EDITOR'S TABLE. 



121 



era remember that the lectures were 

 prepared exclusively for pastoral use, 

 and not intended for publication, and 

 that they have had to be printed in 

 self-defense against misrepresentation ; 

 and this consideration should be borne 

 in mind in their public criticism. It 

 by no means follows that he keeps a 

 private set of opinions for special pas- 

 toral application, and for which he is 

 unwilling to be held publicly respon- 

 sible. He was addressing a class of 

 Christian believers who profess allegi- 

 ance to Christian doctrine, as expound- 

 ed by his Church ; and he very natural- 

 ly gave prominence to considerations 

 which would have but comparatively 

 little force with outside multitudes who 

 are not in sympathy with his ecclesias- 

 tical views. As to the theological ar- 

 guments which Dr. Dix brings to bear 

 upon the woman question, we have no 

 interest in them except so far as they 

 strike downward and find their basis in 

 the truth of nature. But with the main 

 fundamental doctrines he lays down as 

 of all-determining influence, we are in 

 cordial agreement. 



The last phase of attack upon him 

 is an accusation that his views are not 

 new. The "Pall Mall Gazette" de- 

 clares that many of the faults of wom- 

 en which he notices are not Ameri- 

 can but universal, and have been rec- 

 ognized and satirized in all ages; and 

 an American commentator observes 

 that "his views of the character and 

 duties of woman do not differ greatly 

 from those set out in the laws of Manu, 

 which, according to the Hindoo theo- 

 logians, were drafted thirty millions of 

 years ago." 



But when the New York "Evening 

 Post" proceeds to affirm of the cardinal 

 doctrines of Dr. Dix that " they are in 

 fact the views by which every step in 

 the elevation of woman, from the beast 

 of burden of the savage to the mistress 

 of the modern drawing-room, has been 

 contested by conservative or timid 

 males, lay and clerical," it becomes 



worth while to revert to the author's 

 own statement of them. The follow- 

 ing passages from the first Lenten lec- 

 ture may be fairly taken as the key to 

 the whole exposition : 



The place and work of woman in this 

 world arc, then, a place and a work in social 

 life. And her place and work are not those 

 of the man. His work lies outside, hers 

 within. Without her, society could not have 

 existed ; without her, it can not last. The 

 fact that in forming society man and woman 

 have distinct parts implies tbis, that in main- 

 taining and developing their work they shall 

 continue to act in distinct relations to it. 

 Something there shall be which man only can 

 do ; something which woman only can do. 

 If she leave her own work and try to take 

 up his, her work will remain undone ; for 

 man is not fool enough to try to do hers. 

 And her work is inner rather than outer ; it 

 runs in the line of ordering, comforting, and 

 beautifying. Her place is in the home first, 

 and then in general society ; and these de- 

 pend on her for a grace, a help, a harmony, 

 a good ordering, which no one else can give. 

 These considerations give the turn to 

 every thought of ours about woman's work. 

 It is impossible for me to think of it at all, 

 without first thinking of her place in the 

 home. That is her normal, primal seat; 

 thence are derived all true conceptions of her 

 rights, duty, and mission. I know the ob- 

 jections which will arise in your minds : that 

 there are many women without homes or the 

 means to make them ; and, again, that, as if 

 by a bitter sarcasm of fate, the world of to- 

 day is so changed that it often seems as if 

 woman must work the harder of the two in 

 order to support the shiftless man. There 

 are answers to these and similar objections : 

 I shall try to give them by-and-by. But for 

 the present I must leave the subject at this 

 point, adding but one suggestion. I do this 

 earnestly, seriously, and as one would speak 

 of a matter of life or death. Let me then say 

 that, whatever it be in thought, deed, or will 

 that works among us now to break up the 

 home, to make the home-idea mean and con- 

 temptible in the eyes of woman, or to unfit 

 her for domestic duties and disgust her with 

 her proper work, whatever now- acts on her 

 high-wrought nature, her ambition, her self- 

 love, to turn her steps away from the home- 

 life, and inflate her with visions of a career 

 in the public places outside this, whatever 

 it be, is working against the best interests, 

 the hope, the happiness of the human race. 



