EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; MARY LEE CAGLE P/55

                                                                                                                                                                           

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Mary Lee Cagle. She lived from 1864 - 1955. Mary and her husband organised many new churches and were widely recognised as district leaders. Mary was the lead pastor when Lubbock First Church of the Nazarene was founded in 1909. She was also instrumental in founding Abilene First Church. She is referred to as "The Mother of Holiness in West Texas."

Mary and her husband, furthermore, conducted revivals and organise churches in New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming.She organised at least 28 congregations. She served in the elected position of District Evangelist for the New Mexico and Abilene Districts and always chaired one or more district committees. Through 1928, she was always elected a ministerial delegate to her denomination's General Assembly: she was usually the first clergy person elected to the delegation.

She preached her final sermon on her 90th birthday, blind and supported by aids on either side. Mary died in 1955.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; MARY LEE WASSON CAGLE P/54

In this post I will continue my story of a woman named Mary Lee Wasson Cagle. She lived from 1864 - 1955.The survival and expansion of the denomination New Testament Church in Christ depended largely on three women: Mary Lee Harris, Donnie Mitchum and Elliott J. Sheeks. Donnie and Elliott were both wives of local businessmen. Together, the three women organised new churches in Tenessee and Arkansas. 

In 1895, Mary also organised the first congregation in Texas near Abilene. In 1899, she and Elliott were ordained as ministers at the first denominational council held in Milan. As pastor, evangelist and superintendent, she oversaw a growing network of congregations.In 1900, she married H.C Cagle.

In 1902, Mary convened the first annual meeting of the Texas Council of the New Testament Church in Christ; her continuing influence in the Eastern Council (the Tennessee and Arkansas churches) helped tie the group's two branches together. In 1904, she helped create the Holiness Church of Christ (HCC) by leading her organisation into union with the Independent Holiness Church, which had churches in east Texas and the Oklahoma Territory. In 1908, the HCC merged with holiness denominations from the east and west coasts to form the present-day Church of the Nazarene.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; MARY LEE WASSON CAGLE P/53

                                                                                                                                                                           

In this story I will focus on a woman named Mary Lee Wasson Cagle. She lived from 1864 - 1955. Her parents were John and Nancy Wasson. She was born near Moulton, Lawrence County. Her family was Methodist. As a child, Mary desired to become a missionary but her mother discouraged it.

In 1891, she married Robert Lee Harris, a Texas revivalist. He was a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mary travelled with her husband to the major southern cities and learned the art of being an evangelist from him.

Mary's husband left the Methodist church and in Milan, Tennessee, launched a new holiness denomination known as the New Testament Church of Christ. He died a few months later.

Wishing everyone a blessed Easter

 

                                                

                                               WISHING  EVERYONE A BLESSED EASTER

                                                 CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; JULIA WARD HOWE P/52

                                                                                                                                                                                            

In this post I will focus on a woman named Julia Ward Howe. She was born in 1861. For years Julia yearned to take a more active part in public affairs but her husband, noted Boston reformer Samuel Gridly Howe, insisted that she restrict herself to running their home.

During the Civil War in 1861, Julia unwittingly became a minor celebrity by writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." This poem, set to the music of "John Brown's Body," became the North's unofficial wartime anthem.

After the war, Julia broke the contraints imposed by her husband. She became a beloved figure in the growing women's suffrage movement, all the while raising six children. 

In 1870, she founded "Woman's Journal," a weekly suffragist magazine that ran until 1931. Then she was elected president of the Association of the Advancement of Women.                                                                                                                                                                                 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; PANDITA RAMABAI SARASVATI P/51

 

In this post I will continue to share the story of a woman named Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati. She lived from 1858 - 1922. In 1889, she was the first woman to address the 2000 delegates of the National Social Congress in Bombay. A powerful orator, audiences in India and America always gave her resounding applause and standing ovations.

In 1896, during a severe famine in her homeland, Ramabai toured the villages of Maharashtra with a caravan of bullock carts and rescued thousands of outcast children, child widows, orphans, and other destitute women. She housed them in the shelter that she opened called Mukti Mission.

By 1900, there were 1,500 residents and over a hundred cattle in the Mukti Mission and Pandita helped establish a Church at Mukti. The Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission is still active today, providing housing, education, vocal training etc. for many needy groups including widows, orphans and the blind.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; PANDITA RAMABAI SARASVATI P/50

                                                                                                                                                                                          

In this post I will share the story of a woman named Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati. She lived from 1858 - 1922 and was born in India. Her father, a Sanskrit scholar, taught her Sanskrit. Sadly, both her parents died in a great famine when Pandita was sixteen.

Because of her prowess as a Sanskrit scholar, Ramabai was honoured by the University of Calcutta as the first woman to receive the titles Pandita and Sarasvati.

In 1880, Ramabai married a Bengali lawyer. However, her husband died in 1882. After her husband's death, Ramambai founded an organisation to promote women's education and to deliver girls form the oppression of child marriage.

In 1883, Ramabai travelled to England to start medical training. During her stay she converted to Christianity. In 1886, Pandita travelled to the US to attend the graduation of the first female Indian doctor. She stayed for two years and during that time translated textbooks and gave lectures throughout the US and Canada.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800: KATHERINE BUSHNELL P/49

                                                                                                                                                                              

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Katherine Bushnell. She lived from 1855 - 1946. In 1908, Katherine began to write a bible study "God's Word to Women" based on the fact that she had become inspired to study Biblical tranlations during her time in China. At that time she had noticed with indignation that the Chines Bible had changed Paul's fellows from women to men, and after that had vowed to devote a portion of her life solely to a "meticulous examination of male bias that had corrupted the English text."

In her bible study, she works through every biblical portion interpreted to mean that women are inferior to men. This includes the topics of women not being allowed to preach, require subordination to their husbands, polygamy, and head coverings. 

Katherine believed that mistranslations were responsible for the social and spiritual subjugation of women. She writes:"If women must suffer domestic, legislative and ecclesiastical disabilities because Eve sinned, then must the Church harbour the appalling doctrine that Christ did not atone for all sin, because so long as the Church maintains these disabilities, the inevitable conclusion in the average mind will be the same as Tertullian's - God's verdict on the (female) sex still holds good and the sex's guilt must still hold also."

Katherine died in 1946.

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; KATHERINE BUSHNELL P/47

                                                                                                                                                                        

In this story I will focus on a woman named Katherine Bushnell. She lived from 1855 - 1946.I Katherine was born in Evanston, Illinois. Her roots in Christianity were well established from the beginning.

Katherine showed the desire to further her education from an early age and attended Women's Northwestern College (Northwestern University) from 1873 - 1874. She next studied medicine at Chicago Women's Medical College, where she specialised in nerve disorders.

Katherine initially planned on entering postgraduate study but was persuaded by her home church to go to China as a medical missionary in 1879. She served as a medical doctor in Kiukiang, China from 1879 - 1882. However, in 1882, she fell ill and was forced to return home.