There are only a few more days of reading left before I finish the second part of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. During today’s reading, I stumbled across this lovely little tribute to women. Who ever said that Christianity was a misogynistic religion?
Gaius also proceeded, and said, I will now speak on the behalf of Women, to take away their Reproach. For as Death and the Curse came into the World by a Woman, so also did Life and Health; God sent forth his Son, made of a Woman. Yea, to shew how much those that came after did abhor the Act of their Mother, this Sex, in the old Testament, coveted Children, if happily this or that Woman might be the Mother of the Saviour of the World. I will say again, that when the Saviour was come, Women rejoyced in him, before either Man or Angel. I read not that ever any man did give unto Christ so much as one Groat, but the Women followed him, and ministered to him of their Substance. ‘Twas a Woman that washed his Feet with Tears, and a Woman that anointed his Body to the Burial. They were Women that anointed his Body to the Burial. They were Women that wept when he was going to the Cross; And Women that followed him from the Cross, and that sat by his Sepulcher when he was buried. They were Women that was first with him at his Resurrection morn, and Women that brought Tidings first to his Disciples that he was risen from the Dead. Women therefore are highly favoured, and shew by these things that they are sharers with us in the Grace of Life.
Incandescent Ink 