“Now take your note-book and pencil and let us take a little look out
over the world and see things as they are,” The Man said. “You will
then better understand what I will say later.
“The struggling march of Progress is marked on the map of human history
by a deep continuous stain of red, but to-day we hear King William
apologizing for his vast army by saying it is maintained not for war,
but to preserve the peace of Europe.
“In twenty years the population of the United States has increased from
forty to sixty-five millions, and our standing army has decreased in
like proportion.
“We are no longer able to sleep soundly after a man is hanged, and the
dreams have been so hateful that several states have done away entirely
with capital punishment, and the balance are searching restlessly for a
more humane (?) method of killing. We have tried electrocution, because
some one said that the man who killed and the man who got killed would
never know anything about it; and here in New York they passed a law
declaring that the people should not know anything about the killing
either, and that any newspaper publisher who described this killing
should be adjudged guilty of felony. Now, we are not satisfied with the
death-dealing work of the subtle fluid; but if put to a popular vote
with the aid of a secret ballot, we should say emphatically to judge
and jury, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’
“This increased sensitiveness which we see manifest on the question
thus referred to, finds vent in a thousand varied forms. Prisons are
no longer places of punishment but of discipline; the birch is no
longer the chief factor in imparting ideas to the young--we make the
application not to the anatomy, but to the understanding, and if we
still believe the child is totally depraved, we are a little ashamed
of the belief and say nothing about it. The woman who lolls in her
carriage is not quite comfortable, for her mind is alive to the fact
that others are trudging, footsore and weary, carrying heavy burdens.
Benevolence has become the fashion, and ‘Fresh Air Funds’ are actually
talked of on ’Change. On every hand we hear of Societies of Christian
Endeavor, the Chautauqua Idea, Ethical Culture, Kindergartens, not for
uppertendom, but for the infected district where violence, disease,
strife and discord have before reigned. Every preacher of every
denomination indulges the larger hope (possibly there are obscure
exceptions), and quotes as corroborating his argument the seers,
prophets and poets who were before denounced from the very pulpit in
which he now preaches.
“We are hearing much of heresy just now, but the ‘guilty’ man is not
disgraced; on the contrary, his crime places him before a larger
audience at double salary; and, if one may be allowed to say it, there
is a general belief abroad that some heretics have courted their
persecution. Certainly we do not try them for what they said, but the
way they said it. A man who was a heretic twenty years ago, now finds
himself orthodox, for there is faith plus in both pulpit and pew, and
the heretic is generally a man of limitless faith. We believe not only
that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but all men are or can be if they
claim their heritage; not one day in seven is holy, but all are; not
that certain places are consecrated, but all is consecrated ground, and
that evil is only perverted good, or absence of good, just as darkness
is absence of light. These things we hear from every pulpit without
surprise.
“Prize fighters use six-ounce gloves, and women endowed with police
powers act in behalf of societies for the prevention of cruelty to
animals and children. Matrons are to be found in jails and station
houses, and the maxim that ‘Might makes right’ has been reversed. Never
was the tear of pity so near the surface, and the change of which I
speak has been brought about largely since 1870. In these twenty-one
years the flinty heart of man has been softened more than in the three
hundred years preceding.
“Now we are approaching the vital question, for I propose to tell you
why this change has come; why our faces are now turned toward Zion. The
answer I give is not given out off-hand, but after most careful thought
and study for many, many years. _The spirit of the time has changed by
and through the influence of woman._
“The real essence of sex is spiritual; and as behind every physical
fact there is a spiritual truth, so above and beyond this sexual
instinct is the most sacred and divinest gift given to man. In the
encyclopedias we read that this inclination ‘has its purpose in
reproduction of the species.’ And is Nature after all but a trickster?
a practical joker? Is this fair dream of holy peace and joy of being at
last understood by a some one, loving, gentle, tender, true, in whose
presence one may think aloud and be at rest? Is this after all but a
scheme for the reproduction of our kind? When we consider what the kind
is, is reproduction of the kind the highest good? Even good men have
thought so; and for the misuse of God’s more sacred gift man was put
out of Eden and has wandered far. The return will be slow, and it must
be by the way he came. There is no other way. The monastery is as bad
a failure as the house of Camille. Only by a knowledge of the right
relation of men and women can we gain Heaven.
“You see me, the possessor of all knowledge, and Heaven is mine--for
Heaven is not a place, but a condition of mind. Seemingly I am alone,
for your physical eye sees no one near; but she is ever by me--I feel
her hand now as it rests lightly on my head. Friend, I am what I am
through the love of woman. Love is life.
“There is a class of women who especially have my sincere and profound
respect, these are the ‘old maids.’ They form to-day in this country
a genuine sisterhood of mercy. They do the work no one else will do
nor can do. In every village there are aged parents, orphan children,
widowed brothers, helpless invalids, people homeless and friendless who
owe a debt of gratitude which time can never repay to the unselfish
devotion of some old maid. They are women who will not fling their
womanhood away for the sake of a ‘provider,’ or to escape the supposed
ignominy of maidenhood. If a woman once decides she must have a man,
by just spreading her net, and not being over-choice about quality,
she can always secure some sort of game, for no matter how foolish,
frivolous and vain a woman is, there is a man near at hand who will
out-match her. I am glad to know that the number of old maids is
increasing, for a woman had a thousand times over better travel through
life alone than to accept any alliance short of her genuine mental and
spiritual mate. This may give you a clue to the reason for the well
known fact that the average old maid excels in intelligence and culture
her married sister. When a man marries the wrong woman it is a mistake,
for the woman it is a blunder.”