Female Piety by
Gardiner Spring
But the most important attainment of woman is personal
piety. Though in adverting to the peculiarities of woman, we have
remarked that she presents the fairer side of human apostasy, we are not to
forget that she is one for whom there is no redemption but through Him who
"came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance." She was the
first to fall, and man’s successful tempter. It were no marvel, that the
blighting effects of sin should pass over her, and leave her scathed with
the tokens of God’s displeasure. With all her defencelessness and sorrows,
there is nothing which woman so much needs as personal piety. Frail woman
must have the Eternal God for her refuge. The keen storms of adversity will
pass over her, and she will sink beneath its billows, if she has not this
refuge, and her defenseless head is not covered with the shadow of his wing.
When we speak of piety, we mean something more
than a name. By piety, we mean the religion of principle, in distinction
from the religion of impulse; a spiritual religion, in distinction from a
religion of forms; a religion of which the Spirit of God, and not the wisdom
or the will of man, is the author; a self-denying and not a self-indulgent
religion; a religion that has a heavenward, and not an earthly tendency; a
practical religion, in opposition to the abstractions of theory; and a
religion that is so full of Christ, that the crucified One is at the basis
of its duties and hopes, its center, its living head, and its glory. "Favor
is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but the woman that fears the Lord, she
shall be praised." Other things there are which constitute her adornment;
this is the brightest jewel in her crown. Separate her inferior and
incidental adornments from a heart-felt and practical Christianity;
associate them with immorality, imbue them with infidelity or atheism; and
they are worse than snares—they are a curse to herself and the world. There
is nothing of more dangerous tendency and influence than an impious or
infidel woman. There are few men in the world so degenerate, and so utterly
lost to all sense of right and shame, as to congratulate themselves on an
infidel wife, or an infidel mother.
It is without doubt a truth, that there are more pious
women in the world than pious men, and that their piety is of a higher
order. Nor is this difficult to account for, from the peculiarities of the
female character and condition. The fact that she lives in her affections;
that she is formed to be confiding; that she is separated from the grosser
snares of the world; that she is not unaccustomed to submission; and that
God "has chosen her in the furnace of affliction," are all in keeping with
the abounding grace of God to her sex. When piety is engrafted upon woman’s
loveliness, I know of nothing so lovely. It is a mantle that covers all her
faults and foibles, more than they are veiled even by her beauty. The
sweetest emblem of piety, selected by the sacred writers, is woman. She is
"the daughter of Zion;" a high-born progeny, attired from heaven’s wardrobe,
"coming up from the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved." Piety makes her
everything she can be this side heaven. It elevates and beautifies her when
the charms of personal beauty are fled; it supplies her with resources of
joy, when the adulations of earth have become faint, its affection cold, and
its trials severe; it sanctifies the infirmities of age, and gives her
bright anticipations when the bloom and flower of earthly hope languish and
decay. It hallows all her domestic virtues, makes her toil pleasant and her
self-denial welcome, and carries along with it its own reward. It makes her
the better wife, stimulating her husband in his spiritual career, and
rejoicing with him as he goes; or if he has not entered upon that career,
restrains him from the paths of sin and death, allures him to heavenly
wisdom, and by discretion, love, tenderness, sympathy and prayer, it brings
him within the fold of God. And does it not make her the better mother?
Of all the untold millions that are now in heaven, how
many, do you think, are there, whose conversion is to be attributed to the
counsels, the solicitude, the prayers, the tears, the ever-stimulated,
ever-hoping faith of her who bore them? As a daughter, a sister, or even a
faithful and pious servant, how much has piety done for woman, and what dews
of Hermon has it distilled upon her path! In her own unostentatious and
retired department, how has she scattered seeds of mercy, which have sprung
up, and been cherished, and transplanted to scatter their fragrance under
purer and brighter skies!
Piety is essentially the same thing both in man and
woman; yet in woman it has her own beautiful and womanly characteristics.
Woman’s love and woman’s tenderness adorn it. It has her meek-eyed humility
and her robe of cheerfulness. It blends her timidity and her confidence. It
has her cautious delicacy and all the refinement of her manners. It has her
nobleness and her instinctive abhorrence of all that is low and groveling.
It has her unsleeping watchfulness, her patient toil, her self-denying
devotedness, and her angel ministrations. And while it has her shrinking
fears, it has also her unchanging faithfulness and unshrinking valor. Woman,
if she cannot contend for Christ, can die for him. The pages of history do
not record finer exemplifications of Christian fortitude and valor, than are
furnished by the noble doing, brave daring, and patient suffering of woman.
Apathy does not belong to her; stoical indifference forms no part of her
nature; a calculating policy finds no place in her warm bosom. It is not she
who consults with flesh and blood, when God calls her to advance with an
undaunted heart and a firm, undeviating step to the torture, or the death.
Flattery cannot move her then; nor is she dismayed by cruel mockings; nor is
she confounded before the envenomed tongue of man; nor does desertion leave
her deserted. Man’s vigilance sleeps when his Savior lies prostrate. Man’s
love hesitates, and falters when his Savior is crowned with thorns. Man
denies him, and man betrays. Woman’s heart is faithful.