But if these early associations are linked with all that is false and foul, some subtle odor of the sewer will still cling about the heart of the shrine, a nameless sense of something impure in the whole subject; an undefinable something in his way of looking at it, which has often made the purity of men--blameless in their outer life--- sadden and perplex me almost as much as the actions and words of confessedly impure men.
IV But, whatever is the importance I attach to pure teaching, I return to my old position, that purity is an attitude of soul, or, perhaps I ought to say, the "snowy bloom" of the soul's perfect health, rather than anything you can embody in moral maxims or pure knowledge--that perfect bloom of spiritual health which may be as much the result of a mother's watchful care and training as the physical health of the body.

It is for you to train your boy in that knightly attitude of soul, that reverence for womanhood, which is to men as "fountains of sweet water" in the bitter sea of life; that chivalrous respect for the weak and the unprotected which, next to faith in God, will be the best guard to all the finer issues of his character.

Truth of truth are the golden words of Ruskin to young men: "Whomsoever else you deceive, whomsoever else you injure, whomsoever else you leave unaided, you must not deceive, nor injure, nor leave unaided according to your power any woman whatever, of whatever rank.

Believe me, every virtue of the highest phase of manly character begins and ends in this, in truth and modesty before the face of all maidens, in truth and reverence or truth and pity to all womanhood." Can we doubt or question this, we who worship Him who came to reveal the true man quite as much as to reveal the only true God--the real manhood beneath the false, perishable man with which it is so often overlaid by the influence of society and the world?
Look at His attitude towards women, ay, even Eastern women, who had not been ennobled by centuries of Christian freedom and recognized equality of the sexes, but who, on the contrary, belonged to a nation tainted to some degree with that Eastern contempt for women which made a Hindu answer the question of the Englishman, perplexed by the multiplied of Indian gods and sects, "Is there _no_ point of belief in which you all unite ?" "Oh, yes," the Pundit replied, "we all believe in the sanctity of cows and the depravity of women!" These Eastern women, therefore, had much to enslave and lower them; but see how instantly they rose to the touch of the true Man, just as they will rise, the women of to-day, to the touch of the true manhood of your sons, if you will train them to be to us such men as Jesus Christ was.
See how He made women His friends, and deigned to accept their ministry to His human needs.

Many severe rebukes are recorded from His lips to men, but not one to a woman.