Chapter XXVII: Carl Yorke’s Orbit (4)

Women are receiving just now, at the hands of a certain class of agitators, a degree of attention which may be flattering to some, but which certainly is not only intrusive, but unnecessary with regard to many. They are told that their rights are trampled upon, that they must assert and defend themselves, and take their place in the great battle of life. Now, these exhortations have generally been met by copious references to all the undoubted precepts of old, which made the domestic life woman’s own sphere, and consecrated her the minister of all man’s comforts. This sphere of home duties is incontestably theirs; and what is more, while they can help man in his avocations, man, on the other hand, can scarcely help them in their own. But in addition to this, their inviolable territory which they intend never to abandon, let them boldly claim a share of man’s kingdom, and let them make good their claim. People have listened to many women and to a few men on the subject of the so-called “Women’s Rights:” let them listen with indulgence to one woman more, who comes claiming far greater things than they dream of, and yet showing that her claims are but long-established and real _rights_, recognized, defined, limited, and protected by an older code of jurisprudence, and a longer tradition of immemorial custom, than they have as yet been told of by the press or in the lecture-room.

The existence of woman is a fact: it is equally a fact that everything that exists has some work to do in the order of the universe. God himself, in a few simple words, stated what her work was: “Let us make him a help like unto himself” (Gen. ii. 18). The words indeed are so simple that they hardly arrest attention, yet in them lies the whole relation of woman to man. She is to be _a help_; but no restrictive detail is added, so that it is clearly open to her to help man intellectually, religiously, morally, as well as domestically. She is to be _like_ unto him; that is, emphatically not masculine, not a creature that is a _mere_ copy or reproduction of himself, but _like_ unto him, that is, sufficiently like to understand him, sufficiently unlike to love him. Again, no precise relation in which she is to stand to man is defined: she may therefore be a help as a wife, mother, sister, in the domestic circle; she may be a help as a consecrated virgin, as an adviser, as an intercessor, in the religious order; she may be a help as a governor, a regent, a queen, in the political order: lastly, she may be a help as a friend and confidant in the social order.

Now, having seen that God distinctly gave woman a mission, as he has to every animate and inanimate creature, we must suppose that he has also provided her with the means of fulfilling it. We look around us to see how he has done so, and whether, when the means were at hand, woman used them to her own distinction and advantage. In one place and under one set of circumstances alone do we find that it was so, and this not by exception, but by rule. This place is the Catholic Church; these circumstances are her laws and her history. The reason why it remained for our times to form “_women’s rights_” associations, is simply that women’s wrongs have, under the influence of the Reformation, been so shamefully multiplied. The present movement is a reaction against the Protestant atmosphere of repression which has suffocated woman’s highest aspirations for three hundred years. The tribute unconsciously paid to the Catholic Church by the Anglican communities of monks and sisters is a proof of the wisdom of the old church in regard to its treatment of women. Sensitive, enthusiastic, earnest souls found themselves without the outward means of satisfying their craving after a more perfect life; others with superabundance of energy and devotion, with the gift of tending the sick or instructing the young, found themselves confined to the circle of their own unaided efforts and unorganized activity. They hailed “sisterhoods” as the newly opened gates of heaven, not knowing that sisterhoods were no new invention, but had their source in the very beginnings of the days of which the then unwritten Gospels became the after-history.

In a sermon recently delivered by one of the most popular preachers of New York, and reported in the columns of a widely-read journal, occur the following words, which are a singular corroboration of what we have just said: “There is nothing more dangerous than an educated community with nothing to do. There are thousands of educated women who do not work.... I do not wonder the bold, eagle-like natures fret in their limits and detest life, or that the great hearts dash themselves out in waste. There must be outlet for these immense forces, or society will go on getting worse and worse to the end.” A few days after these words were spoken, the following appeared in a letter referring to the attempt made by a woman to drop her vote in the ballot-box, at the New York City election of the 7th of November, 1871. She gives a lamentable account of woman’s world, as it has grown to be under the shade of Protestantism. “The condition of involuntary servitude is favorable to the cultivation of all the vices of secrecy and deceit. As women, we have been schooled in hypocrisy and duplicity, until our deep souls revolt against the oppression that so compels us to belie our sincere and earnest natures. The most docile wife has that latent fire in her heart which only needs the air of freedom to fan into a flame. Many seemingly contented wives would almost risk the salvation of their souls to make their masters feel for one day the humiliation they have endured uncomplainingly for years. If this is true of the favorites of fortune, what may not be said of the great crowd of women who rush into every folly, or are doomed to severest trial by stringent laws and the oppressive customs growing out of them--laws and customs that disfranchise them, prescribe their pleasures, limit their fields of labor, and curtail their wages, all on the plea of sex? We have, gentlemen, very generally arrived at the knowledge that sex is a crime punishable by law.” The writer of this subscribes herself “Mary Leland,” and is, no doubt, a fair representative of the indignant champions of indiscriminate equality between men and women. If the slumbering volcano she describes is really hidden beneath the frivolous life of ordinary women, what a fearful responsibility lies at the door of the system whose effect it is! This spirit of rebellion can only exist as a reaction against the forced inactivity of woman’s mind and will, and against the torpor induced by the delicate flattery of those who would make her a sultana, or the brutality of those who would fain turn her into a beast of burden. Both alike are forms of slavery; both alike are anti-Christian; both are contradictions against nature, and will inevitably bear their evil fruit. Since their true rights have been denied them by the spirit of the Reformation; since the education of their children is taken out of their hands by the state; since nothing but a savory meal and a pleasant face are expected from them--what wonder that the displaced pendulum of their mind should sway violently aside, and thus come in rude contact with the more arduous sphere of man?

