THEPOWER OF WOMANHOODORMOTHERS AND SONS

A BOOK FOR PARENTS, AND THOSE INLOCO PARENTIS

BY ELLICE HOPKINS

AUTHOR OF "LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES HINTON, ""WARS AMONG WORKINGMEN, " ETC. 

 Sow an act, and you reap a habit: Sow a habit, and you reap a character: Sow a character, and you reap a destiny. 

NEW YORKE. P. DUTTON & COMPANY31 West Twenty-Third Street1901 Copyright, 1899

Copyright, 1899ByE. P. DUTTON & CO. 

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

PREFACE

This little book has been written under great physical disabilities, chiefly while wandering about in search of health, and consequently farfrom the libraries which would have enabled me to give proper referencesto all my quotations. Often for a whole year I have been unable to touchit; but again and again I have returned to my task, feeling it worth anyrisk to mind or body if only in the end its words might prove of someservice to the educated mothers of England and America. 

Under these circumstances, I know I may plead for indulgence as to anydefects its pages may present. 

But now that, after six years, I have realized the pretty Easternproverb, "By patience and perseverance, and a bottle of sweet-oil, thesnail at length reaches Jerusalem, "--now that by God's unfailing help Ihave finished my difficult task, I can but commit the book into thehands of the women who have implanted in me, next to my faith in God, faith in the "Power of Womanhood, " and whose faithful adherence andco-operation remain the deepest and most grateful memory of my life. Most of the ordinary means of circulation are closed to a book of thisnature. The doors of circulating libraries are for the most part shut;notices in papers for the general public are necessarily few; nor can Iany longer hope, as I once did, to visit America, and give it a widecirculation by my own efforts. I can but stretch out my hands to my manydear unknown friends in America, --hands which have grown too weak tohold the sword or lift the banner in a cause for which I have laid downmy all, --and ask any mother who may find help or strength in this bookto help me in return by placing it in the hands of other mothers of boysshe may know, especially, --I would plead, --young mothers. Do not saythey are too young to know. If they are not too young to be the mothersof boys, they are not too young to know how to fulfil the responsibilityinherent in such motherhood. They at least can begin at the beginning, and not have occasion to say, as so many mothers have said to me, withtears in their eyes, "Oh, if I could only have heard you years ago, whata difference it would have made to me! But now it is too late. "

Enable me thus, by your aid, to do some helpful work for that greatcountry which I have ever loved as my own; and which with England isappointed in the Providence of God to lead in the great moral causes ofthe world. 

If, indeed, each mother whom, either by word or deed, I may have helpedwould do me this service of love now that I am laid aside, not yieldingto the first adverse criticism, which is so often only a cry of pain orprejudice, but patiently working on at enlightening and strengtheningthe hands of other mothers in her own rank of life, what vital workwould be done:--work so precious in its very nature, so far-reaching inits consequences, that all the travail and anguish I have endured, allthe brokenness of body and soul I have incurred, would not so much ascome into mind for joy that a truer manhood is being born into theworld, even the manhood of Him who--

 "Came on earth that He might show mankind What 'tis to be a MAN: to give, not take; To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour; To help, not crush; if needs, to die, not live. "

2 BELLE VUE GARDENS, WALPOLE ROAD, BRIGHTON, _Nov. 1, 1899_. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. --INTRODUCTORY 1

II. --"WHY SHOULD I INTERFERE?" 13

III. --FIRST PRINCIPLES 26

IV. --THE SECRET AND METHOD 38

V. --EARLY BOYHOOD 56

VI. --BOYHOOD AND SCHOOL LIFE 69

VII. --EARLY MANHOOD 131

VIII. --THE INFLUENCE OF SISTERS 157

IX. --THE MODERN WOMAN AND HER FUTURE 170

X. --NATIONAL AND IMPERIAL ASPECTS 191

XI. --THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF EVIL 206

 CONCLUSION 221

 APPENDIX 231

 "No advice, no exposure, will be of use until the right relation exists between the father and mother and their son. To deserve his confidence, to keep it as the chief treasure committed to them by God;--to be, the father his strength, the mother his sanctification, and both his chosen refuge, through all weakness, evil, danger, and amazement of his young life. "

 Rushkin. 

THE POWER OF WOMANHOOD

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

In a banquet given in honor of Heinrik Ibsen by a Norwegian societyknown as the Woman's League, in response to a speech thanking him in thename of the society for all he had done for the cause of women, thepoet, while disclaiming the honor of having consciously worked for thewoman's cause--indeed, not even being quite clear as to what the woman'scause really was, since in his eyes it was indistinguishable from thecause of humanity--concluded his speech with the words:

 "It has always seemed to me that the great problem is to elevate the nation and place it on a higher level. Two factors, the man and the woman, must co-operate for this end, and it lies especially with the mothers of the people, by slow and strenuous work, to arouse in it a conscious sense of culture and discipline. To the woman, then, we must look for the solution of the problem of humanity. It must come from them as mothers: that is the mission that lies before them. "

Whether we are admirers of the great Norwegian poet or not, whether weare afflicted with Ibsenism, or regard his peculiar genius in a morecritical and dispassionate light, no one would deny to him that deepintuitive insight which belongs to a poet, and which borders so closelyon the prophet's gift. 

It is now some years since I have been laid aside, owing to the terriblestrain and burthen of my ten years' conflict with the evils that arethreatening the sanctity of the family, the purity of the home, and allthat constitutes the higher life of the nation. But in those ten yearsthe one truth that was burnt into my very soul was the truth enunciatedby Ibsen, that it is to the woman that we must look for the solution ofthe deepest moral problems of humanity, and that the key of thoseproblems lies in the hands of the mothers of our race. They, and theyalone, can unlock the door to a purer and a stronger life. This, inIbsen's words, "is the mission that lies before them. " And it is thisstrong conviction which makes me feel that, even with broken powers andshattered health, I cannot rest from my labors without, at any cost tomyself, placing the knowledge and experience gained in those years oftoil and sorrow at the disposal of the educated women of theEnglish-speaking world who, either as mothers or in other capacities, have the care and training of the young. 

No one recognizes more thankfully than I do the progress that thewoman's movement has made during what have been to me years of inactionand suffering. The ever-increasing activity in all agencies for theelevation of women; the multiplication of preventive institutions andrescue societies; above all, that new sense of a common womanhood, that_esprit de corps_ in which hitherto we have been so grievously lacking, and which is now beginning to bind all our efforts together into onegreat whole--these I thankfully recognize. We no longer each of us setup in separate and somewhat antagonistic individuality our own littleprivate burrow of good works, with one way in and one way out, andnothing else needed for the wants of the universe. We realize now thatno one agency can even partially cover the ground, and conferences arenow held of all who are working for the good of women and children, toenable the separate agencies to work more effectually into one another'shands and unite more fervently in heart and soul in a common cause. Beneath all this, apart from any external organization whatever, thereis a silent work going on in the hearts of thoughtful and educatedmothers, which never comes before the public at all, but is silentlyspreading and deepening under the surface of our life. 

But when all this is thankfully recognized and acknowledged, I stillcannot help questioning whether the mass of educated women have at allgrasped the depth and complexity of the problem with which we have tograpple if we are to fufil our trust as the guardians of the home andfamily, and those hidden wells of the national life from which spring upall that is best and highest in the national character. Nay, I sometimesfear lest even our increased activity in practical work may not have theeffect of calling off our attention from those deep underlying causeswhich must be dealt with if we are not to engage in the hopeless task oftrying to fill a cistern the tap of which has been left running. Thisabsorption in the effect and inattention to the cause is to a certaindegree bred in us by the very nature of the duties that devolve upon usas women. John Stuart Mill has compared the life of a woman to an"interrupted sentence. " The mere fact that our lives are so interruptedby incessant home calls, and that we are necessarily so concerned in thedetails of life, is apt to make us wanting in grasp of underlyingprinciples. Perhaps it is the fact of my having been associated all theearly years of my life with eminent scientific men that has formed in mea habit of mind always to regard effects in relation to causes, so thatmerely to cure evil results without striking at the evil cause seems tome, to use a Johnsonian simile, "like stopping up a hole or two of asieve with the hope of making it hold water. "

It is, therefore, on these deeper aspects that more especially bear uponthe lives and training of our own sons that I want to write, placingbefore you some facts which you must know if you are to be theirguardians, and venturing to make some suggestions which, as the resultof much collective wisdom and prayer, I think may prove helpful to youin that which lies nearest your heart. Only, if some of the facts aresuch as may prove both painful and disagreeable to you, do not thereforereject them in your ignorance as false. Do not follow the advice of apolitician to a friend whom he was urging to speak on some publicquestion. "But how can I?" his friend replied; "I know nothing of thesubject, and should therefore have nothing to say. " "Oh, you can alwaysget up and deny the facts, " was the sardonic reply. 

Let me first of all give you my credentials, all the more necessary asmy long illness has doubtless made me unknown by name to many of theyounger generation, who may therefore question my right to impart factsor make any suggestions at all. Suffer me, therefore, to recount to youhow I have gained my knowledge and what are the sources of myinformation. 

In the first place, I was trained for the work by a medical man--myfriend Mr. James Hinton--first in his own branch of the Londonprofession, and a most original thinker. To him the degradation ofwomen, which most men accept with such blank indifference, was a sourceof unspeakable distress. He used to wander about the Haymarket andPiccadilly in London at night, and break his heart over the sights hesaw and the tales he heard. The words of the Prophet ground themselvesinto his very soul, with regard to the miserable wanderers of ourstreets: "This is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of themsnared in holes and hid in prison-houses; they are for a prey, and nonedelivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore. "

The very first time he came down to me at Brighton, to see if I couldgive him any help, speaking of all he had seen and heard, his voicesuddenly broke, and he bowed his face upon my hands and wept like achild. That one man could suffer as he did over the degradation of thiswomanhood of ours has always been to me the most hopeful thing I know--adivine earnest of ultimate overcoming. The only thing that seemed in ameasure to assuage his anguish was my promise to devote myself to theone work of fighting it and endeavoring to awake the conscience of thenation to some sense of guilt with regard to it. In order to fit me forthis work he considered that I ought to know all that he as a medicalman knew. He emphatically did not spare me, and often the knowledge thathe imparted to me was drowned in a storm of tears. We were to haveworked together, but his mind, already unhinged by suffering, ultimatelygave way, and, with all that this world could give him--health, fame, wealth, family affection, devoted friends--he died prematurely of abroken heart. 

For ten years, therefore, after my friend's death I gave up everythingfor the purpose of carrying on the work he left me, and beat wearily upand down the three kingdoms, holding meetings, organizing practicalwork, agitating for the greater legal protection of the young, afterwards embodied in two Acts--one for removing children from dens ofinfamy and one known as the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which have donemuch to educate the public sentiment of the country; but always makingit my chief object to rouse educated women to face the facts about theirown womanhood, and, above all, to rouse mothers to realize the perils oftheir own boys and to be determined to know enough to enable them to actas their guardians. 

During those ten years of warfare, passing as I did from family tofamily, and always concerned with questions that touch upon theinnermost shrine of our life, I necessarily became the recipient of manyhidden sorrows. In fact, my fellow-creatures used me as a bottomlesswell into which they could empty their household skeletons; and I usedoften to reflect with sardonic satisfaction that I should never run drylike other old wells, but that death would come and fill me up with agood wholesome shovelful of earth, and I and my skeletons would liequiet together. But in this way I gained a knowledge of what is going onunder the surface of our life, whether we choose to ignore it or not, which possibly can only come to those who are set apart to beconfessors of their kind; and the conclusion was forced upon me thatthis evil, in one form or another, is more or less everywhere--in ournurseries, in our public, and still more our private, schools, decorously seated on magisterial benches, fouling our places ofbusiness, and even sanctimoniously seated in our places of worship. 

After the first two years of work among women I found that it wasabsolutely hopeless attacking the evil from one side only, and I had tonerve myself as best I could to address large mass meetings of men, always taking care clearly to define my position--that I had not comeupon that platform to help them, but to ask them to help me in a battlethat I had found too hard for me, and that I stood before them as awoman pleading for women. The first of these meetings I addressed at theinstance of the late revered Bishop of Durham, Dr. Lightfoot, who tookthe chair, and inaugurated the White Cross Movement, which has sincespread over the civilized world. And throughout this most difficult sideof my work I had his priceless co-operation and approval; besides thewise counsel, guidance, and unfailing sympathy of one whom but to nameis to awake the deepest springs of reverence, Dr. Wilkinson, then theincumbent of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, afterwards Bishop of Truro, andnow Bishop of St. Andrews. But so great was the effort that it cost me, that I do not think I could have done this part of my work but for mytwo favorite mottoes--the one, that "I can't" is a lie in the lips thatrepeat, "I believe in the Holy Ghost"; the other, received from the lipsof Bishop Selwyn, that "If as soldiers of the Cross we stick atanything, we are disgraced forever. "

But lastly, and perhaps best of all, as giving weight to any suggestionsthat I may make, across the dismal mud swamp that I often trod with suchan aching heart and faltering steps came to meet me God's best andhighest, with outstretched hands of help and encouragement. It was thehighly-cultivated and thoughtful women who, amidst the storm of obloquythat beat upon me from every quarter, first ranged themselves by myside, perceiving that the best way to avoid a danger is not to refuse tosee it. Some were women already in the field in connection with Mrs. Butler's movement, to which our nation owes so much, some were roused bymy words. 

In all our large towns where I formed Associations for the Care ofFriendless Girls I was in the habit of reporting my work to the clergyof my own church, whose sympathy and cooperation I shall ever gratefullyacknowledge. Ultimately, the leading laity, as well as someNonconformist ministers, joined with us; often these conferences werediocesan meetings--to which, however, Nonconformists were invited--withthe Bishop of the diocese in the chair; and after my address freediscussion took place, so that I had the advantage of hearing theopinions and judgments of many of our leading men in regard to thisdifficult problem, and getting at men's views of the question. 

The matter that I lay before you, therefore, has been thoroughly andrepeatedly threshed out at such conferences, as well as in long, earnest, private talks with the wisest and most experienced mothers andteachers of our day; and it is in their name, far more than in my own, that I ask you to ponder what I say. 

Do not, however, be under any fear that I intend in these pages to makemyself the medium of all sorts of horrors. I intend to do no such thing. It is but very little evil that you will need to know, and that not indetail, in order to guard your own boys. We women, thank God, have to dowith the fountain of sweet waters, clear as crystal, that flow from thethrone of God; not with the sewer that flows from the foul imaginationsand actions of men. Our part is the inculcation of positive purity, notthe part of negative warning against vice. Nor need you fear that theevil you must know, in order to fulfil your most sacred trust, willsully you. This I say emphatically, that the evil which we have grappledwith to save one of our own dear ones does not sully. It is the evilthat we read about in novels and newspapers, for our own amusement; itis the evil that we weakly give way to in our lives; above all, it isthe destroying evil that we have refused so much as to know of in ourabsorbing care for our own alabaster skin--it is _that_ evil whichdefiles the woman. But the evil that we have grappled with in a life anddeath struggle to save a soul for whom Christ died does not sully: itclothes from head to foot with the white robe, it crowns with the goldencrown. Though I have had to know what, thank God! no other woman mayever again be called upon to know, I can yet speak of the great conflictthat involved this knowledge as being the one great purifying, sanctifying influence of my life. But even if, as men would oftenpersuade us, the knowledge of the world's evil would sully us, I know Iutter the heart of every woman when I say that we choose the hand thatis sullied in saving our own dear ones from the deep mire that mightotherwise have swallowed them up, rather than the hand that has keptitself white and pure because it has never been stretched out to save. That hand may be white, but in God's sight it is white with thewhiteness of leprosy. Believe, rather, the words of James Hinton, written to a woman friend: "You women have been living in a dreamland ofyour own; but dare to live in this poor disordered world of God's, andit will work out in you a better goodness than your own, "--even thatpurified womanhood, strong to know, and strong to save, before whosegracious loveliness the strongest man grows weak as a child, and, as alittle child, grows pure. 

God grant that, in view of the tremendous responsibilities that devolveupon us women in these latter days, we may cry from our hearts:

 "Let not fine culture, poesy, art, sweet tones, Build up about my soothed sense a world That is not Thine, and wall me up in dreams. So my sad heart may cease to beat with Thine, The great World-Heart, whose blood, forever shed, Is human life, whose ache is man's dull pain. "

CHAPTER II

"WHY SHOULD I INTERFERE?"

I am, of course, aware that at the very outset I shall be met by thequestion--far less frequently urged, however, by thoughtful mothers thanit used to be--"Why need I interfere at all in a subject like this? Whymay I not leave it all to the boy's father? Why should it be my duty toface a question which is very distasteful to me, and which I feel I hadmuch better let alone?"

I would answer at once, Because the evil is so rife, the dangers sogreat and manifold, the temptations so strong and subtle, that yourinfluence must be united to that of the boy's father if you want tosafeguard him. Every influence you can lay hold of is needed here, andwill not prove more than enough. The influence of one parent alone isnot sufficient, more especially as there are potent lines of influenceopen to you as a woman from which a man, from the very fact that he is aman, is necessarily debarred. 

You must bring the whole of that influence to bear for the followingconsiderations. 

Let me take the lowest and simplest first. Even if you be indifferentto your boy's moral welfare, you cannot be indifferent to his physicalwell-being, nay, to his very existence. Here I necessarily cannot tellyou all I know; but I would ask you thoughtfully to study for yourself astriking diagram which Dr. Carpenter, in one of our recognized medicaltext-books, has reproduced from the well-known French statistician, Quetelet, showing the comparative viability, or life value, of men andwomen respectively at different ages. 

[Illustration: DIAGRAM REPRESENTING THE COMPARATIVE VIABILITY OF THEMALE AND FEMALE AT DIFFERENT AGES. ]

The female line, where it differs from the male, is the dotted line, thegreater or less probability or value of life being shown by the greateror less distance of the line of life from the level line at the bottom. Infant life being very fragile, the line steadily rises till it reachesits highest point, between thirteen and fourteen. In both cases thereis then a rapid fall, the age of puberty being a critical age. But fromfifteen, when the female line begins to right itself, only showing by agentle curve downwards the added risks of the child-bearing period in awoman's life, the male line, which ought, without these risks, to keepabove the female line, makes a sharp dip below it, till it reaches itslowest point at twenty-five, the age when the excesses of youth have hadtime to tell most on the system. [1] Here, at least, is evidence thatnone can gainsay. The more you ponder that mysterious sharp dip in theman's line of life at the very age which Nature intended should be theprime and flower of life, the more deeply you will feel that some deepand hidden danger lies concealed there, the more earnestly you will cometo the conclusion that you cannot and will not thrust from you theresponsibility that rests upon you as the boy's mother of helping toguard him from it. Keep him from the knowledge of evil, and thetemptations that come with that knowledge, you cannot. The few firstdays at school will insure that, to say nothing of the miserable streetsof our large towns. As Thackeray long ago said in a well-known passage, much animadverted on at the time:

 "And by the way, ye tender mothers and sober fathers of Christian families, a prodigious thing that theory of life is, as orally learnt at a great public school. Why! if you could hear those boys of fourteen who blush before their mothers, and sneak off in silence in the presence of their daughters, talking among each other, it would be the woman's turn to blush then. Before Pen was twelve years old, and while his mother thought him an angel of candour, little Pen had heard enough to make him quite awfully wise upon certain points; and so, madam, has your pretty rosy-cheeked son who is coming home from school for the ensuing Christmas holidays. I don't say that the boy is lost, or that the innocence has left him which he had 'from heaven, which is our home, ' but that the shades of the prison house are closing very fast round him, and that we are helping as much as possible to corrupt him. "[2]

But though you cannot keep him from the knowledge of evil, you can be apotent factor in teaching him the hidden dangers that beset him, inseeing that his young feet rest on the rock of true knowledge, and noton the shifting quagmire of the devil's lies; but above all, ininspiring him with a high ideal of conduct, which will make him shrinkfrom everything low and foul as he would from card-sharping or sneaking, proving yourself thus to him as far as in you lies--

 "A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still, and bright With something of an angel light. "

The boy thus mothered is saved as a rule from all physical risk. 

And this in part anticipates my second point. You cannot let thisquestion alone if you are to aim at the highest for your boy. Highcharacter is more to be accounted of than long life. And it is to you, as a woman, that the guarding of the higher springs of his nature isespecially entrusted. My whole experience has gone to teach me, withever-increasing force, that the proposition that purity is vitallynecessary for the woman, but of comparatively small account for the man, is absolutely false. Granted that, owing to social ostracism, theoutward degradation of impurity to the woman is far greater, I contendthat a deeper inner debasement is its sure fruition in the man. Crueltyand lies are its certain accompaniment. As Burns, with a poet's insight, has truly said:

 "But oh! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling. "

Yes, it is exactly that; "it hardens all within"--hardens and darkens. It is as our Lord says: only "the pure in heart" are capable of divinevision. Only the man who has kept himself pure, who has never sulliedhis white faith in womanhood, never profaned the sacred mysteries oflife and love, never fouled his manhood in the stye of the beast--it isonly that man who can see God, who can see duty where another seesuseless sacrifice, who can see and grasp abiding principles in a worldof expediency and self-interest, and discern

 "In temporal policy the eternal Will, "

who can see God in the meanest of His redeemed creatures. It is onlythe virginal heart that has kept itself pure, that grows not old, butkeeps its freshness, its innocent gaiety, its simple pleasures. Theeminent Swiss Professor, Aimé Humbert, does but echo these words fromthe sadder side, when, speaking of the moral malady which is the resultof impurity, he says:

 "It does not attack any single organ of the human frame, but it withers all that is human--mind, body, and soul. It strikes our youth at the unhappy moment when they first cross the thresholds of vice. For them the spring has no more innocent freshness; their very friendships are polluted by foul suggestions and memories; they become strangers to all the honorable relations of a pure young life; and thus we see stretching wider and wider around us the circle of this mocking, faded, worn-out, sceptical youth, without poetry and without love, without faith and without joy. "

Too soon and too earnestly we cannot teach our boys that the flamingsword, turning all ways, which guards the tree of life for him, ispurity. 

But thirdly, there are wider issues than the welfare, physical andmoral, of our own boys which make it impossible for us to take up anyneutral attitude on this question. We cannot remain indifferent to thatwhich affects so deeply both the status and the happiness of women. Wecannot accept a standard for men which works out with the certainty of amathematical law a pariah class of women. We cannot leave on one sidethe anguish of working-class mothers just because we belong to theprotected classes, and it is not our girls that are sacrificed. Atleast, we women are ceasing to be as base as that, and God forgive usthat, from want of thought rather than from want of heart, educatedwomen could be found even to hold that the degradation of their ownwomanhood is a necessity!

Take but one instance out of the many that crossed my _via dolorosa_ ofthe anguish inflicted on the mothers of the poor. I take it, not becauseit is uncommon, but because it is typical. 

At one of my mass meetings of working women in the North I was told atits close that a woman wished to speak with me in private. As soon as Icould disengage myself from the crowd of mothers who were always eagerto shake hands with me, and to bless me with tears in their eyes fortaking up their cause, I went down the room, and there, in adimly-lighted corner of the great hall, I found a respectable-lookingwoman waiting for me. I sat down by her side, and she poured out thepent-up sorrow of her heart before telling me the one great favor shecraved at my hands. She had an only daughter, who at the age of sixteenshe had placed out in service, at a carefully-chosen situation. We allknow what a difficult age in a girl's life is sixteen; but our girls wecan keep under our own watchful care, and their little wilfulnesses andnaughtinesses are got over within the four walls of a loving home, andare only the thorns that precede the perfect rose of womanhood. But thepoor have to send their girls out into the great wicked world at thisage to be bread-winners, often far away from a mother's protecting care. The girl, however, in this case was a good, steady girl, and for a timedid well. Then something unsettled her, and she left her first place, and got another situation. For a time it seemed all right, when suddenlyher letters ceased. The mother wrote again and again, but got no answer. She wrote to her former place; they knew nothing of her. At last shesaved up a little money and went to the town where she believed her girlto be. She sought out and found her last address. The family had goneaway, and left no address. She made inquiries of the neighbors, of thepolice. Yes, they remembered the girl--a nice-looking girl with a brightcolor; but no one had seen her lately. It was as if a trap-door hadopened and let her through. She had simply disappeared. In all thatcrowded city her mother could find no trace of her. "It is now thirteenyears, ma'am, since I lost her. "

But all through those thirteen years that poor mother had watched andwaited for her. All through those weary years, whenever she read in thelocal paper of some poor girl's body being found in the river, some poorsuicide, who had leapt, "Mad from life's history, Swift to death's mystery, Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world, "

that poor mother would get into her head it might be her dear girl thatwas lying there alone and unclaimed; and she would pay her fare--if shecould afford it--or if not, trudge the distance on foot, creep, trembling, into the mortuary or the public-house where the body lay, blue from drowning, or with the ugly red gash across the throat, takeone look, and then cry with a sigh of relief, "No, it ain't my child, "and return again to her watching and waiting. 

"Once, ma'am, " she said, "I had a dream. I saw a beautiful place, allbright and shiny, and there were lots of angels singing so sweet, whenout of the midst of the glory came my poor girl. She came straight tome, and said, 'Oh, mother, don't fret; I'm safe and I'm happy!' and withthose words in my ears I awoke. That dream has been a great comfort tome, ma'am; I feel sure God sent it to me. But oh, ma'am, " she exclaimed, with a new light of hope in her face, and clasping her hands in silententreaty, "the thought came into my head whilst you were a-speakin', ifyou would be so kind as to ask at the end of every one of your meetin's, 'Has anyone heard or seen anything of a girl of the name of SarahSmith?' As you go all about the country, maybe I might get to hear ofher that way. "

Ah me! the pathetic forlornness of the suggestion, the last hope of abroken-hearted mother, that I should go all over the three kingdomsasking my large audiences, "Have you seen or heard anything of SarahSmith?" And I was dumb. I had not a word of comfort to give her. I hadheard the words too often from the lips of outcast girls in answer to myquestion, "Does your mother know where you are?" "Oh, no; I couldn'tbear that mother should know about me!"--not to know what the fate ofthat young girl had been. She had been trapped, or drugged, or enticedinto that dread under-world into which so many of our working-classgirls disappear and are lost. Possibly she had been sent out of thecountry, and was in some foreign den. One's best hope was that she wasdead. 

But picture to yourselves the long-drawn anguish of that mother, withnothing but a dream to comfort her amid the dread realities of life. Picture her as only one of thousands and thousands of our working-classmothers on whose poor dumb hearts the same nameless sorrow rests like agravestone; and I think no woman--no mother, at least--but will agreewith me, that this is a matter from which we, as women, cannot standoff. Even if we had not the moral and physical welfare of our own boysto consider, we are baptized into this cause by the tears of women, thedumb tears of the poor. But there is one last consideration, exquisitelypainful as it is, which I cannot, I dare not, pass over, and which morethan any other has aroused the thoughtful women of England and Americato face the question and endeavor to grapple, however imperfectly asyet, with the problem. For some strange reason the whole weight of thisevil in its last resort comes crushing down on the shoulders of a littlechild--infant Christs of the cross without the crown, "martyrs of thepang, without the palm. " The sins of their parents are visited on themfrom their birth, in scrofula, blindness, consumption. "Disease andsuffering, " in Dickens's words, "preside over their birth, rock theirwretched cradles, nail down their little coffins, and fill their unknowngraves. " More than one-half of the inmates of our Great Ormond StreetHospital for Sick Children are sent there by vice. But would to God itwere only innocent suffering that is inflicted on the children of ourland. Alas! alas! when I first began my work, a ward in a large Londonpenitentiary, I found, was set apart for degraded children! Or take thatone brief appalling statement in the record of ten years of work--1884to 1894--issued by a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. In the classification of the various victims it is stated that thesociety had dealt with 4460 pitiable child victims of debauchery! Alasfor our England, and the debasement which a low moral standard for menhas made possible in our midst! And, judging by the absence of properlegal protection and the extraordinarily low age of consent adopted bysome of the States of the Union, I fear things are not much better inAmerica. 

One of our sweetest poets, Charles Tennyson Turner, in an exquisitesonnet on a three-year-old child being presented with a toy globe, hasportrayed the consecration of a child's innocence, bathing the worlditself in its baptismal dew:

 "She patted all the world; old empires peep'd Between her baby fingers; her soft hand Was welcome at all frontiers. "

And when at length they turn "her sweet unlearned eye" "on our ownisle, " she utters a little joyous cry:

 "Oh yes, I see it! Letty's home is there! And while she hid all England with a kiss, Bright over Europe fell her golden hair. "

By the side of that exquisite picture of the beatitude of a child'sinnocence place the picture of that long procession of desecratedchildren, with no "sweet unlearned eye, " but eyes learned in the worstforms of human wickedness and cruelty; and let any woman say, if she canor dare, that this is a subject on which she is not called to have anyvoice and which she prefers to let alone. Surely our womanhood has notbecome in these last days such a withered and wilted thing that our earshave grown too nice for the cry of these hapless children! As women, weare the natural guardians of the innocence of all children. The divinemotherhood that is at the heart of every woman worthy of the name "risesup in wrath" within us and cries: "We _will_ fulfil our trust, not onlyto our own children, but to the helpless children of the poor. " The dayis at hand when every mother of boys will silently vow before God tosend at least one knight of God into the world to fight an evil beforewhich even a child's innocence is not sacred and which tramples underits swine's feet the weak and the helpless. 

Indeed, when one reflects that this great moral problem touches all thegreat trusts of our womanhood, the sanctity of the family, the purity ofthe home, the sacredness of marriage, the sweet innocence of children, it seems like some evil dream that women can ever have asked, "Whycannot I leave this matter to men? Why should I interfere?"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Dr. Carpenter does not hesitate to attribute this sharp dipin the male line of life to the indulgence of the passions in youth, andthe subsequent rise to marriage and a more regular life. ]

[Footnote 2: _Pendennis_, vol. I. , p. 16. ]

CHAPTER III

FIRST PRINCIPLES

"But what can we do?" will be the next question, uttered perhaps in theforlorn accents of a latent despair. 

Before answering this question in detail, I would endeavor to impresstwo cardinal points upon you. 

The first point I want you to recognize, though it may seem to ministerto the very hopelessness which most lames and cripples for effectiveaction, is the depth and magnitude of the problem we have to grapplewith. All other great social evils, with the possible exception of greedor covetousness, which in Scripture is often classed with impurity, maybe looked upon as more or less diseases of the extremities. But the evilwhich we are now considering is no disease of the extremities, but adisease at the very heart of our life, attacking all the great bases onwhich it rests. It is not only the negation of the sanctity of thefamily and the destroyer of the purity of the home, as I have alreadypointed out, but it is also the derider of the sacredness of theindividual, the slow but sure disintegrator of the body politic, thedry-rot of nations, before which the mightiest empires have crumbledinto dust. The lagoons of Venice mirror it in the departed grandeur ofher palaces, overthrown by the licentiousness of her merchant princes. The mute sands that silt up the ruins of old empires are eloquent of it. The most brilliant civilization the world has even seen through itbecame the most transitory. Even the vast and massive structure of theRoman Empire, undermined by moral corruption, vanished before barbarianhordes like the baseless fabric of a dream. To think that we can solve aproblem of this depth and magnitude by any mere external means--as somany good and earnest women seem to imagine--by any multiplication ofRescue Societies, Preventive Institutions, and other benevolentorganizations--is to think that we can plug up a volcano with sticks andstraws. The remedy, like the evil, must be from within, and must to agreat degree revolutionize our life. 

