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THE

LADIES'

REPOSITORY.

FOR MAY 1852.

WOMAN-THE SOCIAL REFORMER.

MATT. xxvi. 13: There shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

LEAVING Jerusalem, crossing the brook Kedron, and ascending the mountain of Olives, our Savior pursued his way for the last time to Bethany. He drank in repose from its rural beauty and quietness, and freshening joy came over his spirit from the tender and hallowed associations of the place. Situated but two miles from Jerusalem, at the foot of Olivet on the western side, Bethany was his retreat from the busy city, and in the peace of the household of Martha and Mary and Lazarus, he found forgetfulness of the wily priests and proud pharisees of the metropolis. He was conscious that the hour of his death was near, but yet he gave no gloom to his countenance, nor did he act in the least the recluse. He was, with his disciples, to be a guest at the house of Simon the leper, one of the many who had known his healing power, and doubtless a elative of the family he so much loved, for we ind Martha serving, and Mary and Lazarus resent at the feast.

It was a memorable evening. Never more hould he thus gather at the social board, and ret no allusion was made to that fact but indi

ectly in a vindication of the tender devotion of he gentle Mary. The presence of Jesus there was soon known, and great multitudes came Around the house, not for the sake of Jesus only, out because of Lazarus who sat at the supper, an object of peculiar interest as one who had known the mystery of death. While Mary aided Martha in serving at the feast, her heart was prompted to a deed she could not forbear performing. It may be that the observing and curious multitude were too much engrossed with the sight of him who was raised from the dead, and dearly as she loved him, she loved the Power that raised him more. It was no uncommon thing to attract concentrated attention to an illustrious

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guest by suddenly crowning him with chaplets of flowers, and anointing or perfuming him with odors; and from her home Mary had brought an alabaster box of sweetest perfume, spikenard, and not only on the head of Jesus, but also on his feet, as he reclined on the couch in the eastern manner of sitting at the table, she poured the precious perfume. It may be she felt his royalty, or it may be it was a simple impulse, acting in a common way, to speak her reverence for Jesus beyond her own home. She was a woman of a contemplative nature; her religion seems to have been mostly meditative; but she was now abroad; she was in society; she saw too little attention paid to him, as when Martha was troubled about much serving, though Jesus would rather the more time should be given to social converse; and the value of her meditative religion then showed itself, for notwithstanding the mighty throng of curious eyes-notwithstanding the interpretation that jealous minds might put upon the deed-notwithstanding the jeers of unsympathizing souls, she stood behind her Lord, broke the alabaster box, pure as her own heart, and the odorous liquid dropped upon the sacred locks of the dear head of Christ, and on those feet that went so swiftly to the grave with her to bring back the brother to her home.

Once Martha was reproved, now Mary must be, but not by the same voice. The spirit of Judas was shown, and he led the disciples in crying out, "To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor." His mean motive is revealed by John; but the act itself was a fearful revelation of a want of Christian sentiment. Humbled, and awaiting the word of Jesus, stood Mary. Her deed was but an act of her woman's nature. To have used the spikenard in the dressing of her own dark locks would not have been deemed waste, nor to have employed it at some festival that welcomed a prince. Jesus came to her relief as soon as he understood the talk of his disciples, seeing Mary moved from the serenity that had marked her coun

tenance when she came in. Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always." And then with ineffable tenderness, he appropriated the act to his coming death, as he had doubtless done in his own thoughts at the time of anointing, which will account for his not understanding more readily what was going on among the disciples who rebuked Mary. "For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her."

Mary was vindicated. At home, when she felt the prompting of duty, she sat at Jesus' feet to learn the lessons of duty and eternal life. When abroad, and the same prompting to an act was felt, she laid aside her meditative character, and gave a social, as she had given a domestic token of her high reverence and deep love for Christ. We know not how much of a struggle she made,-doubtless it was not small, to do in the sight of the great throng what she did do, but the act of beautiful sentiment was performed. Jesus felt it. Under no other token of respect did he seem so absorbed and lost to what was around him, and of no other act did he say what he said of that. Co-extensive with his Gospel should its fame be. Mary's memorial should be set up where he, the memorial of God, should be proclaimed; and we fulfil the word of the Master as now we speak of how gentle, meditative, retiring, humble, and timid Woman while true to Home, may yet be, and ought to be, the Social Reformer.

"O! say what deed so lifted thy sweet name, Mary, to that pure, silent place of fame ? One lowly offering of exceeding love."

The sweet odor of that perfume went out, through lattice and door, upon the evening air; the night breeze caught it and bore it far and wide; it mingled its fragments with every wind of heav en, and through these eighteen centuries it has endured, and to night it comes floating around us freshening our thoughts with reverence for her gentleness of spirit and heroism of character.

Jesus did every thing to sanctify the Home. To the face of Infancy, in the cradle, his words have given a holier beauty than even maternal love had ever seen there before; and in the light of his religion every domestic duty has a supe

rior attraction; every tie is consecrated; every affection is made heavenly; every sympathy divine. But let those who imagine that Woman belongs only to the Home, who make her merely a divinity at the domestic shrine,-let such remember that Jesus spake his most eloquent word¦ of a Woman's act in society, and predicted its! fame co-extensive with the proclamation of his Gospel," there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her."

