however much care and attention they have demanded.

Science has found no difference between the skulls of man and woman, owing to the difficulty of relying on size; and reliance upon it is explained away by the difference in the process of digestion and the kinds of nutrition — besides what there is of

steady application to work that affects their health most injuriously. Every work a woman takes up in which no regard or consideration is given to her sex, and in which, at the time of childbirth and pregnancy, she is given no opportunity for calm and quiet, is harmful to the woman, harmful to the nation, and leads to the decline and enfeeblement of the generations to come.

For this reason we see, in some countries, societies founded to aid mothers, whose aim is to concern themselves with pregnant working women as they concern themselves with the poor and unmarried, so as to keep them from hard labor.

Woman does not storm men's occupations out of any desire for them; she does so under the impulse of material need, and the soundness of her health while at work is an equivalent of the national wealth.

The highly educated woman was, in the eyes of some, a byword for mockery, and their argument for forbidding learning to her was that it sterilizes mothers and reduces the number of births.

Yet science contains nothing to support this claim, for fruitfulness in bearing offspring does not prevent the strengthening of personality, nor does it forbid us its development. All that is known in the animal kingdom is that the birds of large brains breed less than others, and show more concern and care for their chicks than their fellows — and it is they that preserve their broods to the following year.

The growth of personality, then, has not been a cause of scarcity of offspring; its cause may rather be the quantity and kind of nourishment and other such causes, like a

To God...

Salwa Bustani

I write this communion while I am wholly seized by it...

O Lord, how often have I spoken with You in the night of the inmost soul..!!

And how often have I communed with You, sorrowful and glad..!!

And after my prayers I would hear Your voice on high, its echo resounding in the corners of my earthly spirit..!!

I knew You by instinct when I was a child..!!

And I would compose myself whenever they spoke Your great name..!!

Because I always believe that I am in Your presence..!!

And I would tremble — with love, reverence, and servitude — whenever I thought that You see me always..!!

I spoke with You when I was at school, reading "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate," and I believed in You for Your mercy and Your tenderness..!!

For mercy and tenderness are the first things the young soul lacks in this harsh life..!!

I knew You on the rainy nights..!!

I would stand — stand for hours listening to the thunder, and this is the pealing of Your whispers..!!

And I would watch the lightning... for it is the light of Your smiles..!!

Your forgiveness, O Lord!!

If I have pictured You so, with my weak human imagination..!!

I knew You in spring... when Your all-powerful hands passed over the face of the earth... and Your marvelous workmanship shone forth in the plants and the roses; and I knew You in the joyous carols of nature... and I knew Your mercy in those fragrant breaths of spring, and I grew certain of Your mercy and believed in You..!!

I knew You in summer... and I believed in Your omnipotence and believed in Your fire; and in autumn... and I believed in death and extinction and sickness, and I learned that You are the Abiding One and we are the perishing..!!

I knew You in the day, when Your lights filled my eyes and Your signs dazzled me..!!

And I knew You in the night, when the glittering stars confided to me the secret of Your greatness, and the pitch-black darkness stirred in my soul the wellspring of awe of You..!!

I knew You in every manifestation of Your worlds, and I communed with You in every sign of Your revelation.

But after this long acquaintance and this unbroken communion, I hear in the depths of my soul a questioner asking:

Have I truly known You, O Lord?