But it is not our purpose to give a lecture on the abstract principles concerned in the question of the rights of women; facts speak more loudly and more convincingly than the most eloquent arguments, the most fascinating pleas: we aim only at giving a few of these facts to our sisters of the present day, and showing them how the church has ever regarded, and has long ago settled, the question now agitating them so painfully.

Our only difficulty is in the mass of evidence from which to make selections, the matter that is to serve us as a witness being simply the history of the church, and its abundance so rich that we hesitate which of the countless examples to draw forth for the admiration of _woman_-kind, and which to leave in undeserved oblivion. If we take a cursory glance at the infant church on the shores of the Lake of Galilee, we shall find woman already in a conspicuous and honorable position. It is a remarkable fact that no nation of antiquity, save the Jews, had any respect for the female sex, beyond that which included women in the _possessions_ of their husbands and fathers, and consequently could make no difference between an insult to a virgin or a wife and a theft of any other precious chattel. The Jews--that is, the people whom God himself guided and taught, and whose laws were his immediate decrees--hedged in the chastity of women with the most stringent safeguards, and defended it by the severest penalties. They allowed women to inherit from their parents and perpetuate their own name, and to be preferred before the male relations, that is, the brothers or nephews of their father (Numb. xxvii. 8). Not only were the wives and daughters of the Israelites inviolable; their hired servants, whether Jew or Gentile, and their captives, were equally protected from the licentiousness of man. The Old Testament has numberless chapters consecrated to the praises of women, and to the precepts necessary for the education of their sex. In Genesis, chap. xxxiv., we find the sons of Jacob making war upon the Sichemites, to revenge the insult done to their sister Dina by the prince Sichem; in the Book of Judges, chap. xx., we read of a bloody and protracted war waged by the Israelites against one of their own tribes, the Benjaminites, to revenge the Levite’s wife, outraged by strange men in the town of Gabaa; in the Second Book of Kings, chap. xiii., we see how promptly and fearfully Absalom resented the wrong done to his sister Thamar by their brother Amnon. In the Book of Judith, we are astounded at seeing the high and solemn eulogium pronounced upon this valiant woman. She speaks to the elders of Bethulia as one having authority, yet, with such humility as befits even the most highly favored servant of God, she comforts them and bids them hope, so that they acknowledge that her words are true, and ask her to pray for them (chap. viii. 29). Her own prayer for guidance and success is full of wisdom, of poetry, of confidence in God and the right: her speech to Holofernes is conspicuous for tact, and the heathen general himself exclaims, “There is not such another woman upon earth ... in sense of words.” When the great deed is done and Judith returns to the besieged city, she sings a noble canticle, a true poem, full of grave beauty and deep meaning, and we are then told how highly she was honored by the high-priest Joachim, who came from Jerusalem, with all his elders, to see her and bless her. He calls her the “glory of Jerusalem, the joy of Israel, and the honor of the people” (chap. xv. 10), and bestows upon her precious vessels from the spoils of the Assyrians. He does not forget to extol her chastity as intimately connected with her success; indeed, this praise seems to supersede the blessings with which she is hailed as a deliverer. When she died, the people publicly mourned for her seven days, and to the time of her death it is recorded that “she came forth with great glory on festival days.”

This is not the only instance where we find woman in a responsible and elevated position, surrounded by friends of high degree, vying with each other in bestowing upon her marks of esteem and respect. Later on we find Christian prelates acting the part of Joachim to some new Judith, some woman distinguished for piety and virtue, and whose influence or example is a powerful auxiliary of their own efforts.

Reverting for a few moments to the history of the Jews, we see how in numberless instances women were the instruments of grace and deliverance, how they were gifted, and how they were esteemed. Instead of a marriage that was nothing but a bargain such as was in use among heathen nations, the betrothal of Rebecca was a most grave and solemn ceremony, and the consent of the maiden was formally asked. Jacob had such a high idea of Rachel’s worth that he served her for fourteen years. When the walls of Jericho fell and the inhabitants were put to the sword, the woman Rahab was spared, together with all those who chose to take refuge in her house. The child Moses was rescued and educated by a woman, and his sister, Mary, was a great prophetess whose canticle has come down to us almost as a national hymn. Anna, the mother of Samuel, sang praises to God in language which the inspired writers thought worthy of transmitting to the perpetual remembrance of all generations; the Queen of Sheba was so enamored of wisdom and learning that she came a long and tedious journey to pay homage to the superior gifts of Solomon; Anna, the wife of Tobias, after her husband had lost his sight, earned the wherewithal for their humble home at “weaving-work” (Tob. ii. 19). Sara, the wife of the younger Tobias, prayed God in words that have always been incorporated in the sacred text. Mardochai said pointedly to Queen Esther, “Who knoweth whether thou art therefore come to the kingdom that thou mightest be ready at such a time as this?” and she answered by effectually interceding for her people, though, notwithstanding her regal position, it was only at the risk of her life that she could approach the king unbidden. Her prayer, like all the rest recorded in the Scriptures, is a poem in itself, and points to the true source whence all real courage springs, while it also hallows with religious feeling the deep patriotism peculiar to the Hebrew race. Later on, the mother of the Machabees showed such heroic fortitude under persecution that the Scriptures say of her that she “was to be admired above measure, and was worthy to be remembered by good men.”

