The School of Love & Other Essays, April 25

WOMAN

"It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself." Genesis ii. 18.

[continued from yesterday]

...And those who know only too well where all this wildness leads, can do no more than look on, and utter their vain appeal, and pray God to have mercy at least in the end.

And it might have been so different. Woman is made to help man, not to lead him to his ruin; and man is made to cherish the good that is in woman, not to drag her into worse than death.

Oh! children, yet un­spoilt, young women yet but a wakening to life, mothers who have your daughters' in­tegrity at heart, remember that woman is at once stronger than man and weaker; stronger in her instincts for all that is best, weaker in her yielding nature; stronger perhaps in her sympathies, weaker against fascination.

Re­member this, and as you value your lives, as you value your dignity, your honour, your power for doing good, cultivate your strength, beware of your weakness; believe not the serpent, or his human counterpart, who tells you that your strength is your weakness, your weakness your strength.

If only one ear would listen and be warned in time, and would not be "wise in its own conceit"!

For that we will gladly endure the sneer and contempt of many.
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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