and the colossal ignorance of most women would
seem to indicate that they have obeyed the command to the letter. But
fortunately for women the civilization of freedom has outgrown St.
Paul as it has the dictates of the Church, and one by one the doors of
information, _and hence the doors to honest labor_, have been opened,
and the possibility of living with dignity and honor has replaced the
forced degradation of the days when the power of the Church enabled it
to reduce women to the animal existence it so long forced upon her.

So long as the Church allowed woman but one avenue of support, so long
did it force her to use that single means of livelihood. So long as it
made her believe that she could bring to this world nothing of value but
her capacity to minister to the lower animal wants of man, so long did
it force upon her that single alternative--or starvation.

So long as it is able to make multitudes of women believe themselves of
value for but one purpose, just that long will it continue to insure the
degradation of many of those women who are helpless, or weak, or loving,
or ignorant of the motives of those in whose power they are. So long
as it teaches woman that she can repay her debt to the world in but one
way, so long will it promote commerce in vice and revenue in shame.

Every man is taught that he can repay his debt to this world in many
ways. He has open to him many avenues of happiness, many paths to
honorable employment. If he fails in one there is still hope. If he
misses supreme happiness in marriage he has still left ambition, labor,
study, fame; if the one failure overtakes him, no matter how sad, he
still can turn aside and find, if not joy, at least occupation and rest.

But the Church has always taught woman that there is but one "sphere,"
one hope, one occupation, one life for her. If she fails in that, what
wonder that with broken hope comes broken virtue or despair? Every woman
who has fallen or lost her way has been previously taught by the Church
that she had and has but one resource; that there is open to her in life
but one path; that whether that path be legally crooked or straight,
she was created for but one purpose; that _man is to decide for her what
that purpose is; and that she must under no circumstances set her own
judgment up against his_.

The legitimate fruits of such an education are too horribly apparent
to need explanation. Every fallen woman is a perpetual monument t