absorbed in some difficult
problem, I am afraid that something may happen to distract my attention.
Now, I know that I can sit in church for an hour without the slightest
danger of having the current of my thought disturbed."

Most women cling to the Bible because they have been taught that to give
up that book is to give up all hope of another life--of ever meeting
again the loved and lost. They have also been taught that the Bible is
their friend, their defender, and the real civilizer of man.

Now if they will only read this book--these three lectures, without
fear, and then read the Bible, they will see that the truth or falsity
of the dogma of inspiration has nothing to do with the question of
immortality. Certainly the Old Testament does not teach us that there is
another life, and upon that question, even the New is obscure and vague.
The hunger of the heart finds only a few small and scattered crumbs.
There is nothing definite, solid, and satisfying. United with the idea
of immortality we find the absurdity of the resurrection. A prophecy
that depends for its fulfillment upon an impossibility, cannot satisfy
the brain or heart.

There are but few who do not long for a dawn beyond the night. And
this longing is born of, and nourished by, the heart. Love wrapped
in shadow--bending with tear-filled eyes above its dead, convulsively
clasps the outstretched hand of hope.

I had the pleasure of introducing Helen H. Gardener to her first
audience, and in that introduction said a few words that I will repeat,

"We do not know, we can not say whether death is a wall or a door, the
beginning or end of a day, the spreading of pinions to soar, or the
folding forever of wings. The rise or the set of a sun, of an endless
life that brings rapture and love to every one.

"Under the seven-hued arch of hope let the dead sleep."

They will also discover, as they read the "Sacred Volume," that it is
not the friend of woman. They will find that the writers of that book,
for the most part, speak of woman as a poor beast of burden--a serf, a
drudge, a kind of necessary evil--as mere property. Surely a book that
upholds polygamy is not the friend of wife and mother.

Even Christ did not place woman on an equality with man. He said not
one word about the sacredness of home, the duties of the husband to the
wife--nothing calculated to lighten the hearts of those who bear the
saddest burdens of this life.

They will also find t