Show gods women at tho the comans national council one morning was devoted to the political status of women after addresses ad dresse by several well weil known women frances E t willard the president of the council introduced the tho last op speaker eaker rev anna ands 11 shaw as follows we have had present during the concil a very modest quiet biet gentle and yet indomitable little woman who has had bad the embarrassing and unenviable duty of tapping the bell now eho she is to come under the rule and no ono one will do it with moro more graceful gracefulness or goodwill while rev anna 11 shaw speaks to us about gods women she will present in herself an embodiment jentof of the unique title she has chosen for address miss bliss shaw proceeded to review bishop vincents reported assertion that gods women are not the deborahh Debo and hiriams Mir iams but the ruths Rac rachels liels and marys she eaid said the subject gods women was suggested tome to me byan by an article in in a newspaper in which a gentleman der defined enefer G goda s women it has always seemed to me remarkable how clear the definitions of men are in regard to women their duties their their privileges privileges their rc response bili bi litie ies t their air relations to each other to men to rovern government ment and now to god while they have been doing this for years we have bave been patiently listening the woman of the nineteenth cen century tury has taken to definition and she has ca come me to the conclusion I 1 that it may be possible tor for a woman as well as for a man to comprehend the relations of women to each other to their h holca omes to the church to the state and listening for the voice of god themselves to know what is the relation of the divine and believing this no divide divine whether he wear the name of elder deacon p priest riest bishop or pope p shall d define efine for the woman of t the twentieth century lier right to be aind and to become all god makes it poe poa for her to be the great eat divine who suggested this an subject q t to me was lecturing before an institute of sacred theo 10 logy in the city of new york agy before ear e h him i m was a class of stu students denta male and female and he was defining to the male students what they the males might permit the females todo to do in referring to tha the relation of woman to the church ho he spoke of the a argument ar umen t raised by man many women t that tat it was the d design I 1 of f go god that domn should be e eligible isible to any position she could occupy the women go to the bible to prove their claim and the one woman upon whom we have all laid ou our r claim and our boast is that grand old woman who was able to tryout cry out in looking over lari israel in its hours of peace there was trouble there was dissentious dissen du tiou there was unrest in israel until I 1 di de i borab a mother in israel ariae we point to tha the fact that the ju judges daei of israel were always understood b by those people to be j divinely selected for or their position and being thus divinely selected we nye cannot assume that any human being ing could have taken the position on who was not organized sed by tho the people at least as having been chosen by god and even with the authority of tha the b bichop to 0 back it wo we cannot assume that god od did not know what he was doing when he lie chose deborah to be a judge in israel if bishop vincent thinks god made a mistake he will have to wait for ever to correct the mis take for it is done and we cannot go back on the record this woman found a country greatly disturbed ft a country where the judges u d had been taking bribes if from lorn tho the people where tt the e people were utterly demoralized where they dared not walk on their highways because of thieves or robbers and were compelled compell xi to go 90 secretly through croes iota lots in order to get acom city to city during tho the forty years of her reign as judge of israel the whole condition of things was revolutionized we are told that eho she judged the tile people in righteousness and the people had peace for forty years just think of forty years of peace we have never known e such ue h a thing from that day now then this woman was not we are told by bishop vincent gods woman if then she waa was not gods woman whose woman was she and if goa god is not able to recognize his ilis own what will become of odua us at the last now we believe that this judge in israel was divinely ordained tor for tho the work because otherwise she could not bavo have done her work so well this same divine tells us that miriam was not gods woman either that she wa was a eort sort of eoma some thing interpolated for the times of war and distress all great souls are nm i interpolated for great occasions when they are needed and when god wants a certain thing done that he knows needs a woman to do 10 it he lie generally raises raises up a woman woma n and not a m man an for the position the world needed a woman here was the boy moses under tho the reign of a man by whom moses would have been put to death in nia babyhood but that tho the loving i heart of his mother said ho ile shall shall no die and she hid him away we are told that women have no reasoning powers they are not able to arrive at logical