
and shrewd in device 'ijb save her boy;
Miriam who watched by the ark of
the infant Moses, type of so many
older sisters who have tenderly cared
for younger children; the lovely and
loving Shulamith fairest among
women, type of Christ's bride; these
and many more owed the beauty of
their lives to faith in God's Word.
Progress in the evolution of the
ideal is seen in the New Testament.
The type of womanly character is yet
more fair by reason of the influence
of Jesus. For the Son of God, when
He took upon Him our nature and
was born of a woman, drew out, as
was never done before, the full
measure of woman's devotion. To
her arms of love the Father entrusted
His only begotten Son. Through
her only is our Savior akin to us in
the flesh. When the Virgin Mary
bore the child Jesus, it was a conse
cration of motherhood and infancy.
The divine Savior, a babe upon a
woman's breast, appeals to us in every
child's need of loving care. The
honor God paid to womanhood when
He sent the angel Gabriel to say to
Mary of Nazareth, "Thou hast found
favor with God," has stirred every

THE DIVINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

generation since to tell the story in
every land.
How can woman be untouched
with the wonder of Mary as she
looked upon her divine Son, a babe
in her arms, and yet unlike all other
babes; even in His manger winning
homage of Wise Men from afar and
of humble shepherds at home.
Oh! what glad, what rapturous feeling
Filled that blessed mother kneeling
By the sole-begotten One!
How can a mother's heart be un
moved with the sorrows of Mary, be
holding from the foot of the cross the
sufferings of her sinless Son.
For His people's sins atoning,
Him she saw in torments groaning,
Given to the scourger's rod :
How Mary must'have recalled the
words of Simeon, spoken to her when
she presented her infant in the Tem
ple, Yea, a sword shall pierce through
thine own soul also!
Yes, Jesus did win the heart of
woman in Galilee, as His Gospel has
wherever it has been told since. A
band of them, the first Women's
Christian Association, ministered to
Him, as He went throughout cities
and villages, healing and preaching
glad tidings of the kingdom of God.
What a pure radiance these women of
the New Testament shed on ideal
womanhood! Elizabeth and the Vir
gin Mary, Mary and Martha of Beth
any and four Marys more and the
whole train of consecrated women.
The word of God has always called
women, sharing equally with men in
His grace, to share with them in
making it known; since the birth of

Christ sharing in a world wide procla
mation, A band of Christian women meet
ing for united prayer is no new thing
— it is as old as the company with
Lydia by the riverside whose prayer,
it may be, brought Paul into Europe
with the Gospel. Ever since then
such bands have gathered, and who
can reckon up the value of their pray
ers! Wherever the Gospel has gone,
the love of Christ has uplifted woman,
has made childhood sacred and puri
fied the home.
The darkest page in the history of
mankind tells the story of women and
children where the light of God's
word has not illuminated the lives of
men. Once there were but a few
points of light in the world, growing
larger as time passed while the blessed
influence of the Gospel spread. Yet
even today the world has two hemis
pheres in one of which woman is the
victim of man's laziness, of his lust or
of his cruelty; in the other she is his
companion, his co-worker, his
inspiration. The relation of women to Jesus and
His Apostles was a new idea of woman
hood to the heathen. "To whom
does a man talk less than to his
wife?" asked a Greek writer. He
shut her up in the gynecaeum like
the zenanas of India while he sought
pleasure in the company of the As
pasias and the Phyrnes. It was worse
in Rome under Nero. The dissolute
ness was incredible. Maecenas, the
refined patron of literature, married a
thousand times, it was said. Infants
were exposed to die to save the trou
ble of bringing them up. Seneca,

