essary in order to make a
love story out of it, and all the little Virgils--all the writers of
love stories from that day to this--have treated her in literature as if
she were indispensable to point a moral or to adorn a tale, and really
fit for little else--that it was her mission to love and be loved, all
of which was easy enough on her part; and that, having filled this
mission, she ought to be happy and die contented, and to be held in
everlasting remembrance. This outrage upon woman's rights and woman's
worth has been carried so far that it has become common to assume that
it is her prerogative to monopolize the love of the household--at least
to possess and manage the greater part of it; and some women have heard
this so often that they more than half believe it themselves, so that
from away back men, and even some women, talk of a woman's love as being
a little purer and a great deal stronger than a man's love. There is not
a word of truth in it. It is one of the unfounded legends which have
descended through the ages, transmitted from father to son, while the
mothers and daughters, all unconscious of the great wrong they suffer by
it, have never denied it. It is not only false, but it is absurd. How
could it be true? A man is not lovable as a woman is. How can she love
him as he loves her, who is the personification and incarnation of
beauty and gentleness and sweetness? That is, some are, for it must be
conceded that woman is like Jeremiah's figs, the good are very, very
good, while the bad are very naughty--too bad for any use.

This wrong against woman has gone even farther than that. In the battles
of life, however nobly she fights them, she receives no proper
recognition. The man who fights well is a hero, but the woman who fights
equally well, or even better, is only a hero_ine_. I despise the word
because I detest the discrimination it implies. We do not call the
devout Christian woman a saintess, nor the eloquent woman an oratrix,
but the woman who excels in endurance and bravery and in the virtues
that constitute a man a hero, is only a hero_ine_, as if heroism was a
manly virtue, to which woman may lay no claim. I long ago expunged it
from my vocabulary. It is entirely too femin_ine_ for me. Out upon such
unjust discrimination!

This long and rather prosy introduction brings me to the theme of the
evening--woman the greater hero in early Indiana Methodism.

You have often heard of the sacrifices and