Here, in the slain of the daughters of our people, is a stinging wrong that will goad us into seeing that the people are so housed that a human life is possible to them.

Here, if anywhere, is a passion of conscience, and pity, and duty, and interest combined, strong enough, a heaped-up weight of evil heavy enough, to raise us to a self-giving manhood and a self-reverencing womanhood.
And from this secret place of thunder is not God now calling His chosen ones to come forward and be fellow-workers with Him?
And when that call is obeyed, when, to summarize what I have already said, the wrongs and degradation of women and hapless children take hold of men, as, thank God, they are beginning to take hold, with a remorseful passion, that passion for the weak, the wronged, and the defenceless, which surely is the divine in flower in a human soul; when women rise up in a wild revolt 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 interrogation of her Lord, "Seest thou this woman ?" and makes answer, "Yea, Lord, I see that she is young, and poor, and outcast, and degraded," and speaks to young men with something of the passion of the true Man--"It were better for you that a millstone were hanged about your neck and you cast into the depths of the sea, than that you should cause one of these little ones to stumble"; when the fact that a foolish, giddy girl's feet have slipped and fallen is no longer the signal for every man to look upon her as fair game, and to trample her deeper into the mire, but the signal to every man calling himself a man to hasten to her side, to raise her up again and restore her to her lost womanhood; when boys are taught 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 is looked upon as manly, at least, as much as truth and courage; when women are no longer so lost to the dignity of their own womanhood as to make companions of the very men who insult and degrade it; when the woman requires the man to come to her in holy marriage in the glory of his unfallen manhood, as he requires her to come to him in the beauty of her spotless maidenhood; then, when these things begin to be, will not God's order slowly evolve itself out of our disorder, and the man will become the head of the woman, to guard her from all that makes her unfit to be the mother of the race, and the woman will be the heart of the man, to inspire him with all noble purpose?
As we stand by this great world-sepulchre of corruption our unbelieving heart can only exclaim: "It stinketh." But the Christ meets us with the words, "Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God ?" That which has been sown in human weakness must be raised in divine power; that which has been sown in deep dishonor must be raised in glory.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, even the self-giving manhood of Him who is the Prince of Passion and the Lord of Love, the manhood lifted into God.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 40: In this chapter I have quoted some passages from an article 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 my friend, James Hinton, to whom my obligations on this subject are absolute.] [Footnote 41: We must be careful, however, in urging this difficulty, to remember Dr.Martineau's teaching, which I have given in the third chapter, 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 reproductive instincts 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 the great trusts of our womanhood.