Numbers 27:1-11 Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh… Now, to live as one wishes, is said to be the rule of children. To live as one ought is the rule of men. And it is the office of woman in the world to assist men to live as they ought; to lift them to those higher levels of moral attainment, moral beauty, and power, which of themselves they will not gain. Woman has been said to be the conscience of the world, and there is a profound truth in that. Her moral intuition is clearer, her moral affection is apt to be sweeter and more powerful. It was the startled conscience of a Roman woman that almost held Pilate back from his transcendent crime. It was the conscience of Blanche of Castile which melted the noblest king France ever had, Louis IX. It was the sense of righteousness in the Scotch, in the Dutch, in the French, in the German women which upheld the Reformation and would not let it sink and die. It was the conscience of the American women which was the one invulnerable, irresistible, unsilenced enemy of American slavery. Whatever statesmen might plan about it, whatever political economists might think about it, whatever merchants might dream about it, every woman's heart knew, that was not blighted and overshadowed by the influence of the present system, that it rested on a lie, and it was that conscience in the American women sending half a million of men out, its instruments and ministers, on the bloody field, which finally overcame and swept from existence that detestable system. That conscience of woman is the tower which society will always need to have developed and regnant within it, and there is no other office so great. I do not care what philosopher is expanding his vast system of philosophic thought; I do not care what statesman is planning for his country's future; I do not care what architect is lifting the edifice into the air. or is strewing the canvas with the splendour of his own spirit, there is no other office so grand on earth as that committed to woman — Christianly culture, in fellowship with God, of bringing up her acute and dominant moral sense into contact with the minds of men, that ultimate and supremest law of the universe, the law of righteousness, for which the planets and the stars were builded; she glorifies herself and she glorifies God in that sublime ministry. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph: and these are the names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah. |
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