Turning to the New Testament, we find woman in equally prominent positions, honored by the special notice of the Man-God himself, and materially aiding in the establishment of his church. Not to speak of the Mother of God, whose influence on the fate of woman has been simply paramount, and leaving aside the fact of his undoubted voluntary subjection to her, as well as that of her intercession, being the immediate occasion of his first public miracle and manifestation at Cana of Galilee--the place of woman in the Gospel history is one that may justly be the pride of her sex. The greater part of our Lord’s miracles were worked in favor of women, most often on their own persons, at other times on persons whom they held dearer than life. Of the first, witness the cure of the mother-in-law of Peter, of the woman healed of an issue of blood, of the daughter of the Chanaanitish woman, to whom Jesus said, “O woman, great is thy faith; be it done to thee as thou wilt” (St. Matt. xv. 28); of the woman bowed down with an infirmity that had afflicted her for eighteen years; also the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Of the second, witness the restoring to the widow of Naim of her only son, whom Jesus raised to life “being moved with mercy towards _her_” (St. Luke vii. 13), and whom, when he had raised him, he “gave to his mother.” Lazarus, too, dear as he was personally to the Master, was yet raised to a new life chiefly through the prayers and the faith of his sisters, whose sorrow had touched the heart of the divine Saviour. Not only in temporal things, but much more in spiritual, did our Lord seek out women for their cure and salvation. He did not disdain to speak long and patiently with the woman of Samaria, and, instead of heralding his saving presence to her countrymen through his own disciples, he preferred to let her be his messenger. He proposed the modest almsgiving of the poor widow as a model of all true charity. He protected the woman taken in adultery against her pharisaical judges; he commended the woman Magdalen, and prophesied that, wherever the Gospel should be preached, there should her name be also remembered. When he was teaching the multitudes, it was a woman who cried out in touching boldness and pathetic directness of speech: “Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the breasts that gave thee suck.” Again it was to women that he spoke when, on the path to Calvary, he turned, and said, “Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” Women followed him bravely when men deserted, betrayed, and denied him; women stood beneath his cross while his apostles were hiding in fear, and the solitary friend who never left him was the most woman-like of all his disciples. His last legacy on earth, the last precious thing on which he turned his thoughts, was a woman, and the first person to whom he appeared after his resurrection was also a woman. When the disciples were gathered together awaiting the coming of the Paraclete, a woman was among them: “The mother of Jesus,” as the Gospel says, was there.

Later on, in the Acts of the Apostles, we find women mentioned as most efficacious helpers in the work of the infant church. Tabitha, for instance, a “woman full of good works, and almsdeeds” (Acts ix. 36), and Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, a woman who accompanied St. Paul from Corinth to Ephesus, and there took Apollo, an eloquent and fervent man, and “expounded to him the way of the Lord more diligently” (Acts xviii. 26). Again, Lydia, a seller of purple, “one that worshipped God,” offered hospitality to St. Paul, and “constrained” him to dwell in her house (Acts xvi. 14, 15). St. Paul has been quoted and misquoted so often that one almost shrinks from appealing to his arguments and precepts; yet perhaps even here we may find something new to say, something to point out in a new light, something that the controversialists on the subject of Women’s Rights, on both sides, have, apparently at least, overlooked. We will not dwell on such portions of his Epistles as are always in the mouth of those who aim at relegating woman to an exclusively domestic sphere, but, on the contrary, we will point out words of his, honoring woman so highly that no law of modern times has been able to rival such deference, and no claim of strong-minded female associations would dare to lift itself to such importance. In his First Epistle to the Romans, chapter xvi., he says: “And I commend to you Phebe, our sister, who is in the _ministry_ of the church ... that you receive her in the Lord as becometh saints, and that you assist her in _whatsoever business_ she shall have need of you: for she also hath assisted many, and myself also.” Ministry, of course, stands for help, and is used here in its strict and original sense, as when the Gospel says of our Lord, “And angels came and ministered unto him,” and as when we say the _ministrations_ of charity. Some persons, indeed, have affected to see in this text an implied permission for women to act as priests; common sense and the general tone of the Epistles are sufficiently explicit, however, to undeceive all such as do not on this head voluntarily deceive themselves. The same Epistle we have quoted goes on to say: “Salute Prisca [Priscilla] and Aquila [her husband], my _helpers_ in Christ Jesus; who have for my life laid down their own necks; to whom not only I give thanks, but also _all the churches_ of the Gentiles; and the church which is in their house.” Observe how St. Paul speaks of them without distinction of sex as equally helpers, and how he even mentions the woman’s name first. Again he continues: “Salute Mary, who hath _labored much_ among you ... salute Julia, Nereus, and his _sister_, and Olympias, and all the saints that are with them.” We have no space for recalling the well-known precepts St. Paul gives concerning both the state of marriage and that of virginity; we would only indicate by a passing notice how truly liberal is his teaching, including both states as honorable, _commanding_ neither marriage nor continence, and providing with minute foresight for each circumstance that human mutability can create. And in one of these, the case being the desertion by an unbelieving consort of the Christian yoke-fellow, he distinctly says: “If the unbeliever depart, let him depart; for a brother or sister _is not under servitude_ in such cases; but God hath called us in peace” (1 Cor. vii. 15). The very custom of calling women “sisters,” universal in the early church, is a token of the respect that was paid them, and of the Christian equality which denied them no legitimate share in the spiritual and social life of man. St. Paul has traced out in one word the whole duty of man to woman when he said, “The elder women entreat as mothers, the younger as sisters, in all chastity” (1 Tim. v. 2). In the First Epistle to the Philippians, he says: “Help those women who have _labored_ with me in the _Gospel_, ... and whose names are in the _book of life_.” St. John dedicated a whole Epistle, or letter, to the “Lady Elect and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not I only, but also _all_ they that have known the truth.... And now I beseech thee, lady, _not_ as writing a _new_ commandment, but that which we have had _from the beginning_, that we love one another.... Having more things to write to you, I would not by paper and ink, for I hope that I shall be with you, and speak face to face, that your joy may be full.” St. Peter, in his First Epistle, does not disdain to give counsel as to the outward dress of women, thus dignifying the subject through the symbolism he wishes it to express. And let not any one of our own times call these counsels either frivolous or interfering, for has not every sect that arose as a self-appointed reformer begun by the restraint on female apparel, typical of moral restraint over our passions and inclinations? Even now, in a mistaken and distorted interpretation of the significance of dress, have not the ultra-advocates of Woman’s Rights laid their “reforming” hands upon the current fashions?

