VY? . o yvv Unman Unin^r ttfp lEtljntr SMtgtmtH MRS. MOSES SMITH Chicago, III. WOMAN’S BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE INTERIOR (Congregational) Room 523, 40 Dearborn Street 1910 Woman Un3er tfte EtBmc Reficporxs BY MRS. MOSES SMITH The Third Edition. Revised. The most interesting thing about any man is his religion. — Thomas Carlyle. Chicago, III. WOMAN’S BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE INTERIOR (Congregational) Room 523 , 40 Dearborn Street 1910 Price, Five Cents per Copy. I Colossal Buddha at Kamakura, Japan Woman Under the Ethnic Religions. BY MRS. MOSES SMITH. W ITHOUT question religion is the supreme force in history. Religion touches the secret springs of human life, creates ideals and shapes the char- acter of mankind. In the order of nature the worshiper becomes like the being worshiped. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The world has known many religions, some of them eminent for the tremendous power with which they have held millions in their sway over centuries of time; eminent also for profound philosophy, lofty ideals, and sometimes a high morality. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us the test for Himself and His teaching: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The conditions of society, temporal and spiritual, are the fruits by which any religious system may be judged. The study of Comparative Religions is one of pro- found interest. When pursued with the purpose to know the truth and the whole truth, it is of great serv- 4 ice to mankind. As heralds of our Lord’s messages,* “And I, if I be lifted up will draw all men unto me,”orf “Look unto Me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth,” it is wise for us to know not only the needs of the people but the religious forces which have brought truth or error into every tissue of thought and action. In the nature of things the factor that most univer- sally moulds society is woman. “The boy is father of the man, but the woman is mother of the boy,” hence the study of the teaching of any religion concerning woman, and of her character and place in society as the result of that religion, is vital both to the correct un- derstanding of the system and of what it has wrought for the world. THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA. „ . . The most venerable and possibly the Brahmanism. . ' most powerful Ethnic religion is Brah- manism. Rising in India when that was the land of literature and art, the home of the cultured Aryans, for fifteen centuries this religion wrought unhindered on the people. At first a simple nature worship, it * John 12:32. tlsaiah 45:22. 5 degenerated into a pantheon in which all the powers of nature were gods. On this was built a sacer- dotalism with caste and idol worship. It became an oppressive tyranny. At this juncture, 500 years before Christ, a new and forcible factor entered the life of the people in the birth of a king’s son. Gautama Buddha, known in history as the great Re- former of Brahmanism. I have not time to speak of the fierce theological war that ensued (400 years), or of the bright coup d’etat of the Brahmans in finally ac- cepting Buddha as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu. „ , ,, . Each of these systems evinces profound thought and lofty ideals, Buddhism a high morality. Each contains elements of truth, and each has been a tremendous power in the history of the race. Striving for supremacy on the same field, the result was a coalition. Together they enter the stream of history under the name of Hin- duism. The time lias been long enough, the field favorable and broad enough for the completest results, and the present condition of society in India affords an opportunity to see the fruits. Sir Monier Williams, the distinguished Sanscrit scholar of Oxford, says: “Although India in the early 6 periods of Brahmanism was a land of literature and science, the present characteristics are poverty, ignor- ance and superstition. Whatever profound thoughts lay about the roots of Hinduism, it held and still holds the 280,000,000 of India in the bondage of degradation, cruelty and immorality.” “The average income per individual is less than that of any other civilized coun- try, barely $13.50 per year, against $20 even for the Turks, $165 for every Englishman, and $200 for every man, woman and child in the United States.”* Dr. John Short. Surgeon General of India, long resident among the people says: “Wherever the Hindu religion predominates, there immorality and debauchery run riot.” Teachings. The Code of Mann is the highest relig- ious authority among the Hindus. You ask a Hindu about the date and age of his great law-giver and he quickly replies, “He was a son of the self-existent Brahm. ” Manu’s whole teach- ing about woman is based on the assumption of her impurity. For instance, a Brahman is enjoined “to suspend reading the Veda if a woman comes in sight.” Her ear is not pure enough to hear what. 'Rev. N. G. Clark, D. D. 7 the vilest man may read. “Though unobservant of ap- proved usage, or enamoured of another woman, or de- void of good qualities, yet a husband must constantly be revered as a god by a virtuous wife.”f “Let the wife who wishes to perform sacred obla- tion wash the feet of her husband and drink the water, for the husband is to the wife greater than Vishnu.” Again, “Women have no business with the text of a sacred book, and having no evidence of law, and no knowledge of expiatory texts, sinful women must be foul as falsehood itself, and this is a fixed rule.”