The great moral element of society, which contains the power of self-renewal and continual growth, must necessarily be wanting in all nations where one-half of the people--the centre of the family, out of which society must grow--remains in a stunted or perverted condition. Women, as well as men, create society. Their share is a silent one. It has not the glitter of gold and purple, the noise of drums and marching armies, the smoke and clank of furnaces and machinery. All the splendid din of external life is wanting in the quiet realm of distinctive woman’s work; therefore it is often overlooked, misunderstood, or despised. Nevertheless, it is of vital importance. It preserves the only germ of society which is capable of permanent growth--the germ of unselfish human love and innate righteousness--in distinction to which all dazzling material splendour and intellectual ability, divorced from the love of Right, is but sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. It is for this reason that no polygamous or licentious customs, which destroy the woman’s nature and dry up the deepest source of human sympathy, can possibly produce a durable or a noble and happy nation. The value of a nation, its position in the scale of humanity, its durability, must always be judged by the condition of its masses, and the test of that condition is the strength and purity of home virtues--the character of the women of the nation. No reference to the lessons of History, however brief, should omit the effect produced by religious teaching. The influence exercised by the Christian religion in relation to sex is of the most striking character. Christian teaching is distinguished from other religious teaching by its justice to women, its tender reverence for childhood, and by the laying down of that great corner-stone, Inward Holiness, as the indispensable foundation of true life. This is all summed up in its establishment of unitary marriage, through the emphatic adoption of the original Law, ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.’ The development of this Law by Jesus Christ into its high significance of spiritual purity, whilst it has been a principle of growth in the past, is the great hope of the future. The study of this Christian type, in its radical effect upon national life, is full of interest and instruction, but is also a study of great difficulty. This teaching of our Lord has never been adopted as the universal rule of practical life by any nation. The results of this law of union can only be judged on a large scale by comparing the condition of so-called Christian countries--where a certain amount of this high teaching has been diffused through the community--with the condition of nations where no such teaching has existed. The great battle between Christianity and Paganism still continues in our midst. The actual practical type prevailing in all civilized nations is not Christian.