may be proved from the history
of this continent, and not only from the early records of Mexico and
Cuba and Hayti, but also from the reports of the earliest navigators on
our own coast, who here and there make mention incidentally of this or
that female chief or sachem. But a fact far more impressive and truly
elevating to the sex also appears on authority entirely indisputable.
While women are enjoined by the Word of God to refrain from public
teaching in the Church, there have been individual women included among
the Prophets, speaking under the direct influence of the Most Holy
Spirit of God, the highest dignity to which human nature can attain.
But all these individual cases, whether political or religious, have
been exceptional. The lesson to be learned from them is plain. We
gather naturally from these facts, what may be learned also from other
sources, that, while the positions of the two sexes are as such
distinct, the one a degree superior, the other a degree inferior, the
difference between them is limited--it is not impassable in individual
cases. The two make up but one species, one body politic and religious.
There are many senses besides marriage in which the two are one. It is
the right hand and the left, both belonging to one body, moved by
common feeling, guided by common reason. The left hand may at times be
required to do the work of the right, the right to act as the left.
Even in this world there are occasions when the last are first, the
first last, without disturbing the general order of things. These
exceptional cases temper the general rule, but they can not abrogate
that rule as regards the entire sex. Man learns from them not to
exaggerate his superiority--a lesson very often needed. And woman
learns from them to connect self-respect and dignity with true
humility, and never, under any circumstances, to sink into the mere
tool and toy of man--a lesson equally important.

Such until the present day has been the general teaching and practice
of Christendom, where, under a mild form, and to a limited point, the
subordination of woman has been a fact clearly established. But this
teaching we are now called upon to forget, this practice we are
required to abandon. We have arrived at the days foretold by the
Prophet, when "knowledge shall be increased, and many shall run to and
fro." The intellectual progress of the race during the last half
century has indeed been great. But admiration is not the