The assumption of the New Testament is, that we possess an animal nature.  The meaning of the word flesh, in all the New Testament writings, is, that the human family are living in an animal condition.  It is taught that in that condition it is impossible for them to understand higher truths, or to feel higher influences, or to enter into the experiences which belong to the full development of the higher faculties.  Christ came to us, suffered, and died for us, that an escape from this lower into the higher realm might be possible.  It is possible.  There is inherent under the divine influence the power of recreating, so that the soul shall escape from the prison-house of the flesh, and shall henceforth lead the mind and the body into a higher realm of thought and action.  The very nature of woman makes her susceptible to religious impressions.  Her lively imagination, her quick sensibilities, and her ready sympathy enable her readily to give Christ, the personification of every manly attribute and the embodiment of every virtue, a welcome to her soul.

It is possible for woman’s spiritual nature to so marry Christ, that her physical nature can, without a great sacrifice, forego the joys of earthly companionship.  Hence some women mated with a brute of a man, shine as Christians, and make excellent mothers.  Woman as a Christian is a helpmeet indeed and in truth.  Her power as such is felt in the church and in the world.  She is peculiarly adapted to carry forward enterprises which have to do with meliorating the condition of society.  Who is so adapted as she to manage an orphan’s home, or to minister to the sick in hospitals, or to give support and sympathy to the aged, or to train children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?  The first requisite to companionship is a heart imbued with the love of Christ. A heart must be emphasized, for a heartless woman is a terror in society, but a woman with a great heart, reverent and obedient to God, and full of love for Christ and his work, is a benefaction to a man, to a home, to a community, and to the world.  “Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”  And a woman that feareth the Lord and serveth him, is praised and prized beyond rubies.  The next requisite to holiness may be said to be skilfulness in the home.  Woman must be trained to household duties.  If she lacks here, she is wanting in much that makes her a real wife or mother or sister.

America, the land of homes, finds the housewife essential to its future.  Housework in woman is ever honorable.  It ought to be her glory and her pride.  Let us make it so more and more.

The second requisite is intelligence.  A woman must keep up with man in literature, in general news, in what interests the community, and especially in growth in grace, and in the knowledge of the word of God, if she would make her home attractive.  Thus shall they