t women know more of and have a
clearer insight into the divine will! If she knows more about it, if she
understands it all better than men, why does she not occupy the pulpit?
Why does she not hold the official positions in the Churches? Why has
she not received even recognition in our system of religion? Who ever
heard of a minister being surprised that God did not reveal any of the
forms of belief through a woman? If she knows and does the will of God
so much better than man, why did he not reveal himself to her and place
his earthly kingdom in her hands?

That argument won't do! As long as creed and Church held absolute
power there was no question but that woman was a curse, that she was an
inferior being, an after-thought. No Church but the Roman Catholic has
the decency to recognize even the so-called mother of God! The Church
has never offered women equality or justice. Its test of excellence
is force. The closer a Church or creed clings to its spirit, the more
surely does it assume to dictate to and control woman and to degrade
her. The more liberal the creed the nearer does it come to offering
individual justice and liberty.

The testimony of our own missionaries, as well as that of many others,
assures us that it is not the Turk but his wives who hold fastest
to their faith. The women of the harem, whom we pity because of the
injustice of their religious training, are the last to relinquish
their god, the most bitter opponents of the infidel or sceptic in their
Church, the most devout and constant believers of the faith, and the
most content with its requirements. They are the ones who cling to the
form even when the substance has departed--and it is so with us!

Among the "heathen" it is the women who are most shocked and offended
by the attacks made upon their superstitions by the missionaries whom we
pay to go to them and blaspheme their gods and destroy their idols.

Go where you will, read history as you may, and you will find that it
is the men who invented religion, and the women who believed in it.
They are the last to give it up. _The physically weak dread change_.
Inexperience fears the unknown. Ignorance shuns thought or development.
The dependent cannot be brave.

We are all prepared to admit, I think, that, with but few marked
exceptions here and there, the women of most countries are physically
and mentally undeveloped. They have had fear and dependence, the dread
enemies of progress and gro