A Seattle Preacher Tells Society Women They Are Marching Their Children to the Gallows

M. A. Matthews recently delivered an address to women only at the First Presbyterian church in Seattle, taking for his subject "Dying Mothers and Starving Children." The pastor scored society in a most severe manner, and declared that a woman who gave her entire time to society, as some do, could not give her children the attention and care to which they were entitled, and thus in many cases, by her neglect, paved the way for a criminal life. The pastor hit straight from the shoulder and his declarations caused somewhat of a sensation.

Rev. Mr. Matthews said in part:

"Woman is one of two things — she is either good or bad. There is no middle ground for a woman. Her influence, work, teachings and example are all for the good or for the bad. She cannot be neutral. She is vested with the power to lift society, childhood and manhood to the very heights of heaven, or lower them to the depths of depravity. Because of her superior position and her divine commission, her responsibility is proportionately greater than that resting upon others.

"The position of mother is the highest in the kingdom of earth. Heaven's greatest benediction is a consecrated, Christian mother; one who performs all the duties of mother, guides with an inspired hand the destiny of home and presents to the world the immaculate name and character of a godly woman. It is almost impossible for the boy to be better than his parents. It is difficult, if not absolutely impossible, for the stream to rise higher than its source.

"Society as it is organized today is detrimental to home and destructive of motherhood. No woman can be a conscientious, faithful, devoted mother and at the same time the devotee of your vain, empty society. The duties necessarily conflict, and when she chooses to be the mother of society she must necessarily be the enemy of motherhood; and, if not in fact, certainly in spirit, the destroyer of life.

"Society in its present organization destroys the real, social, hospitable elements of the higher life; it is antagonistic to intellectual development; it is the enemy of health and the forerunner of bankruptcy; it is a bubble on the stream of time; it is the foam at the base of impure breath; it is the froth around the mouth of insanity; it is the emptiness of emptiness. It leads to dangerous practices and immoral habits. To illustrate — there is no harm, nor is it a violation of moral principle, to engage in any game solely for amusement or recreation, or for the purpose of diverting the tired and overtaxed brain; but when a game is played for gambling purposes it demoralizes the higher and finer feelings of women and produces unmoral tendencies.

"Is it not possible for women to have occasional card parties without turning them into gambling clubs? If one were to attend, as an observer, one of the gambling parties, and watch gray-haired grandmothers scramble and cheat for prizes, would he not be amazed, astonished, sickened and disgusted? A social afternoon or evening with cards could not injure anyone, and if played for the purpose of social amusement, free from all prize-getting ambitions, the interest of a very important element in society might be conserved.

"Mothers ought to have their clubs, their social functions and their social meetings, but they should taboo all tendencies calculated to foster and engender the grasping, gambling, avaricious spirit of this age. They should convert society into an altruistic family, bound together with the cords of love and charity, in which the music of absolute harmony, good fellowship and cheer would always be produced.

"Noble men and women have been led into the empty society of the present day, who could, if they would only turn their attention to the higher and more serious things of life, become the greatest factors in the development of civilization, and the advancement of Christianity. Beneath the debris of vanity and social emptiness lie buried their noble instincts and grand possibilities. They have the latent ability to feed starving children, and give to the world noble sons and daughters. A boy should have the life-giving blood of manly purity imparted to him by a devoted, consecrated mother; and he should have transmitted to him from a godly father, self-reliance, ambition and courage. These qualities cannot be given to a child by anyone except his parents.

"The majority of juvenile criminals walk to the prison, the penitentiary and the gallows over a road paved with the stones of parental neglect; their immoral habits, practices and tendencies passed into their lives through the open door of parental neglect; the nails in their coffins were molded in the furnace of parental neglect; their graves were digged by the agents of parental neglect, and the fires of their eternal hell were kindled by parental neglect.

"In the name of motherhood, in the name of childhood, and in the name of God, all true men and women appeal to mothers: First, to convert empty society into an altruistic, hospitable, social family. Second, to make the object of their supreme attention the child God has permitted to come into their home. Third, to furnish that food, sympathy and love indispensable to the helpless infant, the struggling boy and the wandering young man."