THE DIVINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

the great teacher of morals, said.
"Monstrous offspring we destroy;
children too if weak from birth, we
drown." Was it strange that Christ
ianity overthrew paganism? or that
women by tens of thousands heard
the call and responded to it, to pub
lish the glad tidings of redemption
through Christ?
The next advance in ideal woman
hood was in leaving home and going
forth to win souls for the Master.
This work was done mainly through
monastic orders in which women
vowed life-long celibacy, poverty and
obedience. The system was wrong
and gross and evil followed it. Yet
we must honor the motive which
prompted them. Multitudes of wo
men sacrificed the deepest instincts of
their hearts in devotion to their
Savior as they saw Him in the needy.
And the value of their service was in
calculable. Their peculiar garb pro
tected them in those dark times and
the sacredness ascribed to their call
ing helped them in their service.
The lives of these saints are not often
read by Protestants; as they were told
they are unprofitable reading. But
not a few of them were saints whose
lives were radiant with the brightest
glories of divine grace and Christ-like
ministry. Perhaps you do not think
of Bridget as a saint, but she was,
and greatly helped in making Ireland
the centre of Christian missions that
it was for centuries.*
A holy friendship between those of
different sex, an idea that never en
tered a heathen mind, found a shining
example in Jerome and Paula. The
great translator of the Bible was

cheered by the friendship and sup
ported in his great task by the wealth
of Paula, a descendant of the Gracchi
and the Scipios. She and her daugh
ter founded a monastery, a hospital
and three convents in Bethlehem.
Her granddaughter carried on their
work as abbess and all were buried
in the church of the Holy Manger
beside the remains of Jerome. The
example of a lady of wealth and the
highest social station devoting herself
to the spread of the Gospel, has been
followed by many in later generations.
Christianity was often introduced in
to heathen tribes and nations through
the wives of rulers. Clothilde had
long prayed for her husband, Clovis,
King of the heathen Franks, and
sought in vain to win him to Christ.
In the shock of battle when the issue
was doubtful, the King raised his
hand to heaven and invoking the
blessing of his wife's God, vowed to
lead his people in accepting the
Christian faith if victory crowned his
arms. It was through Bertha, wife of
King Ethelbert that Christianity en
tered Anglo-Saxon England. The
Countess of Huntington in the same
country in after generations was the
patron of Whitefield, co-worker with
Wesley. Miss Helen Gould in our
generation is a modern instance.
In the sweeping changes of the
Reformation the work of woman in
the home was restored to its primary
rank, the rank assigned it by the
Lord. And the home has been made
a far greater power for good. The in
fluence of Christian women has culti
vated purity in word and conduct,
promoted temperance, restrained

THE DIVINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

cruelty and ministered to the sick and
afflicted. The extension of education
and much more of incalculable value
is due very largely to the pervasive
influence of Christian women, soften
ing the harshness of men. when unin
fluenced by the spirit of Christianity,
as the severity of winter is changed
by the gentle influences of spring and
made ready for the beauty of summer
and the fruitfulness that follows. It
must be said however that for three
centuries after the Reformation there
was a serious loss in respect to the
aggressive work of woman. Celibacy
caused incalcuable loss as a substitute
for home life. But not till our day
did Protestants learn how much
women might do in Christlike
ministry. The call to Christian women to
work for the uplifting of their pitiful
sisters in heathendom was a great step
in advance, greater than we realize
today. This call to service coincided
exactly with the advance in the
higher education of women, which
was to fit her for mission work, — in
its earlier stage and in its later wide
extension. The two movements were
as independent in origin as the mak
ing of the two blades of a pair of
shears, but as evidently designed to
work together. Note then how God's .
providence was opening a new field
around the globe, while at home pro
vision was being made for a constant
supply of workers for it.
In 1833 Rev. David Abeel, a
missionary in China returning to the
United States, pleaded with women in
our country and in England to put
aside the diffidence of their sex and to

help to uplift the millions of their sis
ters crushed and debased by cruel
usages of hoary antiquity. He told
of zenanas and harems in which mill-
lions of women were immured as in a
prison, of child-wives and of widows,
giving themselves to be burned on
their husband's funeral pyres. In
1817 the British in India found that
on an average two widows were
burned alive every day in Bengal
alone, and Bengal is but one of four
provinces in India. The customs of
heathenism, ironbound with the sane
tion of centuries, devoured victims
like Moloch and crushed them as
Juggernaut under his chariot wheels.
Now note the finger of God in pre
paring trained workers to meet the
call for the work of women. In 1819
fourteen years before Abeel's appeal
for women to go as missionaries, Mrs.
Emma Willard published her "Plan
for Improving Female Education"
and founded her school in Troy, N.
Y., to carry out the plan.
In 1836 Mary Lyon founded Mt.
Holyoke. The distinction of her
school was the intense spirituality
that pervaded it, emphasizing duty,
training young women for consecrated
useful lives, especially as teachers.
Miss Lyon "did not talk of woman's
rights and said little of woman's
sphere," said one of her pupils: "but
she did love to dwell on the great
work God has given woman to do."
She made the prophetic remark. "I
will do more for the cause of Christ
after I am in my grave than all I have
done in my life before." And so it
proved. Mt. Holyoke is the mother
of twenty daughters, ten at home and

