Neither of these characteristics, nor anything analogous, is met with in the Gospel and in the relations of Jesus with women. They seem irresistibly attracted towards Him, with hearts moved, imaginations struck by his manner of life, his precepts, his miracles, his language. He inspires them with feelings of tender respect and confiding admiration. The Canaanitish woman comes and addresses to Him a timid prayer for the healing of her daughter. The woman of Samaria listens to Him with eagerness, though she does not know Him: Mary seats herself at his feet, absorbed in reflections suggested by his words; and Martha proffers to Him the frank complaint that her sister assists her not, but leaves her unaided in the performance of her domestic duties. {283} The sinner draws near to Him in tears, pouring upon his feet a rare perfume, and wiping them with her hair. The adulteress, hurried into his presence by those who wished to stone her in accordance with the precepts of the Mosaic Law, remains motionless in his presence, even after her accusers have withdrawn, waiting in silence what He is about to say. Jesus receives the homage, and listens to the prayers of all these women, with the gentle gravity and impartial sympathy of a being superior and strange to earthly passion. Pure and inflexible interpreter of the Divine law, He knows and understands man's nature, and judges it with that equitable severity which nothing escapes, the excuse as little as the fault. Faith, sincerity, humanity, sorrow, repentance, touch Him without biassing the charity and the justice of his conclusions; and He expresses blame or announces pardon with the same calm serenity of authority, certain that his eye has read the depths of the heart to which his words will penetrate. {284} In his relations with the women who approach Him, there is, in short, not the slightest trace of man; nowhere does the Godhead manifest itself more winningly and with greater purity. And when there is no longer any question of these particular relations and conversations, when Jesus has no longer before him women suppliants and sinners, who are invoking his power or imploring his clemency; when it is with the position and the destiny of women in general that He is occupying himself, He affirms and defends their claims and their dignity with a sympathy at once penetrating and severe. He knows that the happiness of mankind, as well as the moral position of women, depends essentially upon the married state; He makes of the sanctity of marriage a fundamental law of Christian religion and society; He pursues adultery even into the recesses of the human heart, the human thought; He forbids divorce; He says of men, "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? ... For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. {283} Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore