SEX FQUALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 246, 14 October 1908, Page 3

SEX FQUALITY.

"."'." -. ■.' ._.._•-..__■__•' ■'■ STATEMENT OF GENERAL BOOTH'S yiEws. A message to the rank and file of the Salvation Army from General Booth, who left England in August for South Africa, was read bj* his request in all the organisation's places of worship on Sunday, August 23. The message was to the following effect:— " My feelings and opinions with respect to woman generally are known through; out the world. My standard On this subject is ever before you, and I want the entire Army to embrace it. First and foremost I insist on woman's equality. Every officer and soldier should hold to it that woman is as important, as valuable, as capable, and as necessary to the progress and happiness of the world as man. "Unfortunately a large number of people of every class think otherwise. They still cling to the notion of bygone ages—that, as a being, woman is inferior to man. To many she is little move than a plaything for their leisure hours. To others she is like a piece of property, a slave in everything but name. Of .times she is treated with less consideration as to health and comfort than the horses that run in omnibuses or beasts that are fattening for slaughter. "Now the Salvation Army has done and' is doing something to combat these hideous and heathen notions. To begin with, the Army has maintained that the sexes are equal alike in birth; alike equal in the value of the soul and the capacity for joy and sorrow; alike equal before God, and in the love of the Heavenly Father; alike equal in their share in the redemption of Jesus Christ; alike equal in responsibility for spreading salvation and extending the Kingdom of God!; alike equal in accountability at the judgment day; alike equal as citizens of the Celestial City; and alike equal in capacity for the employments and enjoyments of the eternity to come. " I do not say that every individual faculty in woman is equal to the corresponding faculty in man, any more than 1 would say that each particular capacity possessed by man is equal to the same in woman. They differ both in character and degree. But where one is weaker the other is stronger. For example, in the power of will, and in the possession of physical force, the man will be found often to excel the woman. On the other hand, in quickness of perception, in powers of endurance, aud in strength of love (the quality in us which is most God-like), woman is generally the superior of man. Taken as a whole, therefore, I say that woman is equal to man in the value of her gifts and the extent of her influence; and I maintain that if she be given a fair chance she will prove it to be so. " Now, I want you to think over and accept this truth. Nay, more, 1 would have us all stand to it and show it forth to the world by our own treatment of our women comrades. Above all, let us teach it both in theory and* in practice to the yonng people around us. Let the boy be taught from his earliest infancy that his. sister is as good as he is in all that is important to life, except, perhaps, in the physical force, which he possesses in common with the brute beasts. Let the girl he made to feel that her value to God and man is as high as it would have been had she been a boy. Let the grownup people set before the children and the young people a constant and living example of that gentleness and kindness which was ever manifested by our Lord Jesus Christ. Whether married or single, let every man treat the women with whom he is acquainted with respect, with patience and l with care. Every man to whom has been entrusted a wife must— and will if he has any proper sense of marliness in him —champion her interests, fight her battles, watch over her soul, and even die, if need be, as Christ died, on her behalf. Let us then determine to pay woman more regai . in the position assigned to her by the providence of God, as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, and as a comrade in the salvation war."