Martha has a long line of weary, backaching, footsore successors. Indeed there is a strain of Martha in all of us; we worry more over a stain in the carpet than a stain on the soul; we bestow more thought on the choice of hats than on the choice of friends; we tidy up bureau drawers, sometimes, when we should be tidying up the inner recesses of our mind and soul; we clean up the attic and burn up the rubbish which has accumulated there, every spring, whether it needs it or not. But when do we appoint a housecleaning day for the soul, when do we destroy all the worn-out prejudices and beliefs which belong to a day gone by? Mary did take the better part, for she laid hold on the things which are spiritual. Mary had learned the great truth that it is not the house you live in or the food you eat, or the clothes you wear that make you rich, but it is the thoughts you think. Christ put it well when he said, "Mary hath chosen the better part." Life is a choice every day. Every day we choose between the best and the second best, if we are choosing wisely. It is not generally a choice between good and bad--that is too easy. The choice in life is more subtle than that, and not so easily decided. The good is the greatest rival of the best. Sometimes we would like to take both the best and the second best, but that is not according to the rules of the game. You take your choice and leave the rest. Every gain in life means a corresponding loss; development in one part means a shrinkage in some other. Wild wheat is small and hard, quite capable of looking after itself, but its heads contain only a few small kernels. Cultivated wheat has lost its hardiness and its self-reliance, but its heads are filled with large kernels which feed the nation. There has been a great gain in usefulness, by cultivation, with a corresponding loss in hardiness. When riches are increased, so also are anxieties and cares. Life is full of compensation. So we ask, in all seriousness, and in no spirit of flippancy: "Should women think?" They gain in power perhaps, but do they not lose in happiness by thinking? If women must always labor under unjust economic conditions, receiving less pay for the same work than men, if women must always submit to the unjust social laws, based on the barbaric mosaic decree that the woman is to be stoned, and the man allowed to go free; if women must always see the children they have brought into the world with infinite pain and weariness, taken away from them to fight man-made battles over which no woman has any power; if women must always see their sons degraded by man-made legislation and man-protected evils--then I ask, Is it not a great mistake for women to think?