ABSTRACT

Every consideration that can be urged why men should be workers together with God in saving souls, and advancing his kingdom on earth, is equally strong and available in urging the same duty and privilege upon the women of his Church. Common participants in the blessings of redemption, equal gratitude should bind them to equal labors, each in their peculiar fields of labor and according to their peculiar capabilities. The Gospel announces the 67great principle of equality as regards religious privilege and blessing. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye all are one in Christ Jesus.” John Angell James beautifully observes respecting this passage: “Here is woman’s charter of all the blessings of salvation; here is woman’s proof of equal consideration in the sight of God; here is woman’s claim to her just rank in the institutes of man. Christianity places the wife by the side of her husband, the daughter by the side of the father, the sister by the side of the brother, at the altar of the family, in the meeting of the church, at the tablè of the Lord, and in the congregation of the sanctuary. Male and female meet together at the Cross, and will meet in the realms of glory.” 68With this sublime equality in privilege and destiny comes an equality of obligation. Not that the same labors shall be perfomed by the different sexes, but that both men and women, with their peculiar endowments and according to their opportunities, shall alike industriously and gratefully labor in the vineyard of the Lord.