ects maternity and
pensions any mother who personally cares for her child.

Monasticism and enforced monogamy often carry a disrespect, if not a
positive contempt, for motherhood, especially free motherhood. We breed
from the worst, under the worst conditions, and as punishment God has
made us a race of scrubs. If we had deliberately set about to produce
the worst, we could not do better.

It will at once be seen that a penalized free motherhood is exactly like
the Monastic Impulse--a protest and a revolt from the Cosmic Urge. Hence
Ernst Haeckel, harking back to Schopenhauer, declares that we must place
a premium upon parenthood, and the State must subsidize all mothers,
visiting them with tenderness, gentleness, sanctity and respect, before
we shall be able to produce a race of demigods.

The Church has aureoled and sainted the men and women who have
successfully fought the Cosmic Urge. Emerson says, "We are strong as we
ally ourselves with Nature, and weak as we fight against her or
disregard her." Thus does Emerson place himself squarely in opposition
to the Church, for the Church has ever looked upon Nature as a lure and
a menace to holy living.

Now, is it not possible that the prevalency of the Monastic Impulse is
proof that it is in itself a movement in the direction of Nature?
Possibly its error lies in swinging out beyond the norm. A few great
Churchmen have thought so. And the greatest and best of them, so far as
I know, was Benedict. Through his efforts, monasticism was made a power
for good, and for a time, at least, it served society and helped
humanity on its way.

That the flagellants, anchorites, or monks with iron collars, and Simeon
Stylites living his life perched on a pillar, benefited the human
race--no one would now argue. Simeon was simply trying to please God--to
secure salvation for his soul. His assumption was that the world was
base and bad. To be pure in heart you must live apart from it. His
persistence was the only commendable thing about him, and this was the
persistence of a diseased mind. It was beautiful just as the persistence
of cancer is beautiful.

Benedict, while agreeing that the world was bad, yet said that our
business was to make it better, and that everything we did which was
done merely to save our own souls, was selfish and unworthy. He
advocated that, in order to save our own souls, we should make it our
business to save others. Also, to think too much about your ow