Her mere subjection to the
priesthood, her inborn feminine delight in form and ceremony--now an
influence narrowing her charity--must then, to his dim eyes, trained
to look upon dogma as the living soul of his religion, have seemed a
halo, deifying her. Woman was then the servant. It was naturally
to her advantage to excite tenderness and mercy in man. Since she
has become the mistress of the world. It is no longer her
interested mission to soften his savage instincts. Nowadays, it is
the women who make war, the women who exalt brute force. Today, it
is the woman who, happy herself, turns a deaf ear to the world's low
cry of pain; holding that man honoured who would ignore the good of
the species to augment the comforts of his own particular family;
holding in despite as a bad husband and father the man whose sense
of duty extends beyond the circle of the home. One recalls Lady
Nelson's reproach to her lord after the battle of the Nile. 'I have
married a wife, and therefore cannot come,' is the answer to his God
that many a woman has prompted to her lover's tongue. I was
speaking to a woman only the other day about the cruelty of skinning
seals alive.
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