f each other, which request was granted,
on condition of their doing so in the presence of the oppressor. Drawing
the girl, now nearly dead from fright, toward himself, and also toward
the shambles, adjoining which they were, he snatched thence a knife,
and, before any suspected his intention, stabbed her to the heart,
crying, "This alone can preserve your honor and your freedom."[E]

The fearful deed of the centurion is appalling; but remember his ideas
of right and wrong were veiled in pagan darkness. He took the life of
his child to save her from a fate incomparably worse than that of death;
and made his name historic by doing so. Thousands of fathers have found
their efforts to protect the innocence of their daughters as unavailing
as did the unhappy Virginius, unless, like him, they shortened life. The
victims, too, are as little free-will agents in the matter as Virginia
would have been; and many thousands of daughters have fallen, not by
their father's hand to save their honor, but by cruel deception, and
died to all that was beautiful or pure on earth, and to every hope of
heaven.

And while the woman who has sinned, and fallen through that sin, is
pitied by few, despised by nearly all, and but little effort made to win
her back to the path of purity, how is the companion of her sin treated?
He, the seducer--often the grossest of deceivers, the instigator of the
crime--because he is a man, is countenanced by the many, his conduct
palliated, and himself received as an honored guest, even in the highest
circles of society. The law of God makes no distinction between the male
violator of His holy law and the female violator of the same; but man,
arrogating to himself superior wisdom, makes a very marked one.

No wonder, then, that women groan because of their bondage.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Sharpe's "History of Egypt."]

[Footnote B: Koran, chap. iv.]

[Footnote C: Sale's "Preliminary Discourses on the Koran," sec. 4.]

[Footnote D: "Laws of Menu."]

[Footnote E: Bloss, page 334.]

CHAPTER III.

Later Estimate of Woman.

In the discussion of the position occupied by women as wives, those only
have been spoken of who were betrothed in infancy, or were captured,
stolen, or bought. These latter were, without further ceremony, merely
_taken_ home to the abode of their future husband and lord. In the later
periods of antiquity, betrothal terminated in a marriage ceremony, the
rite varying accor