ways of meeting. But even she has not been able to keep the sexes
apart. The truth is that the mutual relations of men and women in the
realm of comradeship, and quite apart from marriage, may be so happy
and enriching--so exhilarating and so bracing--that one may reverently
say the whole arrangement of having divided mankind into two such
groups, is one of the most splendid of the divine thoughts. For many a
man the joy and worth of life depend largely upon women. The things he
gets on his journey from his mother, his sisters, and his girl friends
--from his wife, his daughters, and the women friends of later days are
the golden things in life. And I know that many a woman would say a
corresponding thing about the life career of a woman. That is God's
plan--to make us dependent on one another for the stimuli, the
inspirations, and the joys which prevent life from becoming drab and
monotonous. "In the beginning God made them male and female," because
He loved them. He made them gloriously different that they might enjoy
and help each other.

It is one of the mysteries of history that for uncounted centuries man
imagined that he only needed woman in her capacity as a wife and
potential mother--that for long ages woman had no place in society
except as wife or mother. Why it was so long before the spirit of God
moved women to shatter that conception, I do not understand. But with
its shattering there appeared for a time a tendency to imagine that men
and women are in most things practically the same, and that the
difference of sex is a very little thing. Many people seemed inclined
to believe that a woman is just the same sort of being as a man, except
for one special function--that of motherhood--which can only be
exercised occasionally, and need not be exercised at all. That I am
sure was a mistake with the possibility of disaster in it. No doubt
there are men with many feminine characteristics, and women with many