* And it has remained fixed for forty-three centuries. „ , . The modern Brahmans like to claim Seclusion. that the present custom of immuring their wives in prison-like rooms had its origin in Mohammedan invasion. This is certainly not the whole truth, for in the unalterable law of Manu, written 900 years before Christ, Ave read, “A woman is not allowed to go out of the house without the consent of her husband, she may not laugh without a veil over her face or look out of a door or a window. ”f tDharma Sastra, chap. 5, page 154. *Dharma Sastra, chap. 5, pages 155, 15(1. 1 Wilkins’ Modern Hinduism, page 32(1. 8 “It may be that when the Mohammedans came, some fifteen centuries after these laws had been in force, they put the crown on the arch already waiting for them. They may have tightened the chains by which woman was already enslaved,” but the teachings of Mann are sufficient to account for all we see in India to-day. .. , The people of the Western World have long wondered why the Hindus were so tenacious of their, to us. revolting customs of child marriage. It is only when we learn that it is not simply a custom but a part of their religion that we apprehend the reason. The sacred laws of the Hindu declare: “If a daughter is married at the age of six. the father is certain to ascend to the highest heaven. If the daughter is not married be- fore seven, the father will only reach the second heaven. If a daughter is not married until the age of len, the father can only attain the lowest place as- signed the blest. If a girl is not married until she is eleven years of age. all her progenitors for six genera- tions will suffer pain and penalties.”* When an effort was made to induce the Government to raise the legal * Women of the Orient, pnge 135. 9 age of marriage to twelve years, great excitement pre- vailed. The Brahmans set apart days of fasting and prayer. Multitudes came in processions to the temples, in some cases beating their breasts and calling aloud to the gods to spare them from such calamity. The discussion of the Indian sacred books as to the marriageable age of girls is too vile to be quoted.f The worst feature of the system of child marriage is seen among the Kulin Brahmans, the highest of all. Girls in these families must not marry into a lower caste, and the supply of Kulins is limited, so fathers who have not money to induce some young men to mar- ry their daughters, are compelled to give their little girls to those who make a living by being husbands. Thus a child of twelve may be given as the fortieth or fiftieth wife of some old man. Although it is certain she will soon be a widow, even that is preferable to al- lowing her to remain unmarried. Infanticide “The code of Mann forbids a woman to read the scripture or offer prayer by herself. She is to have no individuality. She exists only in her father or her husband : without a husband she is soulless.” This doctrine bears its "Dennis’ Social Progress and Christian Missions. 10 legit imate fruit in the custom of murdering infant girls. It is easy reasoning, that it is better to murder a soulless child than not to he able to betroth her and so bring disgrace on the whole family. ..... “The Hindu sacred books reach their Widows. climax of cruelty in the requirements concerning the widow. She may have only been a betrothed infant or a child of a few years. It makes no difference.” The Shasters teach that if a widow burns herself alive on the funeral pile of her hus- band, even though lie had killed a Brahman, that most heinous of deeds, she expiates the crime. For long centuries widows have been a literal burnt offer- ing for the redemption of husbands. The English Government has prohibited the suttee, but being con- sidered by the family as one rejected of the gods, the widow’s life is such a degradation, such a sor- row. it would seem merciful to let her die. Mann wrote, “Let not a widow ever pronounce the name of another man. for by remarriage she brings disgrace on herself here below, and shall be excluded from the seat of her Lord.” To-day in India under the Hindu re- ligion the widow may not take food more than once in the day. She must go without food and water for 11 forty-eight hours tAvice in the month. At a meeting of the highest religious court a few years ago it was gravely decreed that, if acting on medical advice, a Avidow did sometimes take a little water on fast day. the offense might be condoned. O. the burning pathos of the Hindu widow’s prayer: ‘‘0 God. let no more women be born in this land.”