The New Creation (Studies in the Scriptures, Series VI), “Woman's Province in the Church (in Study V, 'The Organization of the New Creation')”
“if she get before the public as a lecturer or teacher or writer, she gets into a position of great danger; because several of the peculiarities of her sex . . . which go to make her a true woman and attractive to true men will conspire under the unnatural conditions to spoil her womanhood—to make her “mannish.””
The section opens on p. 264 with the statement that ‘sex is ignored by the Lord in the selecting of his Ecclesia’ and that both men and women share the same hope, then argues that public religious service is nevertheless for men only. On p. 265 the same section says that Satan ‘has always found woman his most efficient representative’ and that ‘the first woman was Satan’s first ambassador’. On p. 266, in the sentences immediately before the passage quoted, the author states that ‘the Lord’s Word does not inform us if there be other reasons for sex-distinction, and our surmises respecting the matter may or may not be correct’, and then gives his reason: ‘in our opinion, however, some of the qualities of heart and mind which combine in the noblest types of woman, render her unsuitable for public religious services.’ The quotation recorded above follows two sentences later; the ellipsis inside it stands for the parenthesis ‘(one of which we have mentioned)’ and for nothing else.
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Provenance and verification note for The New Creation (Studies in the Scriptures, Series VI), Woman's Province in the Church (in Study V, 'The Organization of the New Creation')
Confidence note. The scanned volume was opened on 19 September 2026 and read leaf by leaf from the page-level recognition text, each leaf taken on its own so that the printed page could be read from that leaf’s own running head. The heads read ‘The New Creation. 265’, ‘266 The Organization.’ and ‘The New Creation. 267’; the sentence quoted begins on p. 266 and the words ‘make her “mannish”’ open p. 267. The recognition software garbles several letters on these pages — ‘imsuitable’ for ‘unsuitable’, ‘plvmging’ for ‘plunging’, ‘v f ich’ for ‘which’, ‘shotild’ for ‘should’ — and the quotation above is taken from a stretch that it rendered cleanly. The shorter passages quoted in the context and notes fields cross those errors; they were read against the surrounding sentences and the obvious letters restored, and that restoration is disclosed here rather than made silently.
Scan provenance. Full page scan of the '364,000 Edition' printing held by the Internet Archive. The title page carries the International Bible Students Association imprint and the date 1915; the copyright page reads 'Copyright 1904, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society' and 'Written in 1904 by Pastor Russell.'
Notes. The same section states on p. 267: ‘the danger with them would be so great that none were appointed to be teachers’, and applies 1 Timothy 2:11, 12. The sentence that follows qualifies it: ‘This emphatic and explicit statement cannot, however, be understood to mean that the sisters of the New Creation may never impart a blessing by telling the old, old story.’
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-wom-nc-1904-womans-province