is the secret spring that makes her the ceaseless fountain of lofty
inspiration she is to him? What is the hint of divinity in her gentle
mien that brings him to his knees? Who is this goddess veiled in woman
whom men instinctively reverence yet cannot name?

"The adoration of woman, which may almost be called the natural religion
of the modern man, springs from his recognition, instinctive when not
conscious, that she is in an express sense, as he is not, the type, the
representative, and the symbol of the race from which he springs, of
that immortal and mystical life in which the secret of his own is
hid. She is this by virtue, not of her personal qualities, but of the
mother-sex, which, overbearing in part her individuality, consecrates
her to the interests of the race, and makes her the channel of those
irresistible attractions by which humanity exists and men are made to
serve it. As compared with woman's peculiar identification with the
race, man's relation to it is an exterior one. By his constitution he
is above all an individual, and that is the natural line of his
development. The love of woman is the centripetal attraction which in
due time brings him back from the individual tangent to blend him again
with mankind. In returning to woman he returns to humanity. All that
there is in man's sentiment for woman which is higher than passion and
larger than personal tenderness--all, that is to say, which makes his
love for her the grand passion which in noble hearts it is--is the
fact that under this form his passion for the race finds expression.
Mysterious ties, subtending consciousness, bind him, though seemingly
separate, to the mighty life of humanity, his greater self, and these
are the chords which, when 'Love took up the harp of life,'... 'passed
in music out of sight.' In woman humanity is enshrined and made concrete
for the homage of man. This is the mighty indwelling which causes her
to suggest something more august than herself, and invests her with an
impersonal majesty commanding reverence.

"You may imagine with what power such a doctrine as this, set forth by
an enthusiast like Regnier, appealed to the mind of an impassioned boy
of twenty, as yet pure as a girl, but long vaguely stirred by the master
passion of our nature. The other tenets of the Religion of Humanity had
been impressed upon me by argument, but at the mere statement of this my
heart responded, _O Dea Certe!_

"Subsequently, in re