r
if they did, would they hand in a schedule of marital commands?

If the passage meant anything it meant this: One might as well try to
be, and not to be, at the same time, as own allegiance to God and the
same allegiance to man. I was either God's subject or I was not. If I
was not, I owed him no obedience. Christ as head of the church was her
absolute lawgiver, and thus saith the Lord, was all she dare demand. Was
I to obey my husband in that way? If so, I had no business with the
moral law or any other law, save his commands. Christian England had
taken this view, and enacted that a wife should not be punished for any
crime committed by command, or in presence of her husband, "because,
being altogether subject to him, she had no will of her own;" but this
position was soon abandoned, and this passage stamped as spurious. Every
Christian church had so stamped it, for all encouraged wives to join
their communion with or without the consent of their husbands. Thousands
of female martyrs had sealed their testimony with their blood, opposing
the authority of their husbands, and had been honored by the church. As
for me, I must take that passage alone for my Bible, or expunge it.

Then and there I cast it from me forever, as being no part of divine
law, and thus unconsciously took the first step in breaking through a
faith in plenary inspiration.

I next turned to the book in general for guidance: "Wives, obey your
husbands;" "Children obey your parents;" "Honor thy father and thy
mother." What a labyrinth of irreconcilable contradictions! God, in
nature, spoke with no uncertain sound, "Go home to your mother," and my
choice was made while my husband talked.

I said that if he did not see about a boat I would. When he told me that
he had a legal right to detain me, and would exercise it, I assured him
the attempt would be as dangerous as useless, for I was going to
Pittsburg.

He went out, promising to engage my passage, but staid so long that I
went to the wharf, where respectable women were not seen alone, saw a
boat with a flag out for Pittsburg, engaged a berth, and so left
Louisville.

CHAPTER XII.

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.--AGE, 24, 25.

Mother was suffering when I reached her, as I had not dreamed of. After
a consultation, Drs. Gazzam and Fahnestock thought she could not live
more than four weeks; but Spear said she might linger three months. This
blanched the cheek of each one. Three mont