yet in other respects he is behind the progressive races of the world.
He has made little advance for thousands of years. His isolation, his
narrow sphere, his simple life, and his religion even, which, while
some of its maxims and tenets are admirable, still is lacking in the
knowledge of the true God and in lofty ideals, have had a marked
effect upon his thoughts and habits and pursuits. His great teacher,
Confucius, who flourished five centuries before the Christian era
and who spoke some sublime truths, was nevertheless ignorant of a
Revelation from heaven and inferior in his grasp of religious truth to
such sages of Greece as Socrates and Plato. In his system also woman
is practically a slave. She is simply the minister of man, and
therefore unable to rear up children, sons who would reflect the
greatness of soul of a noble motherhood. It has often been remarked
that great men have had great mothers. I think experience and
observation will bear out this statement. Glance over the pages of
history, and eminent examples will rise up before the view. Whence
spring the Samuels and the Davids, whence a Leonidas and a Markos
Bozzaris, whence the Scipios and the Gracchi, whence the Augustines
and the Chrysostoms, whence the Alfreds and the Gladstones, whence the
Washingtons and the Lincolns, whence the Seaburys and the Doanes,
and many another? Are they not all hewn from the quarries of a noble
motherhood? Are they not sprung from the fountain of a womanhood whose
living streams are clear as crystal and sweet and refreshing? The
first Chavah, Eve, is rightly styled the mother of all living; and a
generation or race of men to be living, active, noble in achievement,
distinguished in virtues, must issue from a well-spring which
vitalises and beautifies and magnifies the spirit and the intellect,
as Engannim waters her gardens, and Engedi nourishes her acacias
and lotus-plants, and Enshemesh reflects the sun's golden beams the
livelong day. But what, you ask, are the exact teachings of the sage