“E. P.,” Cardiff. We believe the spirit of the New Testament is directly opposed to female preaching. Even “Nature itself” would suggest the unseemliness of such a practice. We should have thought that the woman’s sphere of action is defined with such precision, both by the voice of nature and by the authority of the Word, as to leave no room for any question in a well-regulated mind. We do not, in the least, doubt the sincerity and devotedness of some Christian women who have gone about preaching; neither do we deny that God, in His overruling grace, may have blessed their word. But all this leaves the root of the matter wholly untouched. If sincerity were a proof of right principle, we might prove the grossest error to be right. And as to the divine blessing being used as a guarantee of the rightness of any particular position or practice, we know that God in His sovereign grace rises above the errors and infirmities of His people But to use this grace as an argument in defense of what is palpably wrong, is, in our judgment, very sinful. And we do believe it to be most palpably wrong for a woman to go about preaching. Only think of a Christian Mother resigning her precious and divinely-appointed charge to others and going through the country preaching! Is that godly? Is it even seemly? It, most assuredly, is not.
A Christian mother’s place is at home. This, as a general rule, is plain. There may be exceptions; but, certainly, no exception in favor of public preaching. Women, as we learn from Philippians 4, have labored, with an apostle, in the gospel; but it remains to be proved that this was by public preaching. There are numberless paths of service along which the Christian female may move with lovely grace, and moral propriety. Why leave those paths to force her way into a field forbidden alike by the voice of nature and the voice of God?