* India has now 26,000,- 000 of AvidoAvs, nearly 100,000 of them under nine years and 400,000 under fifteen years. called in the World’s Parliament of Religions “conse- crated prostitution” of the Nautch or dancing girls in the temples. The subject is too delicate and too horrible to be spoken of in detail, but as it is a much hon- ored part of this religion it cannot be omitted. The Brahmans claim that it is a most sacred service, having its origin in prehistoric ages in a promise made by Vishnu himself. In a feAV Avords the reason and method is this: Parents who haA T e a son A r ery ill Avill vow to some god that if the son’s life is spared they will consecrate a little girl to the temple: or the The Nautch Girl. Hinduism reaches its loAvest depths in the degradation of woman in what the enlightened Hindu, Mr. Mozoomdar, Rev, John P. Jones, D. D, 12 parents believing that honor or wealth will be the re- sult, consecrate a girl to the god; or the Brahmans select the most beautiful little girls, the parents rejoic- ing in the religious honor. From the hour of consecration the little thing is treated with peculiar respect. She alone of the girls of the family is taught to read. When she becomes ten or twelve years old. her father, mother and nearest relatives take her to the great temple. They go with the priest into the inner shrine. The girl places her hand into the god’s hand, the priest repeats certain prayers and charms. He then hangs a string of cowrie shells around the girl’s neck and the poor little thing repeats after him her marriage vow. which vow is to prostitute herself to any pilgrim to the shrine who de- mands it.* The position of these religious prostitutes in Hindu society is so highly respectable that no festi- val or wedding is celebrated without their presence. They are asked to tie the wifely ornaments on the neck of the bride. They being married to a god can never be widowed and their touch is lucky. In elegant attire with costly jewels and perfumes, charmingly graceful, they lead their wretched lives, bring great sums into ‘Prof, T. M, Lindsay, University of Glasgow, 13 the treasury of the temple, and, as they are religiously taught, accumulate a store of blessings for themselves in a future state. John Short, M. D., Surgeon General of India, Member of Anthropological Society, London, says: “The Nautch girl is recognized and patronized by the Hindu religion.” There was a time in this fair eastern land when women were in a position of respect similar to that among the ancient Hebrews. Husband and wife were equal in all domestic, social and religious life. “The Brahmans have themselves preserved the record of women engaging in philosophical discussions, and dis- concerting their most celebrated doctors by the depths of their objections.”* Some of the Yedic hymns were composed by women. By degrees the condition of woman has deteriorated until by the law of their re- ligion she is “now consigned to a degradation probably without a parallel in the history of the race.” It is true, Buddha, in the sixth century before Christ, taught that men and women were equal, but even his influence was never strong enough to reform the Brahmanical laws about women. The Hindus have a saying: “Edu- cation is good, as milk is good, but milk given to a *J. Murray Mitchell, LL. D. 14 snake becomes venom, and education given to a woman becomes poison.” The following is from the pen of Rudyard Kipling whose study of Indian life gives weight to his opinions of present social conditions: “The matter of this coun- try is not political but an all around entanglement of physical, social and moral evils and corruptions. All more or less due to the unnatural treatment of women. You cannot gather tigs from thistles. So long as the system of infant marriage, the life of long imprison- ment of wives in a worse than penal confinement and withholding education and treatment as rational beings continues, the country cannot advance a step. Half of it is morally dead and worse than dead and that is the half we ought to be able to look to for our best im- pulses. The foundations of their life are beastly rot- ten.” A quotation from the personal experience of Prof. T. M. Lindsay, D. I).. so pertinently sums up the Hindu creed about women that I quote it. “1 remember ask- ing a learned Vedantist. who had spent two days in teaching me something about his belief — a man who had read Spinoza. Berkeley and Hegel — whether he could give me any definite proposition which all the 15 people who were Hindus could accept. He very readily said. ‘That woman is a wicked animal. That the cow is a holy animal.'” Xo brilliant presentation of Yedic learning, no poetic picture of Brahman or Buddhist philosophy heard in the World’s Parliament of Reli- gions, will prevent the world from arraigning Hindu- ism for cherishing, in the sacred name of religion, the grossest vices, and basely degrading woman and all so ciety. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA. In the Empire of China, under a government dis- tinguished for its stability and justness, among a peo- ple spoken of before Christ as “Those who dwell apart.” and known from the time of Ptolemy as .just, mild, frugal and industrious, comprising one-fourth the human race: three religions of confessed power, not as rivals, but as co-ordinate and supplemental, have for many centuries sought to solve the problem of life, death and immortality. „ r . . The time has been long enough, the Confucianism. conditions favorable for a perfect ex- periment. Confucianism, the oldest of the three, gave what is probably the best code of morals man Chinese Woman Unbinding Her Foot Bound feet are a painful part of the life of a majority of Chinese women 17 ever gave to men. The late Dr. Legge, professor of Chinese in the University of Oxford, says: “Con- fucius saw the terrible wretchedness of his people and set himself to find a remedy. Yet to