ood in an otherwise worthless individual gave him, in Jewish
estimation, a two-fifths superiority over the noblest woman. The very
stupidity of this is an indication that sex can hardly have been
designed by the Creator as a basis on which to found the right to the
majority either of the duties or the privileges of human life. Under the
new dispensation Paul says: "There can be neither Jew nor Greek; there
can be neither bond nor free; there can be no male and female: for ye
are all one man in Christ Jesus." That the Apostle forbade women from
taking part in the public ministrations in the congregation is still
regarded, by the majority of people, as being harmonious with the
natural fitness of things; and in those times at least, when the
education of women was so terribly neglected, it was a measure
absolutely necessary to the preservation of decency.

Of the new life opened to women in Christianity, Renan truly says: "The
women were naturally drawn toward a community in which the weak were
surrounded by so many guarantees." Their position in the society was
then humble and precarious; the widow in particular, despite several
protective laws, was the most often abandoned to misery, and the least
respected. Many of the doctors advocated the not giving of any religious
education to women. The Talmud placed in the same category with the
pests of the world the gossiping and inquisitive widow, who passed her
life in chattering with her neighbors, and the virgin who wasted her
time in praying. The new religion created for these disinherited
unfortunates an honorable and sure asylum. Some women held most
important places in the Church, and their houses served as places of
meeting. As for those women who had no houses, they were formed into a
species of order, or feminine presbyterial body, which also comprised
virgins, who played so capital a role in the collection of alms.
Institutions which are regarded as the later fruit of
Christianity--congregations of women, nuns, and sisters of charity--were
its first creations, the basis of its official strength, the most
perfect expression of its spirit.

The Christian Church is described, as it existed in the earliest germ,
in the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of Acts: "These (the eleven
Apostles) all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with
the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." The
women referred to were those faithful ones who