I cannot but think that if we were to teach our girls less in religious phraseology and more from the great realities of life; if they were taught that Christianity is only human life rightly seen and divinely ordered, that the Cross is only the uncovering of what is going on all round us, though hidden to a careless gaze,—the sin, the pain, the misery, which are forever crucifying and forever calling forth that great passion of redeeming Love to which, through the motherhood that is in us, "one touch of nature makes us kin"; and that the central truth of Christianity is not, as we have too often taught, saving our own souls, but a life poured out for the good of others, and personal salvation as a means for having a life to pour forth—I cannot but think that much fashionable girlish agnosticism would disappear, and the true woman would reach forth to that divine humanity to which she belongs.
FOOTNOTES:
[ [31] Husband is derived from two words—"house" and the Saxon word to "build," German bauen.
[ [32] See a little White Cross paper called My Little Sister, which I wish mothers would get into the hands of their sons just entering into manhood to read, mark, learn, digest. (Wells Gardner, Darton and Co.)
[ [33] Coventry Patmore.
CHAPTER IX
THE MODERN WOMAN AND HER FUTURE
Up to this point I have dealt only with the great shaping and moulding principles of life, with indirect influence rather than direct. How far direct teaching on matters of sex should be given to our girls has been a far greater perplexity to me than in the case of boys. In the present state of our schools and our streets our boys must get to know evil. Hitherto it was possible to say that our girls might get to know evil, and between that "must" and "might" lay a great and perplexing chasm. We do not want our garden lilies to smell of anything but pure dews and rains and sun-warmed fragrance. But is this ideal possible any longer, except in a few secluded country homes, where, hidden like Keats's nightingale "among the leaves," they may remain innocent and ignorant of the world's evil?