It has always seemed to the present writer that the followers of Christ have done him far less than justice in insisting upon one aspect of his character disproportionately with another. They speak of him as the "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild "; they tend to describe him as almost or wholly effeminate; and the representations of him in art, with small, feminine and conspicuously un-Jewish features, with long feminine hair and the hands of a consumptive woman, join with sacred poetry in furthering this impression. Nothing can be truer than that he was tender, and that he had a passion for childhood and realized, as we may dare to say, its divinity, as only the very few in any age have done. But this "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," was also he whose blazing words against established iniquity and hypocrisy constitute him the supreme exemplar not only of love but of moral indignation, and of a sublime invective which has been equalled not even by Dante at his highest. We forget, perhaps, when we use such a phrase as "whited sepulchre," that we are quoting the untamable fierceness, the courage, fatal and vital, of the "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," who was murdered not for loving children, but for hating established wickedness. Why have Christians not recognized that it is this perhaps unexampled combination of strength and tenderness which makes their Founder worthy for all time to be regarded as the Highest of Mankind? One more counsel to the girl who can choose. It is contained in the saying of Marcus Aurelius that the worth of a man may be measured by the worth of the things to which he devotes his life. We must now pass to consider the sociological fact that, under present conditions, the sole use of this chapter for a very large proportion of women can merely consist in suggesting to them that they are better unmarried than married without love. It is not possible for them to exercise the great function of choice which is theirs by natural right. Evil and ominous of more evil are whatever facts deprive woman of this her birthright. CHAPTER XVII THE CONDITIONS OF MARRIAGE