(2) This century has been called the _woman's_ century. And certainly
there is an obvious trend to-day towards acknowledgment, in all
departments of life, of women's equality with men. There is, however,
a difference of opinion as to what that equality should mean; and there
seems to be a danger in some quarters of overlooking the essential
difference of the sexes. No people can achieve what it ought while its
wives and mothers are degraded or denied their rights. For her own
sake, as well as for the weal of the race, whatever is needful to
enable woman to attain to her noblest womanhood must be unhesitatingly
granted.[16]

(3) But this is even more the _children's_ era. A new sense of
reverence for the child is one of the most promising notes of our age,
and the problems arising out of the care and education of the young
have created the new sciences of pedagogy and child-psychology. Regard
for child-life owes its inspiration directly to the teaching of Christ.
The child in the simplicity of its nature and innocence of its
dependence is, according to the Master, the perfect pattern of those
who seek after God. It is true that in the art of antiquity child-life
was frequently represented. But as Burckhardt says it was the drollery
and playfulness, even the quarrelsomeness and stealth, and above all
the lusty health and animal vigour of young life that was depicted.
Ancient art did not behold in the child the prophecy of a new and purer
world. Moreover, it was aesthetic {228} feeling and not real sympathy
with childhood which animated this movement. As time went on the
teaching of Christ on this subject was strangely neglected, and the
history of the treatment of the young is a tragic tale of neglect and
suffering. Only now are we recovering the lost message of Jesus in
regard to the child, and we are beginning to realise that infancy and
youth have their rights, and demand of the world both care and
affection. Ours sons and daughters are the nation's assets. Yet it is
a parent's question even more than the State's. In a deeper sense than
we imagine children are the creation of their parents. It is the
effect of soul upon soul, the mother's touch and look, the father's
words and ways, that kindle into flame the dull material of humanity,
and begin that second birth which should be the anxiety and glory of
parenthood. But if the parent makes the child, scarcely less true is
it that the child makes the par