p265 * * * I am delighted sisters should work in their own sphere: I find Tryphena and Tryphosa and Persis, and so Priscilla. I know only of teaching, and speaking in the assembly, which is forbidden them. There has been a great deal of working outside woman's place lately, which has given occasion to speak of it. But helping an ignorant woman and free intercourse with them is all quite right, or children. I hope sisters may, all they can, labour diligently in work for the Lord. It may of course slip into teaching formally, and then a woman is out of her place. If she sets up a regular lecture, even if there were only women present, I should hold it to be teaching in the apostle's sense. She is then a doctor or doctress. A female M.D. is different to you giving homeopathy, and yet in one sense you are doctoring, but you have taken no doctor's place, and the difference is very intelligible. The quiet communication of the gospel, or even conversation with men, if in a natural, seemly communication, is all quite right.

[Date unknown.]

[52167E]