e a
divorce on her part. None but the husband could put her asunder from
him.

In the 22d chapter of Deuteronomy is enacted the law for "Test of
Virginity," which states that, "If any man take a wife, and is
disappointed in her, and reports, 'I found her not a maid,' then, her
father and mother shall bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity
unto the elders of the city in the gate." The gynecological elders then
go into a "peeping Tom's" conference and "If virginity be not found for
the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her
father's house, and the men of the city shall stone her with stones that
she die." Most probably the male partner in her "crime" was the first to
cast the largest stone.

The law laid down in the 12th chapter of Leviticus may have been
intended for hygienic purposes but it is cruel and degrading to women
because it assumes that the parturient woman who has borne a female
child is twice as impure as one who has borne a male child.

The "law of jealousies" as described in the 5th chapter of Numbers is a
good example of the mentality of the writers of this "divine
revelation." God in His infinite wisdom had caused to be written for
Him, that to test whether a woman has laid carnally with another man,
the priest shall, "take holy water in an earthen vessel, and of the dust
that is on the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take and put it
in the water ... the bitter water that causeth the curse, and shall
cause the woman to drink the water." The divine revelation then
continues with, "if she be defiled, her belly shall swell and her thigh
shall rot."

But after all, God did not know that in the dust of the Tabernacle
sprawled the germs of Dysentery, Cholera, and Tuberculosis, and a few
other such mild infections. Or did the Divine Father know that even a
self-respecting germ could not inhabit the filthy floor of the
Tabernacle?

Consequently, it is not to be wondered at that in the "good old days of
the old-fashioned woman," the acme of hospitality was the giving of wife
or daughter to a visitor for the night. It was not religion that put an
end to this barbarous custom; it was the advance of civilization; not
the religious force, but the place rational thinking assumed in the life
of people.

The following is a description of a religious riot which took place in
Alexandria during the early days of the Church: "Among the many victims
of these unhappy tumults