True Woman, The A Series of Discourses

Excerpt

WOMAN AS GOD MADE HER.

The biography of our first parents, as God made them, and described them, before sin ruined them, is very brief and truly suggestive. It is as follows:—

"And Jehovah God created the man in his image; in the image of God created he him; a male and a female created he them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given to you every herb scattering seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree scattering seed, to you it shall be given."—Gen. i. 27-30.

"And Jehovah God formed the man of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden, on the east, and there he put the man whom he formed, … to till it and to keep it. And God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make for him a helper, suited to him. And God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. And of this rib which he took from the man, Jehovah God formed a woman, and brought her to the man. And the man said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. This shall be called Woman, because from man was she taken. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."—Gen, ii. 7, 8, 15-18, 21-25.

Brief as are these utterances, and familiar as is this language, it is interesting to notice that God has crowded into them every essential fact concerning the origin of woman, the purpose of her creation, and the sphere marked out for her by the Creator's hand.

The simple outline of the story is given us, yet how wonderful is the picture! In the first chapter the origin of man is proclaimed, and his work, "to fill earth and subdue it," is placed before him. In the second chapter, the relation of the sexes is given, and the nature of marriage is explained. What arrests the attention most surely is the resemblance that exists between the experience of our first parents and of their descendants, or between Adam and Eve and ourselves. The "It is not good for man to be alone," spoken by God in Eden, embodies a truth which has lived with the ages, and sets forth an experience felt by every son of Adam. The words "I will make for him a helper suited to him," is man's authority for the faith, that somewhere on the earth God has made a helper suited to him, whom he will recognize, and who will return the recognition....