The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 184

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184

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

instance of the one man’s meat and the other’s
poison. I have seen a young Christian woman
almost faint away when she came to this crucial
question, ‘Do you believe that God created men and
women equal? Back of her stood her Christian
husband. She turned her face until she met his
eyes; there she received the grave command of his
gaze; her arm went up slowly in sign of assent. It
was with great timidity that she stepped off into
that nobler thought of herself as woman.”

Where Woman is Held in Contempt.

It would be a sorry Children’s Day were our
daughters, wives, sisters, and mothers not interested
in. it. Their hands twine the wreaths, gather the

flowers into bouquets; and drape the altars; their
voices largely sing the songs and recite the declama-
tions of Children’s Day. We want them, not merely
faintly to feel, but clearly to know, why they par-
ticularly have a special interest in missions.

A Hindu Woman Serving Her Husband.

Throughout the heathen world, woman’s con-
dition is deplorable. In the New Hebrides, when
a young woman is about to be married, half a dozen
old women take hold of her and knock out the two
upper front teeth. Among the heathen, woman is
the drudge; she carries jars upon her head, heavy
loads upon her head, drags the plow, if necessary,
in the absence of a draft animal. She trudges be-
hind when her lord and husband rides. Once a mis-
sionary remonstrated with a man who made his wife
carry him over a dangerous ford. He could not even
see the point, but replied, “Whose wife should carry
me across if not my own?”

Then there is India. Among the Hindus the
cow is a sacred animal. ‘T’o consecrate a dwelling,
it is sufficient to smear the inside of it with cow-
dung. To hold the tail of this sacred animal in
one’s hand when death is coming is deemed great
protection, and to eat its meat is looked upon as
a horrible sin. Whereas the cow is honored and all
but worshiped, woman is disliked, suspected, and
maligned as one molded out by faults and loathed
as man’s dull thorn. Yes, Christian sister, do not
forget: the hand that has enthroned you as the
queen of the home, ruling by the power of your God-
given charms, is the hand that was pierced. In
India, out of a thousand women not six or so can
read, and only one or two can write. Only. one
among a hundred has any educational advantages
whatever. A hundred and twenty million women
in India cannot read a letter. If the husband gets
tired of his wife, all he has to do is to send her
away. To beat, to pinch, to maltreat a woman, be-
longs to the order of the day. She has no rights.

Lutheran Youth.