When St. Peter came to Rome, the first house that received him was that of Pudens, a Roman senator, whose wife Priscilla, and whose daughters Pudentiana and Praxedes, became his first converts and his most powerful co-laborers. The two virgins, having become the heiresses of their parents and brothers, sold their vast estates, and gave the price to the suffering and persecuted among their brethren; and, though we read of hundreds of such cases among the women of the early church, we seldom find it so with the men, except in such families where the influence of some female relative resulted in this heroic renunciation. The palace of Pudentiana and Praxedes was converted into a church which for centuries has borne their name, and in which is shown as well the temporary receptacle and hiding-place, says time-honored tradition, of the bodies of the martyrs, carefully collected by these brave women. This church is the oldest in Rome, says a reliable authority, the Rev. Joachim Ventura, whom we shall often have reason to quote in these pages, and it is also the first among those giving titular rank to the order of cardinals.

Among the apostolic women whose names stand beside those of the great saints to whom the church owes her wide sway, St. Thecla has ever been foremost; St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Isidore of Pelusium, St. Epiphanius, and St. Methodius, bishops and fathers of the church, have vied with one another in extolling her constancy and her greatness. The last mentioned of these tells us, in his book the _Banquet of Virgins_, that she was well versed in secular philosophy, and in the various branches of polite literature; he also exceedingly commends her eloquence, and the ease, strength, sweetness, and modesty of her discourse (_Butler’s Lives of the Saints_). Of the persecution she suffered at the hands of the young pagan to whom she had, before her conversion, been betrothed, we will not speak, neither will we touch upon her miraculous deliverance from the wild beasts to whom she had been thrown, further than to point out, however, that woman has shown more than masculine courage long before modern agitators began to accuse her of degeneracy and tameness. But the secret lay then, as it does now, in the teaching of a church that sees in her children only hierarchies of _souls_, and that looks upon the body as a mere form, determining respective duties, it is true, but certainly not conferring _de jure_ on the possessors of such forms any superiority or difference of intellectual or moral capacity. A proof of this lies open to all in the fact that women’s names as well as men’s are incorporated in the text of the Mass, and are repeated every day with as much honor, before the altar of God. After the “Commemoration of the Dead,” and in the prayer beginning, “Nobis quoque peccatoribus,” the names of Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, are coupled with those of the apostles and martyrs _John_, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, _Ignatius_, Alexander, Marcellinus, and _Peter_, that is, with some of the greatest saints whom even Protestants consent to admire. The church, too, shows her appreciation of the sex and its capabilities by the express words, often used in her liturgy, “devoto femineo sexu,” which, whether translated as usual, the “devout female sex,” or the “devoted,” seems equally honorable to woman and her special characteristics. Virgins and widows are mentioned by name in the prayers used in public on Good Friday, and immediately before them are named the seven orders of the priesthood. The mere fact of so many churches being dedicated to God under the special invocation of some female saint, often one whose history has become obscure and traditional from very remoteness, serves to illustrate the high respect of the Catholic Church for womanhood, and the perfect equality with which she looks upon both her sons and her daughters. The cathedral of Milan, one of the most renowned shrines in the world, is under the patronage of the virgin of whom we have just spoken, the proto-martyr, St. Thecla. The fathers of the church, following the example of St. Paul, call the help of faithful Christian women a ministry, and Ventura tells us that Origen, St. Chrysostom, and Haymon speak of “women having through their good offices deserved to attain to the glorious title of apostles, and having supplemented the work of the evangelists and apostles by their preaching in private houses, especially to persons of their own sex” (Ventura, _La Donna Cattolica_, vol. i. p. 279). It is related in the _Breviarium Romanum_, at the part appointed to be read on the 19th of May, that St. Pudentiana once presented ninety persons to St. Pius, Pope, to be baptized, all of them being perfectly instructed in the faith through her teaching alone. St. Martina, who was a deaconess (which answers to _religious_ in the later church), converted and instructed many persons, principally women. The _Breviarium_ honors her as the _protectress_ of Rome. She has also a hymn specially set apart for her office in the _Breviarium_, and the church dedicated to her in Rome is the richest and most magnificent of those under the patronage of the martyrs. The house of Lucina, a noble Roman matron, was converted into a church, afterwards dedicated to the holy Pope Marcellus. Another church, now called _San Lorenzo in Lucina_, stands over the tomb which Lucina prepared for that saint. Priscilla, also a Roman lady of high lineage, the wife of the before-mentioned senator Pudens, gave her fortune and her land for a cemetery, to which her name was justly appended. Natalia, the wife of the martyr Adrian, after publicly exhorting her husband to be steadfast in the faith, boldly put on man’s attire to elude the order recently given that no Christian woman should be allowed to visit the prisoners. The _Breviarium_ tells us that St. Justina, upon whom a famous magician named Cyprian had tried all manner of unhallowed arts, so far prevailed over him that she brought him to know the true God, and to abandon his idols and sorceries. But examples such as these of the intellectual influence of women upon their friends, and even upon strangers and enemies, would multiply under our hands into a volume, if we could stop to collect them all.

