With regard to women, the attitude of Judaism is peculiar. It has always recognized some “Rights of Women,” and has never fallen into the absurdity of cherishing mental or physical weakness in them as honorable or attractive. As Mrs. Cyril Flower (then Miss Constance de Rothschild) showed in an interesting article published some years ago, the “Hebrew Woman,” so magnificently described in the last chapter of Proverbs, has always been the Jewish ideal: “Strength and honor are her clothing. She openeth her mouth with wisdom.” No jealousy, but, on the contrary, joyful recognition, awaited in each age the vigorous actions of Miriam and Deborah, of Judith and Esther, and of the mother of the seven martyrs in the Book of Maccabees. Jewish marriages (till quite recently formed always on the Eastern rather than on the Western system) are proverbially faithful and affectionate; and the resolution of Jews never to permit their wives to undertake labor outside their homes (such as factory work and the like) has undoubtedly vastly contributed to the health and welfare of the nation. Yet, notwithstanding all this, something appears to be lacking in Jewish feeling concerning women. Too much of Oriental materialism still lingers. Too little of Occidental chivalry and romance has yet arisen. In this respect, strange to say, the East is prose, the West poetry. The relations of men and women, above all of husband and wife, cannot be ranked as perfect till some halo of tender reverence be added to sturdy good-will and fidelity.[23] And, beyond their human brethren and sisters, Christians have found (it is one of those late developments of the fertile Christian idea of which I have spoken) that the humbler races of living creatures have also claims upon us,—moral claims founded on the broad basis of the right of simple sentiency to be spared needless pain; religious claims founded on the touching relation which we, the often forgiven children of God, bear to “the unoffending creatures which he loves.” This tender development of Christianity, and the discovery consequent on it, that “he prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird and beast,” is assuredly worthy of the regard of those Reformers who would make Judaism a universal religion. Semitic literature has hitherto betrayed a hardness and poverty on this side which it is needful should now be remedied, if Judaism is to ride on the full tide of Aryan sympathies. And, lastly, the Christian sentiment concerning Immortality deserves special attention from Reforming Jews. The adoption of the dogma of a Future Life has scarcely even yet, after some fifty generations, imprinted on the Jewish mind the full consciousness of “That great world of light which lies Behind all human destinies.”