Miss Catherine Beecher

One prominent woman who lived in the Victorian era was Catherine Beecher. She was born in 1800. Early in her life she pledged to live life for the purpose of doing good. She opened a private school for young ladies to teach them moral values and domestic skills. She published "Housekeeper and Healthkeeper," which not only taught cooking, but health and happiness. She was a single woman who was extremely interested in helping homemakers be content in their roles as wives, mothers and caretakers of the house. She taught that the role of women as homemakers glorified and lifted them up, and was the most important calling they could have. Although modernists portray her as a feminist promoting women's liberation from the home, she in fact did not like the women's suffragists (women's liberation movement of her time) and would not join them. She was the daughter of a minister, and was very interested in providing education for women who needed to know more about the moral values of a family, the health and safety of children and the preparation of food. She wrote several books about this. She also sought to design a kitchen that was more cheerful than the dark places that served as cooking areas in the past. She proposed that they be white, full of light and windows, spacious enough to move around in, cool, and clean. She urged the housewife to “regard her duties as dignified, important, and difficult.”

In “Words of Comfort for a Discouraged Housekeeper”, she writes, “In the first place, make up your mind that it never is your duty to do anything more than you can, or in any better manner than the best you can. And whenever you have done the best you can, you have done well, and it is all that man should require, and certainly all that your Heavenly Father does require.” In “For the Sick”, she advocates the use of, and shows how to construct a homemade waterbed or “hydrostatic couch” as well as a “rolling chair”, i.e., a homemade wheelchair.

More is written about her here: http://www.librarycompany.org/women/portraits/beecher.htm

Now that I've shown a Victorian citizen who did good, some of you may be excused to go look at beautiful Victorian things. If it were not for the tastes of Queen Victoria, we would perhaps not have such lovely shops depicting the roses and chintzes and tea cups of the era that are still so appealing today.

And now I would like to relate the story of another woman, who lived long before the Victorian era. She was the first published woman in slavery and she wrote this poem in her book, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral"

ON VIRTUE.
O Thou bright jewel in my aim
I strive To comprehend thee.

Thine own words declare
Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.

I cease to wonder, and no more attempt
Thine height t' explore, or fathom thy profound.

But, O my soul, sink not into despair,
Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand

Would now embrace thee,
hovers o'er thine head.

Fain would the heav'n-born soul with her converse,
Then seek, then court her for her promis'd bliss.


Auspicious queen, thine heav'nly pinions spread,
And lead celestial Chastity along;

Lo! now her sacred retinue descends,
Array'd in glory from the orbs above.

15: Attend me, Virtue, thro' my youthful years!
O leave me not to the false joys of time!

But guide my steps to endless life and bliss.
Greatness, or Goodness, say what I shall call thee,

To give me an higher appellation still,
Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay,

O thou, enthron'd with Cherubs in the realms of day.


note: the study of virtue is something that is needed today. Every student should have to write a paper on the purpose and meaning of virtue. Miss Wheatley did not have the advantages that girls have today. She was home-schooled and she was able to grasp the meaning of virtue, as expressed so well in her poetry. She is an example to all young girls today to make the best of their lives no matter what. You can read more of her poems here http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WhePoem.html


For those who might be depressed or discouraged about the bad Victorians, you might not want to read the following.

Like all generations there were people in the Victorian times who did much harm to the world. Some of these people were:

Charles Darwin:--his doctrines of evolution have done much harm, even today. The belief that man was not created, but evolved, is humiliating and debilitating and causes less respect for human life and a rejection of the idea of a human soul accountable to God for his actions. False teachings abound in public schools and colleges that are a result of Darwinianism. His theory did not better the plight of mankind. You can listen here http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=7907131126 or read here http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/darwin.html for more biography of Darwin

Go here for subjects on the inspired word of God. Note that the word "inspired" is not the same as the common word for "I am inspired to do better," but is a Greek word meaning "God-breathed."http://www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Search&Terms=inspired&x=20&y=8

John Dewey: - He is perhaps known as the inventor of modern education. He admired the German army and sought to set up a school system similar to military training, by grouping children in ages and grades, and keeping them to a strict curriculum that was limited to the dictates of the education system. They were in essence, trained over a period of 12 years to become young socialists, which is what we are still seeing today. He believed that only through education would man get "better and better," but as we now see, it did not happen. You can read about John Dewey and the decline of American Education here http://www.isi.org/books/content/367front.pdf Be patient while these pages appear.

