THE DESCENT OF BAD TRAITS AND GOOD. 255 



here, to the subterranean noises of discussion, you 

 will find not a few of them coming from pickaxes, 

 undermining faith in the natural laws which proclaim 

 that the family is a divine institution. Approaching 

 the delirious traitors who handle these ill-omened 

 weapons, you will find that there hums above their 

 foreheads a miner's light, composed chiefly of blue 

 fire. And yet there is sometimes one streak of white 

 flame in it. These sappers of the foundations of 

 society profess a desire to have mankind improved 

 by obedience to natural law. Although their method 

 of improving the race would usually land it in moral 

 chaos, one of their central purposes is not a bad one, 

 — namely, to secure enlarged obedience to natural 

 law, as the method of raising the average intellectual 

 and moral merit of the human family. Christianity 

 has had that motive for ages. She has understood, 

 ever since the Decalogue was proclaimed, that the 

 good and bad traits of parents descend to the third 

 and fourth generations. She was the first to rever- 

 ence woman adequately. Even in what you call the 

 half-benighted Jewish system of life, woman received 

 honor such as was shown to her nowhere else on 

 the planet. The Marys, the Ruths, the Sarahs, — 

 they whose appellations, coming down across all the 

 turmoil of the years, are honored yet as among the 

 foremost female names of all time, — were growths 

 of what you call the scrawny, stunted tree of Juda- 

 ism, the root out of which has sprung Christianity. 

 Sweet was the root; majestic is the tree. My feeling 

 is, that, were you to cut down the tree, and were 



