Wherever man has failed to recognize this truth society has gone back to barbarism, and the very conception of a home has been banished from the mind.  In the East man rules woman as lord.  She is his slave; and in the Arabic language there is no word meaning “home.”  Christian civilization lifts woman up, and thrones her in the heart of a home.

She was made from “bone and flesh,”—­quickened dust,—­and so in her make and constitution she is of superior quality and of finer mould.

The Hebrew word translated “made,” means built.  From the rib God built this woman.  How instructive the fact!  Woman added to man is the foundation of the home or family.  She is built out of man.  Man is necessary to her development.  A man can continue the work begun by God.  He can build up a woman; and as he builds her up he builds up himself.  She is also a builder.  She builds up a home, or degrades it.  If woman is honored in a home, she makes it honorable.

At the outset she was man’s equal:  perhaps she may have thought herself to be superior to him—­more refined, of better material.  She forgot her place, and ignored her sphere, and lost all.  She was not created as things were, out of nothing.  She was meant to be something better than a thing; and she must be something better than a thing, or she is nothing.  She was not formed as Adam was, out of the dust of the earth.  Had she been, perhaps she would not have disliked dust so terribly.  She is a part of man’s life.  This describes her mission.  The life of a woman who does not care to be a man’s toy or ornament, but desires rather to be his helpmeet,—­supplying all he needs, as he supplies all she needs,—­is but the continuance, the flowing out and flowing on of man’s higher life, into the flowers of love, which decorate the home, and make that chosen retreat the very portals of heaven.

As man feels that in woman he finds the complement to himself, and almost his other self, woman finds in man the same complement to herself, and recognizes in him the ruler of her life, her friend, her lover; and happy is she if she finds in him her husband, who rightfully assumes his rights and his sovereignty.

3. “God brought her unto man.”  Woman is God’s first gift to man.  She must never occupy a second place.  In the heart she holds a first place, or she holds none at all.  The moment she holds a secondary place she is ruined.  It is in her power to hold the first place.  To do this, she must prize it; make sacrifices to keep it; almost, at times, deny herself, and bear a cross, to hold on to it.  Yet it is hers, and God will see to it that she maintains her right.

“God brought her.”  Every husband in this world should feel that his wife is God’s gift to him, and it is his duty to study its characteristics, and minister to them.  Every man can make the partner of his life a good wife, and can feel that she was God-given, and must be used in such a manner that when the day of reckoning comes, he can give a good account of the manner in which he has used this blessing.  To go to the judgment, and meet a broken-hearted woman, over whom man has exercised tyranny, and to whom he has been a monster, until hope died, and the grave became a refuge, will not be a pleasant meeting.