and many another? Are they not all hewn from the quarries of a noble
motherhood? Are they not sprung from the fountain of a womanhood whose
living streams are clear as crystal and sweet and refreshing? The
first Chavah, Eve, is rightly styled the mother of all living; and a
generation or race of men to be living, active, noble in achievement,
distinguished in virtues, must issue from a well-spring which
vitalises and beautifies and magnifies the spirit and the intellect,
as Engannim waters her gardens, and Engedi nourishes her acacias
and lotus-plants, and Enshemesh reflects the sun's golden beams the
livelong day. But what, you ask, are the exact teachings of the sage
Confucius, who influences Chinese society even to this day, with
regard to woman? Hear him: "Moreover, that you have not in this life
been born a male is owing to your amount of wickedness, heaped up in
a previous state of existence, having been both deep and weighty; you
would not then desire to adorn virtue, to heap up good actions, and
learn to do well! So that you now have been hopelessly born a female!
And if you do not this second time specially amend your faults,
this amount of wickedness of yours will be getting both deeper and
weightier, so that it is to be feared in the next state of existence,
even if you should wish for a male's body, yet it will be very
difficult to get it." Again another saying of Confucius is: "You must
know that for a woman to be without talent is a virtue on her part."
With such teaching then ever before them, do you wonder that Chinese
women do not excel in virtue, and that they are the mothers of a race
of men who are practically like standing water instead of a flowing
fountain to refresh the waste places of human life? The teachings of
Mormonism and Mohammedanism with regard to woman also degrade her and
rob her of the beautiful crown which her Maker has put upon her head;
and hence it is that such peoples are not virile and progressive like
the nations where woman is looked upon as man's helpmeet, where she
stands upon his right hand as a queen. The Mormons are better in many
respects than their faith; and if the first generation was hardy
and aggressive and brave in subduing the desert and changing Rocky
Mountain wastes into a blooming garden, it was because they had been
trained in the school of Christianity and had imbibed lessons of
wisdom at the fountain of a pure faith and inherited from Christian
fathers and