El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-02-26
WOMEN AS WINDOWS.
Observations and X Elections by Ella
Wheeler Wilcox.

Wheeler WnCOA.
The French say 'Woman is the win
dow through which man sees life.
This l believe to be true. l at one
time was obliged to associate with some
intellectual women who did not know
how to be amiable, and my experience
with them seems like painful dream
In recompense life has since given me
companionship with two adorably ami
able women. One of them has recently
passed on to a new phase of existence
God rest her sweet soul She lived SO
years to prove herself a benedlctlon to
every life which even temporarily
touched her own. She was a fragrant
flower in the garden of girlhood. AS
wife she transformed a Respondent. rest
less and disconnected man into an agree
able and optimistic husband Children
who were nervous invalids she gave
cheerful views of life and caused them
to laugh themselves into good health.
Even with poverty and sickness IN her
home the house was haven of rest and
peace to enter so permeated was 1T with
her beautiful spirit. She had sympathy
and affection for every one who appealed
to her, no matter how burdened with
her own cares / regard her as the
greatest woman 1 have ever known.
A little foreign widow who speaks
our language imperfectly and who is
working hard to educate four children
dependent upon her expressed great as
tonisbment the other day to learn that
any educated OF brainy people were re-
ligious She said she had come to the
belief that religion was merely ignorant
superstition and that education was the
only divine power in existence.
1 confess l could not help feeling
greater pity for the woman on account
of her views ON this subject than for
her loneliness in a strange land.
There is always something shocking
to me in an absolutely irreligious wom-
All. Faith belongs to woman as nat
nrally as skirts An atheistical woman
in boomers is the acme of the inartistic.
All the education" this poor little
mother can bestow upon her children
can never recompense them for what
they are losing in spiritual training, for
the spirit needs its methods and time
for practice quite as much as the mind
or body.
think child who learns the princi-
ples Of spiritual concentration is better
equipped for the battles of life, even
without education, than the most learn
ed materialist. He who learns how to
look into his own spirit and finds its
close connection with deity will obtain
more useful wisdom than the greatest
bookworm who ever lived and believed
only in human intellect.
It is the mother who should be the
first spiritual teacher. She need not
necessarily teach her child creeds, but
let her train the young mind tendrll to
cling about something greater than hu-
man intellect if she wants to confer q
lasting benefit upon it.
The need of the day is a religion
whose cornerstone is kindness to all
created things. Nothing more horrible
can be conceived than a clergyman and
a schoolteacher attempting to convey a
moral lesson by killing animals in the
presence of sensitive women and chill
dren.
A clergyman recently illustrated to
his congregation the evil effects Of to-
bacco by killing two cats in his pulpit
with nicotine.
A schoolteacher caused panic by
chloroforming a cat and then dlssectlne
it in the presence of the children, many
of whom tainted or became hysterlcal.
If this is modern orthodoxy, it Ger
tainly is not Christianity.
No man has the love of God or thu
spirit of Christ i'll his heart who coulc
even sit still and witness such an ac
without a protest. No woman is fit tt
be teacher of the young who could de
liberately take the life of any inoffen
sive animal She is n monster at hear
and worse than brute by nature.
No religion is of amy value o.
worth in the world which does no
teach sympathy for and kindness to ami
mails They are just as much part o
Gods system as we are. Henry bergi
has done more to evaneelize the wori'
than most clergymcn who have preach
ed creeds to us during the last 70 years
The woman who can take the life OF
happy little animal and proceed to dls
sect its warm body i'll the presence O
young children is most certainly DE
generate. and her influence Is perm
cious. =
That is not tho sort of window
through which the growing generafio
should regard life
The precise location of cat'sfspin