My second cardinal point is, that the first step we have to take, thestep which must precede all others, if anything is to be of the leastavail, must be to restore the moral law and get rid of the doublestandard. I know well how much has been said and written on this point;it has been insisted on possibly _ad nauseam_. But even now I do notthink we fully realize how completely we have been in the grasp of a"tradition of the elders, " which has emphatically "made the law of Godof none effect. " Side by side with the ethics of Christianity havegrown up the bastard ethics of society, widely divergent from the truemoral order. Man has accepted the obligation of purity so far as itsubserves his own selfish interests and enables him to be sure of hisown paternity and safeguard the laws of inheritance. The precepts whichwere primarily addressed to the man, as the very form of the Greek wordsdemonstrate, were tacitly transferred to the woman. When, in a standarddictionary of the English language, I look out the word "virtue, " whichetymologically means "manliness"--the manliness which would scorn togratify its own selfish passions at the cost of the young, the poor, andthe weak, at the cost of a _woman_--I find one of its meanings defined, not as male but as "female chastity. " Long ago I suggested that asmanliness thus goes by default, the word had better be changed fromvirtue to "muliertue. "

In a passage in one of our standard school-books, Green's _Short Historyof the English People_, the historian, alluding to the coarseness of theearly Elizabethan drama, remarks that "there were no female actors, andthe grossness which startles us in words which fall from a woman's lipstook a different color when every woman's part was acted by a boy. "[3]Why, in the name of all moral sense, should it be less dreadful thatgross and obscene passages should be uttered at a public spectacle byyoung and unformed boys than by adult women, who at least would havethe safeguard of mature knowledge and instincts to teach them their fullloathsomeness? Do we really think that boys are born less pure thangirls? Does the mother, when her little son is born, keep the oldiron-moulded flannels, the faded basinette, the dirty feeding-bottle forhim with the passing comment, "Oh, it is only a boy!" Is anything toowhite and fine and pure for his infant limbs, and yet are we to holdthat anything is good enough for his childish soul--even, according toMr. Green, the grossness of the early Elizabethan stage--because he is aboy? But I ask how many readers of that delightful history would so muchas notice this passage, and not, on the contrary, quietly accept itwithout inward note or comment, possessed as we are, often withoutknowing it, by our monstrous double standard?

If we want to see what is the final outcome of this moral code, of thisone-sided and distorted ethic, we have only to turn our eyes to France. On the one hand we have "la jeune fille" in her white Communion robe, kept so pure and ignorant of all evil, that "une sociétéecclésiastique, " I am told, exists for the emendation of history for herbenefit--Divine Providence, as conducting the affairs of men, being fartoo coarse for her pure gaze; and at the other end of the stick we findZola, and a literature intended only for the eyes of men, of whosechastity, according to Renan, "Nature takes no account whatever, "--aliterature which fouls with its vile sewage the very wellsprings of ournature, and which, whatever its artistic merit, I make bold to say is acurse to the civilized world. 

Now, I earnestly protest that while we have this social code, which isin direct violation of the moral law, we may set on foot any number ofRescue Societies, Preventive Agencies, Acts for the Legal Protection ofthe Young, etc. , but all our efforts will be in vain. We are like a manwho should endeavor to construct a perfect system of dynamics on theviolation of Newton's first law of motion. The tacitly acceptednecessity for something short of the moral law for men will--again I sayit--work out with the certainty of a mathematical law a degraded andoutcast class, with its disease, its insanity, its foul contamination ofthe young, its debasement of manhood, its disintegration of the State, its curse to the community. You cannot dodge the moral law; as ProfessorClifford said, "There are no back-stairs to the universe" by which wecan elude the consequences of our wrong, whether of thought or action. If you let in one evil premise by the back-door, be sure Sin and Deathwill come out at the front. 

Here, then, you must take a firm and watchful stand. As the mothers ofthe future generation of men, you must look upon it as yourdivinely-appointed task to bring back the moral law in its entirety, the one standard equally binding on men and women alike. Whatever yourcreed, you have got to hold fast to this great truth, which life itselfforces upon you, and which is a truth of Christian ethics because firstof all it is a truth of life. It is simply a moral Q. E. D. , that ifchastity is a law for women--and no man would deny that--it is a law forevery woman without exception; and if it is a law for every woman, itfollows necessarily that it must be for every man, unless we are goingto indulge in the moral turpitude of accepting a pariah class of womenmade up of other women's daughters and other women's sisters--not ourown, God forbid that they should be our own!--set apart for the vices ofmen. 

But perhaps, looking at our complicated civilization, which, at least inthe upper classes, involves, as a rule, the deferring ofmarriage--looking at the strength of the passions which generations ofindulgence have evolved beyond their natural limits, some women willfeel constrained to ask, "Is this standard a possible one? Can men keeptheir health and strength as celibates? Is not my husband right when hesays that this is a subject we women can know nothing about, and thathere we must bow to the judgment of men?"

I answer that a mother must know by what standard she is to educate herboy, and therefore must have the data supplied to her on which to formher own judgment, and be fully persuaded in her own mind what she is toaim at in the training she is to give him; and the mere fact that thecurrent judgment of men involves the sacrifice in body and soul of alarge class of our fellow-women lays a paramount obligation upon allwomen to search for themselves into the truth and scientific accuracy ofthe premises on which that judgment is based. 

"Can men keep their health and strength as celibates till such time asthey have the means to marry?" is the question we have, then, to face. Is the standard of the moral law possible to men who have to maintain ahigh level of physical efficiency in the sharp competition of modernlife?

Primarily, the answer to this question must come from the acknowledgedheads of the medical profession. Now, I am thankful to say, we have inEngland a consensus of opinion from the representative men of thefaculty that no one can gainsay. Sir James Paget, Acton in his greattext-book, Sir Andrew Clark, Sir George Humphrey, of Cambridge, Professor Millar, of the Edinburgh University, Sir William Gowers, F. R. S. , have all answered the above question in the strongestaffirmative. "Chastity does no harm to body or mind; its discipline isexcellent; marriage may safely be waited for, " are Sir James Paget'sterse and emphatic words[4]. Still more emphatic are the words of SirWilliam Gowers, the great men's specialist, who counts as an authorityon the Continent as well as here:

 "The opinions which on grounds falsely called 'physiological' suggest or permit unchastity are terribly prevalent among young men, but they are absolutely false. With all the force of any knowledge I possess, and any authority I have, I assert that this belief is contrary to fact; I assert that no man ever yet was in the slightest degree or way the worse for continence or better for incontinence. From incontinence during unmarried life all are worse morally; a clear majority, are, in the end, worse physically; and in no small number the result is, and ever will be, utter physical shipwreck on one of the many rocks, sharp, jagged-edged, which beset the way, or on one of the banks of festering slime which no care can possibly avoid. They are rocks which tear and rend the unhappy being who is driven against them when he has yielded to the tide of passion, they are banks which exhale a poison for which, no true antidote exists. "

In face of such testimony as this, well might Mr. George Russell, in anaddress to young men, speak of "this exploded lie which has hitherto ledso many astray. "

Turning now from knowledge to fact, we have only to look at the Frenchclergy to see that even in the extreme case of life-long celibacy it isnot injurious to health. I know, in taking this case, I am gratingsomewhat harshly against Protestant prejudice. But the testimony thatRenan bears on this point is irrefutable. Himself a renegade priest, hecertainly would not have hesitated to expose the Order to which he hadonce belonged, and vindicate his broken vows by the revelation of anymoral rottenness known within the walls of its seminaries. Far fromthis, he bears the most emphatic testimony in his autobiography thatthere is enough virtue in St. Sulpice alone to convert the world; andowns so strong was the impress made on his own soul by his training as apriest that personally he had lived a pure life, "although, " he adds, with an easy shrug of his shoulders, "it is very possible that thelibertine has the best of it!" Another renegade priest, also eminent inliterature, bears exactly the same testimony. Indeed, when we rememberthe argus-eyed hatred with which the French priesthood is watched by theanti-clerical party, and the few scandals that appear in the publicprints only too anxious to give publicity to them, this unimpeachabletestimony is borne out by fact. I believe this testimony to be equallytrue of the English and Irish Roman Catholic clergy. Yet few woulddispute the vigor of the physique of the Roman Catholic priests, ortheir capacity for hard and often exhausting work. 

Let me, however, guard myself from misapprehension. That a celibatelife, combined with rich feeding, French novels, and low thinking, doesproduce a great deal of physical harm goes almost without saying. Nature, like her Lord, requires truth in the inward parts, and takes butsmall care of outward respectabilities that are but the whitewashedgraves of inward foulness. Surely Lowell is right when he says, "I holdunchastity of mind to be worse than that of body. " To live theunmarried life one must, of course, fulfil its conditions of plainliving and clean thinking. 

It is almost with a feeling of shame that I have dwelt at some length onthe point we have been considering; but all through my ten years of workthe sunken rock on which I was always making shipwreck was the necessityof the evil--often openly avowed by men, but haunting even the minds ofwomen like a shadow--a shadow which gained solidity and substance from asense of their helpless ignorance. I have even met with Christian womenwho have serenely averred to my face that they have been told, onauthority that they could not question, that, were it not for theexistence of an outcast class, no respectable woman would be safe and wecould not insure the purity of the home! So low had the moralconsciousness fallen, through ignorance and thoughtless acceptance ofthe masculine code, that women calling themselves Christians could befound who seemed wholly unconscious of the deep inner debasement ofaccepting the degradation of other women as a safeguard to our ownvirtue and of basing the purity of the Christian home on the ruinedbodies and souls of the children of the poor. Truly the dark places ofthe world within, as well as of the world without, are full of cruelty!

What can I do, in the face of such an experience as this, but humbly andearnestly beseech the women of England and America not to play fast andloose with the moral sense within them--- which is God's voice withinus--but to hold fast to the moral law, one, equal, and indivisible, formen and women alike; and to know and feel sure that, whatever else isbound up with the nature of man or with an advancing civilization, thehopeless degradation of woman is not that something. It is God who hasmade us--not we ourselves, with our false codes, false notions, andfalse necessities; and God has made the man to love the woman and givehimself for her, not to degrade her and destroy the very function forwhich she was made the blessed "mother of all living. "

Only be sure of this: that men will rise to the level of any standardthat we set them. For the present standard of what Sainte Beuve calls"l'homme sensuel moyen, " which we have accepted and tacitly endorsed, wewomen are largely to blame. In my conferences with the clergy andearnest laity held in all our large towns it was always this that menspoke of as the greatest stumbling-block in their way. With the utmostbitterness they would urge that men of known fast life were admittedinto society, that women seemed to prefer them rather than not; and itseemed to make no difference to them what kind of life a manled--whether he reverenced their womanhood or not. How could I deny thisbitter accusation in the face of facts? All I could urge in extenuationwas that I believed it was due rather to the ignorance than to theindifference of women, owing to the whole of this dark side of lifehaving been carefully veiled from their view; but now that thisignorance was passing away, I was only one of hundreds of women who asknothing better than to lay down their lives in the cause of their ownwomanhood. Only when women learn to respect themselves; only when nowoman worthy the name will receive into her own drawing-room in friendlyintercourse with her own girls the man who has done his best to make herwomanhood a vile and desecrated thing; only when no mother worthy thename will, for the sake of wealth or position, --what is called "a goodmatch, "--give her pure girl to a man on the very common conditions, asthings have been, that some other ten or twenty young girls--some poormothers' daughters--have been degraded and cast aside into the gutter, that she, the twenty-first in this honorable harem, may be held inapparent honor as a wife; only when no woman worthy the name will marryunder the conditions portrayed by our great novelist, GeorgeEliot, --that of another woman being basely forsaken for her sake--then, and then only, will this reproach that men level at us drop off; then, and then only, shall we be able to save our own sons and bring in abetter and purer state of things, enabling them to fight the battle oftheir life at less tremendous odds; then, and then only, shall we beable to evolve the true manhood, whose attitude is not to defile anddestroy, but "to look up and to lift up. "

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: _Short History of the English People_, by J. R. Green, p. 247. ]

[Footnote 4: See a little White Cross paper entitled, _MedicalTestimony_. ]

CHAPTER IV

THE SECRET AND METHOD

There is a simile of Herbert Spencer's, in his book on Sociology, whichhas often helped me in dealing with great moral problems. He says:

 "You see that wrought-iron plate is not quite flat; it sticks up a little here towards the left, 'cockles, ' as we say. How shall we flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent. Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke. Well, there is one, and another, and another. The prominence remains, you see; the evil is as great as ever, greater, indeed. But this is not all. Look at the warp which the plate has got near the opposite edge. Where it was flat before it is now curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it! Instead of curing the original defect, we have produced a second. Had we asked an artisan practised in 'planishing, ' as it is called, he would have told us that no good was to be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting part. He would have taught us how to give variously directed and specially adjusted blows with a hammer elsewhere, so attacking the evil not by direct but by indirect actions. The required process is less simple than you thought. Even a sheet of metal is not to be successfully dealt with after those common-sense methods in which you have so much confidence. 'Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?' asked Hamlet. Is humanity more readily straightened than an iron plate?"[5]

Now, in our moral "planishing" we need to know where and how to directour blows, lest in endeavoring to lessen the evil we not only increasethe evil itself, but produce other evils almost as great as the one weintended to cure. The mistake that we commit--and this is, I think, especially true of us women--is to rush at our moral problems withoutgiving a moment's thought to their causes, which often lie deep hiddenin human nature. Our great naturalist, Darwin, gave eight years' studyto our lowly brother, the barnacle; he gave an almost equal amount oftime to the study of the earthworm and its functions, revealing to us, in one of his most charming books, how much of our golden harvest, ofour pastures, and our jewelled garden-beds, we owe to this silent andpatient laborer. Yet we think that we can deal with our higher and morecomplex human nature without giving it any study at all. We hit downdirectly on its moral inequalities, without giving a thought to what hascaused the imperfection, when constantly, as in the sheet of metal whichhas to be straightened, the moral disorder has to be met, not directly, but indirectly--not at the point of the disorder itself, but of itsoften unsuspected cause. Purity, like health, like happiness, like somany of the higher aims of our life, has to be attained altruistically. Seek them too directly, and they elude our grasp. Like the oarsman, wehave often to turn our back upon our destination in order to arrive atour end. 

Do not, therefore, think impatiently that I am putting you off withvague theories when you want practical suggestions, if I ask you firstto give some patient thought to the causes of the disorder which seemsto mark the side of our human nature on which the very existence of therace depends, and which cannot, therefore, be evil in itself. To me theproblem presented was almost paralyzing. It seemed as if Nature, in heranxiety to secure the continuance of the species, had taken no accountwhatever of the moral law, but had so overloaded the strength of passionas not only to secure the defeat of the moral law, but even of her ownends, by producing the sterility which results from vicious indulgence. It was not till I met with two wonderful sermons on "The Kingdom ofGod, " by that great master of "divine philosophy, " Dr. James Martineau, that I first got a clue to the moral difficulty and to that fullerunderstanding of our human nature which is so essential to all who havethe training and moulding of the young. And, therefore, I ask you to letme enter at some length into this teaching, which will not only give uslight for our own guidance, but enable us to grasp the right principleson which we have to act in the moral training of the cominggeneration. [6]

Now, in trying to think out the laws of our own being, we are met atthe very outset by the great crux in the moral world: What is the truerelation of the material to the spiritual, --of the body, with itsinstincts and appetites, to the moral personality, with its conscienceand will? On the one hand, seeing the fatal proneness of man to obey hisappetites and run into terrible excesses, ascetics in all ages and ofall creeds have taught that the body itself is evil and the seat of sin;that its instincts must be crushed and its appetites repressed anderadicated; and that it is only so far as you trample your animal natureunder foot that you can rise to be a saint. "Brute, " "blind, " "dead, "have been the epithets bestowed on matter, which is a ceaseless play ofliving forces that rest not day nor night. To look down on the materialpleasures with suspicion, to fly contact with the rude world and loseone's self in the unembodied splendors of the spiritual, to save soulsrather than men and women, to preach abstract doctrines rather thangrapple with hideous concrete problems--this has been the tendency ofthe religious spirit in all ages, a tendency of which positiveasceticism, with its mortification of the body, and its ideal ofvirginity, and marriage regarded as more or less a concession to theflesh, is only an exaggeration. 

On the other hand, in disgust at the mutilation of human nature andunder pretext of its consummation, has arisen the "fleshly school, "whose maxim is "obedience to Nature, "--leaving undefined what nature, the nature of the swine or the nature of the man, --which holds thatevery natural instinct ought to be obeyed, which takes the agreeable asthe test of the right, and which goes in for the "healthy animal" withenlightened self-interest as the safeguard against excesses. 

Alas! the results are no happier. The healthy animal treads under hisfeet the helpless and the weak, who suffer that he may grow fat andkick. The attractive warmth and color and richness are found to be butrottenness and decay. 

When, dissatisfied with the teaching of men, one turns to the greatworld at large, to see whether some practical instinct may not haveguided men to a right adjustment, one's first feeling is one of dismayat the spectacle presented. The bodily instincts and appetites that seemto work aright in the animal world, in man seem fatally overloaded, and, instead of hitting the mark, explode with disaster and death at theoutset. 

Let us now turn to the teaching of Christ, and see whether it does notexplain the deep disorder of the animal instincts in the world of man, and while saving us on the one hand from the self-mutilation ofasceticism, and from the swinishness of the fleshly school on theother, whether it does not embrace the truth that is in both and teachus how to correlate the material and the spiritual. 

Now, Dr. Martineau points out that Christ teaches, in contradistinctionto asceticism, that the animal body, with its instincts and appetites, is as good on its own plane as the higher and spiritual attributes ofman are on theirs. Our Father knoweth that, in common with othercreatures, we have need of physical good, and He has provided us with aself-acting mechanism for its attainment, which will work rightly ifonly it is left alone and not tampered with. There is the sameprovision in us as in them of unconscious instincts and appetites forcarrying on the lower life which is necessary as the platform of thehigher spiritual being, to set it free, as it were, for the pursuit ofits legitimate ends--all those higher and wider interests in life whichare comprised under the one comprehensive name of "the kingdom of God. "And the teaching of Christ is: Neither hate nor fear this part of yournature with the ascetic, nor pamper and stimulate it with the Hedonist, but let it alone to act on its own plane; trust it, trust God who madeit, while you throw all your conscious energies into the higherconcerns of life; and you will find, when left to its own unconsciousactivity, it is neither an over-nor an under-provision for carrying onyour subsistence and that of the race. "Take no anxious thought[(Greek: me merimnesete)] for the morrow. " "Your Father knoweth that yehave need of these things, " and has arranged your being accordingly. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be addedto you. " "Behold the birds of the air; your heavenly Father feedeththem. "

"Oh, " says the practical man at once, "that is all very fine assentiment; it is very Eastern and poetical; but I should like to knowhow, in these overcrowded days, I could support myself and family if Iam to trust God to feed me and them like the birds of the air, and onlythink about religion. " But is not this wholly to misunderstand ourLord's teaching? How does God feed the birds of the air? Is it not byincessant and untiring effort on their part? Those who have watched apair of birds flying backwards and forwards to the nest under the eavemay well question whether industry can go further. But in theunconscious being of a bird it is toil without [Greek: merimna], without thought and worry, and becomes, therefore, the very picture tous of trust in a higher Power, who has thus adjusted an unerringinstinct to an unfailing end. The insect and the bird provide for themorrow, while they take no anxious thought for the morrow. "The agilitywhich achieves it is theirs, the skill and foresight absent from themremain with God. And thus the simple life of lower natures, in itsunconscious surrender to involuntary though internal guidance, becomesthe negative type of perfect trust. "[7]

But to leave his instincts and appetites to work, unimpeded andunconscious, on their own plane, while he concerns himself with mattersof truly human interest, is just what man is not content to do. On thecontrary, he takes his higher and spiritual nature down into them. Heenhances their pleasure with all the powers of his imagination; he setshis intellect to work to plot and plan for their gratification; he loadsthem with the whole force of his spiritual will, and in so doing heoverloads and maddens them. The instinct for food and drink, which inthe animal is sufficient for the maintenance of health and activity, inthe man becomes gluttony and drunkenness; the instinct for thepreservation of the race becomes the licentiousness which producessterility and defeats its own ends; the instinct of self-maintenancebecomes the feverish greed and money-getting which leave no room for thehigher life of beauty, and science, and worship, and disinterestedservice. "Seek ye first the material, " says the world, "and all thesethings shall be added unto you when you get the time for them"--whichwill be probably never. 

Now, then, do we not begin to see why the animal instincts andappetites, which make for order and happiness, and fufil their end inthe animal world, lead to such intolerable disorder in the world ofman? Their laws, like all other laws in the Divine economy, are holy andjust and good; but man by not observing their conditions makes them workevil and death. Do you not see that to be a healthy animal is just whatman cannot be except by being a true and high-minded man, all hisconscious energies taken up and absorbed on a higher plane, with noneleft over to filter down into and disorder the animal instincts, whichonly work aright when left to their own unconscious activity? Fix yourconsciousness long enough on the tip of your little finger, and you willfeel a pricking sensation in it. The mind directed intently to any partof the frame will produce a flow of blood there. Any physician will tellyou that this is one of the greatest difficulties he has to contend within his patients; the mind being steadily directed to some disorderedspot increases the congestion which is the result of disease. 

Unconsciousness, therefore, is the very channel in which our animalnature works healthily and undisturbed according to its own laws. Butyou are a self-conscious being, and not as the animals. God keeps thekeys of their nature in His own hands. They are shut up to certain endswhich are in His purpose rather than in their minds. They are lockedwithin limits of their nature, which are absolute, and cannot, therefore, be transgressed. But man, in virtue of his self-consciousness, is emphatically "he who hath the keys, who openeth and no manshutteth, and who shutteth and no man openeth. " All the secret recessesof your being lie open to you, and no man can close it to your vision. You can voluntarily shut the door of salvation and hamper the lock, andno man can open. A limit is no absolute limit to you because your veryconsciousness of the limit involves your consciousness of the beyondwhich makes it a limit. And therefore to you as a self-knowingexistence, with your being necessarily surrendered into your own hands, two faculties have been given as a substitute for the unconsciousnecessity of an animal nature: First, a self-judging faculty which wecall conscience, or a power of discerning between a lower and a higher, and a sense of obligation to the higher which enables you to correlateyour faculties and functions in their true order of relativeexcellence; and secondly, a spiritual will, capable of carrying thedecisions of conscience into practical execution and attaining to anecessity of moral law. The true function of man's will is not, therefore, to add itself on to any one of his instincts and give it adisordered strength, but, while throwing its chief conscious energiesinto the higher interests of life, to rule his instincts and appetitesaccording to those higher interests. This, when the condition of thatinfinitely complex thing, modern civilized life, interferes, as attimes it must do, with the legitimate exercise of his instincts, andhis good has to be subordinated to the good of the greater number, mayoccasionally involve a hard struggle, even when the instincts have beenleft to their own healthy natural play; but at least it will be all thedifference between a struggle with a spirited animal and a maddened andinfuriated brute. 

"But, " asks Dr. Martineau, "if the animal instincts and appetites are tobe directed by conscience and ruled by the will in accordance with thedictates of conscience, what becomes of the unconsciousness which isnecessary for their right action? Its place is gradually supplied byhabit, which is the unconsciousness of a self-conscious being. " Thehabit of plain living and spare food, so necessary to high thinking, atfirst acquired possibly by real effort of will, by real fasting andprayer, becomes a second nature, that sets the will free for higherconquests. The habit of purity, which at first may have resulted onlyfrom a sleepless watch of the will in directing the thoughts andimagination into safe channels, becomes an instinctive recoil from theleast touch of defilement. The habit of unworldly simplicity, which mayhave had to be induced by deliberate self-denial, becomes a naturaldisposition which rejects superfluities from unconscious choice. 

This is what takes place where direct conflict is necessitated by theconstant readjustment of the individual, with his instincts andappetites, to his social environment which so complex a state of societyas that of modern civilization involves. But under ordinarycircumstances, where the teaching of Christ is observed and all theconscious energies of the man are absorbed in seeking first the kingdomof God, there the need of conflict on the lower plane is at leastpartially done away with. The whole current of thought and will, flowinginto higher channels, is drained away from the lower instincts andappetites, which are thus restored to their natural unconsciousness, with only an occasional interference on the part of the will tosubordinate them to human ends and aims, or to those demands of a highand complex civilization in the benefits of which we all share, but forwhose fuller and richer life we have in some directions to pay, andperhaps at times to pay heavily. The scientific man who in hispassionate devotion to the search after truth--the kingdom of God asrevealed in the order of the universe--exclaimed testily that he had notime to waste in making money, had no conflict with the instinct ofself-subsistence maddened into greed. It worked out a sufficientquotient of bread and cheese to insure the healthy exercise of hisbrain, and that was enough. The Alpine climber, intent on mastering aprintless snow-peak, has not to control an appetite sharpened bymountain air from sinking into the gluttony which would be fatal to thecool head and steady foot necessary for his enterprise. The man who hasa noble passion for the weak and defenceless, who from the first hascultivated a chivalrous loyalty to women, putting far from him thelowering talk, the cynical expression, the moral lassitude of society, and guarding his high enthusiasm from the blight of worldly commonplace, has no need to fight against the lower instinct that would degrade themor wrong the weak and defenceless. The conflict is there, but it isremoved to a nobler and higher battle-field, a battle against thesacrifice of the weak by the strong, whilst in him the lower life may beleft to settle itself, as in the unconscious birds of the air. "LoveGod, " as St. Augustine said, "and do what you will. " "Be a child of thewater, and you may be a child of the wind, blowing where it listeth. ""Seek the kingdom of God first, and all these things shall be added toyou. "

This, then, is the first great practical lesson that we learn from thestudy of the laws of our human nature, taken in their widest aspect, under the teaching of the Divine Master, the "open secret" of overcomingin man and woman alike, that which restores to us our whole nature, andvindicates it, even in the depths of disorder into which it haspractically fallen, as originally bearing the Divine stamp. The moreunconscious we are in the pursuit of physical good, the better for theends of life; the more conscious we are in the pursuit of moral andspiritual good, the nearer we are to that kingdom of righteousness andpeace and joy in the Holy Ghost which we seek. Get out of the narrowindividualism or atomism--for let us never forget that individual andatom are the same word--which threatens to dwarf and pulverize us, whichkeeps within our view only the narrow range of our own interests anddefeats their true pursuit by the very intensity of attention itconcentrates upon them; and live, as Goethe says, "in the beautiful, thegood, and the whole, " the kingdom of the Eternal. Have the higherpassion that casts out the lower. The physician whose conscious aim isthe relief of human suffering and the enforcement of the laws of health, even though a large professional income may be added to him; the lawyerwho regards himself as the minister of the Just One to uphold the law ofright and equity, whose reputation does not rest on his skill in gettingoff a fraudulent company without costs, and who makes his money not byhis "practices, " but by his honest practice; the man of science whoreverently devotes himself, as the servant of the truth, to "think God'sthoughts after Him, " in the words of Kepler's prayer, and establish thekingdom of law and order, in the humbleness of conscious limitationwhich forbids dogmatizing; the artist who is true to his art and doesnot subordinate the laws of the eternal Loveliness to the shifting lawsof the temporary market; the capitalist who looks upon himself as thesteward of the public good, and to whom material gain is the means andnot the end; the workman who does good work for the kingdom of God'ssake, knowing that every stroke of good work is a brick in the palaceof the great King, and who scorns to scamp because it pays; and, generally speaking, every man who is so intent on helping and servingothers that his thoughts are taken off himself and centred onanother--these are the men who are seeking first a kingdom of God, wherein dwelleth righteousness; these are the men who, living in thehigher life can rule the lower--the men whose feet are in the lilies, and to whom the floods of earthly passion, even when they beat hardest, end in the flight of a dove and in a triumphal arch of light. 

Now, you will see at once the intensely practical bearing of thisteaching on the training of your boys. You are not called to hit downdirectly on the evil, to give warnings against vice, or to speak onthings which your womanhood unspeakably shrinks from mentioning. Whatyou are called to do is to secure, so far as you can, that the mind andsoul moves on its own proper plane. It is more an attitude you have toform than a warning you have to give. And here it is that the imperativeneed of high positive teaching comes in. Till parents, and especiallymothers, recognize their God-given functions as the moral teachers oftheir own children, till they cease to shunt off their responsibilitieson the professional shoulders of the schoolmaster, we had better franklygive up the whole question in despair. Strange and sad it seems to methat at the end of the nineteenth century after the coming of our LordI should have to plead that the moral law is possible under everycondition to any man, and that parents are _ipso facto_ the moralteachers of their own children. And yet it is the denial, tacit orexplicit, of these two primary truths that has been the greatestobstacle to the progress of my work. 

But I appeal to you: Who but a mother can bring such a constant andpotent influence to bear as to secure the mind and character moving onits own higher plane in relation to the whole of this side of ournature? Who so well as a mother can teach the sacredness of the body asthe temple of the Eternal? Who else can implant in her son that habitualreverence for womanhood which to a man is "as fountains of sweet waterin the bitter sea" of life? Who like a mother, as he grows to years ofsense and observation, and the curiosity is kindled, which is only a cryfor light and teaching, can so answer the cry and so teach as to makethe mysteries of life and truth to be for ever associated for him withall the sacred associations of home and his own mother, and not with thetalk of the groom or the dirty-minded schoolboy? Who so well as amother, as he passes into dawning manhood, can plead faithfulness to thefuture wife before marriage as well as after? Nay, as I hold by the oldSpanish proverb "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy, " wholike a mother, by her prayers and ever-present example and influence, can lead him to the Highest, and impress upon him that his life isgiven him for no lower end than, in the words of the WestminsterConfession, "to know God and to glorify Him for ever"; and thattherefore he is made on a very high plan--as Browning puts it, "Heaven'sconsummate cup, " whose end is to slake "the Master's thirst"; and thatthe cup from which He drinks must be clean inside as well as out, andstudded within and without with the pearl of purity?

But refuse to give him this higher teaching and training; go on, as somany mothers have done, blankly ignoring the whole subject, because itis so difficult to speak to one's boys, --as if everything worth havingin this life were not difficult!--leave him to the teaching of dirtygossip, of unclean classical allusions in his school-books, of scraps ofnewspaper intelligence, possibly of bad companions whom he may pick upat school or business, and be sure of it, as this side of his nature isawakened--in his search after gratified curiosity or pleasurablesensation, in utter ignorance of what he is doing, through your fault, not through his--he will use his imagination and his will to strengthenthe animal instincts. What ought to have been kept on a higher plane ofbeing will be used to stimulate functions just coming into existence, and pre-eminently needing to be let alone on their own plane to maturequietly and unconsciously. Thus dwelt upon and stimulated, thesefunctions become in a measure disordered and a source of miserabletemptation and difficulty, even if no actual wrong-doing results. If youonly knew what those struggles are, if you only knew what miserablechains are forged in utter helpless ignorance, you would not let anysense of difficulty or shrinking timidity make you refuse to give yourboy the higher teaching which would have saved him. 

It is told of the beautiful Countess of Dufferin, by her son andbiographer, Lord Dufferin, that when the surgeons were consulting roundher bedside which they should save--the mother or the child--sheexclaimed, "Oh, never mind me; save my baby!" If you knew the facts as Iknow them, I am quite sure you would exclaim, in the face of anydifficulties, any natural shrinking on your part, "Oh, never mind me, let me save my boys!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: _The Study of Sociology_, by Herbert Spencer (InternationalScientific Series), p. 270, fifth edition, 1876. ]

[Footnote 6: I quote here at some length from a White Cross paper called_Per Augusta ad Augusta_, in which I summarized and applied Dr. Martineau's teaching, as I do not think I can do it more clearly or inmore condensed form. By some mistake it came out, not under my name, butunder the initials of the writer of _True Manliness_ and several othersof the White Cross Series. I only mention the mistake now to safeguardmy own intellectual honesty. ]

[Footnote 7: _Hours of Thought_, by Dr. Martineau, vol. I. , p. 35, thirdedition. ]

CHAPTER V

EARLY BOYHOOD

Having now laid down the general principles which we have to recognizein the moral training of the young, let me endeavor to make somepractical suggestions how these principles may be carried out, suggestions which, as a matter of fact, I have found to be helpful toeducated mothers in the great and responsible task of training the menof the future generation. 

All I would earnestly ask you to remember is, that in offering thesesuggestions I am in no way venturing to dictate to you, only endeavoringto place a wide experience at your service. Doubtless you will oftenmodify and, in some cases, very possibly reverse my conclusions. All Iask is that you should weigh them thoughtfully and prayerfully and withan open and unprejudiced mind before you finally reject them. 

Let us, therefore, begin with the nursery. It is in the nursery that theroots of the evil we have to contend with are often first planted, andthis in more senses than one. In the more obvious sense all experiencedmothers know what I mean. But I am quite sure that there are a largenumber of young wives who become mothers without the smallest knowledgeof the dangers to which even infant boys may be exposed. This ignoranceis painfully shown by the frequent application for nursemaids from ourpenitentiaries. At one house where I held a small meeting my younghostess, an intelligent literary woman, came into my room after thehousehold had retired to rest to ask me about some curious actions whichshe had noticed in her baby boy at night. There could not be a doubt ora question that her nurse was corrupting her little child before thathapless young mother's eyes, and forming in him habits which could onlylead to misery hereafter, and only too possibly to idiocy and death; andthat young mother was too ignorant to save her own baby boy! Indeed, Iknow of no greater instance of the cruelty of "the conspiracy ofsilence" than the fact that in all the orthodox medical manuals foryoung mothers the necessary knowledge is withheld. [8] But moremarvellous still is the fact that women should ever have placidlyconsented to an ignorance which makes it impossible for them to saveeven baby boys from a corrupt nursemaid, who by some evil chance mayhave found her way into their service through a false character or undersome other specious disguise, not seeing at once that the so-calleddelicacy which shrinks from knowing everything that is necessary inorder to save is not purity but prurience. 

