called the Pauline or ascetic
attitude on this matter has been disastrous; and that if the present
forms of religion are not completely to outlive their usefulness, it is
high time to restore mother and child worship to the honour which it
held in the religion of Ancient Egypt and in many another. If the mother
and child worship which is to be found in the more modern religions,
such as Christianity, is to be worth anything to the coming world it
must cease to have reference to one mother and one child only; it must
hail every mother everywhere as a Madonna, and every child as in some
measure deity incarnate. By no Church will such teaching be questioned
to-day; but if it be granted the Churches must cease to uphold those
conceptions of the superiority of celibacy and virginity which, besides
involving grossly materialistic conceptions of those states, are
palpably incompatible with that worship of parenthood to which the
Churches must and shall now be made to return.

All this will involve many a shock to prudery; to take only the instance
of what we call illegitimate motherhood, our eyes askance must learn
that there are other legitimacies and illegitimacies than those which
depend upon the little laws of men, and that if our doctrine of the
worth of parenthood be a right one it is our business in every such case
to say, "Here also, then, in so far as it lies in our power, we must
make motherhood as good and perfect as may be."

These principles also will lead us to understand how differently, were
we wise, we should look upon the outward appearances of expectant
motherhood. In his masterpiece, Forel--of all living thinkers the most
valuable--has a passage with which Mrs. Grundy may here be challenged.
It is too simple to need translating from the author's own French:[9]--

"La fausse honte qu'out les femmes de laisser voir leur grossesse
et tout ce qui a rapport a l'accouchement, les plaisanteries dont
on use souvent a l'egard des femmes enceintes, sont un triste signe
de la degenerescence et meme de la corruption de notre civilization
raffinee. Les femmes enceintes ne devraient pas ce cacher, ni
jamais avoir honte de porter un enfant dans leur ventre; elles
devraient au contraire en etre fieres. Pareille fierte serait
certes bien plus justifiee que celle des beaux officiers paradant
sous leur uniforme. Les signes exterieurs de la formation de
l'humanite font plus d