of the world was rejected as unclean. "In the beginning,"
saith the author of the earliest fragments of the Bible,
"God made man in his own image — male and female
created He them." In the female nature we must look for
one portion of that Divine Image, even as for another in
the male. Hitherto we have grievously failed in this respect, and have lost in consequence a view of God's character, the most suited of all to touch our hearts. For what is it in truth in human life which affects us most closely? Is it great and bounteous gifts, or even unwavering care for our welfare? For these things we return gratitude. But that which melts us and reaches our inmost hearts are the tokens of personal tenderness, often trifling in value and of momentary duration, but proving that love which is the peculiar attribute of a mother. Thus if we desire to dwell on those characteristics of our Maker which shall most deeply touch men's natures, we must never forget that He is just as truly our Mother as our Father in Heaven. And if we need to reclaim the erring, to soften the hardened and brutalized, then, again judging by all human experience, we must fall back on this side of the great truth; and just as the most savage criminals have constantly been found accessible through the memory of a mother's kindness, when every other influence fell powerless, so shall we reclaim the sinful by recalling the faith that
God is the ever-loving, long-suffering Mother, who watches over us with unwearied patience, who punishes us only for our good, who hates our sins even as our mothers hated them in the fulness of their love for our better selves, and who will fold us all, blest and forgiven at last, upon the bosom of Eternal Love.
February, 1863.
