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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 1898)
jwty?y "-yvs c -a ffgKSSg. "iPWWPBP "JJr i , .JR", iTi-fT! EaE2l2X5?1 ' sf -. - -- ay " " r--wj 3j THE COURIEF I I 1- It . c,, r 1-3 .v " ir r Z 4: JK. It! y f ? I rf Wg 9QQQV99Q9999WaGQW&9Q999 CLBBg- I 8sft.ae t mm vmomvt mmrnrn BY MBS. BELLR M. STOUTEHBOBOCGH, PBESIDEKT OF TOE KEBBA8KA FED-. ERATION OF WOMEN'8 CLUBS DELIYKBED AT THE DFMVEB BI- GN.MAL 8UHDAY, JUKE 26. We read that in every cable of the British navy is a red thread or strand, running through !ts entire lesigth. braided in -with the rest, when the.ca ble was made. By this it can le iden tified, always and everywhere, against wrong appropriation. Over the high ways of all nations, into all harbors, this Kr.-aW and almost unobserved sign of ownership goes, telling the simple story of England's supreme power. From London to Calcutta, from Calcutta to Australia, from. Aus tralia to me Fiji islands, from' the FJjis to British Columbia, from Brit ish Columbia to Hudson Bay, this small red thread is coiled up in every anchor cable. The ship, trying her strength for the first time on the broad ocean, has it; the beaten, broken wreck upon some far off shore, or the deserted ship in the polar seas, if belonging to the queen, declares with honor, the emblem .under -which it sailed. As we study what is called the world's progress do we not find a cer tain thread by which we recognize im plied proprietorship, a sure thread of divine agency which, possibly, states men and kings have Considered the strands in their own hands, but into which God has -traceably woven, his Joken of ownership. Every age has its favorite fashion, its popular war cry, a significant word by which the Ephramites may be dis tinguished from the Giliadites. The watchword of the present hour is De velopment, and by this I mean a de velopment which maf be aptly com pared to a sound seed oast into good soil, in favorable season, 'breath. ng a good atmosphere and tended byi a good gardener one who will redeem, the desert by percolating it with streams fed by the melting snows on the mountain sides. But igns of the times are not al ways obvious to average observers. In criticising organized effort we should not look out through tiny window panes, but rather let us climb to some unclouded mountain peak where love lor humanity seems like a fine ether tiat- bathes and penetrates ail life, surrounding and imparting- sweetness to existence. Is our little nest in the world down in a valley filled with vapor, then let us follow, as a brilliant man has said, the eagles, the prophets who have built their nests in te summits of these ranges of history who have seen the "trend of coming time." There are many ways of looking at the course of human affairs. There is the careless glance whidh sees but the surface, there is the hasty glance which notes only second ry causes, ami the facile diagnosis which sees aaagfat but symptoms. But the keen observer can not fail to catch twilight glimpses of kingdoms and nations, age behind ager into which the thread, an admiralty of heaven, so to speaK, has been woven into their history -which has provided securely for the critical ventures of their interests Sn this world. We may thank God there is such a thing as recorded history. Pktto stood in awe of nature as of something always "becoming," always moving. Paul, with an immeasurably vaster scope of thought, was thrilled with hope as well as awe when he looked abroad and thought what would be the meridian gloriousness of which the world's preseni privilege was but the dawn. From this mountain peak of history we cannotfail to notice that every forward step in the world's progress has been the direct result of accumu lated intellectual spiritual force, ac quired through organized effort. In this half-veiled remoteness fhat stretches out inimitably to us, we see Abraham, Brahma, Buudhai Zoroaster, Confucius," and greatest of all, the humble 'Xazarene with the twelve dis ciples as a nucleus of that great or ganization that has transformed the world. Behind us are other heights, their outlines clear cut against the summer sky. On one we see a company of people listening to the words of a great man who affirms that man ha- Clothed spirit with a creation of his own, denominating it matter, and that it is an established fact that there must be involution of spirit lie fore there can be evolution of so-called matter. Do you not catch the word of a plain man, whose early life was spent in Stockholm, graduated at Up sala modest and retiring, genial and happy, bringing a message to his peo ple, in which he declares that the ex ternal is but 'the shadow of the inter nal and that all the societies on the earth are but the reflection of the spir itual societies on the real side of life. This admitted, it is self-evident that all organizations, whether of labor or charity, or for political ends, have their origin on the spiritual side of ex istence. Right here the question will arise, if all these things are of heav enly origin, why are they so imper fect, unsatisfactory and crude? The reply is self-evident. Man himself is, in process of eolution and quite im perfect, but, being of the spirit also he must, in time, attain the divine humanity towards which he travels by devious rays slowly but surely, so that when he reaches the goal only spirit will be manifest and so-called matter will disappear as a mist before the sun. On the mountain top not far away we hear Michael Faraday proclaiming that at the last analysis matter escapes detection or is but a congeries of mathematical points; while another great man is preaching, life sleeps in the rock, dreams in the animal and wakes in man, and then, the gentle voice so lately hushed p reclaims "The visible is the ladder up to the invisible; the temporal is but the scaf folding of the eternal: and when the last immaterial souls hae climbed through this material to God, the scaf folding shall be taken down and the earth dissolved with fervent .heat, not because it was base, but because its work is done." Across the valley of the Christian era you notice a mountain peak bathed in the' flood of light which radiates from the cross, faWing on the picture of Him, "the best of men that e'er wore flesh about him," and the group of faithful women who com pounded the spices to embalm their crucified Lord. It is not In Christian womanhood to be an unsympathetic looker on in any movement for relief or suffering, and from the time of the manywomen who followed Jesus from Gallilee. ministering unto Him, unto the present time there -have been min istering women. The history of organized missionary work as promoted by American