“I believe the Lord knows jest what He wants of his creeters here below from the biggest to the littlest. When He makes a grasshopper, He makes it loose jinted, on purpose to jump. Would that grasshopper be a fullfillin’ his mission and doin’ God’s will, if he should draw his long legs up under him, and crawl into a snail’s house and make a lame hermit of himself?”
Says Horace, in reasonable accents, “No, Josiah Allen’s wife, no, he wouldn’t.”
“Wall,” says I, “likewise with birds, if the Lord hadn’t wanted the sing to come out of thier throats, He wouldn’t have put it into ’em. And when the Lord has put eloquence, and inspiration, and enthusiasm into a human sole, you can’t help it from breakin’ out. I say it is right for a woman to talk, if she has got anything to say for God and humanity. I have heard men and wimmen both, talk when they hadn’t nothin’ to say, and it is jest as tiresome in a man, as it is in a woman in my opinion. Now I never had a call to preach, or if I had, I didn’t hear it, only to Josiah, I preach to him considerable, I have to. I should feel dreadful curious a standin’ up in the desk, and takin’ my text, I don’t deny it, but,” says I, in deep tones, “if the Lord calls a woman to preach--let her preach, Horace.”
“Paul says it is a shame for a woman to speak in public,” says Horace.
Oh what a rush of idees flowed under my foretop as Horace said this, but I spoke pretty calm, and says I,
“I hain’t nothin’ aginst Mr. Paul, I think he is a real likely old bachelder. But I put the words, and example of Jesus before them of any man, be he married, or be he single.”
“Men will quote Mr. Paul’s remarks concernin’ wimmen not preachin’, and say he was inspired when he said that, and I say to ’em, “how is it about folks not marryin’, he speaks full as pinted about that?” “Oh!” they say, “he wazzn’t inspired when he said that,” and I say to ’em, “how can you tell--when a man is 18 or 19 hundred years older than you be--how can you tell when he was inspired and when he wazzn’t, not bein’ a neighbor of his’en.” And after all, Mr. Paul didn’t seem to be so awful set on this subject, for he went right on to tell how a woman’s head ought to be fixed when she was a prayin’ and a prophecyin’. But in my opinion, all that talk about wimmen was meant for that church he was a writin’ to, for some reason confined to that time, and don’t apply to this day, or this village--and so with marryin’. When a man was liable to have his head cut off any minute, or to be eat up by lions, it wazzn’t convenient to marry and leave a widder and a few orphans. That is my opinion, other folks have thiern. But let folks quarell all they have a mind to, as to whether Mr. Paul was inspired when he wrote these things, or whether he wazzn’t, this _we know_, that Jesus is a divine pattern for us to follow, and He chose a woman to carry the glad tidin’s of His resurrection to the bretheren. There was one woman who received her commission to preach right from the Almighty.