the one prin- cipal cause of the misery of the masses, polygamy and the low social condition of women, he gave no thought.” In his treatise on human relations, in that of husband and wife, he regards the wife as the servant of the hus- band and enjoins absolute obedience. During all these forty-three centuries, while Confucius has done much for good government and has set some high moral standards for men. women have reaped no benefit from the teachings of the Sage. *“Man is the representative of heaven and supreme in all things. Woman is to yield obedience to the man’s in- struction. She is subject to three rules of obedience. When a child she must obey her father ; when married obey her husband ; when widowed she must give obedi- ence to her son. Woman has no understanding. She can determine nothing of herself.” “Beyond the threshold of her own apart- ment she should not he known for evil or for good.” Family Sayings of Confucius. Seclusion. •Bethany Worlds Religions. 18 . The customs and principles of marriage Marriage. 1 among any people are the exponents of woman’s place in the social scale. Chinese women are bought and sold in marriage. The wife is for- ever subject to her husband and his parents; only when she becomes the mother of sons does she re- ceive the respect of the family. Divorce is prac- tically at the pleasure of the husband, or he may sell her to another man. Undesired at birth, liable to be sold while a child for prostitution, never educated, her low estate naturally leads to the crime of infanti- cide. Little wonder that they innocently ask, “Why save the life of a girl?” „ . Lao-tsze was the founder of Taoism, Taoism. a religion of no little power in China, lie made no effort to elevate the people and his re- ligious system does not recognize the existence of woman. What to-day is the place of this vast Empire among the nations? The combined forces of these three re- ligions working for twenty-three centuries upon one- fourth of the human race has shed no light on the two great foci, the family into which every human being is born, and that immortality to which every mortal 19 soul aspires. Nor has any single ray of light emanated for the enlightenment of the other three-fourths of mankind. Alas, a nation cannot rise higher than its mothers. Much vaunted, “gentle Buddha,” gives Buddhism. . to the women of China one only hope. Through its doctrine of transmigration of souls, it is possible that through obedience to her husband and his relatives, and the birth of a son, she may in some future aeon have the happiness of being re- turned to this world a man. If a man commits a crime he may be returned to earth a woman. The one fervent prayer of the women as they crowd the Buddhist temple is, that they may be returned to earth as men. When the women apply to the priests for instruction they are told, “When you die your soul will pass into the land of spirits where it may remain ages before it is allowed to return to earth and inhabit the body of a man. You will need money to pay toll on the bridges, and you must fee the ferryman, especially the lily boat to cross the lake of blood.”* (This fee is $ 30 .) ' One of the saddest sights the writer saw in China •China and the Chinese, Rev. J. L. Nevius. 20 was in a large temple in Foochow. A pool of filthy stagnant water typified this lake. A group of sad-faced women were throwing cakes and other things into the water for the use of those, who having died in child- birth. are forever imprisoned in the lake. A light framework surrounded the water: on the post at one corner was a fierce-faced stone image, a watchman on the wall, with a stone hammer in his uplifted right hand. That uplifted hammer was the assurance that no soul would ever escape. The priests claim to have open communication with the spirit land and their drafts are honored there. In one part of the temple these drafts are sold, the priests placing the seal of the Temple on them. Of the $400.- 000.000 given for idol worship in China, at least seven- eighths is given by women and three-fourths of that by women too pool’ to obtain enough of even the coarsest food. Even in fair and fascinating Japan where there is less of evident grossness than in other eastern lands one finds “the trail of the serpent is over them all.” Shintoism, the primal cult of the Jap- anese. has no system of morals and takes Shintoism. 21 little or no notice of woman’s existence. That silence is significant of the estimate of woman. .... About the vear 552 of the Christian Buddhism. era. Buddhism entered the Mikado’s em- pire. and after a thousand years of struggle with Shintoism, gained supremacy. While Japanese women are not so pitiably de- graded as in India or China, we read in their book of “Instruction for Woman.” "Woman is the creature of man." “A woman’s husband is her God." Concu- binage. "divorce if the wife is not obedient to her hus- band's parents.” or is unkind to a concubine, and the selling of young daughters for prostitution, tell the story. The Japanese Buddhist Bible teaches that “the sins of three thousand of the worst men all together do not equal the sins of one woman." Unconsciously this se- vere arraignment of the wickedness of woman is in fact a great tribute to her power for good or evil. Even in "Buddhism’s best Gospel" among the articles given by Buddha himself we find only this negative hope. "Although a woman may not be born into My Country, yet the woman who hears the name of Amida Buddha, and is excited thereby to the hatred of the condition of 22 woman, and an earnest longing for the salvation of oth- ers. shall not he re-born as a woman.”