If an opportunity be given them to influence society they will no doubt exercise it philanthropically. Well, pity is one of the most powerful derivatives of mysticism. Even among religious orders it has been remarked how much less exalted the devotion of the members of the philanthropic orders is than of those who restrict themselves to sterile meditation in the cloister. [Sidenote: Female moral sentiment.] If mysticism is no more truly indispensable to women than to men, can it be maintained that their moral sentiment is incapable of subsistence apart from some religion? Is women’s moral power less than that of men, and is it only in religion that they can find the additional increment of strength of which they are in need? Resistance to physical or moral pain supplies a sufficiently exact measure of power. Well, women show in maternity, with all its consequences, in pregnancy, in childbirth, in nursing, accompanied as it is by continual watchfulness and care, a patience of physical pain which is perhaps greater than anything that the average man is capable of. Just so in respect to patience of moral pain: women may suffer much from poverty, and sadness follows the flying needle, but love and pity are the great sources of restraint. As the sphere of her intelligence widens, a large field will be supplied for the exercise of women’s power of love which is so highly developed. The genuine remedy for every kind of suffering is increased activity of mind, which means increased instruction. Action is always an anodyne of pain. Therein lies the explanation of the power of charity to calm personal suffering, which is always in some degree egoistic. The best way to console one’s self, for women and men alike, will always be to minister to someone else; hope revives in a heart which gives hope to others. Pains become gentle as they become fertile in beneficence, and productivity is an appeasement. [Sidenote: Best side of female levity.] And finally, by way of compensation, there are other respects in which women would suffer perhaps less than men from the disappearance of religious beliefs. Women live more completely in the present than men do, they are somewhat bird-like in their composition, and forget the tempest the instant it is passed. Women laugh as easily as they cry, and their laughter soon dries their tears: they are to be forgiven for at least one aspect of this divine levity. Moreover they have their household, all the tender and practical preoccupations of life, which absorb them more completely, heart and soul, than men. A woman’s happiness is probably complete the instant she believes herself to be beautiful and feels that she is loved; a man’s happiness is a much more complex product and contains a much larger number of intellectual elements. Women live more wholly within the limits of their own generation than men, and experience a sort of contemporary immortality in the hearts of those they love. [Sidenote: Modesty and love.]