THE DIVINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

ten abroad. Mary Lyon formed the
mould in which the character of
thousands of girls has been formed.
If Protestantism had the genius of the
church of Rome, she would be St.
Mary and the founder of a teaching
sisterhood with branches all over the
world. Today there are more than 20,000
Christian schools in heathen lands.
Reckon up if you can, the influence
of these schools as I tell you what
one teacher accomplished
Eliza Agnew spent 43 years teach
ing in a seminary for girls in Ceylon.
The natives call her "the mother of a
thousand daughters," for three gen
erations of Ceylonese girls had enjoy
ed the blessing of her instruction. At
her death it was said that not a single
girl who had taken the full course,
had gone back unconverted to a
heathen home; and upwards of 600
whom she had taught, were dispelling
the darkness of Indian zenanas with
the light of the Gospel. When our
Lord shall come in His glory, many
humble toilers little known on earth
will obtain a crown shining with a
brighter radiance than those of kings
and queens.
The appeal of the missionary Abeel
was not in vain, though long years
passed before women took up the
work in earnest. Ih 185 1 a Ladies
Medical Mission Society was organiz
ed in Philadelphia in response to ur
gent calls for women to work in for
eign fields as medical missionaries.
Sara J. Hale, editor ol Godey's Lady's
Book, the prototype ot all periodicals
for her sex, made earnest appeal to
American women through her maga

zine. And yet 18 years were to pass
by before the first woman left our
shores to heal the bodies as well as
the souls of the pitiable women of
heathen lands. Today over 200 wo
men are engaged in this Christlike
work and there are medical schools to
train women converts from heathenism
to be physicians.
The last notable advance has led
women into cooperative effort. This
progress in philanthropic and social
service dates from their awakening in
our Civil War. Then their hearts
were stirred as never before to sym
pathetic efforts in behalf of suffering
soldiers. That war emancipated the
mind of whites as well as the body of
blacks. Women learned what they
could accomplish through coopera
tion. And in many cases hearts
bereft and desolate found a solace in
the loving service which relieved the
sorrow of others.
Without cooperative effort the
world's progress in our generation
would have been impossible. The
organized work of women has given a
great impulse to foreign missions, but
it has achieved still larger results at
home. And this lies even more close
ly upon the heart of Christians for a
twofold reason, because it is our home
and because the fire of love must
purify our own land if it is to purge
heathen lands of their sin and misery.
Christ for the world requires Christ
like people living in Christendom.
God's wonderworking providence
has forced us at home to preach the
Gospel to the poor. A wholesome
national life has demanded the uplift
ed of inferior races, red Indians and

THE DIVINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

the blacks, and more recently immi
grants of white and yellow skins. In
half a century twenty million foreign
ers have lauded on our shores, speak
ing forty tongues. Massed together
in our great cities most of them, they
contribute largely to their wonderful
growth in recent years. With this
growth has come ignorance and pov
erty and misery, the lot of women
and children especially, a condition
full of peril to the state. For disease
and crime make their lair in abodes of
squalor. The wretched are too often
either the victims or the instruments
of unscrupulous men.
Concerning the stranger within our
gates we cannot mistake God's will.
He is speaking to us in trumpet
tones What is the t purpose of the
Gospel if not to meet such a case?
And women have heard this call and
responded to it as to so many before.
Women's Christian Associations sprang
up in one field and College Settlements
in another. Why should not Chris
tians live in the slums to redeem
them? Did not Christ forsake a home
in glory to live among the sinful?
Sunday Schools in town and country
lest any of Christ's little ones be left
untaught, sewing schools, kinder
gartens, hospitals, who can enumer
ate the varied fountains of mercy
opened by Christian love? Who can
sum up their ^value? In the Book of
Rememberance it is all recorded.
Every woman is known to the Lord
who in His name ministers to the
hungry and thirsty, the poor and the
sorrowful, who sees Jesus in the faces
of the needy.
Mission work at home appeals to