Martyrdom was, in the early ages, the almost inevitable end of zealous faith and active evangelization. St. Cecilia ranks among the most prominent of those who, strong with a supernatural strength, gladly gave up life, youth, health, and beauty, for the sake of principle. Let us put it in that form, for even now there are many who respect in the abstract a single-minded devotion to principle. This devotion would be essentially called manliness in our day; yet the women of the early church--some mere children in years, some threatened with what would make a woman waver in her determination far more than mere physical torture could, the loss of her honor, some again with natural diseases or weakness upon them--showed a superabundant amount of this very _manliness_. Cecilia has long been the patroness of music, and we read in her _Acts_ that she employed both vocal and instrumental music in the service of the Most High, fitly using the most beautiful of arts to glorify Supreme Beauty. Her love for the Holy Scriptures was such that she often wore them on her bosom in the folds of her robe, and that long before the Canon of Scripture had been fixed, and before the Holy Book could have the world-wide reputation which the church has now bestowed upon it. Cecilia’s will, made in presence of Pope Urban, consisted in the giving of her palace for a church, and the distributing of her remaining wealth to the poor. Her death was heroic, and, as her life-blood was ebbing slowly from her, she only thought of converting her executioners. Oblivious of bodily pain, she exhorted them to throw off the yoke of idolatry, and succeeded so far as to cause them to exclaim, “It is only a God who could have created such a prodigy as his servant Cecilia!” The body of the martyr was interred in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, in a chapel hollowed out of the earth, and somewhat larger than the other chambers of the same catacomb: it was the sepulchre of the popes, and the placing of her body in this sepulchre was a mark of the extraordinary respect due to her generous munificence and her heroic courage. Thus has the old church, so truly called the “mother church,” always recognized and rewarded merit, whether in man or woman. Susannah, a relation both of Pope Caius and of the Emperor Diocletian, and daughter to Gabinius, a man as learned as he was noble, was another instance of how religion can reconcile profound instruction with deep piety, and unite both to beauty of person and grace of manner. She was learned, say her _Acts_, in philosophy, in literature, and in religion. The emperor sent one of his nobles, Claudius, Susannah’s own uncle, to entreat her to marry Maximinus Cæsar, Diocletian’s son. The noble and learned virgin not only refused the alliance, but, strengthened by the approbation of her Christian father and her other uncle, Pope Caius, who were present, spoke so eloquently that Claudius was converted to Christianity. The _Acts of the Martyrs_ record his words in announcing this conversion to his wife: “It is chiefly my niece Susannah who has conquered me. I owe to the prayers of this young girl the happiness of having received God’s grace.” His wife, Prepedigna, and Maximus, his brother, were also won over by her influence, and the latter bears tribute equally to her _wisdom_, holiness, and her beauty. There could be but one end to such proceedings, a glorious end for all: her friends all suffered martyrdom before her, and she who had braved an emperor’s displeasure without a sign of so-called _womanly_ weakness, met her death in secret with equal courage and joy.

Agnes, the maiden of twelve or thirteen years, is praised by Ambrose, a Christian priest, for her contempt of the jewels with which the son of Symphronius attempted to bribe her: she is also pictured as the very incarnation of youthful bravery, when with holy defiance she scorns the threat of her impure and cruel judge to send her to a place of ill-fame. This threat, often executed, was more than any other the touch-stone of their faith to the Christian virgins of antiquity, while their invariable deliverance from this danger was the reward of their unflinching denial of the power of the false gods, even in the face of this shameful threat. Death would seem a bridal, to judge by the loving alacrity with which these child-virgins ran to meet it. Who can say that the church does not admire and inculcate courage and self-respect in women, since half the martyrs defended their honor as well as their faith with the last drop of their blood?