* For this crumb of comfort Japanese women are de- voted to the worship of Buddha. The timbers of the great Honguanji temple building in Kyoto said to cost three million dollars, were all hauled to the ground and raised into the structure by ropes made of hair which 250,000 devoted women cut off and sent for this pur- pose as an offering to Buddha. About the Seventeenth Century A. D., Chinese schol- ars fleeing from China because they would not yield to the Tartar Manchu or wear a que. brought Confucian- ism into Japan. This teaching became a great power among the people. But this teaching brought no up- lift to Japanese women but even tightened the bonds of her shame in the “sale of daughters for ‘Filial Pie- ty’s’ sake to the shambles of lust.”* Among the Ainu, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Island of Yesso, the women do not worship the gods, even separately. “The reason commonly given among them is, that the men fear the prayers of the women in general, and of their wives in particular.”! •Muripapiu Byo. Luhhavati Sutrasi. ‘William Elliott Griffis’ “The Religions of Japan.” tRev, John Bachelor, Church Missionary Society. 23 MOHAMMEDANISM. There are few more pathetic scenes in history than the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael from the poly- gamous home of Abraham. “Sarah said unto Abraham, cast out this bond-woman and her son. for the son of the bond-woman shall not inherit with my son, even Isaac.” “Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water” and gave it unto Hagar and her child “and sent them away.” The picture is realistic; that erect, well poised figure, with the bottle on her shoulder, that dark Egyptian face with chiseled lines of sorrow, illuminated now with righteous anger, as she gives one last haughty look toward Sarah’s tent and turns toward the wilderness of Beersheba. Very soon the curtain lifts upon the desert scene. The water is spent. Hagar places the child under the scant shade of a shrub and lifting up her voice, weeping, cries out. “Let me not see the death of the child.” At this crisis a voice is heard from heaven: “Lift up the lad, I will make of him a great nation.” And they dwelt in the wilderness of Paran. and his mother took him a wife out of the land of the Egyptians. The actors in this bit of jealous family discord were 24 all unconscious of their place in history, and as uncon- scious of the far reaching results of that early morning act on the plains of Kadesh. The years go by, and centuries are numbered.* We find the fulfilled promise of a “great nation” in a peo- ple in whose veins on the one side is filtering the blood of the great Abraham, mingling with the larger propoi’- tion of the idolatrous Egyptian, nomadic in habit, with a genius for conquest, with a language distinguished for softness and copiousness, with a literature of great antiquity and high poetical merit, dwelling in the Pen- insula of Arabia. Of these people, in the fifth century of the Christian era, Mohammed, the founder of Islam, was born. A youth of great sincerity and purity, his domestic life with his wife, Khadija, is as beautiful as could be found among a non-Christian people. But when at the age of fifty-two he sets himself up as a prophet, and becomes the husband of eleven wives, we find him guilty of the grossest crimes, robbery, mur- der and butchery, which rival the Emperor Nero. Students of history differ widely in fheir estimate of Mohammed. Was he a great man in advance of his *For 38 centuries the evil results of that early morning' scene have roilecl on with ever increasing volume, 25 times? Was he a genius or a monster? Possibly he was all three. lie was certainly a great factor in his- tory. He secured the faith and loyalty of his country- men, abolished idolatry. His slogan was “There is but one God. Mohammed is bis prophet.” He gave the world a creed which has been a tremendous force in the destinies of nations. Cities, palaces and temples arose at his bidding. For twelve centuries the teachings of Mohammed have borne fruit in human lives — not alone in the land of its birth, but in many lands. The ques- tion that interests us is not what Mohammed was, but what the religion he founded has wrought for human- ity. We turn the pages of the Koran with eager hope that we may find in the writings of this man some teaching that shall lead to the uplifting of woman. The most hopeful word the Koran has for woman is in the second chapter: “Whoso doeth good works and is a believer, whether male or female, shall be admitted to Paradise.” The practical exegesis of a woman’s “good works” is, obedience to the husband. Without that good work she can not enter Paradise. Again in the fourth chapter, entitled “Women,” we read, “Men shall 26 have pre-eminence above women, because of those advantages wherein God hath caused the one to excel the other, and for that which they expend of their sub- stance in maintaining their wives. The honest women are obedient, careful in the absence of tbeir husbands, for that God preserveth them by