SHIPLER, Mrs. Mary Ann - Commemorative Discourse

SHEPLER, SHIPLER

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 4/25/2006 at 15:01:34

"Fairfield Ledger", December 20, 1876

THE TRUE GLORY OF WOMAN -- A Discourse Commemorative of the Late Mrs. Mary Ann SHEPLER (sic - SHIPLER), Delivered in the Presbyterian Church, Libertyville, Iowa, September 10, 1876, by John M. McELROY, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Batavia, Iowa.

"Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." (Prov. 31:30)

The aged friend whose removal from our midst is the immediate occasion of our convening here to-day was spared to fill up the years of an unusually long life -- her decease having occurred on the 1st day of January last, on her eight-seventh birthday. She was a native of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and for many years a member of the Presbyterian Church of Rehoboth. After removing, with her husband and family, to Iowa, some thirty-three years since, she united with others in forming the Libertyville Presbyterian Church, organized by Father Bell.

Some fourteen years since she was left a widow by the death of her husband, and for several years past was too aged and feeble to be an attendant upon God's house. Hers was a long and eventful life. Her birth occurred a few weeks after the election and several months before the innauguration of General Washington as the first President of the Republic. The first organization of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States took place in the same year, a few months after her birth.

The region of the Monongahela, in western Pennsylvania, was at that time almost on the extreme virge of civilization. The Indians still disputed the possession of the country with the whites, the same tribes, Sacs and Foxes, which were found fifty years later in the valley of the Des Moines. It was only those who had courage to bear privation and face danger who ventured then to settle on the frontier. Since then the frontier has shifted west and south and north, until the Pacific, and the Gulf, and the Lake shores have been lined with hardy settlers.

At the date of Mother SHEPLER's birth the Presbyterian Church in the United States numbered less than two hundred ministers and about four hundred churches; now we have six thousand Presbyterian ministers and still larger number of churches, and over six hundred and thirty thousand members in full communion, representing a Presbyterian population of probably three millions. It is worthy of remark that the statistics of the Presbyterian Church in Iowa now, are nearly identical with those of the Presbyterian Church in the entire United States ninety years since.

At the period we are contemplating, the hardy pioneers on the head waters of the Ohio were shut in by the wilderness of the West, and by the Allegheny mountains on the East, from all commerce, except under great difficulties, with the rest of mankind. They were dressed in their own homespun manufactures and their food was the immediate product of their own industry, while some such indispensable articles as salt and iron were transported on packhorses across the mountains. Now, not only do their fields and orchards supply food to their own and to distant populations, but the products of their mines are known in all the land and in foreign lands; their skilled artisans are many, and their manufactures are known in every market; their literary and religious institutions are widely celebrated; the descendants of those early settlers throng the plains and woodlands to the Pacific Ocean; and the trains of commerce and trade crowd their iron roadways, and resound through those valleys and mountains.

In those early days the church loving pioneers thought it no hardship to go on foot to the House of God, our mothers and grandmothers walking four, six or seven miles cheerfully and gladly to enjoy the privilege of joining in public worship on the Sabbath. The houses of worship were rude, though roomy, the seats rough and solid, the services, particularly the sermon, very lengthy, and such thing as a heating stove for a church was an innovation not yet introduced. In the present day, with our neat and elegant houses of worship, with good roads and wheeled vehicles, it would seem that attendance upon religious worship ought to be more universal, joyous and devout. It is worthy of question, however, whether the wonderful progress of the last century in wealth and refinement in the arts and in the luxuries of life has not been attended by a deterioration in the bodily and mental, and especially the moral vigor of the people. If we are more cultured, better dressed, superior in knowledge and in art, we are at the same time inferior in muscle, less courageous, and do less of original independent thinking. Where are the men and the women of the present day who take seven mile walks for either pleasure or devotion? Where are the women of the present day who, without long and careful training, *could* do such a thing? The hardships of pioneer life are not without their advantages, and, on the other hand the ease and progress, and freedom from cares of our more advanced state of society are not without various drawbacks.

This leads us to inquire: What is the true glory of woman? In whatever age and country she may live, what is it that entitles her to, and secures for her the respect and admiration of the wise and the good? Is it beauty of countenance? Is the comeliness of person and mastery of the arts that please? Nay, favor is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised.