St. Ambrose, speaking to his sister Marcellina of the martyr Sothera, in whose praises he is enthusiastic, says: “What need for me to seek for examples for thee, who hast been formed to holiness by thy martyred relative? [Sothera was their great-aunt.] ... Brought up thyself in the country, having no companion to set thee examples, no master to teach thee precepts, there were at hand no human means to teach thee what thou has learnt. Thou art no disciple, therefore--for there can be no disciple where there is no master--but the heiress of the virtues of thy ancestress. Let us speak of the example of our holy relative, for we priests have a nobility of our own, preferable to that which counts it an honor to have prefects and consuls among our forefathers: we have the nobility of faith, which cannot die.” These words of grave import are addressed to a woman, and the boast of holy ancestry they contain also refers to a woman. Agatha, the heroine of Catana, and Lucy, the martyr of Syracuse, both noble Sicilian maidens, speak the boldest language to their barbarous judges, and meet death as bravely as any man could face it for his country and his home.

Victoria, a lady of Abyssinia, in Africa, accused of being a Christian, and defended by her pagan brother, who swore she had been deluded into connivance with the Christians, vehemently contradicted him in open court. “I came here of my own accord,” she averred, “and neither Dativus nor any one else beguiled me; I can bring witnesses among my fellow-townspeople to the fact that I came simply because I knew there would be a gathering of our brethren here, under our priest Saturninus, and that the holy mysteries would be celebrated.” She persists when her brother excuses her again as being insane, and eagerly criminates herself in the eyes of the judge, till she succeeds in winning her crown. Forty-eight other martyrs, men and women, heroically suffer the same penalty, greatly comforted and encouraged by her dauntless attitude. At Thessalonica, a woman named Irene was apprehended, together with her five sisters, and was herself chiefly accused of having kept and concealed the books of Scripture, and other papers relating to the Christian religion. Dulcetius, the judge before whom she was brought, and who was president of Macedonia, could elicit from her nothing that could endanger any one but herself, her sisters having been tried and martyred upon the charge of refusing to eat meats consecrated to idols. Her firmness both in screening others and in avowing her eager care for the holy writings, not only gives us a high idea of her moral courage, but also of her intellectual interest in those scarce and valuable works. She suffered death for her dauntless custody of these treasures, and it is related that she sang psalms of praise while ascending the funeral pile.

St. Catherine of Alexandria is a most noted example of the erudition often attained and displayed by Christian women. At the age of eighteen, says the _Breviarium Romanum_, she outstripped in knowledge the most learned men of her day: Maximinus, who was both a libertine and a tyrant, was cruelly persecuting the Christians of Alexandria, and dishonoring the noble matrons of that city. Catherine boldly and publicly upbraided him, and forced him to listen to her arguments. Her _Acts_ and the Greek _Menology_ of the Emperor Basil affirm that she supported her thesis of Christianity against the arguments of forty of the ablest heathen philosophers, and so effectually confuted them that they preceded her in her martyrdom by declaring themselves Christians, and being forthwith condemned to be burned alive. Catherine, during her imprisonment, converted the wife of Maximinus, and the commander of his army, and further made such an impression upon the crowd assembled to witness her death that many became Christians on the spot. The interesting Church of San Clemente, in Rome, contains one chapel, the walls of which are covered with frescoes illustrative of each of these occurrences; this chapel is supposed to date from the fourth or fifth century, and is a mute witness to the honor with which the memory of the illustrious and learned maiden of Alexandria was, even at that early age, surrounded. Butler, in his _Lives of the Saints_, says of her: “From this martyr’s _uncommon erudition_, ... and the use she made of it, she is chosen in the schools the _patroness_ and _model_ of Christian philosophers.” This is by no means the only instance of a woman being honored as patroness in the roads of learning or of art. Later on, we shall have occasion to speak of other saints equally distinguished for their talents and zeal for true philosophy. Butler says in a foot-note to the _Life of St. Catherine_: “The female sex is not less capable of the sublime sciences, nor less remarkable for liveliness of genius. Witness, among numberless instances in polite literature and in theology, the celebrated Venetian lady, Helen Lucretia Cornaro, doctress in theology at Padua in 1678, the _wonder_ of her age for her skill in _every_ branch of literature, and, still more, for the austerity of her life and her extraordinary piety.”

Most of the martyrs we have hitherto mentioned were virgins: among widows and widowed mothers, we find other heroines whom no bodily torture nor that more bitter anguish of witnessing their children’s sufferings could daunt or even cause to waver.