Another Victorian, Sigmund Freud, did much harm in the belief of man today. No longer do people turn to the Bible as their guide to life, but to this world's ministers, the psychiatrists and counsellors who take vast amounts of money from their clients while helping them to be "self actualized" --a term that is just an excuse for behaving badly even though it hurts other people. Freud used psychotic drugs as therapy, which is now commonplace, and has resulted in many a pang for mankind today. He created modern therapy as a substitute support system for people who did not believe in God. He claimed to hate America and hate the free enterprise system, and he openly despised God. His teachings now permeate every section of society, including the classrooms (everything from art to architecture), the church, the media, revisionist history, and even business. You can listen to a series of videos about him, which include film footage and photographs of him, here http://www.mercola.com/2007/mar/6/freud-was-used-to-control-the-masses.htm

Karl Marx lived in Victorian times and his influence is resulted in today's "liberation theology" which teaches that religion ought to rescue people from poverty and hard work, rather than teach them to be pure and to worship God. He taught what is now known as modern feminism, yet he cared not for his own wife and daughters. He left them to starve in poverty in London while he and his friend Engels wrote papers on how the world should be run. Marx taught that homemakers and mothers didn't have anything worthwhile to do at home and didn't contribute to society so they should be out working in fields or factories instead. Feminism is an offshoot of Marxism. He believed that it was evil to prosper and that having money was evil, and he disdained America for its free enterprise system. His writings included the Communist Manifesto, and his teachings have done much harm to mankind.You can read something about his beliefs here http://forerunner.com/predvestnik/X0013_Karl_Marx.html

Margaret Sanger: Born in 1879, she was responsible for an organization called Planned Parenthood, which still today refers people to abortion as a type of birth control. She started a newspaper called "The Woman Rebel" with the slogan "No Gods and No Masters," and her teachings were so vile that the American public at that time would not tolerate them. She was influenced by Darwinism, and believed that only the perfectly formed person had a right to live. Some sites quote her extreme prejudice against African-Americans. She was charged with violating postal obscenity laws and fled to Europe. Yet her teachings remain a huge influence on men and women, in the form of the terrible thing called abortion, a procedure that threatens the lives of millions of babies and their mothers. You can find more information about her beliefs here http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a380249a34016.htm

There were various politicians in the Victorian era who espoused the doctrines of Darwin, Marx, Dewey, Sanger, and Frued, and infiltrated such things into our judicial system, or laws, and our government at every level. My husband did a sermon once called "The Power of One," and he included these people in describing the destruction they levied on our current generation. One such man worked tirelessly to get rid of the foundations of our laws, one being "Blackstone's Law," a law book that most lawyers and judges used, which was based on the moral laws of the Bible. In the 20th century, some of the proponents of this movement celebrated the removal of Blackstones Law from the law schools (around 1963-4) by announcing, "Thank goodness, we finally got rid of Blackstone!" Now, the courts could make up the law as they went. They could judge according to their own feelings and beliefs, many which were based upon the philosophies of Dewey, Darwin, Freud, Sanger and Marx.

These people, combined with others of the Victorian era in other movements called socialism, liberalism, fabianism, materialism, existentialism, and more, sought to replace the family and the Biblical mandates to do good to others, with a state that people would look to as authority. The names of the movements have changed, but they still seek to break down the home, home life, and the meaning of the family.

For those who believe all I do is glorify the Victorians, this should satisfy you plenty. Why should the influence of these ungodly men be hailed more mightily than the influence of other people of that era? It has a lot to do with how you were indoctrinated in schools and colleges. You probably heard that the Victorian era was full of prudes who didn't allow freedom to women. This was a mantra people spread in the 1920's to discredit their Victorian parents and get rid of the moral restraints of the time so that they could freely usher in a new age of rebellion in music, art, architecture, education, fashion, and just about everything else. That generation was heavily influenced by the Victorians Marx, Darwin, Dewey, Freud, and many others who thought they knew how this world should be run.

The beliefs of these people transcend to the current modern times. We now have more abortion, more immodesty, more divorce, more illiteracy, more bad architecture, bad art, misspent government money, depression, drugs, alcoholism, and even persecution of those who want to claim the Bible as their rule of authority. Watch the ads on television and you will see that most of them are offers for cures for all that ails mankind today: heart disease, cancer, depression, and more.

It may seem confusing to understand the teachings of these impudent Victorians, so to make it easy I will sum it up by saying that they all despised absolutes and standards and sought to destroy the rules of good behavior, Biblical principles and the restraints of authorities like parents and good government. Their doctrines were based on the selfishness of mankind, and opened up a floodgate of problems that leaked into the 20th century which still plague our families today. It translates into an attitude that people can do as they like, and if it is rude and you don't like it and want to put a stop to it, you are an intolerant snob.

What does any of this have to do with the role of wife, mother, homemaker, or daughter at home?

These belief systems invade the home and make the family unstable. As home keepers we are supposed to guard the home. These distructive philosophies of life come into the home via the media, the mail, the schools, music, literature, the new laws that are made, and even infect things like the way our food is produced, the way our houses are built, the arts and crafts of our era, and the way our government is run, if we allow it. The home is the last frontier of freedom, where the practices that make it good can be quietly inforced. The homemaker can determine to put what is good and lovely into her life and her home. She has more power to create loveliness in the era in which we live, than the world knows.

It is because of the philosophies of these men that women do not even believe they are allowed to stay home and be keepers of the home. Almost from birth, they are taught through education, psychology, and socialism, that they do not have a choice to stay home. Most girls come out of high school not knowing that they have other choices. If you are having trouble with rebellion in your home, your children may have been indoctrinated with these false concepts of life and are are war with the values of their parents. These are doctrines we all need to be aware of and be able to refute.

Yes, there were bad people in the Victorian era, but like today, there were people who refuted them and taught the truth about life. It will always be a challenge and a duty of each generation to do such.


Painting: Country Inn by Consuelo Gamboa --(one of today's excellent painters.)