Page:Woman — Her Charm and Power.djvu/21

Rh walk with God and do His will, and thus attain that self-perfection which will reach its glorious fruition in that diviner world, where there is "neither marriage nor giving in marriage," but all are as the angels of God, No man may call her to his side to be the partner of his joys and sorrows, no little ones may cluster round her knee for love and cherishing, but over the lonely sea of life she may hear a sweet voice calling—

It has always been assumed that woman, intellectually, is essentially inferior to man. A careful study of the subject, however, leads us to the conclusion that she is different rather than inferior. There is a masculine and a feminine in intellect as well as in physical conformation. In comparing the intellectual powers of men and women, a proper distinction should be made between receptive faculty and originative faculty, between fineness and essential strength. John Raskin wisely says: "We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the 'superiority' of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in similar things. Each has what the other has not, and is completed by the other; they are in nothing alike, and the happiness and perfection of both depends on each asking and receiving from the other what the other can only give"