ave preserved the power to inspire and
elevate as when they were first uttered: the hymn of praise and
thanksgiving sung by Moses and his sister Miriam, and the impassioned
song of Deborah, the heroine in Israel.

Miriam and Deborah are the first Israelitish women whose melody thrilled
and even now thrills us--Miriam, the inspired prophetess, pouring forth
her people's joy and sorrow, and Deborah, _Esheth Lapidoth_, the Bible
calls her, "the woman of the flaming heart," an old writer ingeniously
interprets the Scriptural name. They are the chosen exemplars of all
women who, stepping across the narrow confines of home, have lifted up a
voice, or wielded a pen, for Israel. The time is not yet when woman in
literature can be discussed without an introductory justification. The
prejudice is still deep-rooted which insists that domestic activity is
woman's only legitimate career, that to enter the literary arena is
unwomanly, that inspired songs may drop only from male lips. Woman's
heart should, indeed, be the abode of the angels of gentleness, modesty,
kindness, and patience. But no contradiction is involved in the belief
that her mind is endowed with force and ability on occasion to grasp the
spokes of fortune's wheel, or produce works which need not shrink from
public criticism. Deborah herself felt that it would have better become
a man to fulfil the mission with which she was charged--that a cozy home
had been a more seemly place for her than the camp upon Mount Tabor. She
says: "Desolate were the open towns in Israel, they were desolate....
Was there a shield seen or a spear among forty thousand in Israel?...
I--unto the Lord will I sing." Not until the fields of Israel were
desert, forsaken of able-bodied men, did the woman Deborah arise for the
glory of God. She refused to pose as a heroine, rejected the crown of
victory, nor coveted the poet's laurel, meet recognition of her
triumphal song. Modestly she chose the simplest yet most beautiful of
names. She summoned the warriors to battle; the word of God was
proclaimed by her lips; she pronounced judgment, and right prevailed;
her courage sustained her on the battlefield, and victory followed in
her footsteps--yet neither judge, nor poetess, nor singer, nor
prophetess will she call herself, but only _Em beyisrael_, "a mother in
Israel."

This heroine, this "mother in Israel," in all the wanderings and
vicissitudes of the Jewish people, was the exemplar of its women