women proves that in all education woman is God's ordained pioneer and that every one has popsibiltties which outreach toward the infinite. The highest point of view and the widest possible verge, and scope of the sig nificance ami the importance of devel opments in the organization of wom en's hoards of missions and the so caSed Zenana work is on this "Mis sionary Ridge," where the effort to widen the thought and purpose broad ens into a world-like apprehension. It is said "that the needle of a mis sionary's wife was the simple instru ment God used to give access to Orien tal Zenanas. A piece of embroidery, wrought by her deft fingers, found its way to 'the secluded inmates of a Ze nana; if a woman could do such work as that other women could learn un der her instruction and so, with the consent of her husband, this Christian woman was welcomed to the inside of his home and as she taught his wifes the art of embroider', she was work ing the "scarlet thread" into the more delicate fabric of their hearts and lives." One of our noted divines tells us that if we are to have the right con ception of the origin of missions and their spiritual peerlessness we must go back to the creative act which gave man free will and conscience. When the morning stars sang together God began to seek man by giving him ca pacity to seek God. There lived in Xew York city, early in the sixties, a sweet and gracious woman not unlike others we know. Besides her personal gifts the had so cial position and wealth and wielded the scepter of influence. She might have shone in any gay or fashionable Circle, but her pleasant presence and gracious fellowship was a beautiful, practical working out of the Christian idea of ministering to others, and thts great work of woman's work for woman originated with this- elect lady, Mrs. Doremus. It has been truly said "that looking out from this peak we cannot see that any reforms were wrought by that early missionary, the gentle Harriet Xewell; no converts came to her feet, but the young life breathed out at nineteen on the Isle of France, has generated missionary trade winds watting the gospel ships to many lands. Ann Judson died at thirty-seven, but her spirit, making its home on the green blifff looking out on the Indian ocean, holds the mastery of thousands of lives.' Ask the question here tonight, What fruit remains of Mrs. Doremus' labor, and the answer comes to us from all Chris tian churches, for women have formed themeslves into societies to work for women in the home land and far off lands and these societies have become great organizations into which the "red thread" has been woven, touched by the Master's hands lacerated in the work of rescue and has- left an abid ing impress there. May I detain you for a moment "on the Victorian peak? England's queen became the type of a new era. She was a woman shaped of God for the times and brought in a new democracy and toleration. In the new era there was toleration in education, in reli gion and in politics, great things in science, astronoroj, geography, and especially along material lines much has been accomplished during her reign. Yet in all this progress the spiritual element has 'been prominent. The spirit of Dickens glossed over the wrongs of the times. Mathew Arnold and George Elliot recognized the deep est needs of the spiritual nature birt hardlj- possessed the faith to meet it. Thomas Carlyle brought the light of a great, stern soul to make clear that man is more and higher than all his conditions and environments. The op timism of Browning and the sweet, grand confidence of Tennyson showed the great progressive spirit that had run through this era, lifting the soul of man towards Ms Creator God. Do you not see the "scarlet thread" wind ing in ami out through the Victorian era? , i '. J But we hae lteen standing on the heights of our own times looking backward. We 'have seen the fifteenth century and written' in our note books that it was scholastic; the sixteenth, dogmatic; "the seventeenth, schis matic; the eighteenth, philisophic; the nineteenth, scientific. Xow, turning our faces towards the twentieth cen tury, we write the word altruistic. The "keynote has .already been sounded by this organization, the General Federation of Women's clubs, and I dare to predict that woman will hold a distinguished1 place in themarch of the new century. There is not a" member of this organization here or elsewhere who has been privileged to witness or to hae a share in this great movement, in this mighty procession of great themes and great sympathies and vast hopes or even to hear, as it were, the echoes of their tread at a distance, there has not to pass some breaking up of pettj- pro vincialism, some disgust for petty sel fishness and the awaking of some broader, deeper consciousness of the world itself and withal, some new sense of God's own purpose in the mighty on-goings of the world's his toryrealizing that it is a broadened horizon under which our Hies miist now move on. The "red strand" has come to the surface in this organiza tion, pioving that it is a part of the great, continuous scheme of Divine Providence. '''TH To realize the possibilities of this organization is beyond my ken. but looking into the earnest faces of this audience, one can but feel there is con secrated personality back of all this work and that its different lines of work will touch all questions of so ciety and morals, and nothing will he foreign to it that is for the good of humanity. Standing today on this unclouded mountain peak our verdict must be the same. The unmistakable trend t the ranges along a definite line, and looking out with the spiritual as well as the bodily eye. we catch a glimpse' beyond the hill tops of the citv of the king-the City that lieth four' square, having for H corner stones all pow ers, all nations, all things and a.l times. Probably there is no adjective that so enrages a citizen of Boston- as the word "provincial." nor one compar son more galling to the east when con trasted with the west, than the word nnprogressive. We flatter oursehes that Xew England is silll the heaw end of the country. Occasionally v'e go forth and speed for davs across this great continent, beholding new people and fresh cities, and come home realizing the fact that there are whole communities of Americans-weH-tra.ned thinkers, earnest workers and thorough scholars-who have never een Xew England. Most of u are prowl that ours is a country so broad and beautiful. st loyal ami so well educated-even if the history of Xew Em land is not hdd . the flwe . at home. The Denver Biennial of women s clubs, which dosed one month ago, was a great national eye- 'Jl -1 w '-- ft A- 'A mW: '.2 ;f Vv1 35 Si ,"r
