WOMAN'S WORK
AND INFLUENCE
Woman in the
Home and her influence there. What a powerful influence she wields
here as wife, mother and sister. How vast, eternity alone can
tell! The home is all the wife and mother make it. Upon her the
family depends for happiness, for sunshine, for that love and
encouragement which makes difficulties easy to surmount, and
which makes life a pleasure. It is wife and mother who should
greet the tired, care-worn husband and father, when he returns
from labor. The average man can overcome all the trials and difficulties
of business life, but add to this the wife who is a negative
force, who does not fulfill her duties as wife, who simply holds
her position for convenience or from a monetary point of view,
and his life is indeed a struggle. The true wife and mother is
self-sacrificing. She will give up everything, she will risk
anything that will tend to increase the comfort and happiness
of loved ones. Mother is the guiding star of her household. She
should be the pride of the family. She should be a living example
of the precepts she would inculcate in her children. How careful
ought mothers to be. Think of your influence, that silent, yet
all powerful something which emanates from us all, whether we
would or not and which makes or mars those with whom we come
in contact. It is a sad fact that so many of our mothers are
such only in name. Motherly care and oversight of their children
means nothing to them. Why is this? It is due, in part, to the
fact that so many of our men are so worthless that the mother
is compelled to go away from home and labor daily, in order to
support her children and husband. A sad picture. Who is responsible
for this condition of affairs? Wife and mother, do you know you
must preserve the purity and sacredness of the family altar?
We, as a race, can not hope to accomplish much, while those sacred
obligations of the family are so loosely observed. No race ever
rises higher than its women.
WHERE IS WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH?
Can she maintain the dignity of her womanhood and hold
any office in the church? May she enter the pulpit? All avenues
of life are thrown open to-day to woman. There never
was a time when she was more progressive and aggressive
than she is to-day. Our women are destined to be among
the leaders in the future, and they have it in their power to
save the race. What are the women accomplishing in the line
of church work? They are systematically organized for all
kinds of church work and enterprises such as Foreign, Home
and Mite Missionary Societies, Church Extension Circles,
Deaconess' and Stewardess' Boards and other auxiliaries.
Some are leading class and preaching the Gospel. The women
are largely supporting the churches. The majority of our members
are women. Where are the men? Since the women evidence such a
willingness to work, let them work, and lend them encouragement.
The future of the A. M. E. Church, to a large extent, is in the
hands of our women.
Full text (Ohio
Historical Society/The African-Americans Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920)