I would, therefore, beseech young mothers who are conscious of their ownignorance to see a lady doctor, if they do not like to consult their ownfamily physician, and ask her to tell them plainly what they have toguard against and the best methods to pursue. All I can say here is tobeseech every mother to be absolutely careful about the antecedents ofher nursemaids, and only to admit those of unblemished character intothe precincts of the nursery. Never, if possible, let your baby boysleep with any one but yourself, if through illness or any other causehe cannot sleep in his own little cot. Pyjamas, I think, are generallyrecognized now to be the best form of night gear, as keeping the littlelimbs warm and covered, when in the restlessness of sleep the childthrows off the bedclothes, as well as for other and more vital reasons. If through straitened means you cannot afford an experienced nurse--notthat I should altogether allow that even the experienced nurse is to beimplicitly and blindly trusted until she has been well tested--then Iwould entreat you not to let sleepiness or ill health or any otherexcuse prevent you from being always present at your boy's morning bath. Often and often evil habits arise from imperfect washing and consequentirritation; and many a wise mother thinks it best on this account torevert to the old Jewish rite of initiation by which cleanliness wassecured. Teach them from the first self-reverence in touch, as in wordand deed, and watch even their attitudes in sleep, that the little armsare folded lightly upwards. Even experienced nurses are not always nicein their ways. Be vigilantly watchful that the utmost niceness isobserved between the boys and girls in the nursery, and that childishmodesty is never broken down, but, on the contrary, nurtured andtrained. Knowledge and watchfulness are the two cherubim with theflaming sword turning all ways to guard the young tree of life and barthe way of every low and creeping thing. If I may venture in some sortto reverse our Lord's words, I should say His word to all mothers is, "What I say unto all I say especially unto you, _Watch_. "

But there is another and a deeper sense in which the root of the evil isfirst planted and nourished in the nursery. If we are to contend withthis deadly peril to soul and body, I cannot but feel that we must bringabout a radical change in the training of our boys. There must be someradical defect in that training for men to take the attitude they do. Ido not mean bad, dissipated men, but men who in all other relations oflife would be designated fairly good men. Once let such a man bepersuaded--however wrongly--that his health, or his prospect of havingsome day a family of his own, will suffer from delayed marriage and heconsiders the question settled. He will sacrifice his health toover-smoking, to excess in athletics, to over-eating or champagnedrinking, to late hours and overwork; but to sacrifice health or futurehappiness to save a woman from degradation, bah! it never so much asenters his mind. Even so high-minded a writer as Mr. Lecky, in his_History of European Morals_, [9] deliberately proposes that thedifficulty of deferred marriage which advanced civilizationnecessitates, at least for the upper classes, should be met by temporaryunions being permitted with a woman of a lower class. The daughters ofworkingmen, according to this writer, are good enough as fleshlystop-gaps, to be flung aside when a sufficient income makes the truewife possible--an honorable proceeding indeed! to say nothing of thechildren of such a temporary union, to whom the father can perform noduty, and leave no inheritance, save the inestimable one of a motherwith a tainted name. Verily there must be some fault in our training ofmen! Certainly an intelligent American mother put her finger on theblot, so far as we are concerned, when, speaking to me many years ago, she said what struck her so in our English homes was the way in whichthe girls were subordinated to the boys; the boys seemed firstconsidered, the girls in comparison were nowhere. Doubtless our Englishhomes are more at fault here than in America; but, as a mother's pridein her boys is the same all over the world, may not even American homesadmit of a little improvement in this respect as well? And, if we chooseto bring up our boys to look upon their mothers and sisters as more orless the devoted slaves of their selfishness, can we wonder that theyshould grow up to look upon all women as more or less the slaves oftheir needs, fleshly or otherwise?

Now, what I want all boys taught from their earliest years is, roughlyspeaking, that boys came into the world to take care of girls. Whatevermodification may take place in our view of the relation of the sexes, Nature's great fact will remain, that the man is the stronger--adifference which civilization and culture seem to strengthen rather thandiminish; and from his earliest years he ought to be taught that he, therefore, is the one that has to serve. It is the strong that have tobear the burden of the weaker, and not to prostitute that strength byusing it to master the weaker into bearing their loads. It is the manwho has to give himself for the woman, not the other way on, as we havemade it. Nay, this is no theory of mine; it is a truth implanted in thevery heart of every true man. "Every true man, " as Milton says, "is borna knight, " diligently as we endeavor to stub up this royal root, constantly, as from the very nursery, we endeavor to train it out ofhim. You may deny the truth and go on some theory of your own in thetraining of your boys, but the truth cannot deny itself. It is _there_, whether you will have it or not, a root of the tree of life itself. 

Now there is not a day that need pass without opportunities of trainingyour boys in this their true knightly attitude. You can see, as I havealready said, that they learn in relation to their own sisters what inafter years they have to practise towards all women alike. To give upthe comfortable easy-chair, the favorite book or toy, the warmest placeby the fire, to the little sister--this ought to become a second natureto a well-trained boy. To carry a parcel for her, to jump up and fetchanything she wants, to give in to her because he is a boy and thestronger--all this ought to be a matter of course. As he grows older youcan place him in little positions of responsibility to his sisters, sending them out on an expedition or to a party under his care. In athousand such ways you can see that your boy is not only born but growsup a knight. I was once in a house where the master always brought upthe heavy evening water-cans and morning coal-scuttles for the maids. And if these were placed at the foot of the stairs so as to involve norunning in and out of the kitchen, it might be no mean exercise for aboy's muscles. 

I was told only the other day of a little six-year-old boy whose motherhad brought him up from babyhood on these principles. He was playingwith his little sister on a bed, when suddenly he perceived that shewas getting perilously near the edge which was farthest from the wall. Instantly he dismounted and went round to the other side, and, climbingup, pushed her gently into the middle of the bed, remarkingsententiously to himself, "I think boys ought always to take thedangerous side of their sisters. " Ah me! if only you mothers would buttrain your boys to "take the dangerous side of their sisters, "especially of those poor little sisters who are thrust forth at so earlyan age to earn their own living, alone and unprotected, on the periloushighways of the world, skirted for them by so terrible a precipice, whata different world would it be for us women, what a purer and betterworld for your sons!

Surely the womanhood in our homes ought to enable us to bring up ourboys in such an habitual attitude of serving a woman, of caring for her, of giving himself for her, that it would become a moral impossibilityfor him ever to lower or degrade a woman in his after-life. 

In concluding these suggestions there is one point I must emphasize, themore so as in treating of one particular moral problem it is difficultnot to seem to ignore a truth which is simply vital to all moraltraining. Let us clearly recognize that there is no such thing as moralspecialism. Our moral being, like Wordsworth's cloud, "moveth altogetherif it move at all. " You cannot strengthen one particular virtue exceptby strengthening the character all round. Cardinal Newman points out--Ithink in one of those wonderful Oxford sermons of his--that what ourancestors would have called "a bosom sin" will often take an undergroundcourse and come to the surface at quite an unexpected point in thecharacter. Hidden licentiousness, which one would expect to evinceitself in over-ripe sentiment and feeling, manifests itself instead incruelty and hardness of heart. The little habit of self-indulgence whichyou in your foolish fondness have allowed in that boy of yours may, inafter-life, come out as the very impurity which you have endeavored soearnestly to guard him against. This mystical interdependence and hiddencorrelation of our moral and intellectual being is a solemn thought, andcan only be met by recognizing that the walls of the citadel must bestrengthened at all points in order to resist the foe at one. Truthfulness, conscientiousness that refuses to scamp work, devotion toduty, temperance in food and drink, rectitude--these things are thebastions of purity of life, as well as of all high character. 

But in these days I think we have more especially to remember that theBeautiful Gate of all noble living rests, like the gate of the JewishTemple, on two pillars, both of which show signs of being considerablyout of repair. One of these pillars is obedience, or discipline. If youhave not exacted prompt and unhesitating obedience in your boy, from hisearliest childhood, to the parents whom he has seen, do you think thatin after years he will obey the Father of Lights, whom he has not seen?Do you think, if you have let him set your authority at defiance, hewill in future years, with temptation on one side and opportunity on theother, bow to the invisible authority of conscience? What is it, I ask, that makes the army the finest school for character, giving us ourLawrences, our Havelocks, our Gordons, our Kitcheners, but simply thishabit of implicit obedience, of that discipline which has grown sogrievously lax in so many of our English homes? In Carlyle's strongwords, "Obedience is our universal duty and destiny, wherein whoso willnot bend must break: too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trainedto know that 'would, ' in this world of ours, is as mere zero to'should, ' and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to'shall. '"[10]

The second great pillar of the portal of noble life seems to me to showstill greater signs of being out of repair and in want of restoration, and that pillar is reverence, --that heaven-eyed quality which Dr. Martineau rightly places at the very top of the ethical scale. Let thatcrumble, and the character which might have been a temple sinks into amere counting-house. When in these days children are allowed to calltheir father Dick, Jack, or Tom, and nickname their own mother; whenthey are allowed to drown the voice of the most honored guest at thetable with their little bald chatter, so that even the cross-questioninggenius of a Socrates would find itself at a discount; when they areallowed to criticise and contradict their elders in a way that wouldhave appalled our grandmothers; when they are suffered to make remarkswhich are anything but reverent on sacred things--have I not some reasonto fear that the one attribute which touches the character to fineissues is threatened with extinction? Do you think that the boy who hasnever been taught to reverence his own mother's womanhood will reverencethe degraded womanhood of our streets, or hear that Divine Voiceguarding all suffering manhood and all helpless womanhood from wrong athis hands, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye havedone it unto Me?"

Oh, I would entreat you to set yourself firmly against this eviltendency of our day, to which I cannot but believe so much of itsagnosticism is due, --that deadening down and stamping out of thespiritual instincts of our nature, those great intuitions of the soul, which lie both above and below all reasoning and logic and form theirbasis rather than their apex. Once let the springs of reverence bechoked up, once let that window of the soul be overgrown with weeds andcobwebs, and your most careful training will only produce a characterestimable in many respects, but for the most part without nobleaspirations, without high ideals, with no great enthusiasms--acharacter, to use Saint Beuve's expressive phrase, "tout en façade surla rue, " whose moral judgments are no better than street cries; the typeof man that accepts the degradation of women with blank alacrity as anecessity of civilization, and would have it regulated, like any othercommodity for the market; that very common type of character which, whatever its good qualities, spreads an atmosphere of blight around it, stunting all upward growing things and flattening down our life to thedead level of desert sands. 

If you would not be satisfied at your boy rising no higher than this, then, again I say, guard the springs of reverence. Do not let your pridein your child's smartness or any momentary sense of humor make you passover any little speech that savors of irreverence; check it instantly. Exact respect for yourself and for the boy's father, the respect whichis no enemy, but the reverse, to the uttermost of fondness. Insist upongood manners and respectful attention to the guests of your house. Donot despise the good old fashion of family prayers because they do notrise to all that we might wish them to be. At least they form a dailyrecognition of "Him in whom the families of the earth are blessed"--adaily recognition which that keen observer of English life, the lateAmerican Ambassador, Mr. Bayard, pointed out as one of the great secretsof England's greatness, and which forms a valuable school for habits ofreverence and discipline for the children of the family. Insist uponthe boys being down in time for the worship of God, and do not allowthem to get into the habit indulged in by so many young men of "sloping"down with slippered feet long after breakfast is done and prayers areover. 

Only let the springs of reverence well up in your child's soul, andthen, and then only, will you be able to give your boy what, after all, must always be the greatest safeguard from shipwreck in this perilousworld--religious faith, that stops him at the very threshold oftemptation with the words: "How can I do this great wickedness and sinagainst God?" Your very attitude as you kneel by his side with bowedhead and folded hands while he says his little evening and morningprayer will breathe into his soul a sense of a Divine Presence about ourbed and about our path. Your love--so strong to love, and yet so weak tosave--can lead his faltering childish feet to that Love which is deeperthan our deepest fall, "which knows all, but loves us better than itknows. " You can press your child against the very heart of God, and layhim in the Everlasting Arms, that faint not, neither are weary; and, with the mother of St. Augustine, you may know that the child of suchprayers and such tears will never perish. 

 "Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall He shall not blind his soul with clay. "

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: This is the case with our recognized medical manuals; I donot know whether it is equally true of American manuals. ]

[Footnote 9: Vol. Ii. See chapter on "The Position of Women. "]

[Footnote 10: _Sartor Resartus_, by Thomas Carlyle, Book II. , chap, ii. , p. 68. Chapman and Hall, 1831. ]

CHAPTER VI

BOYHOOD AND SCHOOL LIFE

I now come to what must always be the great moral crux in a boy's life, that on which all the higher issues of his character will, in all humanprobability, turn--his school life. One of our great educators tookwhat, looked at superficially, seemed the somewhat retrograde step ofgiving up the mastership of a college at Oxford to take again thehead-mastership of a great public school. But in a conversation I hadwith him he led me to infer that he had done so from the convictionforced upon him that the whole moral trend of the character must begiven, if given at all, prior to university life, at the public school;and to him nothing less than the formation of high moral characterseemed worth striving for. Fine scholarship and high mathematics areexcellent, but after all, as the apostle of culture, Matthew Arnold, hastold us, conduct, and not intellectual attainment, forms seven-tenths oflife. 

Now, it is in connection with your boy's school life that you will haveyour greatest dangers to face, your hardest battle to fight. 

I am, of course, aware that your school system is in some respectsdifferent from ours. You have the mixed day school such as largelyobtains in Scotland, but which does not exist, at least for the upperclasses, in England. You have private boarding-schools, which with usare called preparatory schools, as they form the vestibule to the publicschool. And you have, lastly, a few large public schools somewhat on themodel of Eton and Harrow. 

Let us begin with the boarding-school. I do not intend for one moment todeny the advantages of our great English public schools. They areexcellent for discipline and the formation of strong character, especially for a ruling race like ours; and their very numericalstrength and importance command a splendid set of men as masters. Butboth public and private boarding-schools labor under one greatdisadvantage: they remove a boy from all family influence and violatethe order of our life, which can never be violated with impunity. Boysand girls are sent into the world in pretty equal proportions, and wewere never intended to pile a lot of boys together without girls andlargely without any feminine influence whatever. To do so is to insuremoral disorder whether in our schools or yours. To quote from anexcellent paper of Dr. Butler's: "In giving us sisters, " says one of theHares in _Guesses at Truth_, "God gave us the best moral antiseptic, "and it is their absence more than anything else that has produced themoral problems which our boarding-schools present. To be absent fromsisters for the greater part of the year, at an age when theircompanionship is perhaps the most eloquent of silent appeals to purity, is undoubtedly one of the greatest evils to be set against the blessingsof our public schools. [11]

For my own part, I can only say that the one thing which has filled meat times with the darkness of despair has not been the facts about ourback streets, not those facts to meet which we hold conferences andestablish penitentiaries, refuges, preventive homes, etc. --I am full ofhopefulness about them--but the facts about our public, and still moreabout our private, schools, which until lately have been met with deadsilence and masterly inactivity on the part of English parents. On thepart of mothers I feel sure it is ignorance, not indifference: if theyknew what I know, it simply could not be the latter. Even now, whensome, at least, of their ignorance has been dispelled, I doubt whetherthey realize the depth of moral corruption which is to be found in ourpublic and private schools; the existence of heathen vices which by thelaw of our land are treated as felony, and which we would fain hope, after nineteen centuries of Christianity, might now be relegated to thefirst chapter of Romans. They do not realize the presence of other andcommoner forms of impurity, the self-defilement which taints the moralnature and stimulates the lower nature into unhealthy and abnormalactivity. They do not understand the essentially sporadic nature of theevil--that it may exist "as a pestilence that walketh in darkness" inone boarding-school, while another, owing to the influence of a good setof boys, is comparatively free from it; and they will, therefore, take asingle denial of its existence, possibly from their own husbands, asconclusive. Even the affirmations of head-masters are not altogether tobe trusted here, as mothers cannot betray the confidence of their ownboys, and often fail in gaining their consent to let the head-masterknow what is going on, in the boy's natural dread of being found out asthe source of the information and, according to the ruling code, cut, ashaving "peached. " Once I obtained leave to expose an indescribable stateof things which was going on in broad daylight in an unsupervised roomat one of our great public schools, utterly unsuspected by thehead-master, and his subordinate, the house-master. But another casewhich for long made my life a kind of waking nightmare remainedunexposed to the last. 

Speaking of those commoner forms of impurity to which I have referred, and which are so mischievous as stimulating immature functions, needing, as Acton over and over again insists, absolute quiet and rest forhealthy development, Dr. Dukes, the head physician of one of our bestknown public schools, states: "The reason why it is so widespread anevil"--computed in 1886 at eighty per cent. Of boys at school, acomputation accepted by a committee of public schoolmasters--"I believeto be, that the boy leaves home in the first instance without one wordof warning from his parents that he will meet with bad boys who willtell him that everybody does it, and thus he falls into evil ways fromhis innocence and ignorance alone. "[12]

Dr. Dukes further states that as the results of his thirty years'experience he had come to the conclusion that only one per cent. Ofparents ever warned their boys at all before sending them to school. 

These statements were made some fifteen years ago, when first theconspiracy of silence was broken through and the question of themorality of our public and private schools was dragged into the light ofday and boldly faced and grappled with, largely owing to the action ofDr. Pusey. Since then a mass of strenuous effort has been directedagainst the evil by our high-minded head-masters; and an immenseimprovement has been effected. It is too short a time for one to hopethat the evil has been eradicated; but when parents learn to fulfiltheir moral duties of teaching and warning their own boys--as Dr. Dukesobserves--I feel sure it could be so far removed as to cause the numbersto change places, so that we might obtain a percentage of ninety toninety-five of those who lead pure lives while at school, as againstfive per cent, who are impure, reversing the lamentable ratio that nowexists. But here again there has been progress, and I feel sure that thepercentage of parents who do warn and teach their sons before sendingthem to school is now incomparably higher than Dr. Dukes's "one percent. " and is steadily rising. 

As to other deeper and nameless evils, they have been already reduced toa minimum, and if fathers could only be persuaded to do their duty bytheir own boys, they might be made wholly to disappear. 

I give you these facts about our English schools, that parents may seefor themselves what are the consequences of refusing both teaching andwarning to their boys, under the delusion that God's lilies will grow upin the weedy garden of the human heart without strenuous culture andtraining. 

Do not, therefore, I beseech you, take for granted that yourboarding-schools are entirely free from such evils. You have the sameconditions that we have. Till lately your boys have been as untaught andunwarned as ours. In your boarding-schools, as in ours, they are removedfrom the purifying influence of mother and sisters. They are just at theage which has neither the delicacy of childhood nor of early manhood. Rest assured that conditions will breed like results. 

 "My belief, not lightly formed, " says Dr. Butler, [13] "is, that none of the great schools can congratulate themselves on anything like safety from this danger. And if this is true of the great public schools, it is still more true of private schools, where the evil is admittedly greater. Boys and masters alike may strangely deceive themselves; the evil may hide very close. Many a boy has been known to assert positively and honestly that nothing of the kind was ever heard of in his time, and that any fellow suspected of it would have been cut, and half killed, when all the time the evil was actively at work even among the circle of his intimate friends. "

And yet it is this evil, so pervasive in its influence, so certain totaint the fresh springs of young life with impure knowledge, if not tofoul them with unclean acts, that parents still too often elect toignore. The boy, full of eager curiosity, anxious, above all things, tocatch up the ways of the other fellows, afraid, above all things, ofbeing laughed at for his innocence, and elated at being taken up by oneof the swells in the shape of an elder boy, and at first set-off whollyignorant of the motive; exposed to suggestions about the functions ofhis own body which he has not the knowledge to rebut as the devil'slies--what wonder is it that so many boys, originally good and pure, fall victims? "They blunder like blind puppies into sin, " a medical manwho has had much to do with boys' schools exclaimed to me in thebitterness of his soul. The small house of the young boy's soul, full ofthe song of birds, the fresh babble of the voices of sisters, all theinnocent sights and sounds of an English or American home, swept andgarnished till now by such loving hands, but left empty, unguarded, andunwatched, for the unclean spirit to lift the latch and enter in andtake possession--the pity of it! oh, the pity of it! What can the boythink? To quote Dr. Dukes again:

 "He will say to himself: 'My father knows of all this vice at schools, and yet has not said one word to me about it. He has warned me about most things. He told me to be truthful, to keep my temper, to be upright and manly, to say my prayers; he pressed me never to get into debt, never to drink, and never to use bad language; and he told me I ought to change my boots and clothes when wet, so as not to get ill; and yet he has not said one syllable about this. My father is a good man and loves me, and if he wanted me not to do this he would surely have told me; it can't be very wrong, else I am sure he would have protected me and told me all about it. "

I remember a friend of mine, who had been greatly stirred on the wholesubject, endeavoring, with tears in her eyes, to persuade a father towarn his boy before sending him to his first public school, and on hisabsolutely refusing to do any such thing, she said to him, "At leastpromise me that you will give him this book, " placing in his hands Mr. George Everett's excellent little book, _Your Innings_. This heconsented to do. The next morning my friend met him at breakfast, theboy having been already despatched by an early train. "Well, " he said, "I sat up till past twelve last night reading your book; it isexcellent, and I gave it to my lad before starting him off. But thereis just one chapter in it, called a 'Strange Companion, ' which I tookthe precaution of previously cutting out with my penknife; and my boy inhis after years will thank me for not putting any such ideas in hishead, but having kept him the pure and innocent lad that he is. " I neednot say that it was the one chapter that would have put the boy on hisguard. Oh, befooled and purblind father! I happened to know that theschool to which the boy was sent was swept at that time by a moralepidemic, and before that hapless lad had been a week in its corruptatmosphere he would have had ideas put into his head with a vengeance. His father had handed over the ground of his boy's heart for the devilto sow the first crop, and as a rule the devil sows, not wild oats, aswe say, but acorns--a dread sowing which it may take years to root upand to extirpate, even if, so far as after-taint is concerned, it canever be wholly extirpated. 

In another case a widowed mother came to one of my meetings, and wasprofoundly alarmed at what I said about the dangers of our schoolboys. It had never occurred to her that her gentlemanly little lad of twelvecould have any temptations of the kind. Unlike the father I havementioned, she resolved to speak to him that same evening. She foundthat he was fighting a battle against the whole school, standing upalone for the right, guided by some blind instinct of purity to resistthe foul suggestions which were inflicted upon him, threatening himwith the most terrible consequences in after-life if he did not yieldand do as the other boys did. Think of it, ye mothers! a child of twelvewithout a hand to guide him, without a voice to cheer him, refused theknowledge that would have saved him from his deadly peril, his ownmother deaf and dumb and blind to his struggles, leaving him to fighthis little forlorn hope absolutely alone. I need scarcely say howthankfully he poured forth his sore heart to his mother when once shehad opened the door, till now kept locked by her own ignorance; and howshe was able to explain to him that, far from reaping any evilconsequences from doing what is right, like Sir Galahad, "his strengthwould be the strength of ten" if he kept himself pure. She probably tooksteps to remove him from so corrupt an atmosphere as prevailed in thatpreparatory school, but of this I do not know. 

But here let me guard myself from being misunderstood. I am not makingout that every schoolboy is exposed to these temptations; there are boysso exceptionally endowed that they seem to spread a pure atmospherearound them which is respected by even the coarsest and loosest boys inthe school. All I do maintain, with Dr. Butler, is that no school issafe from this danger, that at any time it may prove an active one inyour boy's life, and that at the very least you have to guard him fromimpure knowledge being thrust upon him before nature has developed theinstincts of manhood by which she guards her inner shrine. 

And now I come to the question of day schools. As I have already said, Icannot feel but they are more consonant with the order of our life asgiving the discipline and competition of numbers without removing theboy from family life, nor do they lend themselves to some of the graverevils of our boarding-schools. But, alas! in themselves they form nopanacea for the evils we are contemplating. On the contrary, I am toldon authority I cannot question that in some places this plague spot isrife among them. In one case the evil had struck so wide and deep thatthe school had to be temporarily closed. Here, again, the same lesson isemphasized, viz. : that whatever is the form of the school, howeverexcellent the teacher, there is no substitute in the moral life for thehome teaching and training of mothers and fathers. 

No mother can read these statements unmoved--statements, remember, notmy own, but made by men of the deepest and widest experience, and which, therefore, you are bound to weigh, ponder, and carefully consider. Iknow that straight from your heart again comes the cry, "What can I do?"

I am inclined to answer this cry in one word, "Everything, "--with God'shelp. 

I

And now let us enter into practical details. We will begin with theoutworks, and work our way inwards to the shrine. 

First, as to the all-important choice of a school, should the boy'sfather decide, for reasons in which you concur to send him to aboarding-school. 

As to how to ascertain the real state of a school there is, of course, considerable difficulty. I have always found the best way is throughmothers who have gained the confidence of their boys and who knowthrough them what really goes on. In this way, as mothers wake up to thedanger their boys run and to their own responsibility in guarding them, we shall be able to help one another more and more. But make a point ofyourself, as well as the boy's father, personally seeing the master towhom you think of entrusting your lad, and talking over the matter withhim. In this way you will not only satisfy yourself, but you willstrengthen his hands by making him feel how vital the whole question isto your heart. What more than anything else weakens the high-minded menwho have the tuition of the young is the utter unconcern that is evincedby the parents and the sense that, by the payment of a sum of moneydown, they can compound with a master for the performance of theirinalienable duty of undertaking the moral education of their ownchildren. 

Here let me give you two most earnest cautions. Do not attach too muchimportance to mere mechanical arrangements as moral safeguards. One ofour most successful head-masters says:

 "I would most seriously warn any parent anxious about the choice of a school not to attach much weight to the apparent excellence of arrangements. Some of the worst schools have these arrangements in the highest perfection. They cannot afford to have them otherwise. Neat cubicles and spotless dimity have beguiled an uninterrupted sequence of mammas, and have kept alive, and even flourishing, schools which are in a thoroughly bad moral state and are hopelessly inefficient in every particular. Of course, many a parent feels that he ought to judge for himself, and these mechanical arrangements are too often the only material on which he can form his judgment. Let me assure him that they are entirely untrustworthy. "

Secondly, do not think to find safety in the choice of a so-called"religious" school, even though it reflect the exact shade of your ownreligious opinions. The worst evils I ever knew went on in a schoolwhere the boys implicated held a weekly prayer-meeting! We must boldlyface the fact that there is some mysterious connection between thereligious emotions and the lower animal nature; and the religiousforcing-house, of whatever school of theology, will always be liable toprove a hot-bed of impurity. Choose a school with a high moral tone, with religion as an underlying principle--a practical religion, thatinculcates duty rather than fosters emotion, and embodies the wiseproverb of Solomon, "In all labor there is profit, but the talk of thelips tendeth to penury. "

Only let me beseech you to use your whole influence not to have yourboy sent away at too early an age. Do you really think that theexclusive society of little boys, with their childish chatter, theirfoolish little codes, their crude and often ridiculously false notionsof life, and their small curiosities, naturally inquisitive, but notalways clean in the researches they inspire, and _always_ false in theirresults, is morally better for your child than, in Dr. Butler's words, "the refining and purifying atmosphere of home, with the tenderness of a mother, the grace and playfulness of sisters, the love and loyalty of the family nurse, and lastly--scarcely to be distinguished in its effects from these influences--the sweetness, the simplicity, the flower-picking, the pony-patting of happy, frolicsome younger brothers or sisters in the garden, the paddock, or stable?"

If the boy has got out of hand, I ask, Whose fault is that? and is itfair to the child that your fault should be remedied by sending him awayfrom all that is best and most purifying in child life? I would pleadearnestly that eleven or twelve is old enough for the private school, and that a boy should not be sent to a public school before fourteen. Inthis I think most of our English head-masters would agree with me. Tillthis age, a day school or a tutor should be had recourse to, and whenthe time comes for sending him off to school, at least we can refuse toplace the boy anywhere, either at a private or public school, wherethere is not some woman to mother and look after the boys and exert agood womanly influence over them. A head-master keenly alive to moraldangers, with a capable wife ready to use her womanly influence inaiding and abetting his efforts, I have found the best possiblecombination. 

But if it is decided that the boys are to be brought up at the dayschool, your range of choice will probably be very small. You will haveto look wholly to your home influence and teaching to counteract anyevil influence they may encounter in their school life. But as your boyswill never be separated from you, what may not that home influence andteaching, with knowledge and forewarning to direct it, --what may it notaccomplish?

II

Let us, then, think out the best ways in which you can warn and guardyour boy and fulfil your responsibility of being his moral teacher. 

Let us begin with the simplest measure which you can take, and which canpresent no difficulty to anyone. Before sending your boy to school gethim quietly by himself and say to him some such words as these: "My boy, you know, or will come to know, that when boys get together they oftentalk of nasty things, and even do nasty things. Give me your word ofhonor as a Christian and a gentleman that you will never say or doanything that you know you would be ashamed to tell me, that you knowwould bring a blush to your sister's cheeks. Always remember that dirtytalk, and still more dirty deeds, are only fit for cads. Promise mefaithfully that you will never let any boy, especially an elder boy, tell you 'secrets. ' If you were to consent through curiosity, or becauseyou feel flattered at one of the elder fellows taking you up, be sure hemeans you no good. Whatever you want to know ask me, and so far as I canI will tell you. " Some such words as these said solemnly to a boy theday before he leaves home for the first time, either for aboarding-school, or even a day school, will make your womanhood a sortof external conscience to your boy, to guard him from those firstbeginnings of impurity, in the shape of what are technically called"secrets, " which lead on to all the rest. I know one mother who, fromher boy's earliest years, has made a solemn pact with him, on the onehand, if he would promise never to ask any questions about life andbirth of anyone but her, she, in her turn, would promise to tell him allhe wanted to know; and from first to last there has been that perfectconfidence and friendship between mother and son which is, and ever mustbe, a boy's greatest safeguard. 

Only remember that with young boys men who have had the greatestexperience are generally agreed that it is better not to put the stresson religious motives. Practically, for a young boy, it is better totreat the whole thing as dirty, nasty, and blackguardly. And the wholesubject must always be spoken of with reserve, without any emotion, andwith much "dry light. "

With most lads I should go a step further; I should give the boy one ofthe White Cross papers, "A Strange Companion. "[14] It is impossible tolay down hard and fast rules; it is impossible to make so many jam-potsof even young humanity, to be tied up and labelled and arranged upon thesame shelf. Each individuality has to be dealt with in all itsmysterious idiosyncrasy. One boy may be so reserved that it is better towrite to him than to talk face to face; another may find the greatestpossible strength and comfort in freedom of speech and the feeling thatthere is no barrier between him and his mother with regard to being ableto tell her freely of any temptations that may assail him. Your mother'sinstincts will be your best guide as to what method to adopt with eachof your boys. 

