From the beginning of their history, the Teutonic races, especially the Anglo-Saxons, have been characterized by their high regard for woman. This trait of the dwellers of north-western Europe so impressed the Latin Christian missionaries, when they first visited those peoples, that they described them as having "such high regard for woman to the extent that adultery was unknown among them." And while the concluding phrase of this historical testimony does not describe the present state of Anglo-Saxon society with absolute correctness, {314} the statement as a whole seems to me to be a substantially correct description of present Anglo-Saxon life. Among the peoples of north-western Europe, and especially among their descendants in America, woman enjoys man's highest regard. On the other hand, "the Oriental view of woman" has always been considered by those Western peoples to be very contemptuous. We always hate most deeply that vice which is the opposite of our strongest virtue. We are most likely to exaggerate and to condemn mercilessly any deviation from that which we ourselves consider to be the sacred path of duty. Respect for woman being one of his strongest virtues, the Anglo-Saxon is lashed to fury by what seems to him to be the Oriental's utter disrespect for the mother of the race. As I have already stated in other connections in this work, my object is neither to accuse the Oriental nor to excuse his moral failures. My aim is rather to interpret him to my Western readers and to determine, if possible, to what {315} extent he really is a transgressor of the normal rules of behavior toward woman. My intimate knowledge of life in both hemispheres and my affectionate regard for the good qualities of both the Orientals and the Occidentals lead me to venture to be a reconciler of their differences. They certainly misunderstand one another, especially with reference to the domestic and social relations of the sexes. Time was when the various races hugged their prejudices close to their own hearts and really enjoyed ridiculing one another. But "the hour cometh and now is" when the peoples of the earth are beginning to realize that righteousness and truth, kindness and good manners, are the exclusive possessions of no one race. The peoples of the earth are beginning to realize that a mutual sympathetic understanding between the various races is an asset of civilization, and a promoter of the cause of that human commonwealth for which all good men pray and hope. Therefore, as one who owes much to both the East and the West, {316} I deem it my duty to do what I can to promote such a sympathetic understanding, without doing violence to the truth.