Beauty of countenance is one of God's gifts, and not to be despised. To real beauty all unconsciously do homage. In every age it has been so, and will be on to the end of time. As this is especially granted to women -- to wives, mothers, sisters, daughters in our household, so it is often the ambition of women, especially of the young, to be and to appear beautiful. In one sense beauty is strictly a bestowment of the God of Nature. Those who possess it, if they may be so unfortunate as to find out the fact, should be thankful and specially guard against pride; and those who are without it should be content and particularly guard against envy. At the same time the great beauty of the human countenance is in *the expression* -- the shining out of the soul through the eye and the features. The spirit that is within you, the dispositions you cherish, the principles that actuate the inner man -- these shine out through the features. They illumine the face with contentment, kindliness, purity, love, intelligence; or they darken it with envy, hatred, haughtiness, rage. Oftimes we meet with those to whom the God of Nature has denied the regular features, and the coloring and form, which the world calls beauty, but from whose faces shine out that intelligence, and kindness and purity, and gentle unselfishness which captivate the heart, and quite banish from us the thought that they are homely. But how vain, as an object of desire, or as a source of self-gratulation is beauty! We are dust and must return to dust again. It may be soon. The young, the fair, the beautiful, must die and be laid in the grave. The middle-aged, fair and strong and esteemed must die and tenant the tomb. If old age be attained, beauty, in the common acceptation of the term, departs before life, the rosy bloom gives way to wrinkles; gray hairs crown the brow; the step becomes feeble, the senses dull, and the form stooped; and then worms and corruption consume the body. The gospel reveals bright hope, even for the body, beyond the tomb at the Resurrection; but beauty, bodily beauty, must pass away. It is vain -- disappointing, unsatisfying, and such as soon vanishes away. But if beauty is evanescent and fading, what of those voluntary actions, the smiles and pleasing words and graceful attitudes which constitute the art of pleasing, so extensively practiced among civilized peoples? Favor is the word used in our text, meaning not, as we understand it, any special endowment of Nature, as a commanding or comely form, but those voluntary actions which are adopted to conciliate good will. I think the word 'politeness' would come very nearly expressing the idea of the original word, and this the inspired penman declares to be deceitful. Favor or politeness is deceitful.

What is properly termed politeness is in itself pleasing, but its value and propriety depends altogether on whether it is the outworking of principle, or the practice of an empty formality, a hollow art. Our ancestors of a hundred years ago were probably less versed in etiquette than their descendants. They were not lacking, however, in kindness and hospitality. They may have looked with aversion and contempt upon idle forms and empty compliments. In their homespun garments and rude dwellings they may have presented quite a contrast to the finer equipments of the present day; yet the soul of kindness was theirs. Their cabins were never too full to shelter one more. Their last morsel they would divide with the hungry, and their welcome was ever hearty. The kind acts were the result of kind feelings -- of christian principles within. True politeness has been defined to be, "kindness kindly expressed", and such must ever command respect, and draw forth in response kind feelings. But the mere act of smiles and compliments in order to please is an empty one. Favor, in this sense, is truly deceitful. Nay, more; it is, in some cases in the highest degree insincere and hypocritical. The Frenchman runs to shake hands with and embrace an acquaintance on the street, though admitting, confidentially, that he is "a grand rascal". The duelist, weapon in hand, bows politely to the man he aims to murder. Highway robbers have been known to be too polite to rob a clergyman or a lady. And the brutal prize-fighter is sometimes reported as entering the arena with a smiling face. Away with such travesties on human kindness -- such outrages on human decency! If we would enjoy the esteem of our fellow men while we are living, and their praises when dead, we must be animated by genuine christian principles. If those who are to be the mothers and the wives of the future would enjoy real respect and hearty praise, and leave behind them that good name which is better than precious ointment, they must cultivate and cherish something more substantial than the mere forms of courtesy and politeness.

But what is that substantial good which is woman's true glory? It is true religion as a life, and an experience, personal piety. A woman that *feareth the Lord* shall be praised. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the sum of true piety.

Of the wicked it is said, "There is no fear of God before his eyes", but of the riteous, "Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord".

The fear of the Lord is not the dread of punishment, but the filial fear of one who would not offend our Heavenly Father, who fears to do or say anything that would be displeasing to so Great and Good a Being as God. It implies that we recognize God's existence, and the infinite excellence and loveliness of His character; that we are reconciled to Him as our Father and friend, and that we therefore love and worship and obey him.

While this fear of the Lord is a priceless blessing and a beauteous adornment of character wherever found, it is peculiarly the beauty and glory of *woman*. Probably a majority of all the disciples of Christ have been females. Woman was first at the cross and first at the sepulcher. There are few church rolls which do not show a majority of females. In the prayer meetings and usually in the Sabbath school, females are in the majority, and in the family circle, where deep and abiding impressions are made upon the infant mind, the mother's influence is, among earthly instrumentalities, supreme.

In what respect does personal piety, or fear of the Lord, confer special graces upon Woman? It encourages and promotes industry. The precepts of the Bible, the spirit of the gospel, and the example of the wise and good, all favor industry.

The virtuous woman, described by Solomon, was an early riser. She could spin and weave. The good furniture of her house, and the fine clothing of herself and family, were the result of their own exertion. She scorned the bread of idleness. To make butterflies of our daughters, as beautiful as useless, and as frail, is neither wise nor right; nor best either for their usefulness or happiness. Let their intellect be cultivated by study, and their minds stored with knowledge, and deny not to them the best of culture and real accomplishment; but at the same time let their hands be taught to labor and their minds impressed with the dignity and honor of such tools as our loved mothers and wives have cheerfully borne for us and for them. It is mistaken kindness that exempts either our sons or our daughters from the duty of becoming practically familiar with the labors of their parents.

