The True Woman | Page 6

this principle, and behold how it showers benedictions upon all classes and upon all men.
Much is said against amalgamation, as though it were a crime. There is no crime in it or about it. There is much of prejudice, but no crime. Soul marries soul. If a white man loves the soul of a black woman, there is no law in God's code forbidding the union. God made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth. Complexions may differ, owing to climate, or temperament, but the blood is the same. The race has a common Father in God.
In this intermingling of races, coming to this land from all climes, we perceive the seedling of a glorious hope. The future American is to be the product of this blending of the distinctive features of all the various nations of earth.
Against this result there is an immense amount of prejudice, born of slavery; but in Europe it does not exist, nor is it in fact so universal in this land as many suppose. Many a white man has found his helpmeet in a black woman, and many more will find helpmeets from the same source.
2. "Woman was taken out of man." There is significance in the locality from which she was taken. Not from the superior part, that she might think herself superior to man, or endowed with the right to rule him. Her sin consisted in her failing to recognize the position assigned. She was created an associate and an equal, and acted independently, and as an adviser. She took advantage of her position as wife, and became an ally of Satan.
She was not taken from an inferior portion of his body, that he might think her inferior to himself, and to be trampled on by him, but out of his side,--from his rib,--that she might appear to be equal to him; and from a part near his heart, and under his arm, to show that she should be affectionately loved by him, and be always under his care and protection.
Wherever man has failed to recognize this truth society has gone back to barbarism, and the very conception of a home has been banished from the mind. In the East man rules woman as lord. She is his slave; and in the Arabic language there is no word meaning "home." Christian civilization lifts woman up, and thrones her in the heart of a home.
She was made from "bone and flesh,"--quickened dust,--and so in her make and constitution she is of superior quality and of finer mould.
The Hebrew word translated "made," means built. From the rib God built this woman. How instructive the fact! Woman added to man is the foundation of the home or family. She is built out of man. Man is necessary to her development. A man can continue the work begun by God. He can build up a woman; and as he builds her up he builds up himself. She is also a builder. She builds up a home, or degrades it. If woman is honored in a home, she makes it honorable.
At the outset she was man's equal: perhaps she may have thought herself to be superior to him--more refined, of better material. She forgot her place, and ignored her sphere, and lost all. She was not created as things were, out of nothing. She was meant to be something better than a _thing_; and she must be something better than a thing, or she is nothing. She was not formed as Adam was, out of the dust of the earth. Had she been, perhaps she would not have disliked dust so terribly. She is a part of man's life. This describes her mission. The life of a woman who does not care to be a man's toy or ornament, but desires rather to be his helpmeet,--supplying all he needs, as he supplies all she needs,--is but the continuance, the flowing out and flowing on of man's higher life, into the flowers of love, which decorate the home, and make that chosen retreat the very portals of heaven.
As man feels that in woman he finds the complement to himself, and almost his other self, woman finds in man the same complement to herself, and recognizes in him the ruler of her life, her friend, her lover; and happy is she if she finds in him her husband, who rightfully assumes his rights and his sovereignty.
3. "God brought her unto man." Woman is God's first gift to man. She must never occupy a second place. In the heart she holds a first place, or she holds none at all. The moment she holds a secondary place she is ruined. It is in her power to hold the first place. To