What was she made woman for, and not man?

    Shall we look back to that old third chapter of Genesis?

When mankind had taken the knowledge and power of good and evil into their own hands through the mere earthly wisdom of the serpent; when the woman had had her hasty outside way and lead, according to the story, and woe had come of it, what was the sentence?  And was it a penance, or a setting right, or a promise, or all three?

The serpent was first dealt with.  The narrow policy, the keen cunning, the little, immediate outlook, the expedient motive; all that was impersonated of temporary shift and outward prudence in mortal affairs, regardless of, or blind to, the everlasting issues; all, in short, that represented material and temporal interest as a rule and order—­and is not man’s external administration upon the earth largely forced to be a legislation upon these principles and economies?—­was disposed of with the few words, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman.”

Was this punishment—­as reflected upon the woman—­or the power of a grand retrieval for her?  Not to man, who had been led, and who would be led again, by the woman, was the commission of holy revenge intrusted; but henceforth, “I will set the woman against thee.”  Against the very principle and live prompting of evil, or of mere earthly purpose and motive.  “Between thy seed and her seed.”  Your struggle with her shall be in and for the very life of the race.  “It,” her life brought forth, “shall bruise thy head,” thy whole power, and plan, and insidious cunning; “and thou shall bruise,” shalt sting, torment, hinder, and trouble in the way and daily going, “his heel,” his footstep.  Thou, the subtle and creeping thing of the ground, shalt lurk after and threaten with crookedness and poison the ways of the men-children in their earth-toiling; the woman, the mother, shall turn upon thee for and in them and shall beat thee down!

Unto the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.”  The burden and the glory are set in one.  The pain of the world shall be in your heart; the trouble, the contradiction of it, shall be against your love and insight.  But your pain shall be your power; you shall be the life-bearer; you shall hold the motive; yours shall be the desire, and your husband’s the dominion.  Therefore shall you bring your aspiration to him, that he may fulfill it for you.  “Your desire shall be unto him, and he shall rule.”

And unto Adam He said, “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife”—­yes, and because thou wilt hearken—­“thy sorrow shall be in the labor of the earth; the ground shall be cursed;” in all material things shall be cross and trouble, not against you, but “for your sake.”  “In your sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life.”  Your need and struggle shall be with