Neither must we forget the teaching of Christ regarding marriage.  He deliberately places virginity above marriage, and counsels self-mutilation to those capable of making the sacrifice.  “All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given ... there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Matt. xix. 11, 12).  Following this, 1 Cor. vii. teaches the superiority of an unmarried state, and threatens “trouble in the flesh” to those who marry.  And in Rev. xiv. 1-4, we find, following the Lamb, with special privileges, 144,000 who “were not defiled with women; for they are virgins.”  This coarse and insulting way of regarding women, as though they existed merely to be the safety-valves of men’s passions, and that the best men were above the temptation of loving them, has been the source of unnumbered evils.  To this saying of Christ are due the self-mutilations of many, such as Origen, and the destruction of myriads of human lives in celibacy; monks and nuns innumerable owe to this evil teaching their shrivelled lives and withered hearts.  For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as of a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despised women the most.  The subjection of women in Western lands is wholly due to Christianity.  Among the Teutons women were honoured, and held a noble and dignified place in the tribe; Christianity brought with it the evil Eastern habit of regarding women as intended for the toys and drudges of man, and intensified it with a special spite against them, as the daughters of Eve, who was first “deceived.”  Strangely different to the general Eastern feeling and showing a truer and nobler view of life, is the precept of Manu:  “Where women are honoured, there the deities are pleased; but where they are dishonoured, there all religious acts become fruitless” ("Anthology,” p. 310).

Evil also is the teaching that repentance is higher than purity:  “joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance” (Luke xv. 7, 10).  The fatted calf is slain for the prodigal son, who returns home after he has wasted all his substance; and to the laborious elder son, during the many years of his service, the father never gave even a kid that he might make merry with his friends (Ibid, 29).  What is all this but putting a premium upon immorality, and instructing people that the more they sin, the more joyous will be their welcome whenever they may choose to reform, and, like the prodigal, think to mend their broken fortunes by repentance?