Note 225 — Chapter XV · (continued 2)

The son of the late William Ellery Channing, in a recent letter to a friend on this point, says: "Religions like the Jewish and Christian, which make God exclusively male, consign woman logically to the subordinate position which is definitely assigned to her in Mahometanism. History has kept this tradition. The subjection of woman has existed as an invariable element in Christian civilization. It could not be otherwise. If God and Christ were both represented as male (and the Holy Ghost, too, in the pictures of the old masters), it stood to reason and appealed to fanaticism that the male form was the Godlike. Hence, logically, intellect and physical force were exalted above the intuition of conscience and attractive charm. The male religion shaped government and society after its own form. Theodore Parker habitually addressed God as our Father and Mother. What we call God is the infinite ideal of humanity. The preposterous, ridiculous absurdity of supposing God so defined to be of the male sex, and to call God 'him,' does not need a word to make it apparent. This ideal which we all reverence, and for which we yearn, necessarily enfolds in One the attributes which, separated in our human race, express themselves in Manhood and Womanhood."