If the father of the lad can be induced, at any rate before he enters aboarding-school, to follow the advice of that remarkable man, Mr. Thring, the founder of Uppingham School, in his address to our ChurchCongress, and write a letter of plain warning and counsel to the lad, itwould be an unspeakable help. "My first statement, " says Mr. Thring, "is that all fathers ought to write such a letter to their sons. It isnot difficult, if done in a common-sense way. "[15]

But now I come to what on all hands we must allow to be a point ofextreme difficulty. I think all head-masters, deeply concerned in themoral welfare of the boys under their charge, would emphatically endorsethe following words of Dr. Butler's:

 "It is certain, it must needs be, that boys should, at an early period of their boyhood, come to hear of the nature of sexual relations. From whom should they first learn it? Should it be with every accompaniment of coarseness, of levity, of obscenity? From some ribald groom in the stables? From some impure maidservant who has stolen into the household and the nursery? From some brother only a year or two older, who has just received his first initiation in impurity at a private school and is too young to understand its danger? Worst of all, from the idlest, and most corrupt, and most worthless set of boys at this same private school, who surround the newcomer within a few days, perhaps a few hours, of his first joining, and, with knowing looks and enticing words, try to probe his childish knowledge, and leave him half-ashamed of himself and keenly inquisitive for full initiation, if he finds that he knows nothing of this engrossing mystery? Is it right, is it fair, is it consistent with religious duty or with common-sense, that a little boy of eight, or ten, or twelve, should be sent at this impressionable age to hear for the first time of facts of human nature which must ere long be known, and are part of God's appointment? Does not every dictate of humanity and of reason point to the conclusion that the dawn of this knowledge should be invested with all that is tender, and loving, and pure, and sacred, instead of being shrouded in the mists of innuendo or blazoned forth in the shamelessness of bestiality? There is really no answer but one to such a question, and the plain truth is that fathers, perhaps still more mothers, must recognize the duty which lies upon them to teach their children, at such times, in such words, and with such reservations as the character of each child may suggest, the elements at least of that knowledge which will otherwise be learnt but a very little later from a widely different set of instructors. I lay down the principle as admitting of no exception--I do not anticipate even one dissentient voice from any who now hear me--_that no boy ought ever to be allowed to go to school without learning from his father or his mother, or from some brother or tried friend considerably older than himself the simple facts as to the laws of birth and the terrible danger of ever coming to talk of these phenomena as matters of frivolous and filthy conversation_. "

I can only beseech you to give due weight to these words of one who hadmany years' experience of a large public school. Over and over again, atall my meetings of educated mothers, I have reiterated his question insimilar words, "Is it right, is it fair, that your boy should learn thesacred mysteries of life and birth from the sources which Dr. Butlerenumerates, and to which you abandon him, if you refuse to speak;sources of unclean and lying information by which I have no hesitationin saying that the mind and conscience of many men are more or lesspermanently defiled, even when the life has been kept outwardly pure?"Can you hesitate for one moment to allow that the springs of the lifewhich you will be the first to acknowledge comes from God should well upfrom a pure source, till, like Wordsworth's stream--

 "Crowned with flowers, The mountain infant to the sun laughs forth, "

and that the whole subject should be so bound up in the boy's mind withhis father's love for his mother, his mother's love for his father, withhis own existence, and that of his sisters, that he would shrink withutter loathing from the filthy so-called "secrets" that are bandiedabout among schoolboys? I know that the task of conveying this knowledgepresents many difficulties, but again I ask, "What is there in our lifethat is worth doing which is not difficult?" Long ago the definition ofa difficulty to me has become "a thing to be overcome. " It is not insitting down helplessly before a difficulty that the way will open. Withus, as with the Israelites on the brink of that raging midnight sea, itis in a brave obedience to the Divine command, "Go forward!" that thepath opens through the trackless sea, and we find that the great watersthat seem ready to overwhelm us are in reality a baptism into new life. 

III

Again I seem almost to hear the cry of your heart, "I know I ought tospeak to my boy, but how am I to do it?"

Now, it is here that I earnestly desire to give you, if I possibly can, some helpful, practical suggestions, for I feel that it is not in therecognition of a duty, but in its performance, that the difficulty lieswhich is arresting so many educated mothers at the present time. 

With very young children, whether girls or boys, there should be nodifficulty whatever. They are too young to understand. Only, when theycome to you asking their innocent little questions as to where thelittle baby brother or sister comes from, I would earnestly ask younever to allow yourself, or your nurse, to inflict on them the usualpopular fables, that the baby was brought by the doctor or that it wasfound under the gooseberry-bush. A child is far quicker than we think todetect that mother is hiding something, and the first tiny seed of evilcuriosity is sown. Make no mystery about it; look your child full in theface, and say, "My child, you have asked me a question about what isvery, very sacred. If I were to try to explain it to you, you would notbe old enough to understand; for the present you must be content to knowthat the baby comes from God; how it comes mother will tell you when yougrow old enough to understand; only promise me that you will never askany one but mother about it. " The child will then see that you arehiding nothing, and will be satisfied to wait for the explanation thatmother has promised. 

But what when the child is old enough to understand?--an age whichdoubtless varies in different children, but which with boys must comebefore their first school, if you are to occupy the ground of his heartwith good seed, which leaves no room for the devil's sowing. 

Well, with regard to the facts of birth, I do not think we ought to findmuch difficulty. You can point out how the baby seed has a soft, downyplace provided for it in the pod of the parent plant till it has ripenedand is fit to be sown, when the pod opens and lets it fall to the earth, and it becomes a plant in its turn. You can point out that the egg in asimilar way is carried in the mother bird's body till the shell hashardened and is fit to be laid, when she warms it with her own breast, patiently sitting on it for days, while the father bird feeds her, tillthe little chick is strong enough to break the walls of its tiny house, and come forth and peck and fend for itself. You can explain how thelittle kitten the child plays with has in the same way a safe placeprovided for it in the mother's body, where it grows and grows till allits organs are formed, and it can breathe and suck, when, like the seedfrom the pod, and the chick from the egg it leaves the mother's body, and is born, a blind and helpless baby kitten, to be fed and tenderlycared for by the mother cat. You will explain that the baby comes injust the same way so far as its infant body is concerned, growing likethe kitten from a tiny cell--borne by the mother till all the organs areformed which it needs for its earthly life, when it also is born andlaid in its mother's arms, to be nourished and cared for by the love ofboth father and mother, not for a few weeks, as with animals, butthrough long years of helplessness. And you mean to tell me that thesacred truth would not endear you to your child far more than the usualcock-and-bull story about the doctor and the gooseberry-bush?

A friend of mine has three boys of widely opposite character andtemperament. Owing to circumstances, the eldest lad had to be sent toschool at an early age. Young as he was, she resolved to follow Dr. Butler's advice and tell him the facts of birth in the way I havesuggested. On realizing the truth, the boy flung his arms round her neckand burst into tears. But though she felt that she had done right, shewas not wholly without misgivings that she might have introduced someobjectionable talk into her nursery. When the time came to send thesecond lad to school, she repeated the talk that she had had with hiselder brother. But to her surprise she found him in total ignorance ofthe facts: his elder brother had never confided them to him. And soagain with the third boy. Evidently the boys had considered it toosacred a thing to talk about--how much too sacred, then, to allow oftheir joining in with the unclean gossip of schoolboys! Its only resultwas to give them an added tenderness for their mother, and to make themresent all such unclean talk as so much mud flung at her. 

So far, so good. But we all of us realize that it is not the facts ofbirth, but the facts of the origination of life, that form theperennial source of obscene talk, and often of obscene action, amongboys; and it is in explaining these, without violating those instinctsof reserve and modesty with which nature herself surrounds the wholesubject, that what often seems an insuperable difficulty arises. Yetthese functions are, and must be, the very shrine of a body which is atemple of the Lord and Giver of life; and on the face of things, therefore, there must be some method of conveying pure knowledge to theopening mind with regard to them. The difficulty must be with ourselves, and not in the very nature of things themselves. 

Has it not been created in a great measure by a wrong method? We beginwith human life instead of ending with it; we isolate it from a greatsystem to which it belongs, and treat what is "the roof and crown ofthings" as a roof that tops no fair edifice, and is therefore anomalous;as a crown that rests on a head which has been severed from its body, and is therefore unmeaning. We obstinately refuse to live--to quoteGoethe's words again--not only "in the beautiful and the good, " but also"in the whole, " which is equally necessary for a well-ordered life. Whatit seems to me we need is to teach the facts of life-giving, or, inother words, of sex, as a great, wide, open-air law, running rightthrough animated creation, an ever-ascending progression forming agolden ladder leading up to man. 

In explaining the facts of reproduction, I would therefore suggest thatyou should begin with the lowest rung of the ladder, the simplestorganisms, such as the amoeba or the volvox. I should show how thesemultiply by fission, the creature dividing into two, when it isimpossible to tell which is the father and which is the mother. I wouldthen pass upwards to more complex organisms, where two individuals arerequired to form the offspring. You could explain the whole process bythe method of fertilization in plants, as urged in an excellent paper bya lady doctor, published in the _Parents' Review_. [16] Let me quote herwords:

 "The child can learn the difference of the names, color, and forms of flowers as soon as it can learn anything. The next step would be to simple lessons in the different parts of a plant--the vegetative organs of roots, stem, leaves, passing on to the reproductive organs in the flower--calyx, corolla, stamen, and pistil. Let the child be taught to notice that all flowers have not quite the same organs, some bearing stamens only, which shed the powdery pollen and are the male, or little father flowers; while others have the pistil only, furnished with the stigma to catch the pollen, and are the females, or little mothers; that the one sort of flowers is necessary to the other in producing the little seed or baby plant. "

Let us take a primrose. Here the mother and father elements are found inthe same flower. At the base of the flower, packed in a delicate casket, which is called the ovary, lie a number of small white objects no largerthan butterfly-eggs. These are the eggs or ova of the primrose. Intothis casket, by a secret opening, filmy tubes thrown out by the pollengrains--now enticed from their hiding-place on the stamens and clusteredon the stigma--enter and pour a fertilizing fluid, called "spermatozoa, "through a microscopic gateway, which opens in the wall of the egg andleads to its inmost heart. The ovule, or future seed, is now fertilizedand capable of producing a future primrose. Covered with many protectingcoats, it becomes a perfect seed. The original casket swells, hardens, is transformed into a rounded capsule or seed-vessel, opening by valvesor a deftly constructed hinge. One day this seed-vessel, crowded withseeds, breaks open and completes the cycle of reproduction by dispersingthem over the ground, where they sow themselves, and grow and becomeprimrose plants in their turn, starring the grass with their lovelyblossoms. [17]

Sometimes the male and female elements grow upon different plants, as inthe catkins children are so fond of gathering in the spring. 

 "More than two thousand years ago Herodotus observed a remarkable custom in Egypt. At a certain season of the year the Egyptians went into the desert, cut off branches from the wild palms, and bringing them back to their gardens, waved them over the flowers of the date-palm. Why they performed this ceremony they did not know; but they knew that if they neglected it the date-crop would be poor or wholly lost. But the true reason is now explained. Palm-trees, like human beings, are male and female. The garden plants, the date bearers, were females, the desert plants were males; and the waving of the branches over the females meant the transference of the pollen dust from the one to the other. "[18]

From these two elements, the spermatozoa, or male element, and the ova, or female element, all life, except in the lowest organisms, isproduced. 

You could point out how it is by this marvellous process ofreproduction, not only that the world is made green and beautiful, butall animal life is fed. Corn and rice, which are only fertilized seeds, form the staple food of a large proportion of mankind; while even theanimal in order to live has first to be nourished on corn or grassbefore it can become meat for man. 

You could go on further to illustrate the facts of reproduction by beesand ants, so familiar to children, where the drone or male bee, or themale ant, in just the same way as in the plant, fertilizes the eggs ofthe queen bee or ant by bringing the spermatozoa into contact with theunfertilized egg in the insect's body, when the eggs thus fertilized arelaid and carefully nurtured by the working bee or ant. All children haveobserved the little neuter, [19] or working ant, carrying in itsmandibles an egg almost as large as itself with an air of extreme hurryand absorption, to lay it in the sun till the warmth hatches it into ababy ant. 

If it were further pointed out that not the male, but the female, as themother of the species, is Nature's chief care; that among ants the maleis sent into the world so imperfectly endowed that he cannot even feedhimself, but is fed by his female relations, and that as soon as he hasperformed his function of fertilizing the queen ant, Nature apparentlydismisses him with contemptuous starvation; or--to take the case of thedrone or male bee--he is stung to death by the workers, it might help tomodify the preposterous pretensions of the male, especially of the boy, in higher circles. 

You could then pass upwards through fish with the soft and hard roe, ormale and female elements which are familiar to children, and throughfrogs with their spawn to birds. Here comes in an upward step indeed. "Aworld that only cared for eggs becomes, " as Professor Drummond observesin his _Ascent of Man, _ "a world that cares for its young. " The firstfaint trembling dawn, or at least shadowing forth, of a moral life, inthe care of the strong for the weak, makes itself seen, which henceforthbecomes as pervasive an element in Nature as the fierce struggle forexistence in which the weak are destroyed by the strong. [20]

In the bird--till now "the free queen of the air, " living at her ownwild will, suddenly fettered and brooding on her nest, and covering herhelpless young with her tender wings--we see some faint image of theDivine tenderness. In the ceaseless toil of both the parent birds frommorning till night to fill the little gaping throats we begin to feelthe duty of the strong to serve and protect the weak; and in the littlehen partridge, still clinging to her nest, when the flash of the scytheis drawing nearer and nearer, till reapers have told me they have fearedthe next sweep of the scythe might cut off her head, we see more than ashadow of that mother's love which is stronger than death. And when wepass lastly to the highest order of animals, the mammalia, we find themnamed after the mother's function of giving suck to her young from herown breast. They are no longer matured in an external egg, but are bornein her own body till they are able to breathe, and seek theirnourishment from her, and then they are born so helpless that, as withkittens and puppies, they often cannot even see. 

In this higher order of animals nothing can exceed the devotion of themother to her young in their helpless infancy. The fierce bear willrecklessly expose her shaggy breast to the hunter in their defence. Here, too, we find, as the Duke of Argyle points out in his book on _TheUnity of Nature_, "that the equality of the sexes, as regards all the enjoyments as well as the work of life, is the universal rule; and among those of them in which the social instincts have been especially implanted, and whose systems of polity are like the most civilized polities of men, the females of the race are treated with a strange mixture of love, loyalty, and devotion. "

"Man" as the Duke says, "is the Great Exception, " and has been definedas the only animal that ill-treats and degrades his female. 

And when at length we come to the topmost step, "the roof and crown ofthings, "--Man, as you have already explained the physical facts oflife-giving on the plane of plants, and ants, and bees, where they canexcite no feeling of any kind, you will have no need to go over themagain, but will find yourself free to express the physical in terms ofthe moral. Man, as a spiritual being, incarnate in an animal body, takesthis great law of sex which we have seen running through the animatedcreation, and lifts it into the moral and the spiritual. The physicallove which in animals only lasts for the brief time that is needed forthe production and rearing of offspring--becomes in him a love which"inhabiteth eternity, " and unites him to the mother of his children inthe indissoluble union of marriage. His fatherhood becomes the veryrepresentative of the Father in heaven. The mother becomes the very typeand image of the Love that has loved us with more than a mother's love, borne with us with more than a mother's patience, suffered for us, inthe Cross and Passion, more than a mother's pangs, to bring us into ahigher life. The love of brothers and sisters becomes the first faintbeginning of the universal Church and the brotherhood of man; and thesweet babble of their voices grows choral at length in the songs of theChurch triumphant, the unbroken family in heaven; while the Christianhome shadows forth the eternal home which awaits us hereafter. [21]

The only warning you would have to give your boy would be to point outthat, as a cathedral takes longer to build than a shanty, so the humanbody, which is meant to be the temple of the "Lord and Giver of life, "takes much longer to mature than an animal's. Many an animal lives anddies of old age in the fourteen years that leave man still an immatureboy. And you must earnestly impress upon him that the whole of this partof his nature which you have been explaining to him as a great lawrunning through animated creation and finding its highest uses in Man, must be left to mature itself in absolute rest and quiet. All prematureuse of it is fatal to perfect health of soul and body. The less hethinks of it, and the more he thinks of his work and his athletics, thebetter for him. Above all, you hope, now that he knows the truth and hiscuriosity is satisfied, he will loathe all filthy jests and storiesabout that which is the source of all beautiful living things on thepleasant earth and, in his own little world, of all happy family lifeand innocent home love and joy. 

Let me quote here, in conclusion, a little poem, called "The GoldenLadder, " which seems to me to embody some of the teaching of thisexquisite page of the illuminated Word of Creation, which man has soblotted and defiled with his obscenities, but which to "open hearts andlove-lit eyes" is the spring of all that is highest--the birth of themoral and the cradle of the divine. 

 "When torn with Passion's insecure delights, By Love's dear torments, ceaseless changes worn, As my swift sphere full twenty days and nights Did make, ere one slow morn and eve were born;

 "I passed within the dim, sweet world of flowers, Where only harmless lights, not hearts, are broken, And weep out the sweet-watered summer showers-- World of white joys, cool dews, and peace unspoken;

 "I started, even there among the flowers, To find the tokens mute of what I fled-- Passions, and forces, and resistless powers, That have uptorn the world and stirred the dead. 

 "In secret bowers of amethyst and rose, Close wrapped in fragrant golden curtains laid, Where silver lattices to morn unclose, The fairy lover clasps his flower-maid. 

 "Ye blessed children of the jocund day! What mean these mysteries of love and birth? Caught up like solemn words by babes at play, Who know not what they babble in their mirth. 

 "Or of one stuff has some Hand made us all, Baptized us all in one great sequent plan, Where deep to ever vaster deep may call, And all their large expression find in Man?

 "Flowers climb to birds, and birds and beasts to Man, And Man to God, by some strong instinct driven; And so the golden ladder upward ran, Its foot among the flowers, its top in heaven. 

 "All lives Man lives; of matter first then tends To plants, an animal next unconscious, dim, A man, a spirit last, the cycle ends, -- Thus all creation weds with God in him. 

 "And if he fall, a world in him doth fall, All things decline to lower uses; while The golden chain that bound the each to all Falls broken in the dust, a linkless pile. 

 "And Love's fair sacraments and mystic rite In Nature, which their consummation find, In wedded hearts, and union infinite With the Divine, of married mind with mind, Foul symbols of an idol temple grow, And sun-white Love is blackened into lust, And man's impure doth into flower-cups flow, And the fair Kosmos mourneth in the dust. 

 O Thou, out-topping all we know or think, Far off yet nigh, out-reaching all we see, Hold Thou my hand, that so the top-most link Of the great chain may hold, from us to Thee;

 "And from my heaven-touched life may downward flow Prophetic promise of a grace to be; And flower, and bird, and beast, may upward grow, And find their highest linked to God in me. "

Possibly you will say at once, "Oh, my boy has no taste for naturalhistory, and he would take no interest in this kind of thing. " All thebetter his finding it a bit dry--it will rid the subject of some of itsdangerous attraction. I have yet to find the boy for whom the LatinGrammar has the least interest; but we do not excuse him on that groundfrom grinding at it. Whether he takes an interest in it or not, you haveto teach him that he has got to know about these things before going toschool, to guard him from the danger of having all sorts of false, andoften foul, notions palmed off on him. I do not say that pure knowledgewill necessarily save, but I do say that the pitcher which is full ofclear spring-water has no room for foul. I do say that you have gained agreat step, if in answer to the offer of enlightenment which he iscertain to receive, you have enabled your boy to acquit himself of therough objurgation--forgive me for putting it in schoolboy language: "Oh, hold your jaw! I know all about that, and I don't want any of your rot. "I do say that early associations are most terribly strong, and if youwill secure that those early associations with regard to life and birthshall be bound up with all the sanctities of life--with home, with hismother, with family, with all that is best and highest in life; then hiswhole attitude in life will be different. But if these earlyassociations are linked with all that is false and foul, some subtleodor of the sewer will still cling about the heart of the shrine, anameless sense of something impure in the whole subject; an undefinablesomething in his way of looking at it, which has often made the purityof men--blameless in their outer life--- sadden and perplex me almost asmuch as the actions and words of confessedly impure men. 

IV

But, whatever is the importance I attach to pure teaching, I return tomy old position, that purity is an attitude of soul, or, perhaps I oughtto say, the "snowy bloom" of the soul's perfect health, rather thananything you can embody in moral maxims or pure knowledge--that perfectbloom of spiritual health which may be as much the result of a mother'swatchful care and training as the physical health of the body. It is foryou to train your boy in that knightly attitude of soul, that reverencefor womanhood, which is to men as "fountains of sweet water" in thebitter sea of life; that chivalrous respect for the weak and theunprotected which, next to faith in God, will be the best guard to allthe finer issues of his character. Truth of truth are the golden wordsof Ruskin to young men:

 "Whomsoever else you deceive, whomsoever else you injure, whomsoever else you leave unaided, you must not deceive, nor injure, nor leave unaided according to your power any woman whatever, of whatever rank. Believe me, every virtue of the highest phase of manly character begins and ends in this, in truth and modesty before the face of all maidens, in truth and reverence or truth and pity to all womanhood. "

Can we doubt or question this, we who worship Him who came to reveal thetrue man quite as much as to reveal the only true God--the real manhoodbeneath the false, perishable man with which it is so often overlaid bythe influence of society and the world? Look at His attitude towardswomen, ay, even Eastern women, who had not been ennobled by centuries ofChristian freedom and recognized equality of the sexes, but who, on thecontrary, belonged to a nation tainted to some degree with that Easterncontempt for women which made a Hindu answer the question of theEnglishman, perplexed by the multiplied of Indian gods and sects, "Isthere _no_ point of belief in which you all unite?" "Oh, yes, " thePundit replied, "we all believe in the sanctity of cows and thedepravity of women!"

These Eastern women, therefore, had much to enslave and lower them; butsee how instantly they rose to the touch of the true Man, just as theywill rise, the women of to-day, to the touch of the true manhood of yoursons, if you will train them to be to us such men as Jesus Christ was. See how He made women His friends, and deigned to accept their ministryto His human needs. Many severe rebukes are recorded from His lips tomen, but not one to a woman. It was a woman, ay, even a degraded woman, who by her kisses and her tears smote the Rock of Ages and the water oflife flowed forth for the world, who won for the world the words: "Hewho hath been forgiven much loveth much, " and the burden of guilt ischanged into the burden of Love. It was to a woman He first gave therevelation of life, that He first revealed Himself as the Water of Life, and first uttered the words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life. " Itwas women who remained faithful when all forsook Him and fled. It was awoman who was the last to whom He spoke on the cross, to a woman thatthe first words were spoken of His risen life. It was a woman He madeHis first messenger of the risen life to the world. Nothing in the lifeof the true Man on earth stands out in more marked features than, if Imay venture to use the words, His faith in women, as if to stamp itforever as an attribute of all true manhood, that without which a mancannot be a man. 

Now, side by side with this attitude of the true Man, this perfectloyalty to all womanhood as such, ay, even degraded womanhood, place thepresent debased attitude of men, even of some Christian men, which weare looking to you mothers of boys to change _in toto_. Is not apowerful writer in the _Westminster Review_ right when he says, "Thereis not found a chivalrous respect for womanhood as such. That a womanhas fallen is not the trumpet call to every noble and wise-hearted manto raise her up again as speedily as may be; rather it is the signal todeepen her degradation and to doom her to moral death. " Is it not areceived code even among Americans as well as Englishmen that if a womanknows how to respect and protect herself men are to respect her--it isonly a scoundrel that will dare to say an insulting word to her? But ifshe is a bit fast and giddy, if she has little or no respect forherself, if her foolish feet have slipped ever so little, then she isfair game. "She gave him encouragement; what else could she expect? Itwas her own fault. " To expect that any man with an ounce of true manhoodin him would at once say, "That young girl does not in the least realizethe danger she is in, and I must get between her and the edge of theprecipice, and see that she comes to no harm. "--this would be to expectthe wildly impossible. Have we not made up our mind that the beast andnot the Christ is our master here; and does not every beast spring atonce on a fallen prey? It is human nature, and you will never get mento think and act any differently. As to faith in man as such, not onlyin the church-going man, but in the rough-spoken fisherman, thecontemned publican, the infidel Samaritan, faith in his power ofrecognizing and rising to the truth, the higher standard placed beforehim, _that_ I sometimes think lies buried in that Eastern garden--in theSepulchre "wherein never man yet lay. "[22] And yet it is the man asrevealed in Jesus Christ, not the man as fashioned by the world, withits low traditions and low public opinion, that is true to human nature. In moments of excitement or danger he reverts to this true nature, whichhas been so warped and overlaid by the world. In the great mass meetingswhich I held for the purpose of pleading with men to come over on myside and help me in the work of saving women from the awful doom towhich men sentence them, I used to bring this home by saying to them:"If a fire were to break out in this vast hall, who would be the firstperson that you would try to save? It would be me because I am a woman";and the roar of assent that burst forth from all parts of the buildingshowed that I had struck home. I used to bring before them--and thesooner you bring it before your boys the better--the conduct of the menon the ill-fated _Birkenhead_--ah! dear men, voiceless and nameless, and lost in that "vast and wandering grave" into which they sank, whathave they not done to raise the tone of England? You will possiblyremember that the _Birkenhead_, with a troop of our soldiers on board, struck and foundered not far from land. The women and children were atonce crowded into the boats, and it was only when, in a few minutes, theship began to settle that the cry was heard among the men, "To theboats! to the boats! every man for himself!" But the officer in commandstood up and shouted, "What! and swamp the women and children? Dierather!" And those men did die. Drawn up in military array, withoutmoving a muscle, those men sank into the bitter waters of death, thatthe women and children might live. [23] That I contend is man's truenature, to love the woman, and, if needs be, to give himself for her. 

It is, therefore, to recognize and strengthen this true nature of man, to get it deeper into him, and not to get it out of him, as I cannot butfeel we have hitherto more or less done, to train your boys in thisperfect loyalty to all womanhood as such; and to send forth men intothe world to "die rather" than save themselves at the cost of a woman, to "die rather" than drive a woman down into those deep waters ofdegradation and death, that we look to the mothers of the future as thesole hope of the world. I say again you have got to see that they learnin relation to their own sisters what they have to practise towards allwomen, however humble, ay, and however degraded, in their future life. As the great English oaks are built up of tiny cells, so this truemanliness must be built up by a mother's watchful use of a thousandsmall daily incidents--by what Wordsworth rightly calls the best part ofa good man's life--

 "His little daily, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. "

In themselves they seem almost too trivial to mention:--the easy chairinstinctively given up on the sister's entrance; the door opened for anywoman passing out; the cap removed in the presence of ladies, eventhough those ladies are his own relatives; the deck-chair taken out bythe seaside to make the mother comfortable; the favorite cricket-matchgiven up if an expedition has been fixed in which his services areneeded; the window raised and the door shut on leaving arailway-carriage in which women are travelling, so as not to expose themto draught; and, when men-servants are not kept, the sister's bicyclecleaned or the skates polished--all those "little daily, unrememberedacts" of knightly service which the mere presence of a woman ought toinspire in a man. 

I am well aware that here again, as Mr. Philip Hamerton points out, theboarding-school presents a difficulty. As he says, "The worst of thedistant school system is that it deprives the home residence thatremains of all beneficial discipline; for the boys are guests during theholidays, and the great business is to amuse them. "[24]

But surely this needs only to be mentioned to be remedied. You do notmake your boys happier during their holidays by making them selfish:what is really a novelty to a schoolboy, fresh from the association withboys only, is to have sisters to look after and a mother to depend uponhim for all sorts of little services. A joyous exclamation on your part, "Oh, what a comfort it is to have a boy in the house to do things forone!" will make him swell with manly pride; and should he show the leasttendency to put upon his sisters and make them fetch and carry for him, as they are only too willing to do, you can easily put a stop to that bya few caustic remarks that you don't want savages in your house; and apointed use of that delightful story in one of the White Crosspapers, [25] of the Zulu chief to whom the Government sent a propitiatorypresent of wagons and wheelbarrows, thinking that it would be sure toplease him. But he gazed on them with fine scorn, exclaiming: "What'sthe use of those things for carrying our burdens when we have plenty ofwomen!" Or you can use that equally good story, told by Sir John Lubbockat a sectional meeting of the British Association for the Promotion ofScience, of a remote tribe of savages who had never seen a bullock, andwhen the white man arrived with his bullock wagons, after much perplexeddiscussion, they came to the conclusion that, as they were used forheavy loads, they must be the white man's wives!

A little wholesome, if incisive, raillery on your part will quicklyextinguish any tendency to make willing slaves of his sisters. If, however, you prefer to indulge your foolish fondness for him, thatsubtle self-indulgence which makes it easier for you to sacrificeyourself and his sisters to him rather than discipline him to work outhis true nature, remember you gratify yourself at his most cruel cost. You produce the boy whose youth is marked by a tacit contempt for girlsand whose manhood will be disfigured by a light estimation of the beautyand sanctity of womanhood. 

I know well I shall be told that all this is quite out of date; thatmodern girls are so independent that they stand in no need of brothers, but like to place themselves on a level with them and share as goodcomrades in all their rough-and-tumble games. Let us be of good cheer. Sex is a very ancient institution, the slow evolution of hundreds ofcenturies, and is in no danger of being obliterated by the fashion of aday. Take the most advanced "new woman"; yes, concealed under thatvirile shirt-front, unchoked by that manly necktie and turned-up collar, lurking beneath that masculine billy-cock; nay, hidden somewhere deeperdown than the pockets of even those male knickerbockers, you will findthe involuntary pleasurable thrill at a strong man's chivalrousattention, the delicious sense of a man's care and protection, whichcenturies and centuries of physical weakness have woven into the verytissues of her being, in however loud and strident a voice she may denyit. Whatever changes in the position of women may take place, the basicfact remains, and will always remain, the man is stronger than thewoman, and his strength is given him to serve the weaker; and you havegot to get your girls to be your fellow-helpers in developing all thatis best and most chivalrous in their brothers, and not so to run riot intheir independence as to substitute a boyish camaraderie for theexquisite relations of the true man to the true woman. 

There rises up now before me a boy, one of those delightful English boysoverflowing with pluck and spirits. His mother had come to one of mymeetings, and, like so many other mothers, I am thankful to say, hadreceived a lifelong impression from what I said with regard to thetraining of boys, and she resolved, there and then, to act upon myadvice with her own boys. She told me some two years after, that thisboy had come in late one afternoon and explained to her that a littlegirl had asked him to direct her to rather an out-of-the-way house. "Ithought she might ask that question of some one who would tell herwrong, or that she might come to some harm, so I thought I had better gowith her and see her safe to the house. " "But what of the cricket-matchthat you wanted so to see?" his mother asked. "Oh, I had to give thatup. There wasn't time for both. "

On another occasion, when a Christmas-tree was being prepared in theschoolroom for some choristers, as he and his mother left at dusk achorister tried to force himself past her and gain a private view; andwhen she refused him admittance, not recognizing who she was, called hera very disrespectful name. Instantly the boy flew at him like a littletiger, "How dare you speak to my mother like that!" "I didn't see it wasyour mother, " the chorister pleaded, trying to ward off the blows. "Butyou saw it was a woman, and somebody's mother, and you dare to speak toher like that!" And such a storm of fisticuffs fell on every part ofthat hulking young chorister's person as forced him at last to cry formercy and promise that he would never do so again. That boy's masterwrote to his mother towards the end of his school-time--he was aBluecoat boy--and said that he positively dreaded his leaving, as hisinfluence on the side of everything good, and pure, and high was quitethat of a master. 

And now I come to the question of religious teaching, which you may besurprised that I have not put first of all. First of all, in one sense, I do put it. There can be no greater safeguard to purity of life thanvital religion. I do not go so far as some evangelical mothers who havetold me that nothing less than the conversion of their boys would be ofthe least avail to keep them morally straight; on the contrary, I haveknown men who have never come under any strong religious influence, buthave grown up sceptical scientific men, yet who have led lives as pureas any woman's. Common manhood, with the "Light that lighteth every manthat cometh into the world"; common love for mother and sister, whichfor their sakes maketh it impossible to wrong their womanhood, even whenfallen into the dust; common self-respect, which is so strong in somemen, and makes them shrink from anything in the nature of mud, is oftensufficient to accomplish this end. But still, when all is said, if inanswer to your mother's prayers you can implant in your boy a sense ofthe Divine Presence and the cry of the quickened conscience, "How can Ido this great sin and wickedness against God?" you have doubtless givenhim the best panoply against the fiery darts of temptation. Only I wouldagain warn you that there must be no forcing of the religious emotions, no effort to gather the fruits of the spirit before the root, in theshape of the great cardinal virtues everywhere presupposed in Christianethics, has been nourished, and strengthened, and watered into strong, healthy growth. We have to bear in mind our Lord's words, which it seemsto me religious parents sometimes forget, that there is an order ofgrowth in spiritual things as in natural--first the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear; and we are not to try to force thefull corn in the ear before the stalk and the blade have grown. For thewant of laying to heart these words of the great Teacher, I have knownmuch pulpy, emotional religion engrafted on young souls--admirablyadapted to exhaust the soil, but with the smallest possible bearing uponright conduct; a religion perfectly at its ease with much scamping oflessons and hard work in general; indulgent of occasional cribbing, andof skilful manipulation of awkward truth, of betting and smallextravagances; and innocent of all sense of dishonesty in allowing astruggling parent to pay large sums for education while the school-timeso purchased, often at the cost of home comforts and pleasant outings, is squandered in idleness. 