con elisions elusions elu clu when I 1 was ia in the theological school a young roan man who wag was studying theology and who was arrayed as they always are during the first year with a coat buttoned up high around the neck and all that said he be thought it was his duty to warn me in the beginning he said you are making a great mistake god never intended a woman to preach the gospel god has so constructed the brain of a woman that she cannot give a correct and continuous exegesis i of df scripture that sound like a first year student it may be I 1 said thit that th it god has constructed our braia brain so that we cannot give a correct and continuance exegesis of scripture but lie ile bas has at least constructed our brain so that somewhere or other he has found a place in it in which Us ile has bestowed ft laro large amount of gumption now if wa wb do not possess exegetical ability wa we at least havo have gumption enough if we wo undertake to preach and find our church empty t ti get out of alao pulpit and into the paw pw what a grand thins it bould bi be for the church at fit 1 largo 11 a if the other sex had some ofelt of that kind of gumption there would not bs be some bishops who are preaching today to day now this woman miriam we arsvold ars told is not goda woman hut but seo see this little comans wo miina gumption how sho she geta gets around the t a young princess princ aaa and the mother heart of the young princess goes out towards the bacill babal sho she was a woman though s she e was a princess see how shrewdly thia this little girl plan nod it so that the childs child as mother should beckma his nurse and how under tho the guidance and care of his mother moses was reared to become the leader of tho the people of israel you see that in all that transaction god did not need a man and he ile did lid need a wise woman and he found women enough of tho the kind he ile wanted to do just the work that he ile wanted done what more moro natural than that when bleses years after led the people out from egypt there went by the side of the great leader his sister miriam and that they with their other brother became the united leaders of the children of israel out from their bondage if god chose a woman to act in these cases when the world needed a clear brain a tender affectionate to loving motherly heart a firm and determined will and chose the woman to do it and if when the people needed a leader to guide them out of bondage to freedom P he ile chose a woman to bo be among the leading instruments of that great undertaking who shall dare to say bay be he layman or priest that such a woman is not gods woman the bishop says there are tain classes of women who are goda gods women we want to know who they are because then we can range eg ourselves on tho the right side aide gods women according to the bishop aro the ruths the rachels and the marys we have soma some of the marys here ruth was a re woman because ruth was absolutely devoted to her mother in law and that takes a great woman but then ruth had some peen peculiar B aar ways of getting along in this world I 1 hardly hard y think the bishop would like to have some of us who are unmarried follow ruths ruthl method of securing a husband I 1 hardly think ho he would like us to follow her line of courtship yet the only two thin things for which she is admired are a devotion to her mother in law and anti a peculiar method of obtaining a husband hui band these are perhaps two very g good things in themselves but wo we should ais t fe A hardly think they wera werd of such im por parlance lance to ti the raci rac that auch such a woman should bo be especially held up ai a i a type t pe women then there was richel we know two or three thing about Rc rachel hel one ono is 13 that she bad had such a high sense of the of boulan to man that while the shepherds lay bojt about gazing at each other aid and at tho the skies and per lispi at her she left them gazing while she sho went to the well and drew iho llie tita to water the flocks that bight i ba tha the bishops idea of gods woman but it is is hardly my idea of the proper division of labor between the sexes I 1 sho u ld prefer to let the bishop draw t the be water ter while I 1 gazed there is is another thing wo we know kaow about rabael that she was a very handsome woman every man and every woman like to see a handsome woman but I 1 have heard it baid said that women are always jealous of each others beauty and always angry if anybody says anything about the beauty of another woman this gathering of women is is certainly an exception to the rule for we have been the proudest set of women you eversal ever saw because in in the providence of got god there has been gath gathered e re d hero her cwi with th u us S in in t this h i a council such a magnificent band of beautiful ul young women of whom we are all proud and we glory in in their b beauty those of us who have passed our youth look ot at these young girls i ot with envy but with nith a little bit of pain ia in our hearts and say if god had bad only made us that way we should have been glad wo inic do rejoice in in each other and we vre aro are glad of a good goo d looking oung young woman rachel was eo so good looking that jacob wanted to marry her and he worked seven years fo for