Читать книгу The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary онлайн

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“And what do you think of woman?” asked a Kief friend.

“Why,” said I, “the beast was a beast until a woman loved him. Then he became a man, even a prince. So it is with all of us. When a woman kisses a man, even an ugly, wretched, despised creature, he knows that he has found grace and is precious in the sight of God. When a woman smiles on a man she bids him live.

“The world is kept fresh by women and children, by their faith and their influence and their prayers. It would have rotted away but for them.

“The love and the faith of women empower men to do things. No man who is out on the adventurous tracks of life but has women behind him, and their love even far away keeps him alive. A woman has cords from her soul to the far-off hands of man, and at her will can empower men to lift their hands and do things. She has spiritual nervous force.”

“But if these cords get broken?” said my friend.

“Ah, then indeed she is in a different position. She finds herself stranded in destiny. She may become a man’s plaything or worse. Or she may become a militant suffragist or a believer in secular education or a propagandist of eugenism and hygienics.”