What a boy really needs, and, indeed, all immature things--for I foundit equally true of immature men--is a simple, practical religion, basedmore on the facts of life and conscience than on doctrines and dogmas. To know God as his Father; to know that he has a Redeemer who laid downHis life to save him from sin and who takes account of his smallest andmost broken effort to do what is right; to realize that it is only sofar as he is like Christ and in Christ that he can be really a man andwork out what is highest in him; to know that he has been baptized intoa Divine Society, binding him to fight against all wrong, both withinand in the world without; above all, to know that there is a supremespiritual Power within him and about him to enable him to do right, andthat in the line of duty "I can't" is a lie in the lips that repeat, "Ibelieve in the Holy Ghost"; this is as much as his young soul canassimilate, not as mere religious phrases, but as realities to live by. 

 "So nigh to glory is our dust, So nigh to God is man, When duty whispers low 'Thou must, ' The soul replies, 'I can. '"

But see that beneath all this he has the special Christian teaching withregard to the sanctity of the body thoroughly instilled into him. If theIncarnation means anything, it means not the salvation andsanctification of a ghost, but the salvation and consecration of thewhole man, of his body as well as his soul. True, the animal body to aspiritual being must always be a "body of humiliation, " but nothing canbe more unfortunate and misleading than the epithet in the AuthorizedVersion of "vile" as a translation of the Greek word used by St. Paul. On the contrary, we are taught that even this mortal body is a temple ofthe Holy Ghost. 

In teaching this there can be no difficulty; you can make use of achild's natural reverence for a church. You can say, "What would youthink if you heard of some loose lads breaking into a church, and justfor the fun of the thing strewing the aisles with cinder dust and allsorts of loose rubbish; tearing out the pages of Bibles and hymn-booksto light their pipes, and getting drunk out of the chalice? You would behonestly shocked at such profanity. Nay, even in the dire exigencies ofwar we do not think better of the Germans for having stabled theirhorses in one of the French churches and left their broken beer-bottleson the high altar and the refuse of a stable strewn up and down thenave. Yet a church is, after all, only a poor earthly building, built byhuman hands. But there is one temple which God has built for Himself, the temple of man's body; and of that the terrible words are written, and ever fulfilled, "If any man defile that temple, him will Goddestroy. " God's great gift of speech is not to be defiled by dirty talk, by profane language, by lies, or evil speaking. The organs which aregiven us for its sustenance are not to be denied by gluttony andpiggishness, either in food or drink. The boy is not to use any part ofhis body in defiling ways which he would be ashamed for his own motherto know of. To do so is not only to defile, but--with the double meaningof the Greek word, which we cannot render into English--to destroy; toweaken his brain-power, which he wants for his work in life, to weakenhis nervous system, lessening his strength thereby and rendering himless able to excel in athletics, and often, if carried to excess, inafter-life bringing results which are the very embodiment of theterrible words, "Him will God destroy. " The full force and bearing ofthis teaching he may not apprehend. I have already said that with ayoung boy the lower appeal never to do anything that is low and dirtyand blackguardly will have far more practical weight, and will alsoavoid laying undue stress on the religious emotions. But I am quite surethat the Christian teaching of the sanctity of the body must be laiddeep and strong with all the force of early impression in a boy's inmostbeing, in order that it may lie ready for future use when Nature hasdeveloped those instincts of manhood which will teach him its fullsignificance. 

If you are an Episcopalian, you will of course find the time of yourboy's confirmation simply invaluable as one of those turning-pointswhich will enable you to speak, or possibly write, more unreservedlythan is possible on more ordinary occasions. I would earnestly ask youto give him a little White Cross confirmation paper called _Purity theGuard of Manhood_, a paper which an Eton master pronounced the bestthing he had met with of the kind, and which has been widely used. Donot rest content with merely giving the paper in a perfunctory way, butfollow it up with a few living, earnest words of your own. 

Of course I should do a wrong to your womanly instincts if I were tothink it necessary to say that the inculcation of purity must be alwaysin a mother's heart, but only on her lips on some marked occasions, suchas the first going to school, the last day of the holidays, or when yourboy himself gives the occasion by some question he may ask you, butabove all when he reaches a critical age, when a few words from your ownlips will be worth all the printed pages in the world. Only ever andalways make it an essential element of his idea of manliness to be pure, and do not forget constantly to couple the words "brave and pure, " or"manly and pure, " or "pure and high character, " in his hearing; that hemay be endued, not with that pale, emasculate thing that passes musterfor purity nowadays, which always seems to me chiefly conscious of itsown indecency, full of the old nervous "touch not, taste not, handlenot" spirit, bandaged up with this restriction and that lest it fall topieces, and when it comes to saving another from defilement in body andsoul shuffling uneasily into a pair of lavender kid-gloves and mutteringsomething about its being "such a very delicate subject"--nay, notthis, but that militant sun-clad power which Milton dreamed of, rushingdown like a sword of God to smite everything low, and base and impure; apurity as of mountain water or living fire, whose very nature it is, notonly to be pure itself, but to destroy impurity in others. 

V

And now let me throw together two or three practical suggestions, whichwill probably be superfluous to the most experienced mothers, but may beuseful to younger and more inexperienced parents. 

In the first place, I think there are few of the heads of the medicalprofession who would not agree with me that our English dietary is toostimulating and too abundant. Sir Andrew Clark certainly held that alarge proportion of our diseases spring from over-eating andover-drinking. I don't suppose that for a boy it so much matters, as heis eating for "edification" as well as for sustenance, for the buildingup of his walls as well as for the nutrition of his existing frame. But"the boy is father to the man, " and I would ask you not to accustom yourboys to a rich dietary, as the habit once formed will be prolonged intoearly manhood, and undoubtedly such stimulating diet does greatlyincrease the temptations with which young men have to contend. It isperfectly unnecessary for the developing of strength and stature, as isshown by the splendid Scotchmen who yearly carry off some of our highestuniversity distinctions and prizes--many of them farmer lads who havescarcely tasted meat in their boyhood, but have been brought up on thesimple farinaceous food of the country. There was much force and meaningin the quaint congratulatory telegram sent by a friend to a CambridgeSenior Wrangler hailing from Scotland, "Three cheers for the parritge!"And that curious and most impressive fact which Mr. Bayard, the lateAmerican Ambassador, hunted up for our edification from variousdictionaries of biography--the fact, namely, that a large proportion ofour most eminent men spring from the homes of the poorer clergy, wherecertainly sumptuous fare and much meat do not obtain, is a proof thatabstemious living, while forming a valuable discipline for the soul, does not injure but promotes the health of the body and the strength ofthe brain. Our having given up the religious uses of fasting I oftenthink is a loss to young men; and it might, therefore, be as well if wewere to imitate our "Corybantic" brethren, the Salvationists, andinstitute a week of self-denial, leaving the children to work out aneconomical dietary, with due care on our part that it should be fairlynutritious, and allowing them to give what they have saved from theordinary household expenses to any cause in which they may beinterested. It would give them a wholesome lesson in self-denial andcheap living; both lessons much needed in these luxurious days. Butwhether this suggestion finds favor or not, we have always to bear inmind that "plain living" is the necessary companion of "highthinking"--the lowly earth-born twin who waits upon her heavenly sister. 

On the vexed question of the use of alcohol there was but one point onwhich there was a consensus of opinion in the discussion by our leadingmedical men, which appeared some years ago in the pages of the_Contemporary Review_. The point upon which they were all agreed wasthat alcohol is injurious to children, and if the boy has beenaccustomed from his early youth to do without it, and, as he grows up, remains a total abstainer, there is no question that his abstinence willprove a great safeguard; though I cannot go as far as some of myabstaining friends, who seem to regard the use of alcohol as the root ofwhat must, in the nature of things, be one of the strongest primalpassions of human nature, and therefore liable to abuse, whether men aretotal abstainers or not. Anyhow, though a lad can be trained to strictmoderation, abstinence in both alcohol and tobacco must after a timecome of the lad's own free will; the last thing that answers is tomultiply and enforce restrictions; the rebound is inevitable and oftenfatal. But I do say that where there is a great pinching in the home inorder to afford the educational advantages of school and university, itdoes show some radical defect in the training of our boys that theyshould indulge in such expensive habits, especially the expensive andwholly unnecessary habit of smoking, when the dear mother and youngsisters are doing without many a little home comfort in order to meetthe expense of the young rascal's education. One rich old grandmotherwhom I met abroad promised each of her grandsons fifty pounds if theywould give up smoking; and it was marvellous how that stern necessity ofdoing as other young men do disappeared like their own tobacco smokebefore the promise of that fifty pounds for their own pockets! They wereall able to claim it one after the other. If boys were not trained bytheir mothers to be systematically selfish, might not the home-claims inthe heart be as strong as those fifty pounds in the pocket?

Secondly, with regard to betting and gambling, which may be classed withdrinking, as the fruitful parent of bad company, and a _descensus adinfernum_:--do you not think a boy may be best guarded against a habitof betting, which is so likely to lead on to gambling, by taking thesame line as a boy of my acquaintance took with his mother when she waswarning him against it: "Well, mother, you see, it always does seem somean to me to get a fellow's money from him without giving him anythingin return; it always does seem so like prigging, and some of our fellowsare awfully hard up, and can't afford to lose a penny. " Mr. Gladstonewas evidently of the same opinion when he once said to his privatesecretary, Sir Edward Hamilton, that he "regarded gambling as nothingshort of damnable. What can be the fun of winning other people's money?"This strikes me as a way of putting it which would appeal most forciblyto a boy; and if, in addition, we were to point out to him that, likeall shady things, it has a tendency to grow and sharpen the man into asharper and develop the blood-sucking apparatus of a leech, besidesbringing wretchedness and misery on others, he might be led to resistthe first beginnings of a betting habit which may lead on to gambling inafter years. 

And here I would say that the absolute absence of any training given toa boy in the right use and value of money, which has obtained tilllately in our English schools, is surely suicidal and must lend itselfto every form of abuse. I do not know whether it is the same with you, but many of our boys know money only in the form of pocket-money, whenit becomes to him a metal token mostly signifying so much "tuck";becoming, as he grows older, more and more deleterious "tuck" in theshape of billiards, betting, etc. , and ending in a general going "ontick, " which is worse still. But in this matter we are improving. Ithink most sensible parents nowadays place a small sum at their bank tothe boy's account, with a check-book, making him responsible at firstfor small articles of clothing, neckties, shirt-collars, etc, and assoon as he shows himself trustworthy, for all his expenses exceptschool bills. The boy is expected to keep accounts, get nothing withoutfirst asking the price, and to bring his receipted bills at the end ofthe term to his father, and see that they tally with his foils; and, above all, always to pay in ready money--unpaid bills being contemplatedin the bald light of shop-lifting. To this I would add, if possible, thehabit of giving the Jewish tenth, so as to make giving a steadyprinciple, and not a hap-hazard impulse. 

Thirdly, it is a vital point to give your boys interesting pursuits. There is great force in the rough old saying, "Never give the devil anempty chair to sit down upon, and you won't be much troubled with hiscompany. " Vice is constantly only idleness which has turnedbad, --idleness being emphatically a thing that will not keep, but turnsrotten. It is not the great industrial centres of our population thatare chiefly ravaged by vice; it is the fashionable watering-places, thefashionable quarters of large towns, where idle men congregate, in whichit is a "pestilence that walketh in darkness, " and slays its thousandsof young girls. "Empty by filling, " has always been a favorite motto ofmine. How many a young man has been driven to betting, drinking, and therace-course from the want of something of interest to fill hisunoccupied hours, because more wholesome tastes have never beendeveloped in him! Of course, tastes must be to a certain degree inborn, but I am quite sure that many a taste perishes, like a frost-bitten bud, full of the promise of blossom and fruit, because it has never beengiven the opportunity to develop. 

Take a boy's innate love of collecting. Could you not develop it by theoffer of a little prize for the best collection of dried flowers, ofbutterflies or insects, of birds' eggs, even, in some cases, ofgeological specimens, but, in any case, with the scientific and commonnames attached; so forming a healthy taste for natural history, whichmay be a source of perpetual interest and profit in after-life? Do notlet your dislike of destroying life interfere; reverence for life can beas well, nay, better taught by insisting that only the necessaryspecimens should be given of each species, only one or two eggs takenfrom the nest, and the nest itself disturbed as little as possible. Chemistry and electricity also appeal to a boy's love of experimentizingand of making electrical contrivances, easily constructed of thecommonest materials. As to hand-work, the lack of which in ill-healthhas made so many a man a torment both to himself and others, there oughtto be no difficulty with regard to that. Carpentering, wood-carving, repoussé-work in metal, bent-iron work, mosaic work, any of these, except possibly the last, may be set on foot with very little expense, besides drawing, modelling, etc. Where there are sufficient means itwould be a good thing if boys were taught, as far as may be, how thingsare made and the amount of toil that goes into the simplest article. Iremember giving a small printing-press to a boy of ours--an excellentgift, by the by, for a lad, and it can be had for five or sixshillings--and his coming to me soon after with a match-box in his hand, exclaiming with wonderment, "Why, auntie, there are six different kindsof type on this match-box!" If they could learn how to build, howrafters and joists are put in, and construct as much as a miniaturesummer-house in the garden, how useful this being able to turn theirhands to anything might prove to them in their after-life. And with whatadded respect they would look upon all labor if they had never lookedupon it as the part of a "gentleman" to stand aloof from it. 

Lastly, but not least, I would plead most earnestly for the frequenthome-letter, should your boy be sent to a boarding-school. If you wouldhave him resist the temptations of school life, keep the home as closeto his heart and as present to his mind as you can. Make it your firstand paramount duty to write every day if you can, if not every otherday, at least twice a week. 

Do not misunderstand me here. God knows I do not go in for the devotedmother who thinks of nothing but her boys and to whom the whole worldbesides is nothing but an empty flourish of the pen about their names. Such mothers are like Chinese teacups, with no perspective andeverything out of proportion; where the Mandarin is as big as thePagoda, and suffers from a pathetic inability to get in at his own door. You must see things in moral perspective in order to train character onlarge and noble lines. And it is from the rough quarry of the outsideworld, with its suffering and sin, that you must fetch the most preciousstones for the building up of true manhood or womanhood. The soonerchildren are taught that their small concerns must be subordinated attimes to the needs of the sick, the poor, and the suffering, the betterfor them. For a mother, therefore, to undertake _some_ outside work mayand will prove the best element in their education, enabling them intheir turn to live in relation with the world in which God has placedthem and do their part in the service of humanity. 

All that I mean is, do not so crowd your life with outside work orsocial engagements as to have no time to spare for this daily or atleast bi-weekly letter to the boys at school. Bear in mind that the mostimportant work you can do for the world is the formation of noblecharacter, building it up stone by stone as you alone can do. Do not betoo busy to make yourself your boy's friend and throw yourself heartilyinto all that interests him. I have known philanthropic mothers to whomcricket was nothing but an unmeaning scurrying backwards and forwards, and who scarcely knew the stern of a boat from its bows!

And what a liberal education a mother's home-letters to her boys atschool might be made! The stirring incident in the newspapers, the finepassage in the book, a verse or two of a noble poem, as well as all theloving thought and prayer that is for ever flying like homing birds tothe dear absent lads, and the inculcation of all things lovely and pureand manly, brightened by home jokes and the health of the last cherishedpet--all these things might go to make up the home letters. Above all, what an opportunity it would give for pleading the cause of the littlechaps who, by some strange insanity working in the brain of the Britishparent, are sent into the rough world of a large school when they arefitter for the nursery, and whom you might appeal to your boys to lookafter and protect, so far as they are able; and not only these, but toside with every boy who is being bullied for acting up to his conscienceor because he has not the pluck to stand up for himself. 

In conclusion, I would earnestly ask you to believe in your own powerwhen united to the knowledge which is necessary to direct it. "A man iswhat a woman makes him, " says the old saw. Look back upon the men youhave known who have been touched to finest issues, and you will find, with few exceptions, that they are the shaping of a noble woman'shands--a noble mother, a noble wife, a noble sister. Doubt not, butearnestly believe that with those wonderful shaping hands of yours youcan mould that boy of yours into the manhood of Sir Galahad, "whosestrength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure"; thatyou can send him forth into the world like King Arthur, of whom our ownpoet, Spenser, says, that the poorest, the most unprotected girl couldfeel that

 "All the while he by his side her bore She was as safe as in a sanctuary. "

Nay, may I not go further still and say that by the grace of God you cansend him forth "made of a woman" in the image of the strong and tenderManhood of Jesus Christ, to Whom even the poor lost girls out of thestreet could come and know that here was a Man who would not drag themdown, but lift them up; believing in Whom, clinging to Whom, trusting inWhom, they grew no longer lost and degraded, but splendid saints of theChristian Church. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: _Morality in Public Schools_, by Dr. Butler, Master ofTrinity College, Cambridge, and late Head-Master of Harrow. ]

[Footnote 12: _The Preservation of Health_, by Clement Dukes, M. D. , M. R. C. S. , Howard Medallist, Statistical Society of London, p. 150. ]

[Footnote 13: _Ibid. _, p. 157. ]

[Footnote 14: _A Confidential Talk with the Boys of America_, by J. M. Dick. Fleming H. Revell Co. ]

[Footnote 15: See Appendix. ]

[Footnote 16: See _Parents' Review_, No. 5, July, 1895, p. 351. ]

[Footnote 17: have quoted here from _The Ascent of Man_ by ProfessorDrummond, pp. 292, 293; but any standard work on botany will give youthe method of the fertilization of plants in greater detail. ]

[Footnote 18: _Ibid. _, p. 310. ]

[Footnote 19: Erroneously called neuter, as in reality it is animperfectly developed female, and is only capable of producing males. ]

[Footnote 20: I owe my first clear apprehension of the gradual evolutionof the preservative and altruistic elements in nature, arising from thestruggle for existence, to a sermon of Dr. Abbott's called _TheManifestation of the Son of God_, now, I fear, out of print. Of courseDarwin recognized these factors as a necessary complement to thesurvival of the fittest, else had there been no fittest to survive; butthe exigencies of proving his theory of the origin of speciesnecessitated his dwelling on the destructive and weeding-out elements ofNature--"Nature red in tooth and claw, " rather than the equallypervasive Nature of the brooding wing and the flowing breast. Had notProfessor Drummond unfortunately mixed it up with a good deal ofextraneous sentiment, his main thesis would scarcely have beenimpugned. ]

[Footnote 21: In case this method of teaching should seem to somemothers too difficult, I intend to embody it in a simple "Mother's Talkon Life and Birth, " which a mother can read with her boys. ]

[Footnote 22: See a White Cross paper of mine called _My Little Sister_. Wells Gardner, Darton and Co. , London. ]

[Footnote 23: Twice since the wreck of the _Birkenhead_ has the sametrue manhood been evinced on the high seas in the face of almost certaindeath--once in the wreck of the troopship, the _Warren Hastings_, andagain by the crew and the civilian passengers of the _Stella_. Perfectorder was maintained, and though, ultimately all the men were saved, nota man stirred hand or foot to save himself till the women and childrenhad first been safely got on shore. ]

[Footnote 24: _French and English_, by Philip Hamerton, p. 44. ]

[Footnote 25: _The British Zulu_. Wells Gardner, Darton and Co. , London. ]

CHAPTER VII

EARLY MANHOOD

If, in the words of the great educator I have already quoted, the chiefmoral teaching and moral trend of the character must be given in theschoolboy days, yet early manhood presents its own fruitful field forthe influence of a mother on the side of whatsoever things are pure andlovely. The methods of exerting this influence must change as your songrows from a boy into a man; the inevitable reticence, the exquisitereserve of sex, must interfere with the old boyish confidences and withyour own freedom of speech. Other barriers, too, will most likely springup as your son goes forth into the world and mixes freely with otheryoung men of his own standing. Whether it be at college, or in the army, or in business, he will inevitably be influenced by the views of the menhe associates with, which he will enlarge into the opinion of the worldin general, and will probably come home, if not to contradict hismother, at least to patronize her and go his own way, smiling at herwith an air of manly superiority and with a lofty consciousness that heknows a thing or two which lie beyond a woman's ken. Probably enough hetakes up with views on religion, or politics, or social questions whichare emphatically not yours, and which make you feel left very farbehind, instead of the old familiar "walking together" which was sosweet. Worse still, he may evince for a time a cynical indifference toall great questions, and all your teaching may seem to be lost in adesert flat. The days of the latch-key and the independent life havecome, and you often seem to stand outside the walls which once admittedyou into their dearest recesses, left with but little clue as to what isgoing on within. 

But have patience. Early teaching and influence, though it may pass fora time into abeyance, is the one thing that leaves an indelible impresswhich will in the end make itself felt, only waiting for those eternalsprings which well up sooner or later in every life to burst into upwardgrowth; it may be a pure attachment, it may be a great sorrow, it may bea sickness almost unto death, it may be some awakening to spiritualrealities. I often think of that pathetic yet joyful resurrection cry, "This is our God, we have waited for Him"--waited for Him, possiblythrough such long years of disappointment and heart hunger--only to cryat the last, "This is our God, we have waited for Him, and He has savedus. "

But it is not all waiting. If with early manhood the "old order" has togive place to new, and old methods and instruments have to be laidaside as no longer fitted for their task, God puts into the hands of themother new instruments, new methods of appeal, which in some ways aremore powerful than the old. In early manhood she can appeal to thethought of the future wife. I believe that this appeal is one of thestrongest that you can bring to bear upon young men. 

I once had to make it myself under circumstances of unparalleleddifficulty; and I was struck with the profound response that it evoked. It was on the occasion of the inaugural White Cross address to thestudents of the Edinburgh University, now one of the first medicalschools in the world. The date of the address had been fixed, the halltaken, when an unforeseen difficulty arose. Eminent man after eminentman was asked to give the address, but all with one consent began tomake excuse. Spirit and flesh quailed before so difficult and rowdy anaudience on so difficult and perilous a subject. At last the professorwho was chiefly interested implored me to give the address myself, orthe whole thing would go by default. Under these circumstances I had nochoice but to do so. But as I sat in the committee room while the orderof the meeting was being arranged, and heard my audience shouting, singing, crowing like cocks, whistling like parrots, caterwauling likecats, and keeping up a continuous uproar, I thought to myself, "I havegot to go into that, and control it somehow so as to be heard"; Iconfess I did feel wrecked upon God. Professor Maclagan, who took thechair, agreed that a prayer was impossible, a hymn was equally out ofthe question. The only thing was to push me at once to the front; andalmost immediately after a few very brief words from the distinguishedchairman I found myself face to face with an audience that evidentlymeant mischief. By some instinct I told them at once about James Hinton, whom, of course, they knew by name as the first aurist of his day; how, with all that this life could give him, he had died of a broken heart, aheart broken over the lost and degraded womanhood of England, the hostsof young girls slain in body and soul whom he met with at night in ourterrible streets. This seemed to strike and sober them, that a manshould actually die over a thing which to all of them was so familiarand to many had been only the subject of a coarse jest. Fortunately, there is a stage of nervous terror which rounds again on desperatecourage, and having once got hold of my audience, I determined to usethe occasion to the uttermost and venture on the most perilous ground. In the course of my address I asked them to take notice of a greatsilent change that was taking place all round them in the position ofwomen, the full significance of which they might not have grasped. Everywhere women were leaving the seclusion of their homes and werequietly coming forward and taking their place by their side in the greatwork of the world. I thanked them for the generous welcome that theyhad accorded them. But had they seized the full meaning, the ulteriorbearings of this changed attitude in women, and the wider knowledge ofthe world that it brought with it? Not so long ago it was an understoodthing that women should know nothing of the darker side of life; andthere was nothing dishonorable in a man keeping the woman he loved inignorance of the darker side of his own past, if such there were. But inthe greater knowledge that has come to women, and the anguish some ofthem feel over the misery and degradation of their lost sisters, canthis attitude any longer be maintained without conscious deception?"What would you say, " I asked, "if the woman you loved with the wholestrength of your soul passed herself off as an undamaged article uponyou, and let you worship her as the very embodiment of all that is whiteand pure, when something unspeakably sad and sinful had happened in herpast life? You know you would be half mad at the wrong done to you ifafter marriage you found it out. And what are you going to do, I asksome of you who are so careless as to the life you lead, are _you_ goingto pass yourself off as an undamaged article on the woman who loves andworships you, and who gives herself so unreservedly to you that sheloses her very name and takes yours? Is it fair, is it honorable, is iteven manly? No, I see by your faces you are saying, 'I don't think itis, I should have to confess. ' Well, that is better than basing yourlife on a dishonorable lie. But, alas! it is no way out of the misery. At the very moment when you would give all you possess to be worthy ofthat great love she gives you, you have to prove that you are unworthy;and the whole of the only last gleam of Eden that is left to this poorlife of yours, the pure love of a man to a pure woman, is blotted outwith bitter and jealous tears; the trail of the serpent is over it all. I know well that women can love, and love passionately, impure men; butevery woman will tell you that there is _a_ love that a woman can onlygive to a man who has been faithful to her before marriage as well asafter; and for ever and for ever there will be a shut door at the veryheart of your Eden of which you have flung away the key, a love thatmight have been yours had you kept yourself worthy of it. There is butone way out of the difficulty, now that in the changed position of womenyou can no longer honorably keep them in the dark--to make up your mindthat you will come to the woman you love in the glory of your unfallenmanhood, as you expect her to come to you in the beauty of her spotlessmaidenhood. "

I did not know for one moment whether they would not break out intocooing like doves; but, on the contrary, they listened to me withprofound attention, and I could see that none of my words went so hometo them as those. When I had finished my address a member of thecommittee said to one of the professors, "I think if she had asked themto go off and storm Edinburgh Castle they would have marched off in abody and done it. " So great is the power of a woman pleading for women. 

If I could use this sacred plea with effect under circumstances of--Ithink you will allow--such unspeakable difficulty, must it not bepossible to you, the mother from whom such an appeal would come sonaturally, to use this same influence, and in the quiet Sunday walkthrough the fields and woods where Nature herself seems to breathe ofthe sanctity of life in every leaf and flower, or in the quiet talk overthe winter fireside before he leaves home, to plead with your son tokeep himself faithful to his future wife, so that when he meets thewoman he can love and make his wife, he may have no shameful secrets toconfess, or, worse still, to conceal from her, no base tendencies tohand down to his unborn children after him? Thank God! how many anAmerican and English wife and mother can speak here from personalexperience of the perfect love and perfect trust which have been bred ofa pure life before marriage, and a knowledge that the sacraments of loveand life had never been desecrated or defiled, so that no shadow ofdistrust or suspicion can ever darken the path of her married happiness. How powerful the pleading of such a mother may become with her son, togive his future wife the same perfect trust and unclouded happiness inher husband's love!

I remember in a series of allegorical pictures by an old master in theBaptistery at Florence, how, with the divine instinct of poets andartists, in the beautiful symbolic figure of Hope, the painter hasplaced a lily in her hands. Cannot we teach our sons that if they are torealize their dearest hope in life, that divine hope must ever bear alily in her hand as the only wand that can open to them the paradise ofthe ideal, the divine vision which is "the master light of all ourseeing, " the deepest and most sacred joys of our life?

 He safely walks in darkest ways Whose youth is lighted from above, Where, through the senses' silvery haze, Dawns the veiled moon of nuptial love. 

 "Who is the happy husband? He Who, scanning his unwedded life, Thanks God, with all his conscience free, 'Twas faithful to his future wife. "[26]

Again, could we not give our boys a little more teaching about the truenature and sacredness of fatherhood? It always strikes me that the trueethics of fatherhood are not yet born. Were the true nature, thesacredness, and the immense responsibilities of fatherhood really andduly recognized, men could not look with the appalling lightness withwhich they do on providing some substitute for marriage, when they havenot the means to marry in early life, and are under the very prevalentillusion that continent men who marry late run the risk of a childlessmarriage--a notion which so great an authority as Acton pronounces to beabsolutely false physiologically, and without foundation in fact. Tobring a child into the world to whom he can perform no one of the dutiesof a father, and to whom he deliberately gives a mother with a tarnishedname--a mother who, from the initial wrong done to her and the stigmawhich deprives her of the society of women, will only too probably notstay her feet at the first wrong step, but be drawn down that dreadwinding stair which ends in the despair of a lost soul--this, I urge, would be utterly abhorrent to every even fairly right-thinking man, instead of the very common thing it is. Did we see it truly, it would bea not venial sin, but an unpardonable crime. 

Now, surely mothers can supply some teaching here which must be wantingfor public opinion to be what it is. A quiet talk about the high nature, the duties and responsibilities of fatherhood cannot present any greatdifficulties. 

I remember many years ago hearing Canon Knox Little preach a sermon inYork Cathedral to a large mixed congregation, in which he touched onthis subject. At this distance of time I can only give the freestrendering of his words, the more so as I have so often used them in myown meetings that I may have unconsciously moulded them after my ownfashion. "Look, " he said, "at that dying father--dying in the faith, having fought the good fight, and all heaven now opening before hisdying gaze. Yet he withdraws his thoughts from that great hereafter tocentre them upon the little lad who stands at his bedside. His handswander over the golden head with

 "'The vast sad tenderness of dying men. '

He triumphs over pain and weakness that he may plot and plan everydetail of the young life which he can no longer live to guide anddirect. And when at length he seems to have passed into the lastdarkness, and they hold up the child to see if he will yet recognizehim, suddenly the spirit seems to sweep back again over the dark riverwhich it has almost crossed, and an ineffable light illumines the dyingface as his lips meet the lips of his little son in one last supremekiss--the father's love for one moment vanquishing death itself. Andwhat, I ask, " said the preacher, in tones that thrilled that vastaudience, "must be the sin of desecrating and defiling such a functionas this, this function of fatherhood in which man seems to touch uponGod Himself and become the representative of the Father in heaven--whatmust be the guilt of turning it into a subject of filthy jests and asource of unclean actions?"

The friend with whom I was staying had brought with her her Bible classof Industrial School lads, and when the next day she asked what hadstruck them most in the sermon, they answered promptly, "What he saidabout fathers, " Let us go and teach likewise. 

But perhaps the most precious sphere of influence is that which comes toa mother last and latest of all--too late, unless the moral training ofall preceding years has been made one long disciplinary preparation inself-mastery and pureness of living, for the higher and more difficultself-control, the far sterner discipline, of true marriage pure andundefiled. But if through her training and influence "the white flowerof a blameless life" has been worn

 "Through all the years of passion in the blood, "

then this is the time when her long patient sowing comes to its goldenfruitage. It is to his mother that a young man turns as his confidant inhis engagement; it is to her that he necessarily turns for counsel andadvice with regard to his young wife in the early years of his marriage. A young man in love is a man who can receive divine truth even of thehardest, for love is of God, and its very nature is self-giving. 

 "Love took up the harp of life, and smote upon its chords with might-- Smote the chord of self, that trembling passed in music out of sight. "

A pure affection is an almost awful revelation in itself to a young manof the true nature of sensual sin. He would gladly die for the woman heloves. And we look, therefore, to you mothers to bring into the worldthat Christian ideal of marriage which at present is practically shut upbetween the covers of our Bibles, that the man is to love the woman, thehusband the wife, [27] "as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself forit"; not our ideal of the self-sacrificing woman--our patient Griseldasand Enids and all the rest of it--but the self-sacrificing man, who isbut poorly represented in our literature at all, --the man who loves thewoman and gives himself for her, holding all the strongest forces andpassions of his nature for her good, to crown her with perfect wifehoodand perfect motherhood. 

This Christian ideal was doubtless intended to fulfil those restrictionsof the Levitical Law which were to safeguard the health of the wife andsecure the best conditions for the unborn child; laws and regulations tothe observance of which the Jew doubtless owes his splendid physique andhis still more splendid mental endowments, which, though he is thefewest of all peoples, bring him everywhere to the forefront, --infinance, in literature, in music, in general capacity, --and to which, Ishould be inclined to add, he owes his comparatively slow rate ofincrease, else it is difficult to understand the small numericalstrength of this extraordinary race; but I know that this is a disputedpoint. No jot or tittle of these laws and regulations can pass awayuntil they are fulfilled in some larger truth; for ignore them or not, they are founded on physiological laws; and it is on mothers'recognizing this larger truth in the advice they give, and on theirbringing in the Christian ideal, that the future of marriage mainlydepends, and its being made more consonant with the higher and moreindependent position of women than it at present is. 

