"This is all very well. No doubt your sermon, as you call it,
contains a good deal of truth; but how about these young men who
spend their time drinking, smoking, loafing about club-houses, and
running after strange women? I suppose you think they are perfect
angels."
My dear friend, have I said anything in this sermon, or do I say
anything in this book, which leads you to suppose that I think men
better than women?
It is because I believe that, in the constitution of the race, you
are the fountain-head of social, moral and religious influence, that
I come directly to you.
My mother taught me, long ago, the great moral superiority of woman.
She taught me that most of the good and pure in this world comes
from woman.
So far from thinking that man is an angel, and woman a nothing, and
a bad nothing, the strongest article in my religious creed is, that
when woman has been redeemed from the shilly-shally, lace, ribbon,
and feather life, into which she has so unhappily drifted,--when
woman shall be restored to herself, she will be strong enough in
soul to take us men in her arms, and carry us to heaven.
I beg you will not suppose that, in my criticisms upon woman, I am
prompted by the belief that she needs special exhortation on her own
account. I appeal to her on account of us all, believing that the
most direct and effective way to redeem the race, is to induce woman
to lay aside every weight and the special sins that so beset her,
and to run the race with the highest womanly heroism.