Symphorosa, a noble Roman matron, denounced by the astrologers of Rome to the Emperor Adrian, bravely confessed her faith in the presence of her seven sons, whom she thus encouraged to do the same. She spoke of herself as honored in being the widow and sister of martyrs, and utterly scorned the proposal to forsake the truth for which they had bled. Here is a foreshadowing of the times of mediæval chivalry, which were but the legitimate offshoot from such a moral atmosphere of pure chivalric heroism as enveloped the lives of the early Christians. Invincible strength and a courage that smiled in the face of death was with the children of the primitive church a point of honor, a family tradition, a hereditary legacy. Another widow and mother, Felicitas, suffered more cruelly yet than Symphorosa; for, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, she beheld her seven children butchered before her eyes, and never ceased exhorting them to constancy, while her mother’s heart and more natural feeling were suffering a sevenfold martyrdom. She followed her sons to death with fervent joy. St. Augustine was eloquent in her praise, and on one anniversary of her triumph called her death a “great spectacle offered to the eyes of faith,” and herself “more fruitful by reason of her many virtues than of her many children.” St. Gregory, the great father, exalted her by likening her example to a new and spiritual birth of the Saviour in each soul that she thus secured to God, according to the interpretation of the words of the Gospel: “He who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and my sister, and my _mother_.”

Another St. Felicitas, a Christian slave and widow, with her mistress Perpetua, who had also lately lost her husband, suffered death in the amphitheatre of Tharbacium, near Carthage, in Africa, rather than give up what they knew to be divine truth. Felicitas was martyred a day or two after the premature birth in prison of her child, and, when brutally jeered by the guards at her inability to suffer the pains of childbirth in silence, answered in words that to this day furnish the key to all woman’s superiority as proved by the facts of church history: “It is I that suffer to-day, and nature is weak: to-morrow Jesus himself will suffer in me, and his grace will give my nature the strength it needs” (_Acts of the Martyrs_). Perpetua, her mistress, but also her sister in Christ (for in the church alone resides true equality), resisted the pleadings of her aged father and the mute appeals of her infant’s unprotected condition, and bore her sufferings as it is said the Spartan women knew how to bear theirs. But while the enduringness both of men and women was in Sparta only the artificial result of compulsory laws, and soon disappeared before the shameful voluptuousness that was natural to all heathen beliefs, that of Christians of both sexes made its mark through successive generations, and lives yet in our less hardy times, because it is intrinsic to the nature of a faith whose God had no more hospitable birthplace than a cold stable, and no better death-bed than a cross.

Blandina, the martyr of Lyons, is justly celebrated for her extraordinary constancy, and the Christians of Lyons who wrote a letter preserved to history by Eusebius, and addressed to their brethren of Asia and Phrygia, extol her as the soul of the heroic stand made by many of their number against idolatry. She was a slave, very young and _very weak_ in health, says this letter, and yet even her executioners marvelled at her powers of endurance, exclaiming: _One_ of the tortures she has suffered ought to have killed her, and she is alive yet after them all! Further on, she is likened to a _bold athlete_. Some of her companions having wavered, her example and exhortations recalled them to their duty, and Ponticus, a young boy, was the last to die under her eyes, _encouraged_ and _upheld_ by _Blandina_. Potamiana, another slave, who died in defence of her honor as well as her faith, chose a more lingering death than that to which she was condemned, rather than uncover herself in public, the judge consenting to this change not in pity, but in cruelty. Her executioner became her first convert; many other men likewise came to the faith through visions of this young and steadfast virgin.

We have mentioned women in every sphere and state of life, social and domestic, as endowed with confessedly heroic powers, and capable of attaining high and noble ends in the field of religion, of art, and of philosophy. One class of women, however, remains still to be noticed, and it is perhaps the greatest proof of the church’s universal and instinctive tenderness toward the sex, that among that unhappy class she alone has been able to make fruitful the call of God. The Catholic Church has set upon her altars and in her calendar the names of many illustrious penitents and anchorites, side by side with stainless virgins and matrons of unblemished fame. The Catholic Church alone can restore to fallen woman her rightful inheritance, and so efface the brand of sin that its shame shall be merged into a glory as pure as that of baptismal innocence. To take among the martyrs but one instance of this rehabilitation, let us see what history relates of Afra, the courtesan of Augsburg, in the Roman province of Rhetia, and the present kingdom of Bavaria. Afra was of noble birth, and had many slaves and possessions. She was converted by St. Narcissus, a Christian bishop who was fleeing from the persecution then raging in Gaul. Her household as well as her mother followed her example. She succeeded in concealing Narcissus and his deacon Felix for some time in her own house, and meanwhile diligently applied herself to making converts of her friends and former associates. Denounced in her turn a little later, and sneered at for the contradiction between her past and present life, she answers the judge boldly, admitting humbly that she is unworthy to be called a Christian, yet affirming that the threatened torments will cleanse and purify her body, while the proposed sacrifice to the gods would only further stain and disfigure her soul. Bound to a stake and burned with slow fire, her intrepidity only redoubles, and, having sinned through the weakness of undisciplined nature, she shows a more than manly courage through the new-born strength of grace.

With her, we close the few practical examples of the greatness of woman during the ages of martyrdom, but the spirit that made the martyrs did not die with the last of the canonized victims of the pagan persecutions. St. Jerome speaks of a “daily martyrdom, which consists not in the shedding of blood as a testimony, but in the devout and undefiled service of the mind” (_De Laud. S. Paulæ_). This we propose to illustrate in a subsequent article, giving historical instances of the actual honor paid in the church to learned, holy, and influential women, rather than entering into abstract controversy on the subject of what is and is not due to her sex. What we have already said in these pages will tend, please God, to remove prejudices, and at least clear the way for evidence still more appreciable by our ambitious non-Catholic sisters, namely, that which goes to show that not only in social and home life, but also in the wide sphere of statecraft and public influence, the church has marked out a noble margin for women’s genius.

