ea of their own natures, and taught instead
merely to repress them. So, very often, a curiously artificial code
of manners has been accepted by the clergyman--a code which has been
crystallized in a phrase by calling the clergy "the third sex"--and he,
like the women, should be in revolt against it if he is to be saved.
Indeed, we are or should be allies, not foes. Let the priest or minister
wear the same kind of collar as other people, mix with them on equal terms,
and then, if he has a higher moral standard than they, it will be his
own standard, accepted by him because it commands his homage, and not a
standard imposed on him merely because he belongs to a certain caste. It
is always the code of morals imposed from without that does mischief, and
results in the repressions and perversions about which modern psychology
has taught us so much.

It will perhaps be urged that the peculiar dangers of which ecclesiastics
are conscious are due to the psychological fact that the erotic and
religious emotions are closely allied. That this is a fact will hardly be
doubted. But again the problem is either an individual one, _or_ it must
be solved by abandoning our present position and reverting to that of an
earlier and cruder civilization. It is possible to argue that eroticism and
religion are so nearly allied and so easily mistaken for one another, that
safety and sincerity alike demand separate worship for men and women.[F] It
is also possible to leave it to the individual to manage himself, conquer
where he can and flee where he cannot. But it is not possible, on grounds
of religious eroticism, to protect men from listening to a woman preaching,
at the cost of compelling women to listen to no one but a man; or insist on
the intolerable cruelty of compelling a man-priest to celebrate mass with a
woman server, while forcing the woman to make her confession to a man.

[Footnote F: As, _e.g._, among the Mahometans and, to a less extent, the
Jews.]

I am convinced that when religious people learn to refrain from cheap
"religion" based on emotional preaching and sentimental or rowdy music,
they will find that, though eroticism and religion are nearly allied and
can easily be mistaken, it is not impossible to distinguish between them.
The effort to do so should be made by our spiritual leaders, and when made
will result in a sturdier and more thoughtful religion. While for those,
whether men or women, who are honestly aware that