the heart as well as the conscience.
It can employ leisure moments and
make use of every talent. It affords
the blessedness of personal contact,
the opportunity for spiritual influence
to kindle from heart to heart, as the
lighted candle gives its fire to one
not lighted. When a leper was to be
cleansed our Lord never gave Peter
money saying, "Here, Peter, go
hire some other man to touch that
leper." No, He laid on the leprous
head His own pure hand from which
disease fled as did evil spirits from
His presence. Holiness in contact
with the sinner, spiritual fullness
with suffering and need communi
cates power as does the contact
of opposite poles of electricity. Now,
it is the Christlike privilege of woman
to wait on the sick, to be eyes to the
blind, to comfort the sorrowing,
everywhere bearing God's quicken
ing word and wafting on wings of
prayer the hopes and needs of those
she helps.
Thy kingdom come. How often
we offer that prayer! But did Jesus
mean that we are freed from all.
farther responsibility by a daily
prayer? or did He purpose that the
Lord's Prayer should stir us up daily
to ask, What can I do to hasten the
coming of the Kingdom of Heaven?
To many I believe, the answer of our
Lord would be, Dedicate your life
to this ministry. The Moravians send
out one missionary for every sixty
communicants. Is there any valid
reason why we with larger means
should do so much less?
Self-dedication to mission work
the Lord blesses with a joy not often

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08540 1934

THE DIVINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

found in other callings. Merchants
may fail in business and after enjoy
ing wealth be stripped bare to die in
want. A missionary can never lose
the gains of a lifetime. Fathers often
advise their sons to take up some
other calling than their own. I never
heard of a missionary who did. John
Scudder, M. D., while attending a
patient in New York, picked up a
tract entitled, The Conversion of the
World, or the Claims of 600,000,000.
It led him to dedicate his life to the
work of a medical missionary. His
eight sons, two grandsons and two
granddaughters have followed him in
mission work.
But most of us are not called to be
missionaries. What can we do?
There is an answer for every one, a
fourfold answer. Let the four fingers
of your hand represent them, so that
whenever you lift your hand in prayer
to God, you may be reminded of them
and ask yourselves, Have I sought to
extend Christ's Kingdom to day?
My answer is; Read; Pray; Talk;
Give; words of one syllable to be
easily remembered. Christians who
lack interest in mission work, lack
knowledge. No fiction is so fascinat
ing as the romance of missions. Have
you read of Diaz in Cuba? or Neesima
in Japan? or Duncan in Metlakahtla?
or Jerry McAulay in New York? In
time of war news from the front
electrified everybody, should not vic
tories in the holy war thrill Christians?

Such reading will stimulate prayer,
"We must advance upon our knees,"
said Neesima. When Christians re
alize the power of prayer and awake
to its. responsibility, then Christ's
Kingdom will come, and not till then.
Why should we not talk to one
another about the Lord's wonderful
works in our day? Men discuss po
litics and women the fashions, and
farmers the crops. "Out of the abun
dance of the heart the mouth speak
eth". The last rule follows as surely
as four after three. If we really saw
the face of Jesus in the needy about
us, would we not give? If we realized
what dividends the Lord pays on
shares in His mission enterprise,
would we not invest? The modern
system of organized giving appeals to
every Christian, it claims gold of the
wealthy and the widow's mite. The
current of the Mississippi swells like
the tide of a great ocean as it draws
near the Gulf. But every drop has
been gathered by little rivulets from
the Rockies to the Alleghenies.
The new-era of womanhood was
opened by the advent of Christ.
Jesus Himself is the ideal for both
sexes. He came to do the will of the
Father and to publish the Word.
When that ideal has been made real,
we will not need to pray, Thy king
dom come. For the indwelling of
Christ in the heart and its manifes
tation in the life, th.£t is His Kingdom,!