"GODLINESS AND MANLINESS."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1605, 9 July 1887, Page 4

"GODLINESS AND MANLINESS."

Fr >m a book which has boeu published, entitle 1 " Godlineas and Manliness," by J. W Diggl-, VJ.A , wo take the ■■fallowing extract*: "1 1 o Fifth Gommardiucnt associates the nuMljqr co-ordinately and equally with the father m the ettsora and aiftclions of tho ohild, According to anoiont law, the mother wbb a species of nobody In tho family. At her husband's death she doscended as a kind of propotty to the oldest eon. But euoh a servilo position, with no higher dignity than that of chattel, was repudiated for the mother by the Fifth Commandment. It exalted the mother to the father's ado as ooregnant sovereign with him upon the throne of the children's affection aad obedienoe. It did not endow the father with despotic power— jus vitcc nccisqiic— ai an Eastern tyrant, and degrade the mother into a harem Blave. It upraiced father ard mother to a conjoint teal of family king and family queen, and plaood m their hands the sceptre of a coequal claim upon the children's regard. It bade every ohild, m tones whioh must have ■ounded strange and startling to the ears of those accustomed to regard the mother as tho property of tho father honor thy faihsr and thy mother ! 1 his recognition of the dignity and saoredness of motherhood Is one of the most benignant educational provisions of tho Docaiogue. It ia an evidence of the great advance of Jewish legislation beyond all other legislations of the ancient world, and a sign of its fore-ordained purpose of preparations for Ohrtst, In whose Vlcgln ftfother all motherhood finds its sweetest emblem atd uttermost perfection." Of a kindred type ia the admirable chapter on "The Fidelity of Women." It is very btisf :— "A 'man gives up a sinking cause Booner than a woman does The men ran away from the Gross ; the woman were faithful unto death, Men like the winning side ; women are ohampions of the deaperate hope. Deborah caved lirael, and Joan of Arc delivered France, when no man could be found to lead an enterprise so unpromls'nj. The men outran one ad jther to catch a glimpse ofjthe risen and Victorious Christ ; but it is doubtful wbtther they could have gone to the sepulohre at all simply for the sake of embalming the dead aud defeated Christ. Women, too, linger m memory over the past with a richer tenderneos than tr»en. Women are retrospective ; men anticlpatlve, women tarry long, with a fidelity painful fetid eweet, over the recollections of their childhood, and the little Incidents of their betrothal, and the bnried faoes of their lost childreu. Women have more keepsakes than men, more dried flowers, more faded photographs, more associations with old spots, more packages of oft-read letters, more tendrils rooted rouad the long-left home."