Page:Women Wanted.djvu/293

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IN THE PROFESSIONS
269

entrance corridor the great red lettered signs "Full."

The house was packed to the last seat in the gallery to hear Miss Maude Royden, one of England's leading suffragists, "preach." This church is nearly 300 years old and only once before, when Mrs. Booth of the Salvation Army was granted the privilege, has a woman ever spoken from its pulpit. Some six months since, Maude Royden has now been appointed pulpit assistant at the City Temple, the first woman in England to hold such a position. Dr. Fort Newton, the pastor, in announcing the innovation, declared: "We want the woman point of view, the woman insight and the woman counsel." The City Temple is not an Episcopalian Church. But even the established church has recently heard an archbishop cautiously pronounce the opinion that "we may invite our church women to a much larger share in the Christian service than has been usual." You see there are 2000 English clergymen enrolled as chaplains at the front. Laywomen were last year permitted to make public addresses in the National Mission of Repentance. They thus ascended the chancel steps. A committee of bishops and scholars—and one woman—has now been appointed to see how much farther women may be permitted to go on the way to the pulpit itself. A few of the smaller churches in America have a woman minister in charge. But from the arduous duties of the highest ecclesiastical positions women in all lands are still "protected." High established places are of course the last to yield. Theology continues to