How

To speak of Woman as a Social Reformer, is very distressing to many. All they think of is woman sitting by the fireside of the heart, feeding its flame," all the work of preparation for so doing being accomplished out of sight, and "modest stillness and humility" being traits of character never associated with the stern requisitions of repulsive and laborious duties. much poets have sung of Woman as a sort of caged bird, to please with the beauty and every movement of its wings,-wings to be expanded only within the cage,-and to delight with its music and charm to sleep with its cooing. The pulpit too often describes the same tender character, a quiet, contemplative religionist, submissive to the commands of others, never voting in the church or in the society; but yet tracts may be distributed, levees and tea parties and fairs may be held, and a thousand things done in society, in public, if money is the result. And so in political life,-woman ought not to trouble herself about politics though politics produce her chief troubles, and men in power and men seeking power, think more of woman's plaudit than of the vote given or sought. "I do not like to have woman meddle with politics," said Napoleon to Madame de Stael, who was feared by him more than he feared all the men of France. "Sire," was the reply, "it is natural while women are losing their heads that they should wish to know the reason why." She kept liberty alive while the Despot sought to crush out its life, and he was not easy till he sent Talleyrand with the message that it was reported Madame De Stael intended to leave France and that her passports were ready.

What means this continual talk of the Influence of Woman, the admission that the world's character is of her moulding, and that she must be true to her mission as, under Christ and Christianity, the chief regenerator of society; and yet when she attempts to look into these statements for herself, and mark out how she will or would work to obey the moral demand, nothing but jests and jeers, misrepresentations

and vulgar inuendoes, are the returns she receives from the secular and religious press, the pulpit and the conversations of cliques of the ton; yes and many times from those who are bleeding because that is not done which heroic spirits would attempt to do. Littleness of mind is seen in nothing better than in a disposition to take hold of the most vulnerable part of an opponent's position-that which can most easily be turned into ridicule, forgetting, in the boorish laugh, the impregnable points in the stand taken. If a comprehensive reform, embracing all that is demanded by all the various minds interested, then the cry is, "They go too far." If one thing is attempted at a time, why then the cry is, "They don't go far enough!" and so the dog-in-the-manger leaves the poor servant that has borne the burden of the day to starve, or suffer in hunger and weakness.

The fact is, there is no apology needed for any deliberate attempt to direct public attention to the Wrongs or Rights of woman, other than the apology that comes from the course of the public press.

Woman is exalted to any desirable degree of angelhood and superior influence over the destinies of society; man, it is said, is really ruled by her; as though this was a set off to the theoretical claim of man's authority over woman; but when this power is to be used for herself, then the cry is loud and wild, or a smothered scorn expresses itself in ridicule and jests, and Napoleon is still afraid of a single woman speaking for liberty and right. It never seems to enter the minds of these objectors that the Home, to which they devote Woman, is affected by the character of Society; that as much heroism is many times needed to deal with difficulties in the Home as is needed by man in the world of trade and business; and that religious sensibility, retiring gentleness, and the stillness of modesty, are not the only qualities required by the exigencies of domestic life, but energy most heroic, strength most enduring, patience undying, and resolution firm as the rooted trunk of the oak. When David prayed for the daughters of Israel, he did not choose the figure of a vine that leans on a support, or any thing that betokened only grace and symmetry, but he prayed that they might be "as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace,"-the foundations of strength, yet beautiful to the sight. The true strength of woman's noblest character is perfectly compatible with the most winning gentleness; she may hold up the sym

metry and order of the home, and yet the public eye shall see a beauty.

The Bible gives all honor to the social influence of woman; and when we look into Christianity as unfolded in the biographies of Jesus and the epistles of his followers, we find Woman no mean personage amid the list of Social Reformers,-" -"last at the cross and earliest at the grave," and Paul's "true yoke-fellow" is exhorted to "help those women that labored with him in the Gospel." And when it is said that the noise and contentions, the strife and bitterness, of the busy world outside of Home, is not fitting for Woman, let it be remembered also, it is not fitting for Man. Whatever is opposed to the development of the Christian virtues and graces, is equally opposed to the highest good of Man as of Woman. Virtue, religion, belongs to human nature, not to males or females as such. When Eve was created, she and the man were called by one name,-Gen. v. 2,-it was Adam who called the woman Eve; and grandly going back to this unity of nature, the Apostle declares "there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus," they are one, as Jew and Gentile, bond and free. When looked at in the light of the great demands on our moral nature, what is the difference between the ideal of a perfect man and the ideal of a perfect woman? The only real question is of Spheres; these are made, in one sense, but not the highest sense, by customs, usages, degrees of refinement and civilization, by the necessities of times and seasons; and it is this that gives so grotesque a picture of Woman as seen in history, or now by acquaintance with the various customs of widely separated nations;

Crushed by the savage, fettered by the slave," But served and honored by the good and brave."

History, nor what exists of laws or customs, cannot furnish the true answer respecting the spheres for Woman. Character, talent, genius, the demands of the inevitable circumstances with which she may be environed, dictate what she should be, how she should act, what she should devise, where she should follow and where she should lead.

It is a doctrine of the New Jerusalem Church that all souls make for themselves spheres, in which, from moral necessity, they live and move and have their being. The idea has its root in nature, in absolute truth, however we might differ respecting its applications. There are wo

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