Whilst the sight is so familiar of wives with health broken down andlife made a burden, possibly even premature death incurred, by theirbeing given no rest from the sacred duties of motherhood, to say nothingof the health of the hapless child born under such circumstances, can wewonder that the modern woman often shows a marked distaste to marriageand looks upon it as something low and sensual? Or can we wonder thatmarried men, with so sensual an ideal of so holy a state, should, alas!so largely minister to the existence of an outcast class of women?

On the other hand, the remedy resorted to is often worse than thedisease. I confess I have stood aghast at the advice given by Christianmothers, often backed up by a doctor whom they affirm to be a Christianman, in order to save the health of the wife or limit the increase ofthe family. The heads of the profession, in England, I believe, aresound on this point, a conference having been held some years ago by ourleading medical men to denounce all such "fruits of philosophy" asphysically injurious and morally lowering. 

But if we want to know what their practical results are, the moralgangrene they are to the national life when once they have firmly takenhold of a nation, we have only to look across the channel atFrance--France with her immense wealth, but rapidly decliningpopulation, which in less than a century will reduce her from afirst-rate to a second-or third-rate power, so that her statesmen haveactually debated the expediency of offering a premium on illegitimacy inthe shape of free nurture to all illegitimate children, --illegitimatecitizens being better in their estimation than no citizens at all. 

Would we have the Anglo-Saxon race enter on this downward grade? If not, then let us women silently band together to preserve the sanctity of thefamily, of the home, and sternly to bar out the entrance of all thatdefileth--all that sensualizes her men and enfeebles their self-mastery, all that renders the heart of her women too craven to encounter theburdens of being the mothers of a mighty race, flowing out into all thelands to civilize and Christianize, and "bear the white man's burthen. "

One word more, a sad and painful one, but one which comes from my inmostheart. Do not pass by the sadder aspects of this great moral questionand refuse "to open thy mouth for the dumb, " for those "who areappointed unto destruction. "

You cannot keep your son in ignorance of the facts; the state of ourmiserable streets, every time he walks out in the evening in any of ourlarge towns, absolutely forbids that possibility. But you can place himin the right attitude to meet those facts whether in the streets oramong his own companions. It is by fighting the evils without that wecan best fight the evils within. It is in dragging them down that we arelifted up. A noble passion for the wronged, the weak, the sinful, andthe lost is the best means for casting out the ignoble passions whichwould destroy another in order to have a good time one's self. Atpresent the stock phrase of a virtuous young man is, "I know how to takecare of myself. " You have to put into his lips and heart a stronger anda nobler utterance than that: "I know how to take care of the weakestwoman that comes in my path. " Surely it is requiring no impossible moralattitude in our sons, rather mere common manliness, to expect that whenspoken to by some poor wanderer, he should make answer in his heart ifnot with his lips, "My girl, I have got a sister, and it would break myheart to see her in your place, and I would rather die than have anypart in your degradation. " One mother I know, who had been much engagedin rescue work, and into whose heart the misery and degradation of ouroutcast girls had entered like iron, taught her young son always totake off his hat before passsing on, whenever he was accosted. He told afriend of mine that he had scarcely ever known it to fail. Either thepoor girl would say, "Sir, I am very sorry I spoke to you"; or morefrequently still that little mark of human respect would prove too much, and she would silently turn away and burst into tears. If our sonscannot bare their heads before that bowed and ignoble object on whom thesins of us all seem to have met--the wild passions of men, as well asthe self-righteousness of the Church--then our young men are not what Itake them to be, --nay, thank God! what I know them to be, sound of headand sound of heart. They get hold of facts by the wrong end; they cutinto the middle of a chain, and look upon the woman as the aggressor, and contemplate her as an unclean bird of prey. They do not in the leastrealize the slight and morally trivial things that cast too many of ourworking-class girls down into the pit of hell that skirts their dailypath--often as mere children who know not what they do, often fromhunger and desperation, often tricked and drugged, and always heavilybribed. But let them know the facts, let them read a little paper suchas the _Black Anchor_, the _Ride of Death_, or _My Little Sister_, [28]and they will feel the whole thing to be, in their own rough butexpressive words, "a beastly shame, " and fight it both in themselvesand in others, for our sakes as well as their own. For the misery asthings are is this:--that men divide us into two classes--we pure womenfor whom nothing is too good; and those others, whom they neverassociate with us, for whom nothing is too bad. And what we have toteach them is this--that our womanhood is ONE that a sin against them isa sin against us, and so to link the thought of us to them that for thesake of their own mothers, for the sake of their own sisters, above all, for the sake of the future wife, they cannot wrong or degrade a woman orkeep up a degraded class of women. 

I am aware that, besides the suggestions I have made, young men requirea plain, emphatic warning as to the physical dangers of licentiousnessand of the possibility of contracting a taint which medical science isnow pronouncing to be ineradicable and which they will transmit in someform or other to their children after them. We want a strong cord madeup of every strand we can lay hold of, and one of these strands isdoubtless self-preservation, though in impulsive youth I do not think itthe strongest. But to give these warnings is manifestly the father'sduty, and not the mother's; and I hope and believe that the number offathers who are beginning to recognize their duty in this matter, asmoral teachers of their boys, is steadily increasing. In the case ofwidowed mothers, or where the father absolutely refuses to say anything, perhaps the paper I have already mentioned, _Medical Testimony_, [29]would be the best substitute for the father's living voice. 

And now let me conclude this chapter, as I concluded the last, with afew scattered practical suggestions which may prove of use. Myexperience has been that the vast majority of our young men go wrong notfrom any vicious tendencies, but from want of thought, want ofknowledge, and a consequent yielding to the low moral tone of so-calledmen of the world, and the fear of being chaffed as "an innocent. " Seethat your boy is guarded from this want of thought and want ofknowledge. When your son is a Sixth Form boy--it is impossible to givethe age more definitely, as it must depend upon the character of theboy--place in his hands the White Cross paper, _True Manliness_ whichwill give him the facts about his own manhood. This paper was carefullyrevised by the late Bishop of Durham, Dr. Lightfoot, whose specialty wasyoung men; and upwards of a million copies have been sold, which initself guarantees it as a safe paper. Nor need you as a mother of sonsfear to read over any of the White Cross papers, since they concernthemselves, as their name denotes, with purity and a high ideal oflife--not with the sewer, but with the fountain of sweet waters. 

Should your boys be so inclined, you might suggest their joining thatband of modern knights, the White Cross Society. [30] It is a great thingto give a young man a high ideal to act up to, and the White Cross wouldcertainly give him this, as well as save him, with its definiteobligations, from evil that is incurred from sheer thoughtlessness andanimal spirits, enforcing a respectful and chivalrous treatment ofwomen, even when by their fast ways those women show that they have norespect for themselves. But more especially is this the case with regardto the second obligation, to discountenance coarse jests and allusionsand the by no means nice sort of talk that often goes on insmoking-rooms, and by which, I am convinced, more than by any otheragency the mind and conscience of young men is gradually deadened anddefiled, but in which they are apt to join from sheer thoughtlessnessand sense of fun. Their White Cross obligation might screw up theirmoral courage to utter some such pointed rebuke as Dr. Jowett's to alot of young men in a smoking-room, "I don't want to make myself outbetter than you are, but is there not more dirt than wit in that story?"or that other still more public rebuke which he administered at his owndinner-table when, the gentlemen having been left to their wine, awell-known diplomat began telling some very unsavory stories, till thestill, small, high-pitched voice of the Master made itself heard, saying, "Had we not better adjourn this conversation till we join theladies in the drawing-room?" At least they can keep silence and a graveface; and silence and a grave face are often the best damper to coarsewit. Why, I ask, should men when they get together be one whit coarserthan women? It is simply an evil fashion, and as an evil fashion can andwill be put down as "bad form. "

I think also that joining the White Cross will make young men moreactive in trying to influence other young men and to guard and helptheir younger brothers, with all the other priceless work that they can, if they will, do for our womanhood among men, but which, from shynessand reserve and the dread of being looked upon as moral prigs, they areapt to let go by default. 

But whether you agree with me or not with regard to your sons' joiningan organization, see that they assume their rightful attitude ofguardians of the purity of the home. We women cannot know anything aboutthe inner secrets of men's lives, or know whom to exclude and whom toadmit to the society of our girls. This ought to be the part of thebrothers. God knows we do not want to make a pariah class of men on thesame lines as are meted out to women. The young man who wants to dobetter we are bound to help, and no better work can be done in our largecities than to open our homes to young men in business or in Governmentoffices, etc. But men who are deliberately leading a fast life and whoare deeply stained with the degradation of our own womanhood, with nowish to rise out of their moral slough, these must be to us as morallepers, to be gilded by no wealth, to be cloaked by no insignia of noblebirth, or we stand betrayed as hypocrites and charlatans in our owncause. If our position in society is such as obliges us to receive suchmen, we all know the moral uses of ice, and under the guise of the mostfrigid politeness we can make them feel their absolute exclusion fromthe inner circle of our friends and intimates. There need be nodiscussion between you and your son--just the hint: "Oh, mother, I wouldnot ask that fellow if I were you, " and you will know what is meant. 

Much may also be done by keeping up the general high tone of the home. One mother of eight sons, who all turned out men of high, pure life, ifever they used in her presence such expressions as "a well-groomedwoman, " or commended their last partner at a ball as "a pretty littlefilly, " would instantly interrupt them and ask incisively, "Are youtalking of a horse or a woman? If you are talking of a woman, you willbe pleased to remember that you are speaking in the presence of yourmother and your sisters. " And if any scandal about a woman was mooted, the conversation was at once quietly turned into another and moreprofitable channel. 

A word of homely advice from you to your sons with regard to our streetsat night: never to loiter, but to trudge on quickly, when they would berarely molested, may be advisable and useful. 

As to absolute watchfulness with regard to the young maid-servants inyour house, this is so obvious a point that it scarcely needsmentioning; though at the same time I have known the most culpablycareless arrangements made when the family are away for their summerholidays, young maid-servants being left alone in the house while theyoung men are still going backwards and forwards to their business; orthe whole family going out and no older woman being left in charge ofthe young domestics. What can one expect but that, having sown moralcarelessness, we shall reap corruption?

But even with no such culpable neglect of our responsibilities, I dowish we would cultivate more human relations with our servants, and soget them to work more consciously with us in maintaining a highChristian tone in our homes. If we would but take a more individualinterest in them and their belongings, as we should do with those wecount our friends; getting a good situation for the younger sister whois just coming on, possibly giving her a few weeks of good training inour own household; giving the delicate child of the family change of airand good food, even taking in a baby to enable a sick mother to go for ashort time into a hospital. All these things I have found possible in myown household. And surely such thought and care for those they hold dearwould form a living bond between mistress and servant. If we would takethe same thought and care for pleasant breaks in the monotony of ouryoung servants' lives as we do for our own girls, would the servantdifficulty press upon us to the same degree? Nay, if we could set goinga weekly or fortnightly working party with our own servants in somecause which would interest us both, reading out some interestingnarrative in connection with it, could we not even in this small wayestablish a bond of common service and make us feel that we were allworking together for the same Master, so that our servants might becomeour helpers, and not, as they sometimes are, our hinderers, in bringingup our children in a high and pure moral atmosphere?

But when all things are said and done, I know that with every motherworthy the name there must be moments of deep discouragement and senseof failure--a sense of mistakes made with some difficult nature towhich her own gives her but little clue; a sense of difficulties invain grappled with, of shortcomings in vain striven against. Which of ushave not had such moments of despondency in the face of a great task? Insuch moments I have often called to mind one of those parables of Naturewhich are everywhere around us, unseen and unheeded, like thoseexquisite fresco angels of the old masters, in dim corners of ancientchurches, blowing silent trumpets of praise and adoration and touchingmute viols into mystic melodies which are lost to us. So thin has thematerial veil grown under the touch of modern science that everywherethe spiritual breaks through. Often in that nameless discouragementbefore unfinished tasks, unfulfilled aims, and broken efforts, I havethought of how the creative Word has fashioned the opal, made it of thesame stuff as desert sands, mere silica--not a crystallized stone like adiamond, but rather a stone with a broken heart, traversed by hundredsof small fissures which let in the air, the breath, as the Spirit iscalled in the Greek of our New Testament; and through these twotransparent mediums of such different density it is enabled to refractthe light and reflect every lovely hue of heaven, while at its heartburns a mysterious spot of fire. When we feel, therefore, as I haveoften done, nothing but cracks and desert dust, we can say, "So Godmaketh his precious opal. " Our very sense of brokenness and failuremakes room for the Spirit to enter in, and through His strength madeperfect in human weakness we are made able to reflect every tender hueof the eternal Loveliness and break up the white light of His truth intothose rays which are fittest for different natures; while that hiddenlamp of the sanctuary will burn in your heart of hearts for ever a guideto your boy's feet in the devious ways of life. 

In conclusion, I should like to record an incident full of encouragementto mothers. A young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, whom his widowedmother had brought up on the principles which I have been advocating, said to her one day, "Mother, you know that men don't always think likeyou about poor girls. " "Alas!" she replied, "I know that but too well;but what makes you say so?" "Well, mother, I was with a lot of collegefellows yesterday, and they were giving one another the best addressesin the West End to go to. " "But didn't you say anything?" "No, I onlykept silence. Had I said anything, they would only have called me aconfounded prig. There were three other fellows who kept silence, and Icould see they did not approve, but we none of us spoke up. " "Oh, myson, " exclaimed his mother in great distress, "how are we to help youyoung fellows? Do you think if the clergy were more faithful, they couldhelp you more than they do?" "I don't think they would listen to what aparson says. " "Then if doctors were to warn you more plainly than theydo?" "I don't think it would be of much use; they would not heed; andthen a fellow generally goes to a doctor too late. " "Then what can wedo, what can we do?" "Well, I think there is only one person who canreally help, and that's a fellow's mother--she can save him, if shewould only try. "

Doubt not, but earnestly believe. "In every man's breast is to be founda lotus-blossom, " says the pretty old Indian saying, and, watered byyour prayers and your tears, be sure it will blossom into "the whiteflower of a blameless life. "

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 26: Coventry Patmore. ]

[Footnote 27: The word in Greek is the same for woman and wife. ]

[Footnote 28: White Cross Publications, E. P. Dutton & Co. , 31 WestTwenty Third Street, New York. ]

[Footnote 29: Office of White Cross league, 7 Dean's Yard, WestminsterAbbey, London. ]

[Footnote 30: THE WHITE CROSS OBLIGATIONS. I. To treat all women withrespect, and endeavor to protect them from wrong and degradation. 

II. To endeavor to put down all indecent language and coarse jests. 

III. To maintain the law of purity as equally binding upon men andwomen. 

IV. To endeavor to spread these principles among my companions, and totry and help my younger brothers. 

V. To use every possible means to fulfil the command, "Keep thyself pure. "]

CHAPTER VIII

THE INFLUENCE OF SISTERS

Hitherto I have dealt exclusively with the moral training of boys andyoung men, but I am aware that I have left out one of the great shapinginfluences of a boy's life, which certainly comes next to the mother'swhere it exists--the influence of sisters. The childish hand that heclasps in his is the hand that unconsciously moulds him to higher endsor the reverse. For if the man is the director, the ruler, and defender, "the builder of the house" as he is called in the grand old wordhusband, [31] the woman is the shaping and moulding influence of life;and if God has placed her in the power of the man, both through theweakness of her frame and the strength of her affections, on the otherhand He has given into her hands the keys of his being, and according ashe fulfils or abuses his trust towards her, she opens or closes the doorof higher life to him. [32]

I often wonder whether we women sufficiently realize this truth forourselves or our girls. Walter Bagehot used to say in his blind, masculine way, "It's a horrid scrape to be a woman, "--a sentiment which, I fear, will find some echo in the hearts of a good many womenthemselves. But is it so? If to the man chiefly belongs power in all itsforms, does not the woman wield as her portion that far more potent butwholly silent, and often unnoticed thing, influence? Not the storm, orthe earthquake, or the strong wind, but the still, small voice: thebenediction of dews and gentle rains, the mute beatitudes of stillwaters flowing through sun-parched lands and transforming them into"fruitful fields that the Lord hath blest"; the silent but irresistibleinfluence of the sunlight, which in the baby palm of a little leafbecomes a golden key to unlock the secret treasures of the air and buildup great oaks out of its invisible elements; the still, small voice ofthe moral sense, so still, so small, so powerless to enforce itsdictates, but before which all the forces of the man do bow and obey, choosing death rather than disobedience--are not all these silentinfluences emblems of the supreme, shaping, moulding influence that isgiven to the woman as the "mother of all living, " coming withoutobservation, but making far more strongly than any external power forthe kingdom of love and light? Truly we have a goodly heritage if onlywe had eyes to see it. Alas! that we should have made so littlecomparative use of it in these great moral questions. Alas! that weshould have to acknowledge the truth and justice of the poet's words:

 Ah, wasteful woman! she who may On her sweet self set her own price, Knowing he cannot choose but pay-- How has she cheapen'd Paradise, How given for nought her priceless gift, How spoiled the bread and spilt the wine, Which, spent with due respective thrift, Had made brutes men, and men divine!"[33]

But even here is there not place for a hopeful thought, that if womenhave made so little comparative use of their well-nigh irresistibleinfluence in setting a high standard and shaping men to a diviner andless animal type, it has been, as I have already said, chiefly owing toignorance? The whole of one of the darkest sides of life has beensedulously kept from us. Educated mothers, till lately, have beenprofoundly ignorant of the moral evils of schools, and have never dreamtthat that young, frank, fresh-faced lad of theirs had any temptations ofthe kind. Their moral influence, which the poet blames them so stronglyfor misusing, has been largely, at least with good women, not so much amisused as an undirected force, and we know not, therefore, what thatforce may accomplish when a larger and truer knowledge enables it to bepersistently directed to a conscious aim. This fact, at least, has beenstamped into my inmost being, that men will rise to any moral standardwhich women choose to set them. 

I ask, therefore, cannot we get our girls to help us here more than wedo, without being crippled by the fear of initiating them too much inthe evil of the world or destroying that unconscious virginal puritywhich is, even as things are, so strong and pathetic an influence forgood over young men?

In the addresses that I have given to large numbers of educated girls, Iused often to begin by quoting a passage from the Jewish Prayer-Book. Ina general thanksgiving for the mercies of life, the men say: "We thankThee, O Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast not made us a woman. "One a little wonders how the poor women could join in this thanksgiving. But in one corner of the page there is a little rubric in very smallprint which directs, "Here shall the women say: 'We thank Thee, O Lordof heaven and earth, that Thou hast made us according unto Thy will!'"And, looking upon that bed of spring flowers before me, I used to tellthem that it made me feel what a fair and gracious and beautiful thingit was to be made according unto God's will, to be made a woman. 

Now, in the first place, could we not get them to realize this greattruth a little more than they do, and not in their heart of hearts towish that they were men? Could we not get them to realize a little morethe divine possibilities of their womanhood, and instead of making ittheir ambition to figure as a weaker form of man, and become lawyers, stockbrokers, and other queer things the modern woman is striving after, to make it their ambition to become stronger and truer women?

But how is this to be done? I remember on one occasion, when I was goingin the evening to address a mass meeting of working-class girls, astout, middle-aged lady bustling up to me in a morning conference wewere holding, and exclaiming: "And what are you going to say to them?What can you say to them, except to tell them to take care of themselvesand keep the men at arm's length?"

Now, this old-fashioned method, which we have adopted in dealing withthe girls of the poor, I contend traverses the central and mostfundamental facts of a woman's being. A woman will never find salvationin being told to take care of herself, and least of all for the purposeof keeping the man, for whom she was created to be a helpmate, at arm'slength. Gospels of self-culture may take seeming root here and there inthe exotic woman; but even in her, at some moment of swift passion orstrong emotion, they will crumple up and fall off from her like awithered leaf. James Hinton knew a woman's nature but too well when hesaid that she would respond to the appeal "Lay down your life" morereadily and more surely than to the appeal "Take up your rights. " Shecertainly has a most divine power of flinging herself away, whethernobly or ignobly, which forms both her strength and her weakness. But Ihave never yet known a woman who would not, at any rate to some degree, respond to an appeal to save, not herself, but another: "Do not let himdo this wrong thing, for his sake. You can do anything you like with aman who loves you. God has given him body and soul into your hands, andyou can lift him up into something of His image and make a true man ofhim; or you can let his love for you sink him into a selfish beast ofprey. Do not let him do anything that will for ever lower his manhood, but use your power over him to keep him true to all that is best andhighest in him. " I have never yet known the woman who will not be movedby such an appeal as this. In other words, the central motive force of awoman's nature, the key of her whole being, is, and must ever be, themother in her, that divine motherhood which is at the heart of everywoman worthy of the name, married or unmarried. It is this divinemotherhood, which all evolution, the whole "process of the suns, " hasgone to strengthen, and which Christianity has enshrined at her veryheart--it is this that makes her for ever the Christ factor in theworld, the supreme expression of the redeeming Love--that care of thestrong for the weak which even in Nature comes trembling into existencebeneath the tender wing of the nesting bird, or forces itself intonotice in the fierce lioness's care for her whelps, and which webelieve will work out the ultimate consummation of the "whole creationthat groaneth and travaileth in pain until now. " And I contend that ifwe are to have in the future such women as Lady Augusta Stanley, roundwhose lifeless form were united in one common sorrow the Queen on herthrone and the poorest of the poor, such women as Browning's wife andBrowning's mother, of whom he used to say, with a slight tremor in hisvoice, "She was a divine woman, " it will be by strengthening andappealing to this element of divine motherhood in a woman's nature. 

What I would, therefore, teach the girls is this: that they have got tomother the boys, that they are the guardians of all that is best andhighest in them, of all that makes for the chivalrous Americangentleman, and that their womanhood should therefore be to them afountain of fine manners, of high thoughts, and noble actions. I wouldrub into their very bones, if I could, the old saw I have alreadyquoted: "A man is what a woman makes him"; that if there were more highwomanhood there would be less low manhood; and that if the boys are rudeand rough and slangy, and loutish in their manner to women, the blamelies with their sisters who, in their foolish fondness and indulgence, or in their boyish camaraderie, have allowed them to slouch up into aslovenly manhood. The man at most is the fine prose of life, but thewoman ought to be its poetry and inspiration. It is her hand that setsits key, whether

 "To feed the high tradition of the world, "

or add to its low discords. Surely Ruskin's noble words apply here: "Itis the type of an eternal truth that the soul's armor is never well setto the heart unless a woman's hand has braced it; and it is only whenshe has braced it loosely that the honor of manhood fails"; or thoseother still stronger and nobler words of Frederick Robertson's: "Thereare two rocks in a man's life on which he must either anchor or split:God and Woman. "

And could we not appeal to our girls to make their womanhood a rockwhich bears a light to all in peril on the rough sea of life--a light tosave from moral shipwreck and lead to the safe haven beneath the Rock ofAges? Surely we might appeal to them, in the name of their own brothersand others with whom they are intimately thrown, to work out thesehigher possibilities of their own womanhood; not to lower it by pickingup slang words from their brothers--a woman ought to be above coarseningand vulgarizing God's great gift of speech--not to engage in games orromps that involve a rude rough-and-tumble with boys, which may developa healthy hoyden, but is utterly destructive of the gracious dignity ofthe true woman; not to adopt fast ways of either dress or bearing whichlead to young men making remarks behind their backs which they oughtnot to make on any woman; above all, never in girlish flightiness, or, worse still, in order to boast of the number of offers they havereceived, to flirt or trifle in any way with a man's affections; but toremember that to every man they have to make a woman only the other namefor truth and constancy. God only knows the number of young men who havereceived their first downward bent from what to a young girl, in thewilfulness of her high spirits and her ignorance of life, has been onlya bit of fun, but which to the young man has been the first fatal breakin his faith in woman--that faith which in his soul dwells so hard byhis faith in the Divine that in making shipwreck of the one is only toolikely to make shipwreck of the other. 

As to the mothers who send out their young girls into society thevictims of their fashionable dressmakers, to be a fountain, not of high, pure thoughts to young men, but a spring of low temptations and impuresuggestions, I do not blame the young girls here; but surely theseverest blame is due to the criminal folly, or worse, of their mothers, who must know what the consequences of immodest dressing necessarily areto the inflammable mind of youth. 

But that that unlovely phenomenon "the girl of the period, " is alsodeeply to blame for the lowered traditions of English society, andconsequently of English manhood, I have only too sorrowfully toacknowledge. I remember Mrs. Herbert of Vauxhall telling a veryfashionable audience how on one occasion she had to rebuke a young manmoving in the first London society for using some contemptuousexpression with regard to women, and was led to appeal very earnestly tohim to reverence all women for his mother's sake. He turned upon herwith a sort of divine rage and said: "I long to reverence women, but thegirls I meet with in society won't let me. They like me to make freewith them; they like me to talk to them about doubtful subjects, andthey make me"--and he ground his teeth as he said it--"what I just hatemyself for being. " Alas! alas! can sadder words knell in a woman's earsthan these?

But side by side with this desecrating womanhood there rises up beforeme the vision of a young girl, not English, nor American, butFrench--now a mature woman, with girls and boys of her own, but who inher young days was the very embodiment of all that I have been urgingthat our girls might become to their brothers. She was a daughter of thegreat French preacher, Frederick Monod, and had an only brother who wasall in all to her. She knew enough of the evil of the world to know thata medical student in Paris was exposed to great temptations; and she wasresolved, so far as she could, to make her womanhood a crystal shieldbetween him and them. She entered into all his pursuits; she took aninterest in all his friends and companions; she had always leisure forsympathy and counsel in his difficulties and troubles. She had a littleroom of her own to which she used to get him to come every evening andtalk over the day with her, so that she might keep herself heart toheart with him in all that concerned him. She even overcame her girlishreserve, and would get him to kneel down by her side and pour out hersweet girlish heart in prayer that God would guide him in all his ways, and keep him unspotted from the world. Years after, when he was amarried man, with boys of his own, he said to her: "You little know allthat you were to me as a young man. My temptations were so maddeningthat I used sometimes to think that I must yield to them and do as otheryoung men did all round me. But then a vision of you used to rise upbefore me, and I used to say to myself: 'No; if I do this thing, I cannever go and sit with her in her own little room; I can never look intoher dear face again. '" And the thought of that young girl, the angel ofher presence in the midst of the furnace, kept that young man unspottedfrom the world through all the gutters of Paris life. Could not oursweet English and American girls be to their brothers what that youngFrench girl was to hers?

But perhaps some pessimistic mother will exclaim, "What is the use ofmaking these old-fashioned appeals to our modern girls? They are sotaken up with the delights of their freedom, so absorbed in the pleasureof cycling and athletic games, so full of manly ambitions, so persuadedthat the proper cultivated attitude is to be an agnostic, and to look atGod and the universe through a sceptical and somewhat superciliouseyeglass, that if we did make an appeal to them such as you suggest theywould only laugh at such old-fashioned notions. " I can only say that Ihave not found it so. I can bear the highest testimony at least to ourEnglish girls, of whom I have addressed thousands, all over the threekingdoms. Occasionally it has happened that maturer women have left mestranded, stretching out hands of vain appeal to them; but my girls, mydear girls, never once failed me. Not only could I see by the expressionof their faces how deeply they responded to my appeal to work out thelatent possibilities of their womanhood, and be the uplifting influenceto their brothers, and other young men with whom they were thrown, thata true woman can be; but they came forward in troops to take up theposition I assigned to them in our woman's movement towards a higher andpurer life. Nobly did those young girls respond, joining a movement foropening club-rooms and classes for working girls, a movement initiatednot by me, but by educated girls like themselves, and which has sincespread all over England and Scotland. 

And if this is true of our English girls, still more would it be trueof the American girl, who has a unique position and influence of herown, and is dowered with that peculiar capacity and graciousness whichseem to belong by divine right to the American woman. 

I cannot but think that if we were to teach our girls less in religiousphraseology and more from the great realities of life; if they weretaught that Christianity is only human life rightly seen and divinelyordered, that the Cross is only the uncovering of what is going on allround us, though hidden to a careless gaze, --the sin, the pain, themisery, which are forever crucifying and forever calling forth thatgreat passion of redeeming Love to which, through the motherhood that isin us, "one touch of nature makes us kin"; and that the central truth ofChristianity is not, as we have too often taught, saving our own souls, but a life poured out for the good of others, and personal salvation asa means for having a life to pour forth--I cannot but think that muchfashionable girlish agnosticism would disappear, and the true womanwould reach forth to that divine humanity to which she belongs. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: Husband is derived from two words--"house" and the Saxonword to "build, " German _bauen_. ]

[Footnote 32: See a little White Cross paper called _My Little Sister_, which I wish mothers would get into the hands of their sons justentering into manhood to read, mark, learn, digest. (Wells Gardner, Darton and Co. )]

[Footnote 33: Coventry Patmore. ]

CHAPTER IX

THE MODERN WOMAN AND HER FUTURE

Up to this point I have dealt only with the great shaping and mouldingprinciples of life, with indirect influence rather than direct. How fardirect teaching on matters of sex should be given to our girls has beena far greater perplexity to me than in the case of boys. In the presentstate of our schools and our streets our boys must get to know evil. Hitherto it was possible to say that our girls _might_ get to know evil, and between that "must" and "might" lay a great and perplexing chasm. Wedo not want our garden lilies to smell of anything but pure dews andrains and sun-warmed fragrance. But is this ideal possible any longer, except in a few secluded country homes, where, hidden like Keats'snightingale "among the leaves, " they may remain innocent and ignorant ofthe world's evil?

But with the ordinary conditions of the present day, with the greaterfreedom accorded to women, the wider range of education, involving awider range of reading, with modern newspapers left about, I ask, How isit possible for a mother to keep her girls in ignorance and unconsciousinnocence? A volume of short stories comes into the house from thecirculating library; they are clever and apparently absolutely harmless. Yet embedded in the heart of one such volume, which shall be nameless, Icame upon a story almost as vile as anything in a French novel, andconveying the most corrupt knowledge. How, I ask, can a busy mother readthrough every book of short stories before letting it fall into thehands of her girls; or how, if they are to read Latin and Greek, or evencarefully to study our own old literature, is she to guard them from aknowledge of evil conveyed in classical allusions, or in the coarseplainness of speech of an earlier age? I know as a fact, whether werecognize it or not, that behind our mature backs our girls arediscussing these moral problems with quite an alarming amount offreedom, and some at least, guided by no teaching, and with no practicalknowledge of the great laws of human life, are coming to quite startlingconclusions, which would make their mothers' hair stand on end. And onemost undesirable, and I may add unnatural, result noticeable among themore advanced section is a certain distaste for marriage, a tendency tolook upon it as something low and animal, which strikes me as simply afatal attitude for women to take up. 

Have we not, therefore, got clearly to recognize that the old order haschanged, giving place to new, and requiring, therefore, new methods. Wemay or we may not like the new order, but it is _there_. Under thechanged conditions of modern life it is inevitable; therefore it must bein the providence of God; it cannot be wholly bad, and if we will workin with it loyally, and not thrust it aside for some old order of ourown, it may be, nay, it will be, wholly for good. Let us remember thatthe two most conservative organic forms, the two that have most resistedprogressive evolution, are the donkey and the goose. To ignore the neworder, to cling to the old views and methods, is to court moralextinction as a living force. As well think to find safety in escapingfrom the advance of an express engine by adopting the stately pace ofour grandmothers, which was perfectly adapted for getting out of the wayof a lumbering stage-coach. May not He

 "Whose large plan ripens slowly to a whole"

be working out a progressive ideal such as we trace in the greatspiritual records of our race? The Bible, thank God! neither begins norends with sin; but it begins with a sinless garden, it ends with astrong city of God, with evil known and recognized, but cast out beyondits walls. May He not be leading us to form a wiser, deeper, strongerideal; to aim for our girls not so much at Innocence, with her fadingwreath of flowers--fading, as, alas! they must ever fade in a world likethis--but to aim at Virtue, with her victor's crown of gold, tried inthe fire? May it not be that His divine providence is constraining us totake as our ideal for our womanhood, not the old sheltered garden, but astrong city of God, having foundations, whose very gates are made ofpearl, through which nothing that defileth is suffered to enter, andwhose common ways are paved with pure gold, gold of no earthly temper, but pure and clear as crystal;--a city of refuge for all who areoppressed with wrong, and from which all foul forms of evil are bannedby the one word "_Without_"? Sure I am that if we will accept thisdeeper and larger ideal, and endeavor, however imperfectly, to work itout on the earth, in the midst of it, as in the old garden ideal, willbe found the tree of life; but then its very leaves will be for thehealing of the nations. 

