WOMAN’S MISSION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8347, 6 February 1913, Page 5

WOMAN’S MISSION

BISHOP GRIMES'S PASTORAL LETTER. Bishop Grimes’s Pastoral Letter, just issued, consists almost entirely ot an impressive discussion on the mission ol woman in the world. ... “Woman’s divinely appointed mission, states his Lordship, “is to be man s helpmate. To enable her to fulni her sublime destiny as man’s help, the Almighty endowed her with extraordinary gifts with the power and means for the fulfilment of her mission. Sad indeed were tho state of society and individuals were the efforts of atheists to succeed m banishing from the mind and the heart oi woman the love of God and duty . To bring home to ourselves what woman owes to the Church of Jesus Christ, we must understand her position before and since the advent of Christianity. Urns of the saddest sights presented to ns in th© history of the human race is the ■frightful condition oi woman before the coming of Christ Jesus. Among all jiacan nations she was regarded os a slave, u vile tiling, at most a plaything! purely the lords of creation, men, had the power oi life and death over her. Everywnere tno condition of woman was ot the lowest, the most infamous degradation. Man's slave whilst living, she was laught, that her highest honour was to ho slain on the tomb of ber husband that she might have tho privilege of serving him in the next world* Ibis was the brutal legislation of ancient Germany and Gaul. Even amongst the civilised Greeks and Romans of , old, her lot was ono of cruelty the most revolting. From the very cradle to the grave, her life was well nigh one unbroken course of humiliation, sorrow and suffering. The soiling of woman w-as admitted by all ancient peoples. Sold by her parents to the man who was to marry her, she, at once became his property, and ho could sell or slay her as he thought lit. “The religion of Jesus Christ has lifted up an ennobled woman, for long centuries of sorrow, of shame and affliction had made woman loso her primitive innocence and holiness. Ennobled at tho foot of the Cross, woman comes down from the summit of Calvary to astonish the world by the heroism of her wondrous strength. She braves tho scornful sneers of proud Rome, She crosses without alarm the threshold of .the tribunals, and she bears on her brow the aureola of the martyr, and often, very often, that of, ‘Virgin Martyr.’ The pages of history are there to record such heroines under the name of an Agatha, an Agnes, a Luoy, and a Cecilia. No longer dishonoured as the slave or toy of brutal man, she is the virgin victorious and free, tho Mother triumphant, the matron glorified by the power ot her virtues, though it call for the blood of the martyr 1 Once ennobled and restored to her long lost place in the world, we find the Christian woman at the head of every good and noble work. But it is chiefly around the domestic hearth in the home that woman finds her greatest honours. “Woman is queen of the household, surrounded therein by her rights, prerogatives and duties. The more she confines herself to the duties of home and the family, the. more she seems to act in harmony with her sublime mission, the lofty position to which God has destined her. For her, the noise and tumult and hustle abroad are often as fruitless as fatal. For her the calm, peaceful silence of home is most favourable for the practices of piety for which woman is so remarkable. Her mission is to transmit this piety to her children. She should be their first teacher, their first doctor in the law. From her lips the science of God must first flow upon them. Her knees should he the first pulpit whence they learn the truths of revelation. Sad, indeed, the fate of the children who find in their mother carelessness and lack of devotion I Nothing in the world can supply for them this formation of their infancy and childhood whereof a pious mother is the holy instrument. No teacher can adequately supply the place of the another/ No one has tho same hold that she maintains on the intellect and affection of her child. She is not only an authority whose right ,to rule is never questioned, but also an oracle that is implicitly believed. “One of the greatest triumphs of Christianity is the victory it has won, after a long, hard, but glorious struggle over the vile and gross inclinations and brutally disordered passions of savage and semi-oivilised nations. Thanks to this triumphant struggle, woman can lift up her head and fearlessly proclaim herself an integral part in God’s great work of the creation. Thanks to this triumphant victory woman is everywhere surrounded with honour and veneration. Everywhere she is expected to rule supreme in her sphere. All this and more she owes to the successful efforts of Christianity in her behalf. It were a woeful flay for our hearths and homes when women forget what they owe to ChristianityA woeful day for themselves when they forget the gulf of shame and sorrow whence Christianity has uplifted their sex. Forgetfulness of this would soon drive them back to pagan bondage to a state of savagery, or the still more shameful debasement of civilised depravity.