Classic Poem

The evening hour with soothing quiet came;
The silver moon rose slowly up the sky;
Crowned with young womanhood, two friends walked forth,
Communing gladly of Life's purpose high.

The queenly step of one, the taller, ceased:
She turned, and looked full in her friend's clear eye.
“Can woman reach the pulpit?” then she asked,
And waited, with a full heart, the reply.

The answer came; but not a hope was born,
As fell those words upon the querist's heart:
“Woman may labor in full many a field,
But may not hope to act the preacher's part.”

She asked of God,—that woman brave and pure:
God gave the answer in the wish inspired.
The seed contained the germ; and in God's time
There came the fruitage which the words desired.

Years passed: and she who answered stood full oft
Beneath the shelter of our State-House domes;
And legislators heard her soul-full tones,
Pleading for equal rights in states and homes.

The querist stood in many a pulpit too,
Proclaiming Christ with hope to bless and save;
Her young heart glad with more than human joy,
As there she told of bliss beyond the grave.

Both have wrought nobly where few women toil,
Been pioneers in that cause, pure and high,
Which gives her place to woman by man's side,
With him to lead immortals to the sky.

Their lives have shown that naught can stay the tide
Of God's great purpose in its onward flow;
That where man nobly labors for the race,
There, too, may woman, at God's summons, go.

A quarter-century now hath passed away,
And many a woman in the pulpit stands,
Ordained to do the pastor's noble work
By more than laying on of human hands.

O God! we'll trust thee for the days to come,
Thou who hast guided woman in the Past;
And with a grateful heart thine handmaids sing,
“The day of righteous freedom dawns at last.”