But whether you go with me as far as this or not, I think you will agreewith me that we must not leave our girls to their own crude notions onthe deepest matters of life. Still less must we leave them to get theirteaching on marriage and matters of sex from some modern novels, which Ican only characterize as tuberculosis of the moral sense, but fromwhich, as I have already pointed out, we cannot always guard them. Wemust give them direct teaching of some kind. 

First, I think our girls, as well as our boys, need far more directteaching than has been customary as to the sanctity of the body. This isespecially true of girls who are sent to boarding-schools, as some ofthe moral evils of boys' schools are not, I am sorry to say, altogetherunknown in girls' schools, though, as far as I can ascertain, the evilis much less in extent, and in some is non-existent. Still, all girlsneed to be taught that the body is the temple of the Lord and Giver oflife, and that from the crown of their heads to the sole of their feetthose bodies belong to Christ. 

Secondly, I think that they ought to have some such teaching about lifeand birth as that which I have already recommended for boys, that theymay see how through the marital tie and the consequent rise of theparental relation, a world of blind mechanical force gradually developedinto a world of life and beauty, and at last crowned itself with aconscious love in an indissoluble union, which makes marriage the verytype of the union of the soul with God, of Christ with His Church. 

Thirdly, they need to be taught that much in their own physicalconstitution, which they rebel against as handicapping them in thestruggle of life, is Nature's provision for them that no merely physicalfunction should press upon them as we see it do in the animal creationat certain periods of the year, but that they should be free to serveGod, whether in the married or in the unmarried state, in quietness andgodly living. 

Fourthly, above all they need definite teaching on the true nature, thesanctity, and the beauty of marriage. It appears that the line ofprogress is always a spiral, and it would seem as if we were in thebackward sweep of the spiral which looks like retrogression, but willdoubtless bring us out further up in the end. The masculine view thatmarriage is the one aim and end of a woman's existence, adopted also bysome careful mothers, is now exploded. Young men are no longer led tolook upon every girl that they meet as furtively, to use a vulgarism, "setting her cap for him, " and only too ready to fling herself at hisfeet. So far so good. But have we not suffered our girls to drift intothe opposite extreme? In the heyday of their bright young life, with somany new interests and amusements open to them, in the pride of theirfreedom and independence, they are no longer so inclined to marry, andare even apt to look down upon the married state. They form so high anideal of the man to whom they would surrender their independence--anideal which they fortunately do not apply to their fathers and brothers, whom they find it quite possible to love on a far lower and more humanlevel--that because a man does not fulfil this ideal, and is not a fairyprince dowered with every possible gift, they refuse men who, though notangels, would have made them happy as wife and mother. Would not alittle sound, sensible teaching be of great good here? Could we notpoint out that, though in so vital and complex a union as the familythere must be some seat of ultimate authority, some court of finalappeal somewhere, and that the woman herself would not wish it to restanywhere else than in the man, if she is to respect him; yet there is nosubservience on the part of the wife in the obedience she renders, butrather in South's grand words, "It is that of a queen to her king, whoboth owns a subjection and remains a majesty"? Cannot we contend againstthis falsehood of the age which seems so to underlie our modern life, and which inclines us to look upon all obedience as a slavishthing--that obedience which "doth preserve the stars from wrong, " andthrough which "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong"; thatobedience which when absolute and implicit to the Divine will is "aservice of perfect freedom"? It is the profession which exactsunquestionable obedience that forms the finest school for character, asI have already pointed out. We do not hear of a Wellington or a Robertsrefusing to enter the service because they could not give up theirindependence. Our military heroes at least know that it is throughdiscipline and obedience that they gain their real independence--theindependence of a strong character. 

Again, our girls need to be taught not only that there is nothingderogatory in the married relation to the freest and fullestindependence of character, but surely in these days of open advocacy bysome popular writers of "les unions libres" and a freedom of divorcethat comes to much the same thing, they need to be taught the sanctityof marriage--those first principles which hitherto we have taken forgranted, but which now, like everything else, is thrown into thecrucible and brought into question. They need definite teaching as tothe true nature of marriage; that it is no mere contract to be broken orkept according to the individual contractor's convenience--I never yetheard of a contract for bringing into existence, not a successfulmachine, but a moral and spiritual being with infinite possibilities ofweal or woe, of heaven or hell--but a sacramental union of love andlife, with sacramental grace given to those who will seek it to livehappily and endure nobly within its sacred bounds--a union so deep andmystical that even on its physical side our great physiologists arewholly at a loss to account for some of its effects;[34] a union ofwhich permanence is the very essence, as on its permanence rests thepermanence and stability of the whole fabric of our life. It can neverbe treated on an individualistic basis, though that is always thetendency with every man and woman who has ever loved. In Mrs. HumphryWard's words:

 "That is always the way; each man imagines the matter is still for his deciding, and he can no more decide it than he can tamper with the fact that fire burns or water drowns. All these centuries the human animal has fought with the human soul. And step by step the soul has registered her victories. She has won them only by feeling for the law and finding it--uncovering, bringing into light the firm rocks beneath her feet. And on these rocks she rears her landmarks--marriage, the family, the State, the Church. Neglect them and you sink into the quagmire from which the soul of the race has been for generations struggling to save you. "[35]

Fall on this rock, stumble into unhappiness and discontent, as so manydo in marriage, and you will be broken. But be faithful to it and to thehigh traditions which generations of suffering men and women have workedout for you, and you will be broken as the bud is broken into theblossom, as the acorn is broken into the oak--broken into a higher andstronger life. On the other hand rebel against it, attempt to drag itdown or cast it from its place, and it will crush you, and grind somepart of your higher nature to powder. How strangely and sadly is thisshown in the case of one of our greatest writers, who thought that theinfluence of her writings would far outweigh the influence of herexample, but whose name and example are now constantly used by bad mento overcome the virtue of young educated girls struggling alone inLondon, and often half starving on the miserable pittance which is allthey can earn. But still more is it shown in the life of the nationwhich tampers with the laws of marriage and admits freedom of divorce. Either such suits must be heard _in camera_ without the shame ofexposure, when divorce is so facilitated that the family and the Staterest rather on a superstructure of rickety boards than on a rock; orthey must be heard in public court and form a moral sewer laid on to thewhole nation, poisoning the deepest springs of its life, and throughthat polluted life producing far more individual misery than itendeavors to remedy in dissolving an unhappy marriage. God only knowswhat I suffered when a _cause célèbre_ came on, and I felt that thewhole nation was being provided with something worse and more vitallymischievous than the most corrupt French novel. 

Deeply do I regret--and in this I think most thoughtful minds will agreewith me--that the Reformers in their inevitable rebound from thesuperstitions of Rome, rejected her teaching of the sacramental natureof marriage, which has made so many Protestant nations tend to thatfreedom of divorce which is carried to so great an extent in some partsof America, and is spreading, alas! to many of our own colonies--alaxity fatally undermining the sanctity and stability of the family. Ifmarriage be not a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inwardand spiritual life and grace, I ask what is?

I would therefore earnestly beseech you to oppose your direct teachingto the whole tendency of modern life, and to much of the direct teachingof modern fiction--even of so great a novelist as George Meredith--whichinculcates the subordination of the marriage bond to what is called thehigher law of love, or rather, passion. In teaching your sons, andespecially your girls, who are far more likely to be led astray by thisspecious doctrine, base marriage not on emotion, not on sentiment, buton duty. To build upon emotion, with the unruly wills and affections ofsinful men, is to build, not upon the sand, but upon the wind. There isbut one immovable rock on which steadfast character, steadfastrelations, steadfast subordination of the lower and personal desires, to the higher and immutable obligations and trusts and responsibilitiesof life can be built--duty. When this rock has been faithfully clungto, when in the midst of disillusionment and shattered ideals the nobleresolution has been clung to never to base personal happiness on abroken trust or another's pain, I have over and over again known the, most imperfect marriage prove in the end to be happy and contented. Here again I quote some words of Mrs. Humphry Ward, which she puts intothe mouth of her hero: "No, " he said with deep emphasis--"No; I havecome to think the most disappointing and hopeless marriage, noblyborne, to be better worth having than what people call an 'idealpassion'--if the ideal passion must be enjoyed at the expense of one ofthose fundamental rules which poor human nature has worked out, withsuch infinite difficulty and pain, for the protection and help of itsown weakness, "[36] I am aware that neither Mr. Grant Allen with his"hill-top" novels, nor Mrs. Mona Caird need be taken too seriously, butwhen the latter says, "There is something pathetically absurd in thissacrifice to their children of generation after generation of grownpeople, "[37] I would suggest that it would be still more patheticallyabsurd to see the whole upward-striving past, the whole noble future ofthe human race, sacrificed to their unruly wills and affections, theirpassions and desires. If as Goldwin Smith says in his rough, incisiveway, "There is not much union of heart in marriage, I do not see thatthere would be any more union of heart in adultery. "

I have dwelt thus earnestly upon this point because the sooner werealize for ourselves and our girls that any relaxation of the marriagebond will in its disastrous consequences fall upon us, and not upon men, the better. It is the woman who first grows old and loses her personalattractions, while a man often preserves his beauty into extreme oldage. It is the burdened mother of a family who cannot compete incompanionship with the highly cultured young unmarried lady, with theleisure to post herself up in the last interesting book or the newestpolitical movement. It is the man who is the more variable in hisaffections than the woman; more constant as she is by nature, as wellas firmly anchored down by the strength of her maternal love. It istherefore on the woman that any loosening of the permanence of themarriage tie will chiefly fall in untold suffering. "Le mariage c'est lajustice, " say the French, who have had experience enough of "les unionslibres"--justice to the wife and mother, securing her the stability ofher right to her husband's affections, the stability to her right ofmaintenance after she has given up her means of support, above all, thestability of her right to the care of her own children. If we want tostudy the innate misery to women arising from the relaxation of themarried tie, or transient unions, we had better read Professor Dowden's_Life of Shelley_--misery not the result of public stigma, for there wasno such stigma in the circle in which Shelley moved, but misery broughtabout by the facts themselves, and producing state of things whichMatthew Arnold could only characterize by the untranslatable French word"_sale_. " But nearer home, one of your most brilliant writers, Mr. HenryJames, has given us an equally profitable study in his novelette, _WhatMaisie Knew_, which I presume is intended as a satire on freedom ofdivorce, but which again can only be characterized by the French word"_sale_. "

I confess it does fill me with sardonic laughter to find this oldest andstalest of all experiments, this oldest and flattest of failures, paraded as a brand new and original panacea for all the woes of ourfamily life, --woes which, if nobly borne, at least make "perfect throughsuffering. "

There is but one great rock-hewn dam successfully reared against thelawless passions of men and women, and that is Christian marriage. Ithas at least given us the Christian home, and pure family life. Andsometimes it fills me with despair to see enlightened nations, likeAmerica and Australia, whittling away and slowly undermining this greatbulwark against the devastating sea of human passion. If only I couldfeel that any poor words of mine could in any faint measure rouseAmerican women to set themselves against what must in the end affect thedepth and steadfastness of those family affections on which the beautyand solidity of the national character mainly rest, I should feel indeedI had not lived in vain. 

At least I can claim that one of your greatest women, Frances Willard, was heart and soul with me on this point. 

And now to descend to lower levels. Could we not do a little more tosave our young girls from sacrificing their happiness to false ideals byopportunely obtruding a little mature common-sense into their dayvisions and their inexperienced way of looking at things? It is all verywell in the heyday of life, when existence is full of delight and homeaffection, to refuse a man who could make them happy, because they don'tquite like the shape of his nose, or because he is a little untidy inhis dress, or simply because they are waiting for some impossibledemigod to whom alone they could surrender their independence. But couldwe not mildly point out that darker days must come, when life will notbe all enjoyment, and that a lonely old age, with only too possiblepenury to be encountered, must be taken into consideration?

God knows I am no advocate for loveless, and least of all for mercenarymarriages, but I think we want some _viâ media_ between the French_mariage de convenance_ and our English and American method of leavingso grave a question as marriage entirely to the whimsies and romanticfancies of young girls. We need not go back to the old fallacy thatmarriage is the aim and end of a woman's existence, and absolutelynecessary for her happiness. Some women are doubtless called to bemothers of the race, and to do the social work which is so necessary toour complex civilization. Some women may feel themselves called to someliterary or artistic pursuit, or some other profession, for which theyrequire the freedom of unmarried life. But I think I shall carry mostwomen with me in saying that for the ordinary woman marriage is thehappiest state, and that she rarely realizes the deepest and highest inher nature except in wifehood and motherhood. Rarely, indeed, can anypublic work that she can do for the world equal the value of thatpriceless work of building up, stone by stone, the temple of a goodman's character which falls to the lot of his mother. Truly is shecalled the wife, the weaver, since day and night, without hasting andwithout resting, she is weaving the temple hangings, wrought about withpomegranates and lilies, of the very shrine of his being. And if ourgirls could be led to see this, at least it would overcome thatadverseness to marriage which many are now so curiously showing, andwhich inevitably makes them more fastidious and fanciful in theirchoice, And, on the other hand, without falling back into the oldmatch-making mamma, exposing her wares in the marriage market to beknocked down to the highest bidder, might not parents recognize a littlemore than they do how incumbent on them it is to make every effort togive their daughters that free and healthy intercourse with young menwhich would yield them a wider choice, and which forms the best methodfor insuring a happy marriage?

At least, let us open our eyes to the fact that we are face to face withsome terrible problems with regard to the future of our girls. With safeinvestments yielding less and less interest, it must become more andmore difficult to make a provision for the unmarried daughters; and ifthe money is spent instead on training them to earn their own bread, weare still met by the problem of the early superannuation of women'slabor, which rests on physical causes, and cannot therefore be removed. This at least is no time to despise marriage, or for women of strong andindependent character to adopt an attitude which deprives the nation ofmany of its noblest mothers. 

But if we are to facilitate marriage, which must form, at any rate, themain solution of the problems of the near future to which I havealluded, if we are to prevent, or even lessen, the degradation of women, if we are to extinguish this pit of destruction in our midst, into whichso many a fair and promising young life disappears, and whichperpetually threatens the moral and physical welfare of our own sons, ifwe are to stay the seeds of moral decay in our own nation, we must becontent to revolutionize much in the order of our own life, and adopt alower and simpler standard of living. It is we, and not men, who set thestandard; it is we who have been guilty of the vulgar ambition offollowing the last social fashion, and doing as our richer neighbors do, until in England we have made our girls such expensive articles thatmany young men simply dare not indulge in them, and are led to seek intheir luxurious clubs the comfort which they should find in a home oftheir own, with all that relaxation of moral fibre which comes from clublife. Do we seriously think that we are likely successfully to contendagainst the degradation of women by our Rescue Societies and our Refugeswhen we are deliberately bringing about a social condition thatministers to it? "Oh, of course, " said a near relative of my own, "nogirl can marry comfortably and live in London with less than a thousanda year. " All I can answer is that if this be so, it means thedegradation of women writ large. 

And have we even secured the happiness of our own daughters by this highstandard of living which prevents so many of them from marrying at all?These unmarried girls, with no worthy object in life to call out thenoble energies that lie dormant within them, "lasting" rather than"living, "--are they really happy? Is not Robert Louis Stevenson rightwhen he says that "the ideal of the stalled ox is the one ideal thatwill never satisfy either man or woman"? Were not the hardships of asmaller income and a larger life--a life that would at least satisfy awoman's worst foe, heart hunger, --more adapted to their true nature, their true happiness?

And to what further admirable results have we attained by this highstandard of comfort and luxury? Nature has carefully provided for theequality of the sexes by sending rather more boys than girls into theworld, since fewer boys are reared; but we have managed to derange thisorder. We have sent our boys out into the world, but we have kept ourgirls at home, refusing to allow them to rough it with husbands andbrothers or to endure the least hardness. The consequence is that wehave nearly a million of surplus women in the old country, while inAmerica, and in our own colonies, we have a corresponding surplus ofmen, with all the evil moral consequences that belong to a disproportionbetween the sexes. Truly we may congratulate ourselves!

I would therefore urge that if we are really to grapple with these moralevils, we should simplify our standard of living, and educate our girlsvery differently to what, at least in England, we are doing. Culture isgood, and the more we have of it the better; it gives a woman a widersphere of influence, as well as more enlightened methods of using thatinfluence. But if dead languages are to take the place of livingservice; if high mathematics are to work out a low plane of cooking andhousehold management; if a first class in moral science is to involvethird class performance of the moral duties involved in family life, then I deliberately say it were better that, like Tennyson's mother, weshould be

 "Not learned save in gracious household ways. "

I protest with the uttermost earnestness against the care of human life, of human health, and of human comfort being considered a lower thing andof less importance than good scholarship; or that, when we recognizethat months and even years will have to be devoted to the attainment ofthe one, the arts by which we can fulfil those great human trusts whichdevolve more or less upon every woman can be practised without everhaving been learnt at all. 

Do not misunderstand me. Do not think I am decrying a classicaleducation; and, as the daughter of a great mathematician, it is notlikely that I should underrate mathematics as a mental discipline. I amonly urging that they should be subordinated to higher and morepractical issues. 

I am thankfully aware that these remarks do not apply to American womento the same degree in which they apply to our English girls. The paucityof domestic servants, and the consequent pressure of necessity, havesaved you from the fine lady ideal which we have adopted for our girlsand the exclusively book education into which we have almostunconsciously drifted. You have been constrained to choose some noblertype on which to mould your scheme of female education than that of thetadpole, which is all head, no hands, a much active and frivolous tail. Your girls are brought up not to consider it beneath them to take partin the work of the house; and something of the all round capability ofAmerican women which so strikes us is doubtless owing to their nothaving incurred "this Nemesis of disproportion, " and therefore to theircombining intellectual culture with practical efficiency. 

Why we should have taken this fine lady ideal for our girls, when wetake such a much more practical standard for our boys, has alwayspuzzled me. If an excellent opening offered itself to one of our sons ata bank, we should agree with his father in expecting him to take it, though it would involve the drudgery of sitting in a cramped attitude ona tall stool for hours and hours every day. Why should we accept life'snecessary drudgery for our boys and refuse it for our girls? No lifeworth living can be had without drudgery, --the most brilliant as well asthe dullest. Darwin spent eight of the best years of his life in anexhaustive investigation into the organization of a barnacle--laboraccompanied, as all intellectual work was with him, by a constant senseof physical nausea from which he suffered, till, from sheer wearinessand disgust at the drudgery, he ends his researches in his emphatic waywith the exclamation, "D---- the barnacles!" At least a woman'shousehold drudgery does not end in a barnacle, or in dead coin, but in aliving and loved personality whose comfort and health it secures. Blessed is drudgery, the homely mother of Patience, "that young androse-lipped cherubim, " of quiet endurance, of persistency in well-doing, of all the stablest elements of character. 

Do not let us refuse to our girls the divine hardness which is the veryheart of a diviner joy and of that "fuller life" of "which our veins arescant, " nor refuse for them and for ourselves the words of life: "As theFather hath sent Me into the world, even so send I you"; but be contentto send them into the world to love, to suffer, to endure, to live anddie for the good of others. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 34: See some curious facts given in Darwin's _Origin ofSpecies_. ]

[Footnote 35: _David Grieve_, by Mrs. Humphry Ward, sixth edition, p. 401. ]

[Footnote 36: _David Grieve_, p. 524. ]

[Footnote 37: _Nineteenth Century_, May, 1892. ]

CHAPTER X

NATIONAL AND IMPERIAL ASPECTS

I cannot conclude these imperfect suggestions as to how we may bestcarry up the moral training of our children, and especially of our boys, to a higher level, without touching on the wider and national aspect ofthe problems we have been considering. Especially is this necessary inrelation to that attribute which, in common parlance, arrogates toitself the name that covers the vast sweep of all moral obligation andcalls itself emphatically "morality. " "Language, " Dr. Martineau hasfinely said, "is the great confessional of the human heart"; and it maybe in some instinctive sense that this question of personal purity orthe reverse is the determining force for good or evil to the nation, aswell as to the family, that has given this restricted sense to the words"morality" and "immorality. " Yet we are possessed with an inveterate andalmost irreclaimable tendency to look at the question of purity of lifefrom a purely individualistic standpoint, and to regard it as a matterconcerning the individual rather than the social organism. In electing amember for the Legislature how often have we not been told that we areonly concerned with his public career, and have nothing whatever to dowith his private life, though the private life is only anotherexpression for the man himself; and how can we be called upon to entrustthe destinies of our country to a libertine who habitually violates theobligations of his own manhood and does his best to lower and degradethe womanhood of the people he is called as a member of the Legislatureto protect and to raise? When shall we learn that whatever touches thehigher life and well-being of the family still more vitally affects thewider family of the State, and threatens its disintegration? The familyin some lower form will survive in the most corrupt form of society; butthe State, as an organized polity, capable of embodying, preserving, andpromoting the higher life of the nation, perishes. 

I am the more led to dwell earnestly on these wider aspects, since thatgreat epoch-making commemoration which marked the sixtieth year of thereign of our Queen, and which brought home to the consciousness of thenation, as nothing else has ever done, its vast world-wideresponsibilities. That great national festival, with its proud imperialnote, in which we celebrated the rise and progress of that "largerVenice with no narrow canals, but the sea itself for streets, " willforever form a landmark in English history. None who witnessed it willever forget that spectacle, of men of all races and color, of all creedsand traditions, assembled together as brothers and fellow-subjects, todo honor to a woman's gracious sway of sixty years. And is there not adeep significance in the fact that these men of warring creeds andopposed traditions came together to do homage to no commandingpersonality, no Semiramis or Boadicea of old, no Catherine of Russia orElizabeth of England; but to a sovereign whose chief characteristic hasbeen that of being a true woman, with a true woman's instinctivesagacity and wisdom of the heart: a woman with no glamour of youth andbeauty, but bowed with the weight of years and widowhood and cares ofState; a Queen who, on the morning of her crowning triumph, sent forthno royal proclamation couched in set and pompous periods, but laid hertrembling hands on the bowed head of her people, and gave them a simplemother's blessing: "Tell my beloved people that I pray from the bottomof my heart that God may bless them"?

May I not take it as the very embodiment of all that I have been urgingon the women of this day, the immense possibilities of good that lielatent in our womanhood, the vast issues of good to the nation, andthrough it to the world, if that womanhood is only true to itself?

For let us clearly realize that this great moral question is no questionconfined to the narrow limits of the home, but a question of the riseand fall of nations. This is a truism of history. All history teaches usthat the welfare and very life of a nation is determined by moralcauses; and that it is the pure races that respect their women and guardthem jealously from defilement that are the tough, prolific, ascendantraces, the noblest in type and the most fruitful in propagatingthemselves. You will never find a permanently progressive race where theposition of women is low, the men libertine, and the state of societycorrupt. What was it that made the most brilliant civilization the worldhas ever seen--the civilization which still gives us the inexhaustiblewells of our intellectual life--what was it that made it theshortest-lived? Few, I think, would deny that the rapid decadence ofGreece, despite her splendid intellectual life, was due to moral causes. Not the pure, but the impure--the brilliant Hetairæ--were the companionsof men, and the men themselves were stained with nameless vices. Speaking of the decay of the Athenian people, Mr. Francis Galton says:"We know, and may guess something more, of the reason why thismarvellously gifted race declined. Social morality grew exceedingly lax;marriage became unfashionable and was avoided; many of the moreambitious and accomplished women were avowed courtesans, andconsequently infertile; and the mothers of the incoming population wereof a heterogeneous class. "[38] What was it that made the Egyptiancivilization one of the longest-lived of ancient civilizations? Was itnot, as we now find by her monuments, that the position of women washigh; the wife was enthroned by the side of her husband, and impuritywas condemned by the moral sense of the nation? What was it that enabledour barbaric ancestors, the Teutons, to overthrow the whole power ofcivilized Rome? On the authority of Tacitus, we know that they weresingularly pure. Their women were held in the highest reverence, andbelieved to have something divine about them, some breath of propheticinsight. Their young men were not allowed to marry till they werefive-and-twenty--in other words, till their frame was thoroughlymatured. Impurity before marriage was strongly discountenanced in bothsexes. Therefore the whole power of Rome, honeycombed as it was by moralcorruption and sexual vice, could not stand before these purebarbarians. 

And if these mighty civilizations have perished from moral causes, do wereally think that the moral law--will

 "Of which the solid earth and sky Are but the fitful shadows cast on high"--

suspend its operation out of compliment to the greatness of the Britishempire or of the American Republic, if they, too, become morallycorrupt; or will not those old vanished nations, in the magnificentwords of the Hebrew prophet, greet the phantom of their departedgreatness in the land of shadows: "What, art thou, also, become weak aswe? Art thou also like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave;the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. "

 "We talk of our greatness, " says Mr. Froude; "do we really know in what a nation's greatness consists? Whether it be great or little depends entirely on what sort of men and women it is producing. A sound nation is a nation that is made up of sound human beings, healthy in body, strong of limb, true in word and deed, brave, sober, temperate, and chaste, to whom morals are of more importance than wealth or knowledge; where duty is first and the rights of man are second; where, in short, men grow up, and live, and work, having in them what our ancestors called 'the fear of God. ' It is to form a character of this kind that human beings are sent into the world. Unless England's greatness in this sense has the principle of growth in it, it were better for us that a millstone were hanged about our neck, and that we were drowned in the midst of the sea. "

 "I feel more and more, " said Mrs. Fawcett in words addressed to a great meeting of men in the Manchester Free Trade Hall--words that I wish could be written upon every heart--" that the great question whether the relations of men and women shall be pure and virtuous or impure and vile lies at the root of all national well-being and progress. The main requisite towards a better state of things than now exists cannot be brought about by any outside agency. There is no royal road to virtue and purity. Law can do something to punish wickedness, but improvement in the law is mainly valuable as an indication that the public standard of morality is raised. Let us get good laws if we can; but there is only one way of really obtaining a nobler national existence, and that is by each of us individually learning to hate and detest the vile self-indulgence that covers the life of those who are the victims of it with shame and degradation. Self-control and respect for the rights of others are the only cure for the terrible national danger which threatens us. If men and women would learn never to take pleasure in what brings pain, shame, misery, and moral death to others, earth would be turned into a heaven. It would be incredible if it were not true that for mere selfish indulgence thousands of men are willing to drag women down to what even these men themselves recognize as the lowest dregs of humanity. Where is their chivalry? Where is their common humanity? Some would say that such men do not possess either. For my part, I do not believe this. Let women thankfully acknowledge that, so far as other matters are concerned, they are constantly indebted to the chivalrous self-sacrifice of men. Chivalry is not dead; generous self-sacrifice is not dead; but in far too many cases, with regard to the all-important question of personal purity, they are sleeping. Our efforts must be directed to awakening them. We must try and make men realize the callous cruelty of all actions which lower the womanhood of even the poorest and most degraded of women. "

And if we refuse, sunk in our own selfish interests and pleasures, andcontent that the daughters of the people should perish as long as ourown are safe, then it will not be by an European coalition that theBritish Empire will perish, it will be by moral decay from within; inBlake's rough, strong words:

 "The harlot's curse from street to street Shall be old England's winding sheet. "

The British Empire, the great American Republic, the two greatestcivilizing, order-spreading, Christianizing world-powers ever known, canonly be saved by a solemn league and covenant of their women to bringback simplicity of life, plain living, high thinking, reverence formarriage laws, chivalrous respect for all womanhood, and a high standardof purity for men and women alike. 

Suffer me to lay before you three considerations, which will prove toyou at once that this great moral question is more vital to our twonations than to any other, and that we are peculiarly vulnerable to theaction of moral causes. 

Firstly, England, and in one sense England alone, is the mighty motherof nations. Three great nations have already sprung from her loins; afourth in Africa is already in process of consolidation. From the narrowconfines of our sea-girt island our people pour into all quarters of theglobe; and if we suffer England to know corruption we send forthpolluted waters into all lands. Your great Republic, on the other hand, is a mother of nations in another sense, since she receives into hermighty bosom vast numbers drawn from the suffering peoples of the oldworld, and gives them a mother's welcome. According as your civilizationis high and pure, or low and corrupt, so will those naturalized citizensbe. Decay with great empires, as with fish, sets in at the head; and themoral decadence of England and America will sensibly lower the moralstandard of nearly one-third of the population of the world. [39] Theheart of the two nations is still sound. It is not too late. We are atleast free from the continental system, by which the degradation ofwomen is reduced to a systematized slavery, to meet what is openlycalled a necessity of nature. The comparative purity of Englishmen andAmericans is still a wonder, and often a derision to foreigners. Ourwomen are a greater power than in any other country. We still start froma good vantage-ground. 

England, certainly through no merit of her own, has been called by theprovidence of God to lead in great moral causes. We led in the matter ofslavery--the open sore of the world. We English and American women arenow called to lead, in this its hidden sore, for the healing of thenations. 

Secondly, since you have elected to go beyond your own confines and havedependencies, and so take up the white man's burden of civilizing andChristianizing the world, your men as well as ours will be exposed tothat dangerously lowering influence, contact with lower races and aliencivilizations. An Englishman in India, if he be not a religious man, isapt to blind himself to wrongs done to womanhood, because those wrongsare often done to a pariah caste who are already set apart for infamy;though I have not yet heard of an Englishman possessing himself ofslaves on the ground that they were slaves already to their nativemasters. Worse still, in savage or semi-civilized countries the nativegirl, far from feeling herself degraded, considers that she is raised byany union, however illicit, with a white man. It is the native men whoare furious. Which of us in England did not feel an ache of shame in ourhearts over the plea of the Matabele to the white man: "You have takenour lands, and our hunting-grounds are gone. You have taken our herds, and we want for food. You have taken our young men, and made them slavesin your mines. You have taken our women _and done what you like withthem_. " How many of our native wars may not have had as their cause thatlast sentence in the plaint of the Matabele, a cause carefully concealedfrom the public eye? For God's sake, let mothers teach their sons thatfirst rudiment in manly character, the recognition that the girls of aconquered race, or of a barbarian tribe inhabiting one of our spheres ofinfluence, from the very fact that they are a conquered race, or, if notconquered, hopelessly and piteously in our power, are _ipso facto_ amost sacred trust to us, which it is both unmanly and bestial toviolate. Especially I would plead with mothers to send us pure men forour army--officers who will set their men a high example of chivalrytowards the weakest native woman, and who will so influence them byexample and personal influence that they may look upon voluntarilydisabling themselves from active service, while still taking thegovernment pay, as unmanly and unsoldierly. Give us men who can say witha non-commissioned officer writing home to one of our White Crosssecretaries: "I have been out in India now eleven years and have neverhad a day's illness; and I think the whole secret of my good health istotal abstinence from all that intoxicates, and that I honor all womenas I honor my mother or any of my sisters. "

Thirdly, the hardest thing on earth is not to slay a sin, but to get itburied; and the hardest of all sins to get under ground is the sin ofimpurity. It is largely due to the low standard of purity among men thatwe owe the almost insoluble problem presented by the existence of thelarge Eurasian population in India, and of the half-caste generally. 

 "The universal unanimity of the popular verdict on the half-caste is remarkable, " says Olive Schreiner in some powerful articles published in _Blackwood_ on the problems presented by our Colonial Empire. "The half-caste, it is asserted in every country where he is known, whether it be in America, Asia, or Africa, and whether his ancestors be English and negroid Spanish and Indian, or Boer and Hottentot, --the self-caste is by nature anti-social. It is always asserted that he possesses the vices of both parent races and the virtues of neither: that he is born especially with a tendency to be a liar, cowardly, licentious, and without self-respect. "

Olive Schreiner herself is the first to admit that there are exceptions. She says:

 "The fact that amongst the most despised class of our laboring half-castes we have all met individuals, not only of the highest integrity, but of rare moral beauty and of heroic and fully developed social feelings, does not impugn the theory of his unfortunate position. If you should sow human seed inside the door of hell, some of it would yet come up white lilies. But as a rule the popular verdict on the half-caste is not overdrawn. "

I strongly agree with Mrs. Schreiner that this lamentable result is notdue solely, or even chiefly, to the admixture of races, but far more tothe circumstances in which he has been born and bred. He has originatedin almost all cases, not from the union of average individuals of thetwo races uniting under average conditions, but as the result of asexual union between the most helpless and enslaved females of the darkrace and the most recklessly dominant males of the white. "He enters aworld in which there was no place prepared for him. " His father wasabout as sensible of his parental obligations towards him as a toadtowards its spawn in the next ditch. To him he "was a broken wineglassfrom last night's feast. " "Often without a family, always without anation or race, without education or moral training, and despised by thesociety in which he was born, " is it any wonder that the half-caste isthe curse of the community in which he is found;--one of those whips, asShakespeare reminds us, that "heaven makes out of our pleasant vices" to"scourge" us into some sense of their seriousness?