THE PASSION.

Was ever tale of love like this?
The wooing of the Spouse of blood:
Who came to wed us to his bliss
In those eternal years with God?

Those griefless years, those wantless years,
He left them--counting loss for gain--
To taste the luxury of tears,
And revel in the wine of pain!

’Twas sin had mixed the cup of woe
From Adam passed to every lip:
And none could shirk its brimming flow--
For some a draught, for all a sip:

Till Jesus came, athirst to save:
Nor sucked content a sinless breast;
But grasped the fatal cup, and gave
That Mother half, then drained the rest.

Enough the milk without the wine.
When first the new-born Infant smiled,
’Twas merit infinite, divine,
To cleanse a thousand worlds defiled.

But _we_ must take of both. And how
Could love look on, nor rush to share?
Or hear us moan: “Death’s darkness now:
And _Thou_, at least, wast never there”?

And so he drank our Marah dry:
Then filled the cup with wine of heaven.
Who would not live--with him to die?
Or not have sinned--when so forgiven?

Lent, 1872.

JANS VON STEUFLE’S DONKEY.

I.

Jans von Steufle was a happy man until he got that donkey. Now, you might think the donkey was left him as a legacy by some dear friend or rich relation, or that Jans found him in the highway some cold wintry night and took him home in pity, or the donkey might have strayed into Jans’ enclosure and refused to go out, but no such thing; Jans bought and paid for all his trouble in good silver coin.

Jans had some comforts, however to compensate: he had a good wife. Some say, “A good wife is a rare thing,” but you never hear that sneer in German-land, for German wives and German children are taught betimes to be good. Jans’ wife kept the house clean and the kettles bright; and made _Sauerkraut_,[14] and _Wurst_,[15] and delicious _Rahmkäse_[16]--ah! it would melt in your mouth--and had always such nicely browned _Rinderbraten_,[17] and delicate _gedämpftes Fleisch_,[18] and put vinegar in everything.

Then such beautiful patchwork _Bettdecke_[19] she stitched together, and such snowy _Bettwäsche_,[20] you would be floated off to dream of _Arabian Nights_ just to sleep under them. And when her fingers had nothing particular to do, that is, when she walked about the house and garden a little just before supper-time, to see that every corner was clean, and everything in good order, and the pot-herbs coming up properly, or when she went down the lane to drive home the truant chickens and little ducks who were out on some juvenile frolic, did her ten fingers rest? Oh! no, then a thread of yarn came creeping out of her pocket, and click, click, went the needles, and such stockings! You might wear them to the North Pole, only they’d be too warm.

But her great genius and tact lay in garden-making. We do wrong to apply these words to her, for she understood neither, and Jans despised both; rather be it said that her industry was made most manifest when she betook herself (under Jans’ direction, of course) to digging and planting.

Jans had a pleasant way of imparting knowledge, and at the same time making himself comfortable. Seated on a wooden bench in some shaded gravel-walk near the scene of her rural operations, with a pipe in his mouth, he would sit patiently the long hot summer afternoon, directing the putting down of pea-sticks, the tying up of hop-vines, and apportioning off the territory to be allowed to the marauding pumpkins. Some people profess to discover a striking resemblance between the human family and the great family of animals each to each, and they even run a parallel between them in physiognomy; but in a garden the similitude is perfect. No one who cultivates a garden for very love of it but what unconsciously invests his community there with a sort of intelligent existence. They are well-behaved or troublesome; in good health or pining under little ailments. Here a hardy native pushes his way to upper air, heedless alike of deluge or drought, while that other one from some far-away country, like any discontented foreigner, finds nothing to its taste, but must be sheltered, and watered, and gives a deal of trouble. Some are orderly and upright; others are inclined to crooked ways, and seldom amend until tied to a stake. The roots generally stay underground until they are wanted, while some, like the bold, conceited turnips, climb to the surface when not more than half-grown, and bask in the sunlight as if they were roses. The vine tribe care as little as human climbers whom they crush down in their aspiring efforts; onward they trail and take possession, reckless of those who have a better right. Many a pretty little plant have those green vines tyrannized over! As for flowers, we call them modest, bold, gaudy, retiring, even in common speech; and many a habit and inclination do they exhibit to a humble admirer which has never been entered in scientific books. Yes, a garden is a community of wonderful creations, where each one has its peculiarities, and yet each one conforms in a certain degree to the type of its family.

With such loving eyes did Jans and his _gute Frau_ look on their flower-beds and their edibles; and such like matters did they often discourse about, when the spading and raking for the day were done, and she sat on the bench by his side knitting, knitting.

It is doubtful, however, whether they would have noticed matters quite so particularly, not having been educated to abstractions, comparisons, generalizations, and such like metaphysical flights, had not their attention been directed to them occasionally by a third member of their family, the very learned Herr von Heine.