we ought rather to accuse ourselves.

"If dead men return in broad daylight, if these Gothic phantoms
haunt our streets at noonday, it is because the living have let the
spirit of life grow weak within them. How is it that these men
reappear among us, after having been buried by history with all
funereal rites, and laid by the side of other ancient orders? The
very sight of them is a solemn token, and a serious warning.

* * * * *

"Modern strength appears in the powerful liberty with which you go
on disengaging the reality from the forms, and the spirit on the
dead letter. But why do you not reveal yourself to the companion of
your life, in that which is for you your life itself? She passes
away days and years by your side, without seeing or knowing the
grandeur that is within you. If she saw you walk free, strong, and
prosperous in action and in science, she would not remain chained
down to material idolatry, and bound to the sterile letter; she
would rise to a faith far more free and pure, and you would be as
one in faith. She would preserve for you this common treasure of
religious life, where you might seek for comfort when your mind is
languid; and when your various toils, studies, and business have
weakened the vital unity within you, she would bring back your
thoughts and life to God, the true, the only unity.

"I shall not attempt to crowd a large volume into a small preface.
I shall only add one word, which at once expresses and completes my
thought.

"Man ought to nourish woman. He ought to feed spiritually (and
materially if he can) her who nourishes him with her love, her
milk, and her very life.

"Our adversaries give women bad food; but we give them none at all.

"To the women of the richer class, those who seem to be so gently
protected by their family, those brilliant ones whom people suppose
so happy, to these we give no spiritual food.

"And to the women of the poorer class, solitary, industrious, and
destitute, who try hard to gain their bread, we do not even give
our assistance to help them to find their material food.

"These women, who are or will be mothers, are left by us to fast,
(either in soul or in body,) and we are punished especially by the
generation that issues from them, for our neglecting to give them