The fear of the Lord promotes womanly fidelity or faithfulness. True piety surrounds us continually with the felt obligations of duty, and inclines, and assists, and strengthens us for its conscientious discharge. To the person who is educated continually by christian principle, 'ought' means 'I must' and 'I will'. The woman who fears the Lord aims to do her duty, to do it from principle, to do it promptly and cheerfully. She means to be faithful to her own plighted word, to truth generally, to her parents, to her husband, children, friends. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. How admirable this characteristic of the true woman! She is faithful! We know who she is and where to find her. She may be a keeper at home, of few words possibly, her name not often pronounced in public assemblies, nor appearing in public print, but her record is on high and her esteem in the hearts of those who knew her. "Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her".

The fear of the Lord blesses woman with that 'inward peace' which sweetens the temper, makes the countenance lovely, and is the main spring of a beautiful life. There is nothing to compare with the gospel of Christ in its power to lighten affliction, sweeten toil, ease the burdened conscience, and soothe the sorrows of life. "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ", peace flowing "like a river", peace "which passeth all understanding". Woman has quite as much need of the comforting peace-giving power of the gospel as man has. Her trials are many and peculiar. She would have, usually, a better excuse for being impatient, and perhaps peevish and ill-tempered, than her husband. Her occupations are mostly indoors, depriving her of fresh air and sunshine. Her labors are more monotonous, the same round of duties day after day, and year after year, and consequently more wearying. The mother, too, is more frequently deprived of her rest, and she meets with many little annoyances which, if she lets them, may make her unhappy. But with the fear of God in hear heart, with a christian's faith and a christian's hope in her soul, cheered and strengthened by daily communion with an unseen let loved Savior, she rises superior to these sources of unhappiness. How pleasing to be able to recall the peaceful features, and the quiet life, and the smoothly rounded character of a dear, departed female friend, a sainted mother! Thet she had been at one time esteemed a beauty, or in the circles of fasion moved a queen, would be to survivors standing around her grave an empty and trivial thought. But 'that she feared the Lord' is a thought full of satisfaction and comfort.

The fear of the Lord inspires woman with that devotion to the spiritual interest of her children, and of those around her, which is at once her high duty and her crowning honor. We hear much in the present day about 'woman's sphere'. The sphere of the christian woman is wherever providence places her, doing the work which God's providence points out to her. If her place be a public one, she will try to fulfill its duties. She may possibly be called to labor with Paul, as did certain women at Philippi, "in the gospel". She may take part, as did Priscilla at Ephesus, in teaching "the way of God more perfectly", even to some who are to preach the gospel. She may serve the Master in the exercise of christian hospitality, "washing the saints' feet", as described in one of Paul's letters to Timothy. Her alabaster box of precious ointment the Master will not refuse, and her two mites cast into the treasury will be just as acceptable. But aside from all these the christian wife and mother has a sphere which none but she can fill, and the duties of which she can not delegate to another. In the quiet precincts of her home, and in the circle of her personal friends, it is her privilege, by her example and instructions, and prayers, and tears, to seek the salvation of precious souls. O, my hearers, how can any one meet the just responsibilities of a mother, of a parent, without being a christian -- one of those that fear God? And among human instrumentalities which God has ordained for our spiritual good in our lost world, the very strongest, I think, is a mother's love. How constant, how pure! In what near relations to the source of all power and goodness does not that praying, faithful mother stand? And God hears and registers in heaven her prayers. Very often she sees in her life-time the happy answer. And sometimes this is denied her, yet the prayer not unanswered. The seed may slumber long in the soil, yet spring up at length. O mothers, be faithful, be hopeful! Seek the salvation of your children while you are yet spared with them, for none will be found to love them so tenderly as you do, when you are gone.

An now, in conclusion, a word to the immediate friends of the deceased. Upon whom shall the mother's mantle fall? Who will bear the standard of Christ which she so long carried? The noblest monument you can raise to her memory is the imitation of her virtues. The best evidence you can give that her character is appreciated and admired, is, to serve the same God, trust in the same Savior, engage in the same christian work, and thus be prepared for the same Heaven.

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It is not a rule with country newspapers to publish every good sermon that is delivered. It if was, we would probably be solicited to publish half a dozen every week. Only last Sunday we heard a sermon from the text: "And man became a living soul", that was eminently worthy of publication, -- and of being read by every subscriber to the "Ledger"; but it is impossible for us to publish these good sermons. Our usual role is to exclude them; but because of its excellence and the desire of many friends in Liberty and Des Moines townships, we departed from the rule and publish in this issue of the "Ledger" the funeral sermon of Mrs. Mary Ann SHEPLER, prepared by Rev. J. M. McElroy.

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s).