WOMAN
"It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself." Genesis ii. 18.
AN English poet, in a poem familiar to us an, laments "to think what man has made of man."
There is much truth in the poem; on the other hand there is much that is untrue; for in spite of all the harm that man has done to man, man is what he is by the help of his fellow-men, and man is on the whole a noble and a lovable creature.
There is more good than evil in the world, more good than evil in man; and we need to keep this truth ever in our minds if we mean to judge life aright.
But perhaps the poet would have had more upon his side if he had sung, not of "what man has made of man," but of "what man has made of woman"; and perhaps more still if he had pondered on the counterpart of this, "what woman has made of man."
This implies nothing against woman, for reverence of woman is ingrained in the present writer's mind, a gift to him from his mother; it only is a question, asking whether she who was made "like man, a help like unto man," has in matter of fact been a help to him or not.
Certainly she has not been a help to him and nothing more; from the days of Eve herself there is a heavy charge against her; and one reflects with sadness on the judgment of a priest of fifty years' experience, that if women were what they should be men would be almost entirely good.
[continued tomorrow]
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From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918
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