committing them to the care and protection of the men. But those, whose perverseness ye shall be apprehensive, rebuke and re- move them into separate apartments and chastise them.” The degraded and degrading practice of scourging and beating wives, having the sanction of the Koran, will be, in the words of Dr. .Jessup, “in- dulged in so long as Islam as a faith prevails.” Note the polygamous teaching of the Koran. “Every Moslem is allowed four free wives and as many concubines as his right hand possess”; and the faithful are positively promised that in Paradise they shall have seventy-two houris for wives, besides the wives they have here. According to the Koran, the husband may divorce a wife without warning or assigning a reason. The husband lias only to say. “Thou art divorced.” Even life may be taken at the will of the husband. Woman is practically a chattel. Polygamy. Divorce. 2 ? A Mohammedan being asked, “What is the price you pay for a good wife,” replied: “About the same as for a mule, twelve or fourteen pounds.” We are not surprised that the native lands of Ethnic religions have no word for “home.” „ . A polite Mohammedan would not speak of his wife without using the same apol- ogetic formula he would use if he were speaking of a donkey or a hog. Indeed so vile is the orthodox Mo- hammedan’s idea of womanhood, we cannot mention it here. The Koran says nothing about a woman’s praying, therefore she is excluded from the Mosques at the hours of prayer. Behold a religion that practically excludes one-half the human race! And this half the mothers of the race. It was not until Mohammed was fifty- eight years of age, and the husband of many wives, and had under his own roof experienced what the Moslem women of to-day declare, when there is more than one wife, “there is fire in the house,” that claiming to have a new revelation from heaven, he wrote in the Koran the *“ ordinance of the veil,” that badge of jealous •Koran. 24th Suru. Mohammedan Woman in Arabic Costume 29 subjugation which marks an era in the degradation of women in all the Orient. The regulation costume shrouds the women from the head to the ankle in a cotton or silk sheet of black or white. Around the head is tied a yard long linen or cotton veil in which before the eyes is a piece of open work about the size of a finger which is the only look out and ventilator. Xo part, not even a hand or an eye. can be seen. See the picture; with fearful foot-steps, with no hope in man, with little knowledge of the “All Father." no knowledge of Him who said. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” for twelve cycling centuries, an unceasing ghostly procession has marched from birth to death. ‘‘The whole life of a Mohammedan woman is mir- rored in that pathetic Arabic proverb. ‘The threshold weeps for forty days whenever a girl is born.’ ” The spider’s web which once saved the life of Mohammed has. as by the hand of a Vxdcan, been forged into a chain which in this nineteenth century in the name of religion dares hold woman, and through her. 200.000.- 000 of mankind in a singularly hopeless degradation. ^Dennis’ Christian Missions and Social Progress. Mohammedan Women in Algiers 31 Why prolong this dreary recital. The Teachings already quoted are clear and conclusive. The cruel, brutal degradation of women, with all the baleful effects on society, is not due to race or environment or accident. It is the legitimate fruit of the positive, not inferential, teaching of great religious systems which for centuries of time have held their sway over millions on millions of people, and the end is not yet. Some writers of eminence have so emphasized the philosophies, traces of truth, ideals and poetic mysti- cisms, as to appear as apologists and defenders of all their systems. Such writers ignore the universal fact that the family is the basis of all society, ignore the teachings of the Ethnic religion about women, and for- get that there is no place for the little child in any of them. In the light of a mother’s power the status of women throughout the world becomes a subject of paramount importance. By a conservative estimate more than one-half the mothers of the world are in Oriental seclusion. Un- welcome at birth, married in childhood to men whom they have never seen, with little love, without light, without hope, without home, without God, they live their lives and go the way of all the earth leaving to 32 their sons as well as to their daughters their heritage of degradation. As are the mothers, so are the people. There is no need to compare the teachings we harve just been considering with the pure uplifting teach- ings, by act and word, of our Lord Jesus Christ con- cerning women, and Ilis tender “Suffer little children to come unto me.” Each reader will instinctively make this comparison, and hard indeed must be the heart that does not at once respond with a grateful, glad Thankofifering for birth in a Christian land. A thankoffering whose service shall be to hide the leaven of Christ’s love and power in the hearts of mothers who sit in cruel darkness. Does any one doubt the divine origin of the Chris- tian religion? There is one all sufficient Christian evidence. The immeasurable contrast of human society in Christless and Christian lands. “The works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.” (John 5:36.)