--that the Bible sanctions the slavery
principle itself, and applies it to woman as the divinely
ordained subordinate of man--and that by making herself the great
support and mainstay of instituted Christianity, woman rivets the
chain of superstition on her own soul and on man's soul alike,
and justifies him in obeying this religion by keeping her in
subjection to himself. If Christianity and the Bible are true,
woman is man's servant, and ought to be. The Bible gave to
negro-slavery its most terrible power--that of summoning the
consciences of the Christians to its defense; and the Bible gives
to woman-slavery the same terrible power. So plain is this to me
that I take it as a mere matter of course, when all the eloquence
of the woman-suffrage platform fails to arouse the Christian
women of this country to a proper assertion of their rights. What
else could one expect? Women will remain contented subjects and
subordinates just so long as they remain devoted believers in
Christianity; and no amount of argument, or appeal, or agitation
can change this fact. If you cannot educate women as a whole out
of Christianity, you cannot educate them as a whole into the
demand for equal rights.

The reason of this is short: Christianity teaches the rights of
God, not the rights of man or woman. You may search the Bible
from Genesis to Revelations, and not find one clear, strong, bold
affirmation of _human rights as such_; yet it is on human rights
as such--on the equality of all individuals, man or woman, with
respect to natural rights--that the demand for woman suffrage
must ultimately rest. I know I stand nearly alone in this, but I
believe from my soul that the woman movement is fundamentally
_anti-Christian_, and can find no deep justification but in the
ideas, the spirit, and the faith of free religion. Until women
come to see this too, and to give their united influence to this
latter faith, political power in their hands would destroy even
that measure of liberty which free-thinkers of both sexes have
painfully established by the sacrifices of many generations. Yet
I should vote for woman suffrage all the same, because it is
woman's right.

Yours very cordially,
FRANCIS E. A