rity of women to men,--not physically only, but even
intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in
natural inclination. And when the mind was both neglected and
undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue
after sensual charms had passed away? Paganism taught the inequality of
the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or
believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to
all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that
gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.

Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured,
neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above
the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her
thoughts to another and higher and endless life. Nobody wiped away her
tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity
for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes
aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a God of
forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace
and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open
wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it
could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from
which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories
which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to
indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy;
that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be
reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which
there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there
is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware
of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible
to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as
an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no
contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the
reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated
country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without
neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the
charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul,
and would she be any happier, if obli