If there be, then, as I humbly believe and trust, in the nature of our great Parent above, certain characters of tenderness and sympathy with His creatures which are more perfectly shadowed, more vividly reflected, in the love of human mothers for their children than by aught else on earth; if there be, in short, a real meaning in the old lesson that God created woman as well as man in His own image,--the image being only complete in the complete humanity,--then I think it follows that there is urgent need that woman’s idea of God should have its due place in all our teaching of religion. I think that there must be truths in this direction which only a woman’s heart will conceive and only a woman’s lips can teach,--truths, perchance, which have come to her when baby-fingers have clung round her neck in the dark while infant trust overcame infant terror, and she has asked herself was there anything in heaven or earth which could make her cast down to destruction, or even let slip from her clasp of care and guardianship, the helpless little child thus lying in her arms,--a living parable of all our race in the everlasting arms of God. FOOTNOTES: [27] It will be seen that I differ _toto caelo_ on this point from Mr. Mahaffy in his interesting recent essay on the _Decay of Preaching_. He seems to me only to recognize the _moral and intellectual_ forces which move men, and these compared with the spiritual are only what mechanical ones are to the electric. [28] Ingoldsby’s rendering of this world-famous story, the favorite theme of so many eminent painters, is probably no very exaggerated reading of the general impression of the monastic mind respecting the fair sex:-- “There are many devils which walk this world, Devils great and devils small, Devils short and devils tall; Bold devils which go with their tails unfurled, Sly devils which carry them quite upcurled; * * * * * But a laughing woman with two bright eyes Is the worsest devil of all!” [29] I know not on what authority the familiar jovial couplet has been attributed to the great Reformer:-- “Wer liebt nicht Wein, Weib, und Gesang Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.” The ascetic spirit had very far departed, at all events, from the author who composed it. [30] I. Cor. xiv., 26. If this graphic description had applied to a _female_ assembly, should we have ever been allowed to forget the circumstance? [31] “The Hebrew Woman,” by Constance de Rothschild (Mrs. Cyril Flower). [32] A sermon by this lady on “The Sacrament of Life,” preached and printed at Melbourne, would amply justify, I think, to every reader the above remark. [33] In the case of the M.P., this would need to be a majority of _men_, seeing that the whole female contingent of qualified voters will only (if admitted) add about a fifth or sixth to the register.