r her sao sho must have been a very desir Ablo AbIO woman for jacob to give seven years hard labor fur for her nowadays if a man courts for a few evenings ove ninga ho he thinks it is w plenty plenty of time to spend on it jacob jaco naif cd ed seven years and then got cheat ed out of the woman be he wanted and had to marry her oldest bister sister rachel however was a courageous woman and he was a faithful man so he be waited seven years more the only thing I 1 know about rachel is is that the bible says she wept for her children because they were not the inference is is that men may go on behaving as you eay say you do do i improperly 1 0 perly in politics that you may make MX the politics of this nation dark damaging and unclean that at last you may have an unrighteous war and then take our children and kill them on the battle field and all wo we have to do about it li is to stay at homo home and weep for our children because they are not we are to have nothing to say as to cheth er you shall kill them or not all we are to have to do about it is is to cry about it then the bishop tella tells us mary was one oneff of gods women there are ft is number of marys and anti the bishop does doe I 1 not designate which 0 of f them it was as it if ho e means th the e mary out of whom tho the seven devits delifa were cast I 1 should not agree with him if it was the mary alary who washed the feet of christ and sui wiped them with the hairs of her head in token of penitence I 1 admire her penitence but I 1 do not admire tho the ein sin that led to tho the necessity of that penitence if it wai was the mary ilary who was his moth er the bishop has brought forward the wrong mary blary to prove his case what does the biblo bible tell ns us in the falness of tima time god needed for the world a redeemer how should he ile give the redeemer to the world he gave tho the rt redeemer deemer to the world by choosing out of tho the world a ivo woman to become the mother of the saviour of the race god and a woman gave to tho the world its re he deemer men were counted out of the transaction she did a great work for the world but she did not do it in her kitchen cooking chick ens for conference season and other occasions occA siona when the mini ministers aters come around then there was another mary blary and she eye is the mary blary whom I 1 have taken as my example in my profession this was tha mary who stood by the tomb of the lord and there at the mouth of the open tomb she received the first divine commission from the divine one himself to go out into the world and preach the 9 gospel 08 anve 1 0 of f a risen risen lord we have one other mary and that mary was the mary uary who sat at the feet of tho the lord learning theology of him and tha the only reproof the lord ever gave a woman was no not given to mary blary the theological st Jent but to martha the who worried about her hr homework housework home house work and wanted mary to give up theology and go into tha the kitchen and cook tha dinner now then hero hera are tho the marys two of them were sinners ain nera one was tho the mother of the lord doin doing tho the greatest public work for t the he raco that has his ever been done in the world one was wai a woman who was a theological student learning at the feet of the master the other was the first divinely commissioned preacher r eacher of the resurrection I 1 am gla glad d als bishop op vincent holds that women ministers are goda women that women theological students are goda gods women and that tha the woman who was tha the mother of tho the saviour of the world was also G adi ad i I 1 believe they were and I 1 believe that the Alir hiriams iams and the deborahh Debo Dabo and vashtie were goda gods women too when I 1 was a girl I 1 road read tho the biblo bible through 9 h in order to select from it the two people who were to bo be my hero and heroine through life my aly heru hero w was as caleb my heroine vashti vashti disobeyed her husband and left her palace be cause sho she had bad disobeyed her bus band I 1 selected kahti from among them all because sha she had disobeyed disobeyed her husband a woman away back ack in tho tile centuries who recognized tho the dictates of her own self respect a woman who refused to become the puppet of a king and of hia his drunken courtiers a woman ready to give up a man and a throne a husband and a kingdom rather than do an ignominious thing such a woman is goda gods woman hua band or no husband I 1 wish the world were full fall of vashtia today to day standing by the right of their indi ind victual vidual belfre belf respect I 1 sigh to gad for such womanhood the concluding remarks of bishop vincent were in in relation to motherhood lie ile referred to that passage 3 of scripture which wo we XV have 1 1 heard so much about in this discussion she shall be saved in child birth most blost of as ua regard this passage ga of the scripture as meaning that she shall bo be saved by the cam ing of the child shall be saved wa by oe tho birth of jesue christ she shall ba saved because jesua jesus christ came into tho the world to save not men alone but woman also women shall be saved because of therom the coming of him who ia is the emancipator of the raca race women included bo be having lieving thia we think |