INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 31 



you may see established the dreary Hfe of the Zenana, the bound 

 feet of the Chinese, and the vapid, miserable existence of the 

 Harem. To me this is worse than the savage stage. The woman 

 no longer shares the hardships of the man, but has developed 

 along a line exclusively her own — a mean and hateful line, where 

 every germ of generous life is stifled. The one weapon left free 

 is her tongue, and she becomes jealous, frivolous, petty, spiteful, 

 without the least sense of justice, a creature it makes one blush 

 to think of. And, alas, when debarred from cultivation and 

 from her true scope, some beings of the same type are to be 

 found in the civilised lands of to-day, and it seems that Eve, 

 the Mother of all living, the summit of things created, is not 

 even yet able to take her right place. 



Before going further, let us make it clear that we do not blame 

 the masterful Man-spirit, although most of the wrong is due to 

 his tyranny — not either in our babes nor in the world. You 

 cannot steer a boat unless it has way on it ; you cannot teach 

 a horse his paces unless he will go ; and you can make nothing 

 of a human character unless it has boldness and adventure and 

 skill, and a desire for conquest. Missionaries tell us that the 

 cruel North American Indian and the crafty Chinese make far 

 better and nobler converts than the inhabitants of some of the 

 Pacific Islands, where people live like tropic birds in a cage, the 

 bread-fruit always supplying food, and with no enemies. There 

 is no need to fight with soil, or climate, or beast, or fellow-man, 

 and life is idyllic idleness. Such tribes become hopeless. Better 

 fight with the wrong thing than not fight at all. Remember 

 the first command given to man, before he tastes of the Tree of 

 the Knowledge of Good and Evil, before the Conscience is born 

 within, before there is any recognised distinction between Right 

 and Wrong. It runs, " Replenish the earth and subdue it, and 

 have dominion over every living thing." It was a tremendous 

 task set him by his Creator, and on the whole he has bravely 

 and diligently answered it : he has subdued, not merely the 

 animals — taming some and exterminating others — but he has 

 subjugated the vast impersonal forces of Nature, air for the sails 

 of ships and mills, fire, water, and their powerful child, steam ; 

 even lightning is brought down and tamed into electricity, 

 giving us light and voice and tramlines. There are scores of 

 other inventions which combine to make life more comfortable 

 and more effective, and I pray you to remember that man has 

 made these conquests unaided and alone, and that woman has 



