h souls
to save and lives to live, and He applied to men and women the same
rule of conduct.

When the Pharisees brought the woman to Him, accused of a serious
crime, insistent that she be stoned at once, Christ turned his
attention to them. "Let him that is without sin among you throw the
first stone," he said. Up to this moment they had been feeling
deliciously good, and the contemplation of the woman's sinfulness had
given them positive thrills of virtue. But now suddenly each man felt
the spotlight on himself, and he winced painfully. Ordinarily they
would have bluffed it off, and laughingly declared they were no worse
than other men. But the eyes of the Master were on them--kind eyes,
patient always, but keen and sharp as a surgeon's knife; and measuring
themselves up with the sinless Son of God, their pitiful little pile of
respectability fell into irreparable ruin. They forgot all about the
woman and her sin as they saw their own miserable sin-eaten, souls, and
they slid out noiselessly. When they were gone Christ asked the woman
where were her accusers.

"No man hath condemned me, Lord," she answered truthfully.

"Neither do I condemn you," He said. "Go in peace--sin no more!"

I believe that woman did go in peace, and I also believe that she
sinned no more, for she had a new vision of manhood, and purity, and
love. All at once, life had changed for her.

The Christian Church has departed in some places from Christ's
teaching--noticeably in its treatment of women. Christ taught the
nobility of loving service freely given; but such a tame uninteresting
belief as that did not appeal to the military masculine mind. It
declared Christianity was fit only for women and slaves, whose duty and
privilege it was lovingly to serve men. The men of Christ's time held
His doctrines in contempt. They wanted gratification, praise, glory,
applause, action--red blood and raw meat, and this man, this carpenter,
nothing but a working man from an obscure village, dared to tell them
they should love their neighbor as themselves, that they should bless
and curse not.

There was no fun in that! No wonder they began to seek how they could
destroy him! Such doctrine was fit for only women and slaves!

It is sometimes stated as a reason for excluding women from the highest
courts of the church, that Christ chose men for all of his
disciples--that it was to men, and men only, that he gave the command:
"Go ye into th