If you would not incur that curse, that insoluble problem of thehalf-caste, then in both your civil and military services send out menof clean hearts and lives into your dependencies, Alas! in your greatmilitary camps during your Spanish war a moral laxity was allowed, which, had it been attempted in the Egyptian campaign, Lord Kitchenerwould have stamped out with a divine fury. I had it from an eyewitness, but the details are wholly unfit for publication. 

I do not hold with our "little Englanders" that the possession of anempire is a disaster; on the contrary, I hold that it constitutes asplendid school for the formation of strong character, --of men who arethe very salt of the earth, --and that the sense of a great mission to befulfilled tends to give a nobility of soul to the whole nation; whileeven the wars it may involve prove the vultures of God swooping down onthe hidden social rottennesses which in prolonged peace may breedunnoticed and unreproved. We have never forgotten the bitter lessons ofthe Crimean war which laid bare our miserable incompetence inorganizing, and the moral rottenness of our English firms that couldsupply our soldiers with paper-soled boots and bayonets that bent at athrust, when the very life of our brave fellows depended on their beingwell armed and well shod. 

America will never forget the sufferings of her wounded in the Spanishwar, sufferings caused by the like dishonesty in the goods supplied andthe like criminal incompetency which failed to provide them even withnecessaries. 

But I do say that an empire presents many difficult problems, and thatthe men who accept its responsibilities need a sound head, clean hands, and above all a pure heart. 

Let me in conclusion relate an incident which happened in the wreck ofthe _Warren Hastings_, to which I have already alluded, --an incidentwhich I can never tell without a breaking voice and eyes full of tears. In that awful night of storm and darkness and iminent shipwreck, theofficer in command, after ordering his men below to lighten the crowdeddeck, stationed two of his men at a narrow gangway through which hefeared an ugly rush for life might be made, while the women and childrenwere being embarked, bidding them on no account to leave their post tillhe gave them the word of command. At length the women and the sick hadall been saved in the boats. This done, and not till then, the men hadsaved themselves, some by boats, some by life preservers; and last ofall the captain and officer in command were proceeding to leave the fastfoundering ship, when the latter heard a voice close to him, saying, "Colonel, may we leave now?" It was the voice of one of his twosentinels. In the stress and strain of the awful scenes of that night hehad for the moment forgotten that he had ordered them not to leave theirpost until he gave the word of command. And he said that _the water wasalmost up to their lips_!

Oh ye mothers of America and of our great Empire! send us such men asthese, --men who will mount guard over women and children in all lands, and see, as far as in them lies, that they do not make shipwreck ofwhat is dearer than life;--men who, even with the bitter waters oftemptation up to their own lips, will still hold their post and see thatno man, to save himself, drives them down into that dread sea ofperdition which never gives up its dead. 

Then East, West, North, South, the American flag will witness in theface of all nations to the true manhood that steers its course by noearth-born fires of passion and selfish lust, but by the eternal stars, the heavenly lights of God, and mother, and duty, and home. 

East, West, North, South, by its side our flag, twice scored with theWhite Cross, will float wide in the face of all nations the Englishman'sfaith, reverence for womanhood, self-giving manhood, and the pure heartthat sees God. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 38: _Hereditary Genius_, by Francis Galton, p. 331. ]

[Footnote 39: Great Britain, since the conquest of the Soudan, rulesone-fourth of the population of the world. ]

CHAPTER XI

THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF EVIL[40]

There remains yet one other way in which I earnestly desire to help youif I can. I would fain afford you some light on this difficult problemand give you a spring of hope within by enabling you to see what it isworking out in the world without. Some, I know, do not need this help. Some wholesome souls seem to gaze on all evil with sun-dazzledeyes--eyes that see Him in whom they walk, and not it, and in His lightthey see light. They are the "naturally Christian" souls who leadmelodious days amid all the jars and discords of the world around them. Others there are who seem to look upon these great social evils asespecially provided to afford a sphere for their beneficent activities;and who if, by some sudden rise in public opinion, some passionate senseof the wrong done to women, the degraded class should almost cease toexist, would in their heart of hearts secretly regret so many empty bedsin their little Rescue Home and the possibility that it might have to beshut up, when "the girls did turn out so well. " Others, again, there arewho never trouble their heads or hearts about the misery and sin of theworld, or any social problem, however dark, as long as their own houseis comfortable, their own bed soft, and their own children healthy andwell cared for, never dreaming how those social evils may press uponthose children in their after-life. These are in no need of this kind ofhelp. But there are many thoughtful mothers, possibly an increasingnumber with the increase of knowledge that is coming to all women, fromwhose heart there is going up a bitter cry, "Why, oh why is all thisevil permitted?" Why is there this nameless moral difficulty at the veryheart of our life which our whole soul revolts from contemplating? Whyhas Nature made these passions so strong that she seems whollyregardless of all considerations of morality?[41]

Some there are who feel that all infidel books are mere curl-paper incomparison with the terrible facts of life, some who are in danger ofhaving all faith crushed out of them--

 "Beneath the weary and the heavy weight Of all this unintelligible world. "

It is these who need, like myself, as a first step to strong action, tosee something of what God is working out by the evil and suffering ofthe world, to see it as a part of a vast redemptive whole, not as agreat exception in our life, but working under the same law by which, inthe words of the ancient collect, "things which are cast down are beingraised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and allthings are returning to perfection through Him from whom they had theirorigin. "

Now, do not think that I am going to indulge in a dissertation on theorigin of evil or why the world is so full of sin and misery. This isinsoluble. You cannot solve a problem which has only one term. Yourunknown quantity must have some known factor or factors related to it, or you cannot resolve it into the known. In this great claim of causeand effect, where all things are related and interdependent, you canonly know a related thing through its relations. Try to account for abit of chalk, for instance, and consider all you must know in order toenable you to do so. To account for its weight you must know somethingabout the motion of the whole planetary system and the law of gravitythat controls that system; to account for the weather-stains upon it, you must know something about chemical reaction; to account for itsbeing chalk and not flint, you must know something of the geologicalages of the earth, and how it comes to be built up of little sea-shells;to account for its hardness, you must know something of the intricaciesof molecular physics. All this you must know to account for a mere bitof chalk. How, then, can we expect to understand the problem of theworld when we know absolutely nothing of its relations with the greatmoral and spiritual whole to which it belongs, and without the knowledgeof which it must for ever remain an insoluble problem, presenting oneterm only, an enigma of which we do not possess the key?

But though we cannot understand the origin of evil and why the world isas it is, we can understand something of the processes which are at workfor good or ill. We can in a measure trace whether these processes aremaking slowly but surely for righteousness, or whether all the sin andthe suffering are aimless and purposeless, a voice that cries "believeno more, "

 "An ever breaking shore That tumbles in a godless deep. "

Now, I contend that the only ground of despair, the only thing thatmight-shut us up to pessimism and to "a philosophy only just abovesuicide mark, " would be not the presence but the absence of these greatworld evils. If this world presented a dead-level of comfortableselfishness that on the whole answered fairly well all round, an economyof petty self-interests in stable equilibrium, a world generally wrong, but working out no evil in particular to set it right, a society inwhich every man was for himself, and not the devil, as at present, butGod for us all--then indeed we might despair. But who can contemplatehumanity as it is, that broken stair of the Divinity, whose top is inthe unapproachable light of heaven and whose lowest step rests not onearth but in hell, without feeling that it is destined for an infiniteprogress, destined for the ascending feet of angels? Who that gazes onthis world, with its infinite depths of pain, its heavy weight of evil, its abysmal falls, its stupendous pressures of wrong and misery, butfeels that here, if anywhere, we are in the presence of kineticenergies, of immense moral and spiritual forces, capable of raising thewhole of fallen humanity to the heights of the Divine. For let usremember that in the moral and spiritual world, as well as in thephysical, no fall but carries with it the force that can be convertedinto a rise; no dread resistance of wrong to the right but creates anaccumulated force which once let loose can transform an empire; noweight of evil but, in pulling it down, can be made to raise the wholebent of our life. 

 "Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be. "

He is "no finite and finished clod. " Progress, as Browning says, is hisdistinctive mark, and these deep evils are the gigantic steps by whichhe rises as he treads them under foot. Once recognize the fact that heis a fallen being--and by that I mean no theological dogma, but a truthof life, which, whatever our creed may be, must stare us in theface--the fact that he is a being knowing good but choosing evil, capable of an ideal but habitually falling below it, no mere automaton, but possessed of a spiritual will and an accusing conscience--I ask howelse can he be educated, in the true sense of the word, and raised fromdeath unto life except by being made to educe his own results and workout his evil premiss to the bitter end, till he is forced to go backupon himself, and recognize the right principle which he has violated?The very law of his being, of every being who is being raised from deathunto life, is, that he can only know life through death, only grasp goodby grappling with evil, only gain knowledge by knowing ignorance; hishighest must be sown in weakness before it can be raised in power, mustbe sown in dishonor before it can be raised in glory. 

Look back over the past and see if it is not in conflict with thesegreat world evils, themselves the results of man's moral blindness andsin, that we have worked out the true principles of our life, the higherpossibilities of our humanity. 

Take the most elementary case first, man's disobedience to the physicallaws under which he must live to have a sound mind in a sound body. Manin his primitive stages is emphatically not a clean animal. On thecontrary, he is a very dirty one. He has none of the cat's daintyneatness and cleanliness, none of her instinctive recognition of thedeodorizing and purifying power of the earth, that makes the foulestthing once buried spring up in fresh grass and fragrant flowers. He hasnothing of the imperative impulse of the little ant which he treadsunder his lordly feet to shampoo his brother, let alone himself. It hasneeded the discipline and the suffering of the ages to evolve that greatbanner of progress, the clean shirt. From what great world pestilenceshas he not had to suffer as the consequences of his own uncleanliness!Cholera has been rightly called the beneficent sanitary inspector of theworld. With what foul diseases, the very details of which would sicken, has he not had to be scourged withal to get him to recognize and obeythe one Divine injunction, "Wash and be clean"! Truly his knowledge andrecognition of sanitary law, his "physical righteousness, " has had to besown in the weakness and corruption of disease before it could be raisedto the power of a recognized law of life, insuring that cleanlinesswhich is next to godliness. 

Again, take the great principle of national freedom, --that a nation hasa right to govern its own destinies. With what world tyrannies andoppressions, the outcome of man's selfish lust of power and wealth, havenot the peoples had to fight and struggle in order at length to win andget recognized that principle of freedom without which a nation can beneither strong nor holy, neither a citadel nor a temple! The Iron Dukeused to say, "There is but one thing worse than a battle gained, andthat is a battle lost. " Yet what battles lost and what battles gained, with all their sickening sights and sounds--

 "Oaths, insults, filth, and monstrous blasphemies, Sweat, writhings, anguish, laboring of lungs, In that close mist, and cryings for the light, Moans of the dying and voices of the dead";

what bloody conflicts through the long ages have not had to be foughtout to gain this freedom! Truly we might apostrophize Freedom in thewords of the Hebrew prophet: "Who is this that cometh with her garmentsdyed in blood?" Through what long centuries did not what Sir John Seeleycalled the "mechanical theory of government" survive, the theory whichrecognized no vital bond of blood and historical tradition between apeople and its government, but looked upon nations as royal appanages, to be banded about with royal alliances and passed under an alien swaywithout consent on its own part! Did it not require a Napoleon to workout this false premiss to its bitter end, drenching Europe in blood togratify his own greed of power, and reducing nation after nation to hisalien and despotic rule, till it was felt to be intolerable, and with aconvulsive struggle Europe threw off the yoke? Truly a struggle whichwas the birth-throes of national sentiment and the recognition that thetie between the governed and the governing must be an organic one, a tieof blood from within, not a force from without--in one word, therecognition of the great principle of national freedom which, when thenation is sufficiently developed and self-disciplined to be fit for it, is the great mother of progress. Sown in the corruption of those mangledand decaying corpses on many an awful battle-field, freedom is raised tothe glory of an incorruptible truth of national life. 

Once again, was it not in his age-long conflict with the great worldevil of slavery that man worked out the true nature of a moralpersonality? Man started at the outset with the evil premiss of theright of the strong to possess himself of the weak and the conquered, and enslave him for his own use, shunting the toil and burden of lifeupon his bowed shoulders. Through long ages he had to work out thiswrong premiss in disaster to empires through the laziness andworthlessness of their ruling classes engendered by slave labor, in thedumb suffering and bitter wrongs of millions of enslaved men and women. Through centuries the Church protested against these wrongs in vain, since the evil root, in the face of all protests, will go on bearingthe evil fruit. England, herself the mother of free peoples, was stainedwith the guilt of being one of the first to originate the worst form ofslavery that the world has ever seen, the African slave-trade, her greatQueen Elizabeth not scorning to enrich her royal coffers out of theprofits of slave-raiding expeditions conducted by her sea-captains. Itneeded the horrors of this latest development of the principle ofslavery, the horrors of the middle passage, of whole regions of Africadecimated to supply the slave market, of mothers torn from theirchildren, or, worse still, compelled to bear them to their slavemasters, only to see them in their turn sold to some far-off station; ofthe degradation of men and women brought up in heathen ignorance lestthey should use their knowledge to rebel--it needed all this weight ofevil and disaster at last to rouse the conscience of Europe to recognizethat slavery was wrong in itself and to cast out the evil premiss onwhich it rested. By the mere force of moral revulsion in England, by thethroes of a great civil war engendered by slavery in America, at lastthe true nature of a moral personality got itself recognized, --theinviolability of personal responsibility, the sanctity of theindividual, the sacredness of freedom, --those great principles on whichthe whole of our public and political life are founded. And I make boldto say that these principles were gained as a heritage for all time, notby the preaching of abstract justice, not by any consideration of themoral beauty of liberty, but mainly by a remorseful passion over thewrongs and the degradation of the slave. These great principles weresown in weakness and dishonor, to be raised in honor and in the power ofan endless life. 

When, therefore, the Church of the living God awakes, as she is justbeginning to do, and closes in a life and death struggle with this fardeeper and more pervasive evil of the degradation of women and children, which she has too long accepted as a melancholy necessity of humannature, may we not find in the course of that conflict that wholly newpowers and new principles are being evolved, and that the apparentimpossibilities of our nature are only its divine possibilities indisguise? May we not work out the true principles, not now of our publicand political life, but of the home, of the family, of personal conductand character--all those great moral bases on which the whole socialstructure rests for its stability? Granted that this is the deepest andstrongest of all our world evils, that which is the most firmly based onthe original forces of our nature, and of that part of our nature whichhas shown the deepest disorder--does not all this point to some greatissue? That which has been sown in such deep dishonor, will it not beraised in some glory that excelleth?

If God has suffered mighty empires and whole kingdoms to be wrecked onthis one evil; if He has made it throughout the Old Scriptures thesymbol of departure from Himself, and closely associated monogamic lovewith monotheistic worship, teaching us by the history of all ancientidolatries that the race which is impure spawns unclean idols andPhrygian rites; if Nature attaches such preciousness to purity in manthat the statistics of insurance offices value a young man's life attwenty-five, the very prime of well-regulated manhood, at exactlyone-half of what it is worth at fourteen, owing, Dr. Carpenter does nothesitate to say, to the indulgence of the passions of youth; if thetender Father, "who sits by the death-bed of the little sparrow, " hasnot thought it too great a price to pay that countless women andchildren should be sunk to hell without a chance in this life, in adegradation that has no name, but which, in its very depth, measures theheight of the sanctity of womanhood; do we think that all thesestupendous issues are for no end and to work out no purpose? Do we notfeel at once that we stand here at the very centre of the mighty forcesthat are moulding men to nobler shape and higher use?

Here, at least, is a force, if we will only use it, so weighted withpublic disaster, with national decay, with private misery, that itinsists on making itself felt if there be a spark of life left and thenation has not become mere dead carcase for the vultures of God'sjudgments to prey upon. Here alone is a power strong enough to compel usto simplify our life and restore its old divine order of marriage andhard work, of "plain living and high thinking, " which luxury andself-ease are fast undermining. Here, in the slain of the daughters ofour people, is a stinging wrong that will goad us into seeing that thepeople are so housed that a human life is possible to them. Here, ifanywhere, is a passion of conscience, and pity, and duty, and interestcombined, strong enough, a heaped-up weight of evil heavy enough, toraise us to a self-giving manhood and a self-reverencing womanhood. 

And from this secret place of thunder is not God now calling His chosenones to come forward and be fellow-workers with Him? And when that callis obeyed, when, to summarize what I have already said, the wrongs anddegradation of women and hapless children take hold of men, as, thankGod, they are beginning to take hold, with a remorseful passion, thatpassion for the weak, the wronged, and the defenceless, which surely isthe divine in flower in a human soul; when women rise up in a wildrevolt against

 "The law that now is paramount, The common law by which the poor and weak Are trampled under foot of vicious men, And loathed forever after by the good";

when the Christian Church at length hears the persistent interrogationof her Lord, "Seest thou this woman?" and makes answer, "Yea, Lord, Isee that she is young, and poor, and outcast, and degraded, " and speaksto young men with something of the passion of the true Man--"It werebetter for you that a millstone were hanged about your neck and you castinto the depths of the sea, than that you should cause one of theselittle ones to stumble"; when the fact that a foolish, giddy girl's feethave slipped and fallen is no longer the signal for every man to lookupon her as fair game, and to trample her deeper into the mire, but thesignal to every man calling himself a man to hasten to her side, toraise her up again and restore her to her lost womanhood; when boys aretaught from their earliest years that if they would have a clear brain, a firm nerve, and a strong muscle, they must be pure, and purity islooked upon as manly, at least, as much as truth and courage; when womenare no longer so lost to the dignity of their own womanhood as to makecompanions of the very men who insult and degrade it; when the womanrequires the man to come to her in holy marriage in the glory of hisunfallen manhood, as he requires her to come to him in the beauty of herspotless maidenhood; then, when these things begin to be, will not God'sorder slowly evolve itself out of our disorder, and the man will becomethe head of the woman, to guard her from all that makes her unfit to bethe mother of the race, and the woman will be the heart of the man, toinspire him with all noble purpose? As we stand by this greatworld-sepulchre of corruption our unbelieving heart can only exclaim:"It stinketh. " But the Christ meets us with the words, "Said I not untothee that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?"That which has been sown in human weakness must be raised in divinepower; that which has been sown in deep dishonor must be raised inglory. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, even theself-giving manhood of Him who is the Prince of Passion and the Lord ofLove, the manhood lifted into God. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 40: In this chapter I have quoted some passages from anarticle of mine, "The Apocalypse of Evil, " which appeared in the_Contemporary Review_, and received the strong commendation of Dr. Lightfoot, then Bishop of Durham. Many of the thoughts I owe to myfriend, James Hinton, to whom my obligations on this subject areabsolute. ]

[Footnote 41: We must be careful, however, in urging this difficulty, toremember Dr. Martineau's teaching, which I have given in the thirdchapter, and bear in mind that the evil here is due to man's disorder, and not to Nature's order. In the animal world the reproductiveinstincts work out as orderly results as all other natural instincts, and are no stronger than is necessary for the preservation of the race. ]

CONCLUSION

And it is this great upward movement, lifting man to a higher level, which is given into the hands of us women, touching, as it does, all thegreat trusts of our womanhood. What are we women going to do in the faceof such vast issues for good or evil?

Undoubtedly we stand at the parting of the ways. In England undoubtedlythe old high traditions of English society have, at least in what iscalled the "Upper Ten, " been lowered and vulgarized. Our literature isno longer as clean and wholesome as it was. The greater freedom thatwomen enjoy has not always been put to high uses. And all around us inboth countries the old order is changing, and the new order is not yetborn. Old positions are becoming untenable, with the higher position andculture of women. It is becoming an impossibility for intelligent womenwith a knowledge of physiology and an added sense of their own dignityto accept the lower moral standard for men, which exposes them to therisk of exchanging monogamy for a peculiarly vile polygamy--polygamywith its sensuality, but without its duties--bringing physical risks totheir children and the terrible likelihood of an inherited moral taintto their sons. It is an impossibility, now that mothers know, that theyshould remain indifferent as to what sort of manhood they send out intothe world--the so-called manhood that either makes and maintains themiserable sinner of our streets or is content to give a tainted name tothe mother of his child, or the true manhood lifted into God, whosemarriage is the type of the eternal union of God and the soul, of Christand the Church, and whose fatherhood claims kinship with the Father oflights. It is impossible for women who are agitating for theenfranchisement of their sex to accept as a necessary class in the midstof a democratical society a class of citizens who, in Dr. Welldon's[42]words, addressed to the University of Cambridge, "have lost once for alltime the rights of citizenship--who are nobody's wives, nobody'ssisters, nobody's friends, who live a living death in the world of men. There are one hundred and fifty thousand such citizens, --perhaps farmore, in England and Wales--_and all are women_. "

These old positions are simply impossible, each a moral _reductio adabsurdam_. We must institute a new and higher order. To do so we womenmust unite in a great silent movement, a temple slowly rising up beneathour hands without sound of axe or hammer. It will not make itself heardon platforms; its cry will not be heard in our streets. It will go onbeneath the surface of our life, probably unheeded and unnoticed ofmen. Women must educate women; those who know must teach those who arein ignorance. Let mothers who have been roused to the greatness of theissues at stake take as their field of labor the young mothers whom theymay know--possibly their own married daughters or nieces, possibly thosewho are only bound to them by ties of friendship. Use this book, if youwill. If there are things in it which you don't approve of--and oh, howmuch of the divine patience of our Lord do we need with one another indealing with this difficult question--cut out those pages, erase thatpassage, but do not deny those young mothers the necessary knowledge toguard the nursery or save their boys at school. And then try and followit up by quietly talking over the difficulties and the best method ofencountering them. Let us deny ourselves in order to give toassociations or institutions for the elevation of women, as well as tothat excellent society for men, the White Cross, which is spreading itspurifying work through both countries. [43] Let us do what we can to helpin organizing women's labor, so that a living wage may be secured andno woman be driven by starvation into selling herself for a morsel ofbread. Let us endeavor to secure the franchise that we may have thepower of legislating for the protection of women on the one point onwhich we stand in sharp opposition to all but good men; especially suchmeasures as raising the age of consent, so deplorably low in some ofyour States, that your children are almost without legal protection;resisting State regulation of vice in the army; cleansing the streets byan Act pressing equally on men and women, and many others which willsuggest themselves to you. But let us, at the same time, clearlyrecognize that the remedy must lie deeper than any external agency--mustbe as deep as life itself, and must be worked out in the silence of ourown hearts and of our own homes. We must restore the law of God, quietlybut firmly insisting on the equal moral standard for men and womenalike; and we must maintain the sanctity and permanence of the marriagebond as ordained by Christ himself. 

I say again I do not think, I simply _know_, by my own experience, thatmen will rise to any standard which women choose to set them. Ruskin'snoble words are the simple truth:

 "Their whole course and character are in your hands; what you would have them be they shall be, if you not only desire to have them so, but deserve to have them so, for they are but mirrors in which you will see yourselves imaged. . . . You fancy, perhaps, as you have been told so often, that a wife's rule should only be over her husband's house, not over his mind. Ah no! the true rule is just the reverse of that: a true wife, in her husband's house, is his servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of best he can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of highest he can hope, it is hers to promise. All that is dark in him she must purge into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth; from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win his praise; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace. "

Last, but not least, we must set ourselves to make our lives simpler andplainer, and oppose the ever-increasing luxury and love of pleasure, with its sure and certain result, a relaxed moral fibre, which, to arace called to such high destinies and difficult tasks as ourAnglo-Saxon race, is simply fatal. It can, and it must be done. AsPhilip Hammerton remarks:

 "It is entirely within the power of public opinion to relieve the world from the weariness of this burthen of expensive living; it has actually been done to a great extent with regard to the costliness of funerals, a matter in which public opinion has always been very authoritative. If it will now permit a man to be buried simply when he is dead, why cannot it allow him to exist simply whilst he is living?"

To lessen the expense of dress, which has risen twenty per cent, withinthe last thirty years; to restore amusements to their proper place, asrecreation after hard work for the good of others; to resist theever-increasing restlessness of our day, leading to such constantabsences from home as seriously to threaten all steady work for theamelioration of the stay-at-home classes, and use up the funds which areneeded for that work; to keep a simple table, so that the future SirAndrew Clark may no longer have to say that more than half of ourdiseases come from over-eating; to resist the vulgar tendency to competewith our richer or more fashionable neighbors in their style ofliving--surely these sacrifices are not beyond us, to attain a greatend, both for ourselves and our empire. If indeed we think we can meetthis evil without making sacrifices amounting to a silent revolution inour life; if we think, as I have sometimes thought some women do think, that we can quench this pit of perdition in our midst by, as it were, emptying our scent-bottles upon it, --shedding a few empty tears, heavinga few sentimental sighs: "It is very sad! of course I can't do anything, but I am sure I wish all success to your noble work"--possibly evengiving a very little money, say a guinea a year, to a penitentiary--allI can say is, _God is not mocked_. I know but one thing in heaven orearth that will quench it, and that is life-blood. Sometimes I haveasked in anguish of spirit: "Will women give it?" I believe they will. But, whether we give it or not, what Matthew Arnold called "the noblestof religious utterances" holds good here: "Without shedding of bloodthere is no remission of this sin. "

And it is because I know that mothers will spend their heart's blood insaving their sons, and because I believe that women, with their new-bornposition and dignity, will not go on accepting as a matter of coursethat their womanhood should be fashioned like the Egyptian sphinx, halfpure woman, crowned with intellectual and moral beauty, dowered with thehomage of men; and half unclean beast of prey, seeking whom it may slay, outcast and abandoned and forced to snare or starve--it is because ofthis, my rooted faith in women, that I have hope. 

As long ago as 1880 Professor Max Müller, ever anxious for the interestsof his Indian fellow-subjects, when Mr. Malabari came to ask him how hecould rouse English public opinion with regard to the injuries inflictedon young girls by Hindu child-marriages, answered him at once, "Write ashort pamphlet and send it to the women of England. They begin to be apower, and they have one splendid quality, they are never beaten. "[44]And if this can be said of English women, still more may it be said ofthe women of America. 

But, further, to strengthen us in this splendid quality, have wesufficiently recognized the new moral forces that are coming into theworld? Have our eyes been opened to see "the horses and chariots offire" which are silently taking up their position around us, to guardus and fight for us, that we may not be beaten; the deepened sense ofmoral obligation, the added power of conscience, the altogether newaltruistic sense which makes the misery and degradation of others clingto us like a garment we cannot shake off, a sense of others' woes forwhich we have had to invent a new word? Lord Shaftesbury's legislationdoes not date so very far back; and yet when his Bill for deliveringwomen and children from working in our mines was hanging in the balance, and the loss of a single vote might wreck it--women, be it remembered, who were working naked to the waist in the coal-mines, and littlechildren of eight or nine who were carrying half a sack of coals twelvetimes a day the height of St. Paul's Cathedral--the Archbishop ofCanterbury and the Bishop of London left the House of Lords withoutvoting, as the subject did not interest them; while in the lower HouseBright and Gladstone both voted against the Bill, Gladstone being theonly member who, when the Bill was passed by a bare majority, endeavoredto delay its coming into operation! I ask, Would such a state of thingsbe possible in these days? Am I not right in saying that new moralforces and sensibilities have been born within us which make such astate of things not only impossible, but simply incomprehensible?

Why then should we despair? What! Has God built up His everlastingmarble of broken shells, and will He not build up his temple of thefuture out of these broken efforts of ours? Has He made His pure andsplendid diamond out of mere soot, and shall we refuse to see in theblackest and foulest moral problem the possibilities of the diamond, ofa higher life worked out in the process of its solution, reflecting Hislight and His love? Has He made His precious sapphire of the mere mudthat we tread under our feet, and, when we insist on our little sisters'being no longer trodden like mud "under foot of vicious men, " may theynot in the course of their redemption bring an added hue of heaven toour life, an added purity to home and family, and behold, instead of theold mud, a sapphire throne, and above it the likeness as of a divineman?[45]

But to those who still hang back with a feeling of almost angryrepulsion from the whole subject which makes them refuse even to facethe perils and temptations of their own boys, I would address no hardwords, remembering but too well the terrible struggle it cost me to makethis my life work. Only I would remind them of that greatest act in allhistory, by which the world was redeemed. The Cross to us is soassociated with the adoration of the ages, so glorified by art, andmusic, and lofty thought, that we have ceased to realize what it was inactual fact such as no painter has ever dared to portray it; the Cross, not elevated as in sacred pictures, but huddled up with the jeeringcrowd; the Cross with its ribald blasphemies, its shameful nakedness, its coarse mockeries, its brutal long-drawn torture. Do you think itcost the women of that day nothing to bear all this on their tenderhearts? Yet what was it that made men draw nearer and nearer, till thewomen who at first "stood afar off, beholding these things, " we aretold, at last "stood by the cross of Jesus"; and, when all men forsookHim and fled, placed themselves heart to heart with the Divine Lovebearing the sins of the world and casting them into the abysmal depthsof its own being, deeper even than the depths of man's sin? What was itbut their faithfulness to the Highest that they had known which madethem endure the Cross, despising the shame?

And now, when at the end of the ages He once again calls us women tostand heart to heart with Him in a great redemptive purpose, shall wehang back? Shall we not rather obey the Divine call, enduring the Cross, despising the shame, and, like those women of old, winning forourselves, by faithfulness unto death, the joy of being made themessengers of a higher and risen life to the world?

God grant that the power of the Holy Ghost may overshadow us and enableus to make answer with her whom all generations have called blessed:"Behold the hand-maiden of the Lord!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 42: Late Head-Master of Harrow; now Metropolitan of India. ]

[Footnote 43: I would especially commend this modern order of knighthoodto the prayers and support of women. It is bravely fighting our battlefor us and doing the public work among men. As it attacks what isespecially the sin of the moneyed classes, it is unpopular, menresenting its interference with what they call their private life, andit is always in peril for want of funds. The White Cross league admitswomen associates for intercessory prayer--and what mother will not bethankful for that?--for any work where women's aid is needed, and forraising funds for what is so emphatically our own cause. I wouldearnestly suggest to women who have incomes of their own that theyshould leave the White Cross a small legacy, so as to place it on afirmer basis. I hope myself to leave the English branch £2000. ]

[Footnote 44: From an article in the _Nineteenth Century_ on "Meddlingwith Hindu Marriages. "]

[Footnote 45: Ezek. I. , 26. ]

APPENDIX

In Mr. Edward Thring's address to the Church Congress at Carlisle in1841, he said:

"Curiosity, ignorance, and lies form a very hot-bed of impurity. We payheavily for our civilized habits in false shame and the mystery in whichsex is wrapped. 

"I confess that for curiosity I have no remedy to propose. Ignorance andlies are on a different footing. I suppose everyone is acquainted withsome of the current lies about the impossibility of being pure. The onlyanswer to this is a flat denial from experience. I know it is possible, and, when once attained, easy. The means, under God, in my own case, wasa letter from my father. A quiet, simple statement of the sinfulness ofthe sin and a few of the plain texts from St. Paul saved me. A film fellfrom my eyes at my father's letter. My first statement is that allfathers ought to write such a letter to their sons. It is not difficultif done in a common-sense way. Following out this plan at Uppingham inthe morning Bible lessons, I have always spoken as occasion arose withperfect plainness on lust and its devil-worship, particularly noting itsdeadly effect on human life and its early and dishonored graves. Ignorance is deadly, because perfect ignorance in a boy is impossible. Iconsider the half-ignorance so deadly that once a year, at the time ofconfirmation, I speak openly to the whole school, divided into threedifferent sets. First I take the confirmees, then the communicants andolder boys, then the younger boys, on three following nights afterevening prayers. The first two sets I speak very plainly to, the lastonly warn against all indecency in thought, word, or deed, whether aloneor with companions. Thus no boy who has been at school a whole year cansin in ignorance, and a boy who despises this warning is justly turnedout of the school on conviction. "

 Finally, he dwelt upon the necessity of school life having joined to it a home life. The purifying influence of a good woman and a fuller recognition of woman's work and place in the world he looked upon as that which promised most for lifting mankind into a higher atmosphere of pure life. 

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