The first step in the elevation of woman to her true position, as an
equal factor in human progress, is the cultivation of the religious
sentiment in regard to her dignity and equality, the recognition by the
rising generation of an ideal Heavenly Mother, to whom their prayers
should be addressed, as well as to a Father.

If language has any meaning, we have in these texts a plain
declaration of the existence of the feminine element in the Godhead,
equal in power and glory with the masculine. The Heavenly Mother and
Father! "God created man in his own image, male and female." Thus
Scripture, as well as science and philosophy, declares the eternity
and equality of sex--the philosophical fact, without which there could
have been no perpetuation of creation, no growth or development in the
animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdoms, no awakening nor progressing in
the world of thought. The masculine and feminine elements, exactly
equal and balancing each other, are as essential to the maintenance of
the equilibrium of the universe as positive and negative electricity,
the centripetal and centrifugal forces, the laws of attraction which
bind together all we know of this planet whereon we dwell and of the
system in which we revolve.

In the great work of creation the crowning glory was realized, when
man and woman were evolved on the sixth day, the masculine and feminine
forces in the image of God, that must have existed eternally, in all
forms of matter and mind. All the persons in the Godhead are
represented in the Elohim the divine plurality taking counsel in regard
to this last and highest form of life. Who were the members of this
high council, and were they a duality or a trinity? Verse 27 declares
the image of God male and female. How then is it possible to make woman